Relationship has Fallen Apart...Need Help!!

[datsyuk13]

I should preface this all by saying that I know I messed up royally and have only myself to blame. I want to make it clear that my girlfriend has been nothing but amazing this entire time, I just want advice on what I myself should be doing because I'm scared that I may have completely ruined the best thing thats ever happened to me.

 

So me and my girlfriend have been dating for about half a year, but around January until about 2 weeks ago, I fell into a serious personal rut. School, my lab work, and social life just all weren't going the way I wanted them to and it made me lose all confidence in myself. I wasn't even aware that I had fallen that far down from myself and I was even more unaware of the fact that I was hurting my girlfriend so much. She has a past of cheating on her bf's and I knew that coming in and told her that everyone deserved another chance and believed in her, and she told me from the beginning that she would hit a point where she would need my help to get through her past problems and I was ready to do that (and at the time I honestly meant it). So when I fell into this rut, I was there physically but not mentally or emotionally. She used to joke that I treated her like the princess she dressed up as in 1992. Well I stopped doing that when I wasn't myself. As a result, some of her old feelings came back, she wanted to go and find someone else and leave me but couldn't because she cared so much about me and didn't want to leave me when I was in such a rut. Well, it took time and I checked into therapy about 2 weeks ago but finally, I'm back to being myself for most part. I'm not the mopey, dopey idiot I was for those 2.5 months, but now I'm afraid I have damaged our relationship too much. I still love her, but she says now she doesn't know, and she at times felt trapped. She also says she knows that I will do everything to try and make this work but that she's going to need time to become emotionally back into it.

 

She's always said she wants a guy who is this presence in her life, who can take control and make decisions and make her better. The simple fact is when I fell off, I wasn't that guy and I really let her down and I'm a person who has a hard time forgiving myself for making mistakes. I still believe that if given the opportunity that me and her could have something beyond special but lately I've been so crippled by the fear of hurting her more and by the shame of knowing that I have made her so freaking unhappy.

 

Lately, there are times where things feel like on the up and up as we talk about this and that but then there are lulls where nothings happening and I can't help but have my mind race to what should I be doing. It's so hard to act natural and be the guy that she fell for in the beginning. Then its also like every little mistake I make gets magnified because she's currently unhappy.

 

I was hoping someone could give me suggestions on things I can do for her, or for myself or just general advice about what to do.

[agent1607307371]

She's always said she wants a guy who is this presence in her life, who can take control and make decisions and make her better.

 

Wow. YOU CAN'T FIX SOMEONE. And you can't expect someone to fix you either. Is she in therapy or something or is she just putting all this weight on you? That's not healthy or fair.

 

No offence but while you have fallen down a bit, I also think that this was bound to happen eventually . It's human; we have high spots and low spots.

How does she respond to you having a bad spot? She wants to leave you.

 

 

She also says she knows that I will do everything to try and make this work but that she's going to need time to become emotionally back into it.

 

What work is she doing to help you and the relationship? No offence but if you're doing all the leg work, it's not a relationship.

[catfeeder]

I agree with the above. If she's looking for a perfect price, she's not going to find that in a human.

 

We all have highs and lows. If she's the kind of girl who'd ditch you whenever you're not sparkly, that's not the kind of girl anyone can keep satisfied.

 

Congrats for doing your own work to get back on your feet. Now it's her turn.

[datsyuk13]

ok i guess theres a bit of a misunderstanding or whatever. It's not that she's putting all of it on me now to make things right, its more so that I'm putting it on myself and I'm trying to find ways of personally showing her that I'm back to where I was before all my troubles hit. It's kind of a personal thing that I dug this hole by being so unresponsive to things that I feel its my responsibility to fix things. She has said nothing to this note at all and trust me when I say she's not the type that would leave it all to me to fix it, but personally, I just feel like I owe it to myself to do it.

 

And she was understanding of me being in a low, and she constantly tried to tell me that it was okay that I made a mistake and that she had forgiven me, but that I needed to forgive myself. That's something for me that is very hard to do, I hate letting down the people I care about so with it being the woman I care about more than anything, it's even harder to not beat myself up over it.

 

and yeah she was originally in therapy over her issues, moved, and then before I started going to therapy she started going herself again because she was scared of herself having the same thoughts that she used to have. Personally, I guess I don't see this as her not sticking by me, because she's still here now and given her past this is not something she's ever been able to do in sticking by someone the way she has with me so like I said before, I really think she's been nothing but supportive and no its not that she's making me do everything either.

 

I guess its more of a she's cautious towards me because she's scared that I'm still not there for her and she needs to see that I'm putting forth that effort.

[geekgirl4]

All those hugs, hand holding, kisses, late night conversations, cooking dinner, lounging on the couch doing nothing, watching movies - all those bonding things that stopped while you were trying to resolve your issues, start it up again. Rebuild! If she's cautious, then reach out to her and show her you still want the relationship to work. Don't get down about those 2.5 months that were hell, she knows what happened and was there for you (when it seemed she wouldn't in the beginning). Put those guilty feelings in the past and do what you can now.

[geekgirl4]

P.S. Don't feel bad about those 2.5 months where things were downhill. You found help and are working through it. A lot of people I know let those slumps dominate for months without doing anything about it. Kudos!