I (27M) need help. I love my girlfriend (27F) and I want to take her side and validate her interpretations of what some of my friends and family have said to her. However, I feel like she is getting offended over very small remarks that aren’t meant to be disrespectful.

Scenario 1: On the day before Easter, I went with my immediate family to visit my grandpa. I told my gf that she didn’t have to go if she didn’t want to and she did just that! Which I’m totally okay with. She didn’t have to go and I’m not going to force her. I just told people she couldn’t make it and it was fine. The problem, the next day (Easter) at my family dinner, my dad asked where she was at, since she wasn’t there. And my gf took that as she felt an obligation that my dad put onto her. To me, I was thinking my dad was just acknowledging she wasn’t there and innocently asked where she’d been. When I tried to explain this possible scenario my gf backlashed with “I guess I will have to attend less family dinners” (note: my family does dinner every Sunday. I don’t ever force my gf to go, and it’s okay if she doesn’t want to go, but it felt like she was saying that out of spite which hurt my feelings). Maybe I shouldn’t have defended my dad so hard, but what should I have done differently?

Scenario 2: my friend, we will call him Mike, is a streamer on Twitch. Mike invited me, my gf, and a few friends to stream Zelda four swords (a Co-op video game). Context, Mike is a little older, and is a huge nerd, and Mike is a friend of mine because of our shared video game and anime interests. I used to hang out with Mike at least once a week before I started dating my gf. We hang out less now, but that’s totally okay because that’s how dating goes! And my gf is my best friend! Okay, so we were playing Zelda and Mike had asked who needed a fairy to heal up. My gf said that she did and Mike had already taken the fairy in that moment as the game was moving. My gf thought Mike wasn’t being mindful of her.

Scenario 3: in the same night, as we were going playing on this Twitch stream, Mike had said “Purple Link (my gf character), we need to get going we’re leaving you behind” and my gf took that as disrespect for being hurried along.

Note: Mike has gone on to invited us to the next streaming session and personally ask my gf if she was coming. So I personally don’t think Mike didn’t want her to be there.

Scenario 4: one more Mike story: a few months ago I brought gf to hang out with Mike and me and I think my brother was there as well. Mike made a sarcastic joke (but also not really a joke) about “make sure you let OP hang out with me every once in a while, we have a lot of video games to play!” My gf took this as: Mike views her as someone that doesn’t let her bf hang out with his friends.

Scenario 5: my other friend, we will call him Arnold. Arnold and I make music and I used to do a lot more music sessions before gf. And as I have prioritized my amazing gf, naturally I haven’t gotten around to music as much. Which is okay, but Arnold called me after I had missed a few weeks and asked if my gf wasn’t supportive of our music. I defended my gf and said that it’s not her fault and I just have a lot on my plate (which I do). I think my gf still assumed that Arnold thinks she is taking me away which is not the case.

Okay, so that’s what I got. We do have a good relationship despite me focusing on the bad points in this post and I love my gf a lot. I just don’t feel like anyone of my friends or family have done anything so disrespectful. My dad never said she had to be there. Mike never said my gf was bad at the video games. Arnold only asked if she’s the reason I don’t have time for this.

This all came to head when I asked yesterday if I could make time this week to hang out with Mike. My GF said we already have plans to go play Four Swords next month. I told her how I feel like she doesn’t like any of my friends and that conversation turned into me trying to rationalize what my friends were trying to do. This only resulted in us being mad at each other and more argument. Today she wants to talk and put break up on the table. I’m still hurt by her telling me I’m full of shit, I’m oblivious, and I need therapy (not in a constructive way). I suppose I didn’t take her side on these things and I brought up that she sometimes assumes the worse (which is something she is visiting in therapy) she was mad that I used her therapy talk to try and rationalize this argument (which is not cool of me, but I did really feel like she was assuming the worse in my friends and family when they were not blatantly disrespecting her).

Okay, we are talking this evening and I don’t want to break up, but I also don’t like that we disagree on what is offensive. What are your thoughts?