The toughest decision...

[kermel]

Hi, I would appreciate some feedback about my current situation. Not that I hoping that someone can give a magical solution for my problems, but at least I think it's going to make me some good to write about what I've thinking for a while.

 

I'll try to not drag to much because I know it's going to be a long post. First, some background. I met my current girlfriend six years ago at College. We started as a friends and pretty soon, maybe just a month after, we became a couple. As we were living both of us far from our homes we had the liberty to share a flat without our parents thinking we were going too fast. Neither us thought we were going too fast although we started living together like six months after meeting for the first time. It all seemed so natural and so right that we didn't stop to considerate the implications at all. We were happy this way, for two years, until I finished studying but she had to continue at the university some years more. So our relationship became a LDR and it has been so for the last 4 years. We live so far apart that we can meet each other 4-5 times a year and just for a week (sometimes just a weekend). If you have been in a LDR like that you can have a little idea of how insanely hard it has been although talking every day and seeing each other trough the webcam and this kind of things. I sincerely hope you don't have the least idea about what I'm talking about, because it would mean you are lucky enough to have never experienced that.

 

Well, you are probably asking yourself why we didn't try to live together and end the nightmare of a LDR. The truth is a combination of bad luck, fear and being too young to have the independence that a good job can give you. The fact is she didn't want to talk about that and I feel like I was pushing her every time I tried to clarify our situation. She was all like "We are having such a great time, why we have to waste the scarce opportunities we have to be together to talk about such painful things?" and although I knew this was no good at all, I tolerated it. I know it was wrong, but I loved her too much to make her feel sad in what was supposed to be a happy meeting. So we have waited and waited and waited and every time we parted I felt something was breaking inside. Wait without having any expectative of future, any real hope that is what I've been doing for the last four years and it's really becoming unbearable.

 

So we meet the past week and I felt it was the time to have a good talk, a real talk for once. I told her how I feel once again asking her what I was supposed to do. How I was supposed to cope with her negative to even talk about our future. She retorted,as always, that she didn't know what she was going to do we her own future and that she was scared, she still felt like a child although being almost thirty. I told her that maybe it was the right moment to say goodbye. That she maybe need space (although you have plenty of space for your personal growth in a LDR, or so I think) to decide without any interference. Or I was just fooling myself thinking that she needed an ultimatum to react, who knows. But although she reacted it was not the reaction I could wait for. She said that I was right and we should break up so that I can be happy with someone else, that she was an stupid and a coward and I was too good for her, that she knew I wanted a marriage and kids and she could never give me any of that...

 

I was, I'm still, devastated. She doesn't have any confidence in us, despite all the time we have been together. Despite all the love we have for each other (neither of us has never felt jalousie or any temptation to cheat and this in a LDR is not that common). I asked her if my well-being was her only reason to desire to break up. She felt insulted for the question and said that if it was for her own selfish reasons, she would be with me forever because she loved me, but love in our case was not enough. It broke my heart, hearing her talking about herself in that depressed way, when for me she is the most wonderful human being of the whole world.I said that I loved her enough to wait and fight, even if she didn't want to marry or have kids, because when you really love someone you have to accept who they are and I know I could be more happy with her despite our differences and the pain of this relationship that with any unknown woman that happened to want to marry me, have a lots of kids and lived just in front of my home. All I needed was her promise that she wanted to fight for us in order to be together someday and she couldn't even give me that. But we didn't break up. Holding her while we were both crying, it was impossible for me to leave her and maybe she hadn't enough courage to leave me (this part obviously I can't possibly know for sure, but that is what the feeling I got when she said that "although we don't break up now, I know we are going to do so in the future").

 

So here I am. And I know some of the advises I'm going to get just because the rational part of me is probably saying the same things:

 

- She is confused with what she wants of life and isn't ready to commit. Maybe just to this relationship, maybe to any relationship at all.

 

- Different perspectives about marriage and family can make us both of us unhappy if we manage to live together in the end.

 

- This relationship is unhealthy for both of us because of being an LDR without any expectations of future.

 

- Although I think my love can help her to overcome her own frustrations and be a happier person, maybe I'm creating a dependence that is only going to hurt her even more when we (if we) end up breaking up.

 

And all of this is true and good, and if this was some kind of bussines, or an exam or something not related to human feelings I would probably take my own advice, but I'm talking about love. What if this is all a transitory problem? What if all we need is to wait a little bit more?. What if it's enough with only my hope and confidence in our relationship to achieve our happy end?. What if she needs me to help her achieve some confidence in herself and I'm letting her down with my doubts? I'm very confused about what to do. If I knew what would make her happy I would do it although it meant never being with her again, but I don't know anymore what should I do. If when we were together we didn't feel so happy and in love all of this would be a lot easier to decide.

 

If someone has managed to read it all, thank you for your patience and kindness.

[lovemediator]

Based on your novel, errr...post I can't see any reason for her to settle down with you and have a family except maybe i think she's afraid she won't be able to handle a huge responsibility of being a mother to your kids. Did you ever talk to her about this? I don't think it's insecurity but based on what you've written I think it all boils down to a bit of lack of maturity on her part. Izzy is right. Try to find out where she's coming from then decide if the relationship is worth saving or not.

[kermel]

Well, I would prefer to read an angsty novel like that, that to actually live it but that's just the way it is ](*,).

 

The thing is she never overcame the divorce of her parents that led her to believe that marriage is a mistake and having kids is irresponsible because they are going to end up suffering. She knows that isn't rational to think that we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents because we are not like that at all, but the feeling remains. And it doesn't help that she thinks she is boring and stupid (two things that she is definitely not) and actually wonders why I'm still with her. She has zero self-esteem right now and doesn't know what to do with her life and to make things worse, she is the only moral support of her father and is afraid of "leaving" him someday. Her situation is very complicated so I'm not surprised that she is feeling down, but maybe if she had more faith in "us" that could help her to feel better about her life and her future. I don't know.

 

And thanks for answering .

[kermel]

It's a good advice, Izzy, but unfortunately, she doesn't "believe" in traditional conseuling. She is very introvert when talking about her feelings and inner thoughts so she can't talk about her problems with a "stranger". Moreover, in our country counseling is not that popular and people thinks that you have to be pretty messed up to need help to live your own life (it's a cultural thing that I hope is going to change little by little in the future). I know how she thinks about that, so I tried to warm up her to the idea of practising some basic self-esteem, fighting stress therapy exercises like in case of feeling without and exit in a complicated situation write down the reasons that had provocked the crisis and the different paths she can take to improve the situation or to learn to accept it when there is nothing that it can be done at all. She always thanks me for these advises and says that just the fact of knowing that I'm trying to help her makes her feel better. But they are only temporary solutions (I'm not even sure that she actually does any of the exercises) and when she is stressed or just tired again we are back to square one. So it's frustrating for me, because I can't help her and for her, who has to deal with her own feelings and the fact that they are making both of us unhappy.

 

She isn't depressed, because she is able to hang around with her friends, take care about her personal appearance, take interest in extra-curricular activities (she is going to Taichi and guitar classes) or have a nice day out with me, but she sometimes thinks her life is a mess just because some random commentary by a teacher. She has been like that since the first day I met her, so I accepted it like one of these personal traites that are difficult and sometimes imposible to improve (like my shyness, for example If we were in a "normal" relationship instead of an LDR, I think her insecurities wouldn't be such a big problem, because she was not so long ago starting to waver about her initial determination of not marrying me. So it was shocking than in our last meeting she were so adamant about remaining single. Back again to square one for not apparent reason.

[desiree81]

Any relationship takes two to make it work; it's especially so for a LDR.

I think her negative talk is more than just low self-esteem; somehow she saw that a split is highly likely down the road, because of distance and you being unsatisfied in this relationship, etc., so she keeps coming up reasons for herself that it definitely doesn't work. It's like a mental self-defense mechanism. There might be other factors that you have no idea of and/or can't control. There might be other factors that even she is not aware of herself. The think is, don't drive yourself crazy trying to analysis everything; it's not possible.

 

Your gf sounds like my ex so I'm just speaking from experience that you trying to "help" her can only push her away. She has a negative outlook on life, and has a wait-and-see attitude in general which is a sign of lack-of-faith in general. She feels that she can't go on with you having realized that she can't offer what you want in this relationship. She might be right, and you certainly should not ignore what you want (having a certain/future goal for the relationships, etc.) because of her.

 

Sorry to say but your relationship is very much flaky right now. "She is confused with what she wants of life and isn't ready to commit. Maybe just to this relationship, maybe to any relationship at all." says it all. A LDR takes two person who both know what they want out of life AND their relationship. I suggest that you try to listen to her more and learn about her and try not to be judgmental or demanding about it ("why can't you have more faith in us?", "why can't we work this out?" etc.) Being supportive is all you can do, and you have to be patient as her problems won't change overnight.

[kermel]

Thanks for your advice desiree. I think you are right. I was trying to make it work all by myself and it was just not possible without her help. I should have payed more attention at what she really wanted and not what I wanted of this relationship. Now, it's over. She left me this morning.

 

I'm a little bit afraid of how I feel. I'm not sad nor happy, just empty. I cried a lot when we didn't break up last time, and now that it's for real I just cried a bit and then stopped because I realized that I was only feeling pity for myself, and how I'm going to be alone without her support... well, I think all the dumpees know the tune. And it didn't feel right that, after so many years of relationship and love, I could feel so much sorry for myself and not that much for her. I'm definetly messed up.