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I feel like I'm not a priority in my girlfriend's life


CelticMetal

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Sorry if a similar topic has been posted before. I did a search and didn’t find something that answered my questions. And sorry about the length. Skip the first paragraph if you want as its background info.

 

My girlfriend and I have been together for a year and a bit and things are generally going really well. We’re both in our early twenties and just out of school. When we’re spending time alone together I feel like I could easily spend the rest of my life with her. The problem is that our relationship doesn’t seem to be a big priority for her. I know that she loves me but it’s seems like to her having a boyfriend isn’t as important as other parts of her life. I’m sure this is because this is her first relationship and she’s always been quite independent. That being said, she’s also a very social person and her friends and family are very important to her. She’s a people pleaser and doesn’t want to let anyone down so she ends up having more things to do than she has time for. So it usually ends up being our time together that gets cut short. I’ve talked to her about it and we’ve sorted out some communication issues which has helped.

 

Anyways, getting to the point, the part that’s still frustrating for me is that while she doesn’t cancel last minute as much anymore, my girlfriend doesn’t try to make much time for us in the first place. At least not as much as I think we should have together after dating for over a year. She does initiate plans but mostly when there's something specific she wants to do and asks me to go with her. Maybe I’m just being too needy because it’s my first relationship too. She’s working 6 hours away during the summer and she doesn’t get a ton of time off and since it’s sporadic it’s difficult to plan anything in advance. But I know there’s not a lot that can be done about it. The one thing we did have planned was to go to California or somewhere else for a week with just us, between when she finishes her summer job and starts teachers college (located 17 hours from where I live).

 

But a couple of days ago she told me that now she’s decided to lead a canoe trip at the camp she used to work at instead of going with me before she goes back to school. She could tell that I wasn’t terribly happy about this and said she felt bad and that she knows she always cancels things. She said that she felt like the people at the camp were like family to her and she missed them and that she felt she had to help them since they didn’t have enough staff. This is understandable but it makes me feel kind of useless. Doesn’t she miss me too? I’m pretty certain her coworkers wouldn’t be there for her if she needed it like I would be. She tried to tell me that we would still have some time together this summer but it’s really only going to be every other weekend at the most, and likely only once or twice a month while she’s at school. Most of this time we probably won’t have alone since she lives at home (45 minutes from me) and doesn’t have her own car. I know she’s really busy so it isn’t possible to see her that much but if I were in the same situation I know I’d be doing anything I could to fit in time with her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being clingy or anything. I still have my own interests. I just try to plan them so they don’t cut into our time together.

 

Am I being unreasonable? If not, how should I explain this to her? It seems like when I try to she thinks things are fine and that we’re spending enough time together or feels that I’m trying to push her friends away (she told me once that her friends said she was spending too much time with me – the ones who don’t have boyfriends, most of the ones with boyfriends have already moved in together). I was hoping that now that she’s finishing university I’d be a bit more of a priority but I’m worried that this is just the way she is and expecting her to make more time for me will just leave me disappointed. I don’t want to lose her but things aren’t working for me the way they are. Any help to resolve this would be very much appreciated.

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That isn't really much of a relationship in my opinion if she's always cancelling out on things and doesn't make time for you. I understand she has other things going on in her life, but this is the responsibility of being in a committed relationship; you have to make time for your other half in between everything else. That's why being in a relationship is a choice for us and not a must. You don't have to be involved with anyone if you don't want to, but if you do, there are things that you have to compromise on. A big part of that is changing enough so that you don't change who you are, but change in the sense that you make space in your life for your partner. Unfortunately everybody doesn't want to really make that kind of committment. It's huge. I just don't think some people really realize what they're agreeing to sometime before getting involved. Much like yourself and into this situation with your girlfriend, that is, if you know beforehand that she was more about the things going on in her life than about making time for a relationship.

 

I'm going to tell you the honest truth, I think you're girlfriend is the career-minded woman. Her career and the many facets that are surrounding it are going to come first. As you find yourself constantly being cancelled on and having plans rearranged to fit her life and the things important to her. And when you raise the issue of concern, her first line of defense will be what about me? Key is, a relationship is not about you, it's about us. That's very vital. It's not me or you, it's us. How will this affect us? That's how you have to start looking at things when you committ to someone. Right now, she is all about her and the things that are important to her.

 

I honestly commend her for doing positive things with her life, for the camp and it's counselors, those things are all great. However, in terms of a relationship, making time everywhere else instead of at home is counter-productive. If I were you, I still would try to talk to her about this and voice your feelings and how you feel about things and go from there. She can listen, she may change, she may not change. At that point, you have to make a decision if this is something you can continue with or if not, you may need to find someone else who can offer more of a committment than she's willing to give right now.

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My advice is as follows:

 

Dial her number.

 

Whether voicemail or she answers you say:

 

I think you want this and while I don't want it. I have no other reasonable option. I am breaking up with you, your stuff is in the mail. My decision is final. Do not contact me, enjoy your life, Goodbye.

 

She doesn't give a damn about you. You're merely an option, time filler etc. not a priority. Dump her and get your read on. She will get worse.

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2 sided coin,

Thank you for your quick reply. I think you really understand what's going on here. The part about a relationship being about "us" and not two separate people makes a lot of sense. That's what I feel like I'm not getting here. When we're together with just the two of us everything is great but a lot of her decisions don't involve me. I also agree that if I knew early in the relationship that things would be like this I probably wouldn't have continued it. But now there's that emotional attachment which it makes it more difficult. I’m going to talk to her about it and make sure that she understands how this is an issue. And if she can’t accept that our relationship needs to be about “us” then I guess there’s really no option but to end it. Because it’s not fair for me to continually want more time together and it’s not fair for her to feel like she’s missing out on things she used to have time for.

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Sorry if a similar topic has been posted before. I did a search and didn’t find something that answered my questions. And sorry about the length. Skip the first paragraph if you want as its background info...

 

Hi CelticMetal, some angles that I see are:

1. Not sure how serious is she being a people pleaser, and whether she agrees or realizes about it? If she is willing to work on this issue, she would probably lives happier and also have more time in close relationship, generally speaking.

2. Everybody has different preferences, needs and personality etc, if her nature is someone who needs only little time in close relationship and needs a lot of time in other relationship or activities, then you need to talk to her heart to heart, tell her your needs, eg more times together etc, and see how both of you can compromise each other.

3. If compromising takes too much energy or not really work well for both of you (sometimes minor compromising would work, however major compromising which lead to avert from a person's nature might bring unhappiness to this person since it's incongruent with his/her own nature), perhaps it would be wiser to put an end to this so that another person who suit you more would appear in your life in future. Though you need to spend energy and work on your emotions to put an end to this relationship, it might be worthy if this relationship won't work well for you and your needs which would eat up even more of your energy in long run and might make you unhappy.

 

Wish some different angles would be helpful for you. All the best!

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thebigbigsky,you make a good point about everyone having different preferences for how much time they spend in a close relationship. That sounds more likely to be the case with my girlfriend. I don't think she needs as much time together as I do. I talked to her about cancelling our trip and how I think it's important to take into account how decisions like that will effect "us" and not just her or I as individuals. But maybe the bigger issue is not that she doesn't make time for us but that she feels like we're already spending enough time together and so doesn't see it as a problem. So I need to make it more clear to her that we're not getting as much time together as I would like and that we need to find a way to make this work for both of us.

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thebigbigsky,you make a good point about everyone having different preferences for how much time they spend in a close relationship. That sounds more likely to be the case with my girlfriend. I don't think she needs as much time together as I do. I talked to her about cancelling our trip and how I think it's important to take into account how decisions like that will effect "us" and not just her or I as individuals. But maybe the bigger issue is not that she doesn't make time for us but that she feels like we're already spending enough time together and so doesn't see it as a problem. So I need to make it more clear to her that we're not getting as much time together as I would like and that we need to find a way to make this work for both of us.

 

I'm with you on this man, and totally understand what you go through. I'm thinking there's some of sort of imbalance going on in the relationship, otherwise, why would we feel starved for their time while they completely think they spent enough quality time with us? **sigh**

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I talked to my girlfriend about how I thought she wasn't taking me into consideration when she planned things. And that I know she needs to have time with her friends and family but we should try to coordinate things together instead of only seeing each other when there was time in between. I wasn't sure that she understood what I was getting at since we were on the phone and she didn't really say much about it. But she had the past week off due to her graduation being in the middle of the week and we ended up spending time together on five of those days (one of which she planned things for just us to do the whole day). There was a miscommunication where I assumed that I would be going to her house the night before graduation but she already had plans to see her friends that night. But she changed it last minute to a day when I would be working and not be able to see her anyway. So things are going well at the moment and hopefully this is an indication of how it will be in the future.

 

unanimous123, I think you just have to let her know how you're feeling about it. I didn't say anything for a long time because I thought things would get better as the relationship got more serious. But it made me more disappointed when it didn't change. Now that I've talked to her it seems like she's starting to make compromises so that we can both be happy. Good luck to you.

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So I talked to my girlfriend about ...

 

unanimous123, I think you just have to let her know how you're feeling about it. I didn't say anything for a long time because I thought things would get better as the relationship got more serious. But it made me more disappointed when it didn't change. Now that I've talked to her it seems like she's starting to make compromises so that we can both be happy. Good luck to you.

 

Hi CelticMetal, good to hear your update... I use to be not saying things or feelings out too, after that I learn to say things out and it really help in relationships. Last time I read that more female tend to not saying things out due to some culture things in some countries or region. But later as I read more and also based on my own experience, I begin to have question about whether introverts also tend to not saying things out in relationship. Anyway, good thing is saying thing out is something that we can learn no matter what kind of person we are... So wish your relationship going to be better and better!

 

unanimous123, wish you all the best too!

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  • 2 months later...
I didn't say anything for a long time because I thought things would get better as the relationship got more serious. But it made me more disappointed when it didn't change. Now that I've talked to her it seems like she's starting to make compromises so that we can both be happy. Good luck to you.

 

CelticMetal, so what's the latest with your girlfriend? Were the two of you able to compromise. If so, is she able to follow through? Or do you find the same patterns emerging? I'm curious because I am in the exact same kind of relationship with a woman where I feel like i'm low priority, and your girlfriend sounds very much like mine: career-minded, overbusy, and a people-pleaser. Whenever I try to bring up how I'm feeling, my girlfriend will even get defensive and say I'm trying to "control" her. I could say more. I just wanted to know if you're still around because I wanted to speak with someone going through the same thing. I would feel much better if you spoke with me, and it would give me the strength to break it off if I have to.

 

Thanks.

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Hi Augustine, things are going really well now. Like I said above, I talked to my girlfriend about how we need to take each other into consideration when making plans and not just see if there's time left over for us to get together. She is now trying to plan things together ahead of time with specific dates if necessary so that they don't get pushed out of the way. I couple of weeks ago when she was home between summer jobs we had plans to go to an amusement park but one of her friends invited her to a birthday party the same night. Normally she would just tell me that there was a change of plans and we could get together another day even though I had booked the day off work. But this time she called me as soon as she found out to ask if I minded if we went to the party and went to the park the day before. I didn't end up going to the party because it was a dance and I would have been bored. She would have rather stayed home with me but it was her best friend's party who she hadn't seen for a couple months so told her that she should go. Your situation sounds like the same thing that I was going through. I had tried to talk to my girlfriend about how I felt before but she would take it the wrong way and then there was know way to get my point accross because she had already got defensive and wouldn't try to understand my point of view. I think how I finally was able to communicate what I was thinking was the way that I phrased things. I sent her a text that I needed to talk to her and when I talked to her on the phone I told her how I wanted things to be in the relationship instead of what I didn't like about what she was doing. Then she didn't feel like I was angry with her or her friends and didn't get defensive about it.

 

I would suggest writing down all the points you want to talk to her about. When I talked to my girlfriend before I would get stressed and forget about things I wanted to say and not end up getting my point accross. And mention the positive aspects (i.e. wanting to please everyone can be good in moderation). I know it's easier to give advice than to do something yourself but hopefully this helps somewhat. Let me know how things go or send another message/ PM me if you want to talk about it.

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  • 2 months later...

I'm in a somewhat similar position. I live in South America and have got a long distance thing going on with a girl that I met in my country and she's from another country. I love her, but she really doesn't make much effort to communicate with me. I have to do all of the calling. And when I do call, she's usually having side conversations with all of her friends or whoever else is around. When I confronted her about how this didn't make me feel good, her reaction was to say "I'm sad so I'm going to bed." Today I called to try to smooth things over and she basically gave me the silent treatment. I'm supposed to visit her in 8 days in her country. (This will be my 2nd visit there in 2 months, as I also am the only one who goes to visit the other.) I've known her since June, but I'm seriously thinking of just ending this thing now and cancelling the trip there in 8 days. Any advice?

 

Steve

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I don't remember there being a problem with my girlfriend contacting me via texting etc. It was more that she thought that the amount of time we were physically together was enough or that hanging out with her and her friends was equivalent. She got kind of defensive when I tried to talk about it to her initially too. Maybe it's that you're too available so she doesn't feel like she needs to call you. If you keep yourself busy with other things she'll have to make time to talk to you. Maybe the next time she's talking to her friends when she's on the phone with you, you should ask her to call you back when she's not busy. How are things between you two otherwise? It doesn't sound like she's taking the relationship that seriously.

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  • 3 weeks later...
I'm with you on this man, and totally understand what you go through. I'm thinking there's some of sort of imbalance going on in the relationship, otherwise, why would we feel starved for their time while they completely think they spent enough quality time with us? **sigh**

 

I'm very late on this, but am experiencing the same thing. All of the responses are helping and I just felt you guys should know, you aren't alone.

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  • 4 years later...

I have this problem too i told my gf i dont care if shes out all day just make sure you lay your head next to meat night that even seems to be a problem for her we agreed that she will be a house wife now its a problem she said when she starts school itll be different we are muslim and ramadan starts tomorrow and we suppose to be by each other side to bring it in but she rathefamily with so called family and when i speak my mind im over reaching in her eyes everything is about what they think of her not what i think im tired of having my pillow in the bed to hold it should be her she says she dont like to stay in the house but we go out almost everyday and when she leaves me she goes to her so called family house and do the same stuff she would do here what can i do to get this woman to see this is pushing me away

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