What step to take if she's having doubts?

[Weirdmartian]

Hey...

 

So my girlfriend has left to go traveling for six months!

 

In the final two weeks before she left, we had a lot of arguments, and both of us were very hurt.

 

But we decided to give it a shot.

 

Now - she writes me occasional emails telling me she loves and misses me. But she wrote a close friend saying because of our fights, she has distanced herself from the relationship, and that she is going to see how things turn out. She says that, in a way, she doesn't believe in us anymore, but is willing to at least give it a chance.

 

But when she left the country, we had a tearful farewell, and we both declared our love for each other. It's as if she says one thing to me, and another to her friend?

 

we're supposed to skype today - what can I do? Should we even skype? Should I pull back - or should I make sure she knows I'm still in this 100%.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

What were the arguments about? Is it possible she was setting the stage to make the relationship rocky so that she would have her freedom to have flings while away for 6 months?

[Weirdmartian]

No. It was about some trust issues I was having with her.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

No. It was about some trust issues I was having with her.

 

What kind of trust issues..and why did you not trust her?

[Weirdmartian]

well, for one, i was 1 of 2 guys she dated casually at the beginning of us getting to know each other, and I was mad because of the double standard. She said she would not tolerate that with me (I doubt that's true now, but it illustrates the discrepancy between words and action).

 

And she had pictures of her ex in her calendar. She accused me of snooping. Stuff like that. There was a lot of miscommunication, so we both felt the other person was sad or mad a lot of the time.

 

but this was only for the last two weeks before she left. Before that, everything was fine! I had a lot of doubts, but I kept them to myself - when I voiced them, that's when things went downhill..

 

I can understand she still feels uncertain, but I thought we promised to make it work!

 

This email seems to me to say she's indifferent to the outcome now. she admitted to her friend she doesn't think about me THAT much. It's as if her feelings have died.

 

But to me, she writes "I love you lots!" and "I miss you so much" and "I wish you were here".

 

I'm CONFUSED! And a little hurt.

[jazzykat]

How do you know what she tells her friend?

[Weirdmartian]

I can check her email - sucks, I know, but I can, because she left her pw on my computer. The whole argument thing made me nervous so I checked to see where I stood with her.

 

Now.. what should I do? Anything? Nothing? That would create a better atmosphere between us?

[catfeeder]

Things were fine until you started wigging out on stuff you found while snooping. So stop doing that and operate on face value. If you can't do that, you're better off without a relationship until you can learn to do that. Otherwise you'll just keep sabotaging the very thing you've convinced yourself you want to save.

 

Unless you're willing to trust the person you love, you'll live a life of looking over your shoulder and inventing scenarios out of scraps and turning paranoid and demanding. That's no way to keep a relationship, and it's no way to live.

 

Stop snooping--step number one. Trusting GF's judgment to distance herself from you would be another good step. She's not untrustworthy, she's just reading YOU, and she's giving you room to either improve or hang yourself. She's onto something about you and your behavior, obviously. SO QUIT THE BEHAVIOR and start over.

[Weirdmartian]

This is all fine!

 

How I do improve? Besides stopping with the snooping? What can I do to or say to start the process of repairing our relationship?

[Crazyaboutdogs]

I have to wonder if your snooping is really a gut feeling you have about her. It is a bit confusing that she tells you that she wouldn't have tolerated you dating others while in the meantime she was dating others. She has photos of her ex on her calendar (I wonder why)...I bet she wouldn't like to see photos of your ex on your calendar. She is going away for 6 months and up until two weeks ago you kept your distrust of her under wraps. I really do think your gut feeling is telling you something. It doesn't sound like she is really being that honest with you. I don't condone snooping at all...and I think that if there is a gut feeling that something is not right, which is why you feel compelled to snoop, then perhaps something isn't right. If there is trouble in your relationship now, this gives her a reason (in her mind) to test out other people while she is away. Perhaps this relationship needs to be reconsidered. It is not healthy.

[Weirdmartian]

I know. But I'm not really prepared to dump her yet - because I still care for her very much - and she hasn't done anything REALLY bad... just a lot of small things that are bad by themselves.

 

What can I do to start the process of repairing?

 

Even if we end it, I'd prefer to do it knowing we'd patched things up and in spite of that, it didn't work.

[catfeeder]

I have to wonder if your snooping is really a gut feeling you have about her. [...]

 

We each get to decide whether or not we want to be in a relationship, and with whom. It makes zero sense to operate on the premise that the one we choose is not trustworthy. Unless you've changed your goal from remaining with them to gathering evidence against them in order to drop them, there is no point to gathering evidence.

 

If you approach a partner as an adversary instead of a lover, you will gain yourself an adversary instead of a lover. Period.

 

If your gut tells you this is someone you cannot trust, then end the relationship. There's no point in staying with someone you've decided is your adversary. If, on the other hand, your insecurities prompt you to hunt for junk to piece together in the hope that you can hold up accusations and lover will happily shoot them down and love you for this, then you're not only delusional, it's not LOVER you can't trust, it's your Self. It means you're not ready for a relationship regardless of who becomes your next fear target.

 

Inventing tragedy before it materializes can actually cause tragedy, and worse, you suffer the same bile from creating such scenarios in your mind as you would from living out the real thing--so you've positioned yourself in perpetual torture regardless of whether someone actually betrays you, or not.

 

If you want a loving and solid relationship, behave as someone who deserves that and freely gives it to another. If someone abuses your trust, cross that bridge when you come to it. Stop burning your bridges ahead of time.

 

What you can 'do' now is pipe down, stop manipulating, and enjoy your contacts with GF as you did when you first started dating. Give her time to see the changes in you, and allow her time to process them. Then let her show you where she stands without betraying HER trust.

[Weirdmartian]

This rings true. Is true. makes me feel bad for the poor judgment I've shown, even if I did have a bad gut feeling. I do think very negatively, I know.

 

thanks, Catfeeder and Crazyboutdogs. I'll let everyone know how the convo on skype went. And keep this post running so I can continue to receive the good advice.

[BMP2CPM]

I know. But I'm not really prepared to dump her yet - because I still care for her very much - and she hasn't done anything REALLY bad... just a lot of small things that are bad by themselves.

What can I do to start the process of repairing?

.

 

She's going away for 6 months? What kind of relationship can you have with her for the next 6 months?

 

Life is too short. Date other women. When she comes back, date her. But don't be exclusive to someone that leaves you for 6 months. During these 6 months you might miss out on the true love of your life.

[norsewoman]

I can check her email - sucks, I know, but I can, because she left her pw on my computer. The whole argument thing made me nervous so I checked to see where I stood with her.

 

Blech. You two are better off apart. Your trust issues are breaking this relationship up. Give up on this one.

[Weirdmartian]

Yeah, you could very well be right...

 

The skype convo went well... it was generally light-hearted, laughter, affectionate... afterwards, we chatted briefly.

 

She said it was really lovely to talk to me again, that she loved me, (a lot), and that to be honest, she´d felt very far apart from me. I told her it was unavoidable, and we just had to do our best, taking it one day at a time, and that I in fact preferred a LDR to breaking up, and she said she felt that way too, but that she already missed me terribly, bla bla.

 

So it was a nice convo, but... even after this, I still don't know if it made a difference, know what I mean?

 

So I've decided to give it a couple of weeks, and sget my hopes upee if I hear more from her, and we speak on Skype or the phone a few more times and talk more often. But that I shouldn't count on anything.

 

Input?

[orchidrose]

If she's having doubts (she is), and you're having doubts (you posted a thread a month ago about how best to break up with her), then why are you two still together? It sounds like you both have a lot of trust issues and concerns about the relationship.

[Weirdmartian]

I have what some people call one-itis.

 

Also - in spite of all my negativity, she does have a lot excellent qualities. I do realize I'm very negative, and I also agree that are several things about us that have bothered me.

 

I'd much prefer to make it work with her. I've become a giant * * * * * , in other words, haha.

 

But do people break up just because of doubts?

 

Does the SKYPE convo make a difference?

 

And if we did break up - I suppose it's better to not give too much explanation, and let her ask, and the explain what's wrong?

[orchidrose]

But do people break up just because of doubts?

 

Of course they do, everyday. Generally doubts are an indicator of something wrong in the relationship, though whatever it is may not be enough to end it completely.

 

Does the SKYPE convo make a difference?

 

If you look on the Breaking Up forum, you'll notice thousands of threads in which relationships are described as terrible, horrible, and/or unfulfilling, but there were always good moments. Sometimes people just aren't compatible for a long-term relationship. It may be that you love each other but unfortunately, love is not enough to make a relationship work.

 

And if we did break up - I suppose it's better to not give too much explanation, and let her ask, and the explain what's wrong?

 

Why would it be better to not give too much explanation? Because you learned all of this through snooping? Be completely honest with her. You owe each other that. Tell her what you saw, tell her about your doubts, and don't lie to her about why you're ending things.

[catfeeder]

[...] And if we did break up - I suppose it's better to not give too much explanation, and let her ask, and the explain what's wrong?

 

If a breakup is something you DON'T want, then stop planning it now. You're still building bridges you don't need to cross, and that's way too much work for zero payoff.

 

If GF ever breaks up with you, then she's done, and there's no sense in hashing anything. If you ever opt to break up with her, that's not some kind of a therapeutic step to try to change anything, it's a final decision to break up.

 

Breakups are emotionally charged and people who try to drag up old wounds to 'educate' the other are misusing the time, the place and the purpose of a breakup. If a friendship is salvageable, it will come about later. You can establish that after time passes and, you can cross that bridge when you come to it.

[Weirdmartian]

Is that really true?

 

I mean - if we/I break up with her, and we never talk again, then it's probably because it was going to happen anyways.

 

But if we/I break up, then I would being drawing a line through the sand. it would give us/her a chance to think things over about what we really want. So, isn't it therapeutic in a way?

 

As far as being honest about snooping... wow. That would be totally unreal. I should've thought of this before, of course. And being honest, since it's the hardest to do, would be the right thing to do... maybe. Will think about that one, if I get there.

 

Today, I'm feeling really bad.

 

I am really ambivalent. I want things to work, and after skype, all was well, but having not heard from her since Sunday evening, I don't know what to say.

 

As always, I guess the best thing to do is sleep on it.

[catfeeder]

Is that really true? I mean - if we/I break up with her, and we never talk again, then it's probably because it was going to happen anyways.

 

You each get to decide for yourselves if you'd ever want to talk again, so in order for it to happen, you'd both need to be in agreement. A breakup is never a good time to try to extract that agreement. Too emotionally charged. Both people need to process their own stuff and come up with their true feelings on the matter of friendship. While I'm not an advocate of trying to be friends with exes, there are circumstances such as mutual social circles that make at least the pretense of friendship beneficial. However, this often gets blown out of the water by one trying to pressure the other into it before BOTH are ready to go there. Best to just keep the door open, then give it time to settle.

 

But if we/I break up, then I would being drawing a line through the sand. it would give us/her a chance to think things over about what we really want. So, isn't it therapeutic in a way?

 

Taking a break from intense decision-making is what you're both doing now--or you're supposed to be, anyway. Big difference between taking a break to work out where your mind is versus forcing a break to provoke the other into something. Breakups are never to be used as a threat--unless you're fully prepared for the consequences of the backfire.

 

You've been in a constant spin about this relationship, and it keeps you in a compulsive state of projecting stuff and trying to resolve it. That's not problem solving, it's problem creation. Why not give this a rest, give yourself a rest, and just let go of trying to control things for a while? You might be pleasantly surprised at how well this works. Sometimes the best action to take is to DO Nothing.

 

As far as being honest about snooping... wow. That would be totally unreal. I should've thought of this before, of course. And being honest, since it's the hardest to do, would be the right thing to do... maybe. Will think about that one, if I get there.

 

I wouldn't recommend doing that. You burned yourself, and you learned from it--I hope. That lesson is the thing that will presumably prevent you from doing it again. So once you correct course, there's no sense in digging it up to cause mutual suffering over something you can't change and don't intend to do again. Just don't DO it again.

 

Think about the irony of snooping to use what you find to provoke a conversation about trust. If you believe someone would stick around to hear your concerns after you confess to invading their privacy that way, that's fooling yourself. That's WHY snooping is counter-productive. You gain info you can never use--and if you try, it exposes you as the hypocrite, and there's no way to argue yourself out of that position. So don't go there.

 

Today, I'm feeling really bad.

 

I am really ambivalent. I want things to work, and after skype, all was well, but having not heard from her since Sunday evening, I don't know what to say.

 

As always, I guess the best thing to do is sleep on it.

 

Frankly, you need a rest from this. The girl can do no right. She has a great convo with you on Sunday, and by Wednesday you're turning up the volume on neglect already? This whole thing sounds like navel-gazing gone wrong, and you're not 'helping' yourself by going compulsive with it. Focus on your life, and start living it. Involve yourself with people and interests other than the girl, and this will refresh you and gain you the perspective you lack.

 

It's not supposed to be this hard, and she's not the one making it this hard.

 

In your corner.

[Weirdmartian]

Which is why "enotalone" is a good place to vent frustrations.

 

But check this out, I've got the following things lined up for my life in the next few weeks:

 

I work a part-time job, 20 hours a week, at a bank. I work as a bartender in the weekends. I play rugby twice a week, 2 hours each time. I bike everywhere. I weight-train four times a week right now, I take dance classes every wednesday. I am looking into learning a 3rd language. I am going for an Econ major, and I have classes in advanced micro, macro economics and econometrics, in addition to a programming course and a class on development economics. I try to see my friends as often as possible.

 

And I still think about the girl... ALL the time. Please something good happen. Maybe an EMP burst, or something...