Having a girlfriend and pledging?
 

Hello everyone,

I'll tell you my story in short and I really want advice from those who can tell me the truth on what I should do.

I have a girlfriend and we are serious. We've been together for a while and I plan on being with her for a while. I really want to join a certain fraternity for so many reasons. I've found that these are all guys I get along with, trust, and really want to be apart of this fraternity for the brothers and the fun with the brothers that I will have. On the other hand, my girlfriend thinks that the fraternity is going to force me to do things that are going to destroy our relationship. Things like force me to take other girls to closed socials, make me go to events/retreats where we go to stripclubs, ect, ect.

I have the attitude that I want to join because its something that is important to me, and I have lots of idea of how I can help better the fraternity and become close with the guys. But my girlfriend is also important to me, and if I feel like they force me to do things that are going to tear my relationship apart and are against my own morals (I will NOT go to a stripclub regardless...I just refuse to support somethin like that honestly).

Now, please honestly answer this question. Will it be a problem?

If you want to join a fraternity join a fraternity.

It won't destroy your relationship unless you allow it.

In terms of time it little different than adding a part time job to your life. And no one is going to force you to hook up with other girls . . . more for your brothers if you don't.

Its very much possible but she has to understand why this is important to you. I honestly think she's just a little scared of a new situation.

To echo the others, it should not be a problem. There will probably be some rocky times but also long as you keep communication open it should be fine. As for taking other girls to closed socials, I have not heard of it. Maybe it is just not a part of our campus culture, but guys can take whomever they want to formals (greek or non Greek). You'll probably have swaps with other sororities. I know there is some rowdy behavior during pledging and membership but if you're not comfortable with something in the first place make that clear. If you reassure her and keep her aware of what's going on (not rituals, but events), things should go smoothly.

If you think that your relationship is strong and that it can stand a few months of less time spent together than go for it. I liken the time commitment to pledging to having two additional classes. And I liken being an active member to having one additional class.

As for the strip clubs and taking other girls to closed socials: if the chapter you are planning on rushing is how you say they are they will not force anything on you.

I don't know about the specific chapter you are thinking of joining, but a good Fraternity will be very accommodating for guys with girlfriends. A "closed social" would basically just be your chapter spending time with a sorority, you don't really bring "dates". It is possible that your girlfriend may be allowed to attend, but honestly if she doesn't trust you to hang out with other girls for a few hours and not cheat on her then you probably have more serious problems.

I've never heard of an official brotherhood retreat to a strip club. It sounds super tacky, but I suppose its not impossible. The chapter wouldn't attempt to force you to attend something like this if it actually happened. Strip clubs are only fun when you go with more girls then guys anyways.

I would suggest that you join an organization that already has a high number of brothers in relationships, or has a positive reputation for being gentlemen amongst the girls at your school.

pretty bold statement
 

You promise that she'll dump me? Excuse me, but how can you be so sure? You don't know her, or anything about our relationship besides the fact that we've been together for awhile. :confused::confused::confused::confused::confused: :confused:

I understand your girlfriend is important to you, but ultimately this is an important personal decision of yours. I am surprised that you would need her to be ok with something you wanted to do with your own life . . .

If she was totally against it would you not join? How odd if you wouldn't.

Thanks AXIDGIRL for your input..I think you're right about her being so skeptical because she doesnt really know whats going to happen.

No no, this is my decision. Im not sure that shes totally against it either, I just know she doesnt like the idea. Im not going to NOT rush because shes against it. I guess my concern is 2 issues:

1. I dont want to be forced to do anything against my own morals that would endanger my relationship with my girlfriend. Sounds crazy, but I really dont know what to expect. I've never pledged before...

2. If its gonna be really hard, I want to have a heads up. And why its gonna be hard.

I really appreciate everyones input... I would still like to get peoples experiances if your willign to share!

No group of fraternity guys is going to be able to compel you to go against strong convictions. They wouldn't have the leverage. If you have any kind of will power you will only do what you believe to be acceptable.

As far as hard. Don't be silly. The vast majority of people that pledge get in. Obviously it can't be "hard."

If the drop out rate was like 50% then maybe . . . You are not joining the SEALS. Relax.

No, I don't know her, or anything about your relationship, but if you two have been together for a while like you say you have then she shouldn't be as insecure as you're making her sound. She should support your decision to join.

No I can't promise you or her anything, but yeah, I do think she's going to dump you dude. Bold statement? Well, you asked for honest opinions here, so I gave you mine and I'm not sugar coating anything. I'm just telling you whats going to happen. I hope it doesn't, but she sounds shakey as hell to me.

My boyfriend went to college a year ahead of me. His school had deferred rush, and I spent the entire first semester nervous that he was going to cave in to the pressure to be Greek at this school (I believe something like 40% of this school's men join a fraternity).

Anyway, we made it through January without him rushing, and I was so relieved that he was going to remain independent. Then one day, he tells me that he's going to a fraternity to watch a basketball game. The next weekend, he was going to a barbecue at the fraternity. Turns out, a newer fraternity on campus had had a disappointing rush, and was looking to extend some snap bids. They extended one to my boyfriend, and he accepted.

I was so incredibly upset. I knew for sure that the fraternity was going to take over his life, that he was going to meet some glamorous sorority girl at a mixer and ditch me, that he was going to become some raging alcoholic who only wanted to party. We had a couple fights about it, and I have to admit that I was not very understanding at first about his pledging obligations.

However, as the weeks wore on, he introduced me to a few brothers. I went to one of their parties with him and had a great time (and reveled in telling all of my high school friends that I had "been to a frat party" that weekend). My parents even extended my curfew so that I could go to his fraternity formal. I began to realize what a great time he was having and how much this so-called "brotherhood" that I had mocked and dismissed was adding to his college experience. That summer, after thinking long and hard about it, I signed up for sorority recruitment at my own (different) college. I pledged a sorority and had an absolutely wonderful experience that I wouldn't have had if my boyfriend had listened to me and not pledged his fraternity. And I should probably also mention that my boyfriend and I celebrated our six year anniversary this summer.

Now, I'm not saying that your girlfriend is going to go out and rush a sorority, or that she'll even come around as quickly as I did, if she comes around at all. However, I did want to share my personal experience so that you would know that a girlfriend's aversion to the idea of her boyfriend joining a fraternity is not an automatic death knell to the relationship. As long as you include her as much as you can, introduce her to other brothers' girlfriends, make sure you spend whatever alone time you can with her, reassure you that the fraternity is not your sole priority, etc., it can be done, and done well. Good luck!

my gf dumped me when I pledged :(



may have had something to do with my cheating on her....

As far as the closed socials, there might be mixers or closed date parties where everyone in the fraternity will be "paired" with a girl from the sorority you're mixing with - either from a roster or through a game like nuts & bolts. This DOESN'T mean you have to do anything other than talk to her and be polite. Not only that - the girl might not be keen on you or have a boyfriend herself, so that would be a moot point now, wouldn't it?

I agree w/ TrevorG - if she doesn't trust you to hang out with other girls then you have other problems in your relationship. Not only that, if she just assumes sorority women are going to hook up with you at mixers, then she's either got an offensively low opinion of sorority women or thinks you're a cross between Casanova and Adonis. ;)

I hate to go all Dr. Phil on you, but it's very true that trust and insecurity have very little to do with the other person in the relationship - it's all about the person having the feelings. Unless you've ever given her a reason not to trust you, then if not about a fraternity, she's going to mistrust you about something else. Better to just do it and see how she reacts, than give up on being in a fraternity and find out down the line that she has issues.

Sometimes I think it's more "fear of the unknown" than generalized insecurity about other girls. Greek life can be pretty mysterious and nonsensical if you're not involved. I think a lot of independents buy into the idea of Greek exclusivity to the point that they believe that Greeks only want to date/befriend other Greeks, and independent significant others might see mixers as a way for the fraternity/sorority to set his or her boyfriend/girlfriend up with a fellow Greek. Sounds silly to those of us who have actually attended mixers, but really, if your boyfriend approached you under ordinary circumstances and said "I'm going to a party with my friends and a bunch of other girls, but sorry, you're not allowed to come," you might feel a bit suspicious, even if you were the most secure girlfriend in the universe. That's why I think that it's possible for a girlfriend who is uncomfortable with the idea of fraternities, mixers, etc. to come around when she realizes how non-threatening it all really is. Though of course, it's equally possible that she's just generally insecure, and the fraternity pledging will cause an undue strain on/end the relationship. As was said earlier, if that's what will come to pass, better now than later on when the relationship is even more serious.

i come from the opposite side of this situation. my boyfriend isn't greek, and when i started talking about joining a sorority he was not happy. he thought kind of the same things your girl does--that i'd put the sorority before him, become a huge partier again, meet all kinds of frat guys and cheat on him--but i was straight up with him. i tried to be as open as possible about what i was doing (as far as events, not rituals, of course) and when he would get all insecure and clingy i would get tough. i told him that if he was so insecure in our relationship that he would expect me to do all those things, then i didn't want to be with him anyway. thankfully, it worked out well for me in that he thought about what i said and realized it wasn't worth sacrificing our relationship over silly insecurities, but it could have easily resulted in a breakup. if you take my method, you have to mean it. know that if she says she IS that insecure and can't handle it, you have to be ready to stick by what you said. if she feels that's putting your fraternity over her, it's her own problem.

Is your girlfriend familiar with this fraternity? I mean, is there some reason she doesn't want you to pledge this fraternity? Does this fraternity have a less-than-desirable reputation that she's aware of? If so, this might be part of her reluctance to support your desire to pledge. If not, then ignore this paragraph.

We might be a little more helpful if we knew more of the specifics - are you both at the same school? Are you both incoming freshmen? For some reason I get the feeling that she's still in HS, but I don't know why I think that.

Assuming she's in college (and attending a school w/ sororities), perhaps you could persuade your gf to look into sorority recruitment. She could even go into it with the attitude that she's just checking it out, but not really serious about it (of course, she shouldn't tell the women rushing her that). Then, when she discovers that all sorority women aren't slutbags looking for their next bedmate, she might be a little more supportive of you. Heck, she might even find a sorority home. Then you can both experience the NM period together! (I know, probably too idyllic to actually happen, but you never know.)

Either way, do what you want to do. You potential brothers can't make you do anything you don't want to. It really shouldn't be a problem.

Probably the best thing you can do to ease her fears is bring her over to the house regularly to hang out with you and the brothers. Assuming the guys aren't a bunch of neanderthals, she will hopefully become friendly with some of them and realize that they aren't going to corrupt you or steal you from her.

This will also increase you're probability of getting a bid and fitting in. As a Recruitment Chair, the best thing in the world is when guys come over to hang out. This way we get to know them better before bidding on them. As long as you are already friendly with some of the guys, don't be afraid to call them up or just drop by to hang out.

I wouldn't go this far. His girlfriend's concerns are valid and a little insecurity when faced with such a situation is natural and expected. I was the girlfriend of a fraternity member even though I also was greek and frats do have their groupies and there is peer pressure all around. So again, her concerns are valid.

To the guy who started this thread, just sit your girlfriend down and seriously express why joining a frat is so important to you and leave out any shallow, superficial reasons. If she's as important to you as you say, then do everything you can to assure her that you can be trusted and don't do anything to betray her trust. You should be fine as long as you don't lose sight of what's most important...so in other words, get your priorities in order. Now if she starts being insecure to the point where she is accusing you of things that she has no reason to, then you guys just have trust issues period and that will be a problem in the long run whether you join a fraternity or not.

Also explain to her that during the pledge process, your time will be limited but this is only for a little while and she should support you. Greek life can become a big part of your life, especially in undergrad but as long as you don't overdo it and neglect her, the time you two spend away from eachother can be healthy. I don't know how clingy your relationship is but both of you should have friends and activities outside of eachother. If she can, it might be a good idea for her to look into joining a sorority or some kind of group or organization. When one person is greek or has other things going on and the other person doesn't, this can cause a big problem.

TOUCHE!! Also, I agree with PB!

If this is important to you then that is all that matters. She is not your wife! If she is up in arms about a fraternity then there is no telling what else would set her off. I wish like hell I would have let a boyfriend not want be to be an AKA. I would inquire as to why, but at the end of the day I would have told him to "Roll wit it or get rolled ova!"

LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE!! Don't put yourself in a position to say shoulda, woulda, coulda. Just imagine if you don't join b/c of her and you guys break up...you are going to feel like a giant ass. Man up!

I really appreciate those who have shared thier own experiances about how tough it can be to manage both. I've also learned alot on what I need to do to make it work. Thanks!

On the other hand, even though your trying to help- some of you're all's posts are really starting to piss me off.
Man up? C'mon chick, look over what i've wrote and you'll see that I HAVENT ONCE debated NOT joining because of my girlfriend. IM JOINING. I ALREADY DEFFERRED A BID. I wanted to know ahead of time what is expected, and if it would be possible to manage staying together with a serious girlfriend and pledging a fraternity.
Im not greek yet. I've never pledged. I dont know what goes on in pledging, and I wanted to know whether or not I would be FORCED to do anything that would really be against my morals and/or make me do things that would put my relationship in danger (ex. stupid games to hook up with other gurls, etc)
I DONT need any help or lecture about "manning up" and not letting a girl get in the way of what I want to do...thats not what I asked, and was not even an option to begin with.

Chick?!?! ha ha ha! That is really cute:rolleyes:.

Look you did not say anything about a bid before. Therefore, YOU DO NOT NEED TO TYPE IN CAPS...it is rude! I only typed one phrase in caps and I was being constructive. There was no lecture on manning up, I simply stated it once.

I don't think many of us knew what pledging or membership intake was about before we decided to join or respective orgs. So you not knowing is not a far fetched concept. NO ONE can force you to do things, you choose what you do be it good or bad.

The thing about a message board and asking people what they think is any and everyone can respond. So no need to get pissed as you stated.

Your tone (bolding and caps) are not cool. Chill out....it is not that serious.:cool: You don't want to have hypertension.

Ok, I was only getting angry because some seemed to be missing the real point of my thread...but you have to admit that the post you just posted had bold, caps, and an untire underlined sentance. lol

This thread seems to have more then it's share of forum posting no-nos anyways. Some guy on the first page decided it was a good idea to post in giant red text, while combining caps and underlines.

Anyways, to summarize my thoughts on this issue given your last post clarifying your position: No one can force you to do anything. The worst they can do is try to peer pressure you, and that only works if you let it. The best approach to combating that sort of stuff is to throw it back in their face "Guys, I'm not going to do this. Stop with the peer pressure act, this isn't elementary school." Bring your GF up to the house as much as possible to involve her with the existing brothers to put her at ease.

I think you've already gotten all this though, i'm just bored and find this thread interesting ;)

I was doing that b/c that is what you did. That's all;)!

But seriously.....you know why you want to be in the fraternity and you know what you have to do to maintain your relationship.

You should read some of the retro rush threads and see whay people were inspired to join thier org.

Of course my sorority will NEVER come before my family but what I wanted you to see is that...

Dedication to service is what was (and is) important to me. The friendships that I have gained are a bonus. The connections that allow you to meet different people and gain new opportunities are something that can not be replaced!

We'll see you on GC soon with another thread titled "What would you do if your girlfriend dumped you because you joined a fraternity.":rolleyes:

She's either going to dump you or screw another joker behind your back. SHE IS ONE "SHAKEY" WOMAN.

There's a difference between a shadey joker and a shakey joker.

A shadey joker is one who will do something low down behind your back for her own benefit. Being low down is in a shadey joker's blood. They're only out for themselves and no one else.

A shakey joker is one who will do something low down based on peer pressure or their own insecurities, so then they crack under the pressure of both. My friend...the type of woman you have is a shakey joker, which makes this whole thing one shakey situation. You know it is too, otherwise you wouldn't be on here asking other greeks their opinions.

why was this post nessessary? you've already made your point; this is just mean in my opinion. you don't know his girlfriend, and while i also didn't get the best impression of her, it's not up to you to put ideas like this in his head. he didn't ask anyone to tell him if his girlfriend was an idiot or not, he just asked what he could expect and if her concerns were valid. he got advice and moved on. but you haven't. why?

Thank you Ilaria, I was starting to think I was the only one thinking all this..


For anyone that really cares, yes my girlfriend has problems with being insecure/trusting issues. She has them from a previous relationship that went terrible...and she trusts me more everyday, it really is getting better. My girlfriend would never cheat on me. Thats the bottom line. Shes a girl with really good morals. Honestly.

I am on here asking how tough it will be for ME. Its funny how not even once did anyone think I could be thinking of breaking up with her.:mad:

"Her past should not interfere with your present."

Yet another comment moving backwards. Do you really think that your giving me any words that will help me through my pledge process? I wasn't asking for dating advice. It is what it is, its not going to change overnight...and yes it has changed for the better drastically since we met and shes almost over it entirely. I completely understand that shes worried, I think most girls would be if they knew nothing about the greek system and thier boyfriend was joining. How about this quote:

"Everything in your past makes you the person you are today"

Can we please just close this thread?

I agree with you. You said that you all had been together for a while so I know that you have been through some things together. If she really loves you (and I'm sure that you know she does ;)) then she would be excited for you joining a fraternity.

Don't listen to the negativity in this thread. Her insecurities may have nothing to do with anything involving her past relationships but may be deeper than that like her childhood. Communication is crucial here as you go through this. You seem like a positive person so talk to your woman and keep your head up! :)

I think she's just a little insecure right now because this is all new to her and you. Personally, I think this is perfectly normal. Have you two really sat down and talked about this?

Well my one comment was pretty general.

I already gave you my opinion on your pledge process and your decision making which had nothing to do with your girlfriend.

So I believe my posts were on point.

You can close it by ceasing your replies. That would work.

Whoa! :eek:

lol :p