I'm feel I'm getting fed up with the woman I love....

[XxMaErCs13xX]

Well, I've been with my GF for almost 7 months now and things have been good for the most part. We're always together, doing whatever comes to mind. I do so much for her, I love her to death. But at times I feel I "spoil" her.....a little TOO much. It's at a point now where she expects things to happen. Even though she says she does, it doesn't seem that she appreciates all the little things I do and have done for her. We've gone through our share of arguments; gone through our share of "breaking up and getting back together" in a day or two. I can't stand the fact that I do so much for her and when one little thing goes the way she doesn't want it to go she just goes off on me, always talking about, "I'm done with all of this" blahblahblah,.....then when I go off on her in return....she gets mad at me telling me that it's over. - - I feel she knows how in love with her I am, and just how willing I am to do anything to make the relationship work & she uses that against me. When she does the whole "breakup" thing, she still calls me like if we're together, and still expects me to make time for her,......."because if I love her and want to work things out then I'd make time." At times, I do feel used & that she takes me for granted. & she loves *keeping tabs* on me, and I can't STAND that!! It's like I don't have her full trust. She's insecure about *something*. I know you all who are reading this don't know me at all, but I know I've never done that girl wrong; I've been nothing but sweet to her. I guess I'm just tired of the arguments, the nagging, (her) getting mad about stupid little things. - - I'm honestly down to the last straw though. I feel if she throws it in my face again and tells me "it's over" 'cause of something stupid; and what I mean with I say *something stupid*...it's like,...when I tell her I'll call her later on.....30 minutes will pass.....and she calls me back b!tching at me about why I didn't call her like I said I would. & believe me, it's gets even more stupid at times,.....but I love her so I just deal with it. - I'm tired of it, but I stick around because I love her, and I would hate to lose her. What can I do to make things better....for the both of us?? thanx for taking an interest in what I had to say.

[goddess23]

hey. ok, i have personal friends who i witness go through this sort of relationship and it pisses me off. girls like that make me mad, because i think its wrong. honestly i think she does care for you, but i think the reason shes staying in the relationship is because she loves allll the attention you give her. she may just be in it for the gifts and attention. you need to talk to her and tell her exactly how you feel. i know its hard, and you could risk a breakup but if she doesnt care as much for you as you do for her then you're wasting your time and energy. you didnt mention if you ever told her before about how you feel, if you havnt then you should give her a chance to redeem herself, if not then i think you should tell her that you cant be with someone who cannot give you their love, trust and honesty. these little breakups are a sign that she starts to feel smothered by your attention and then getting back together is because she misses it. you need to step it down, treat her like you would a gf, but not a princess even though to you she may just that.

 

seriously you yourself seem fustrated with the whole situation. i think this time you should suggest a break, tell her how you're feeling and see what happens. im sorry but a relationship like that is just not healthy. so try the above and best of luck!

[justagirl20f]

...I usually just lurk, but I had to respond. Man do I hear ya! Okay a lot of people are gonna say "tell her this..." and "communicate with her that..." but, having been in your situation for MUCH too long, I've got a bit of a different opinion.

 

There are two kinds of people in a relationship... Well, lots, but we're gonna talk about two LOL: Givers and Takers. You, my friend, are a "giver". I am a "giver" too. We're the ones that manage to attribute every lyric of every love song we hear to our loved ones... We see something in the mall and HAVE to grab it because it's sooooo them... We have our hand on their knee in the car or rub the back of their neck while they're driving because we just can't keep our hands off them... Am I right?

 

She is a taker. My ex was a taker too. They're the kind that gladly accept your affections but don't return them equally, or at WORST they don't even seem to appreciate the things you do. They certainly do notice when you don't do them anymore though.

 

My advice to you is this: Takers go very well with takers... They might fight a lot, but it's basically a free for all. Givers go very well with Givers... Loving relationship, total bliss. Givers are ALWAYS going to get the short end of the stick in a relationship with Takers. That's just the way it is in my opinion.

 

My ex and I split (jee, what is it, Shaune?) 3 months ago? 4? Something like that. I thought I was in love too. Well I guess in a way I was, and all I wanted was to be loved back like I loved him. I'm sorry, Buddy, it isn't gonna happen. I tried for 2.5 YEARS... In the end, the Taker is just gonna take so much of you you can't take it anymore. Do yourself a favour and find yourself a giver. There are plenty of us out there! The guy I am currently seeing is a Giver like me. I couldn't imagine ANYTHING more wonderful. And trust me when I say, when you leave this Taker to find herself a Taker (or another foolish Giver) and you find yourself a Giver... You won't even believe what you feel now for her is love.

 

Good luck, fellow Giver!

[candianeh2000]

wow, i must say i agree with the last posters characterization.

 

my last girl friend was exactly as you describe your gf to be. she just kept on taking and taking from me.....a little bit of my self respect with each figurative blow. stuff like not getting me a birthday gift really hurt my feelings. like even if her claim of me being hard to shop for is true (which i disagree with as none of my friends have ever gotten me something i didn't like), its like at least make the effort to get me something.

 

She would often get angry at me for extended periods of time for doing rather small things. Eventually, I would apologize to her and it was okay. Whenever I'd get angry at her for anything, no matter who was wrong intiially, it ended the same way with me apologizing to her.

 

Whenever I would try to confront myself to her about this, she would say something like "well girls are just like that" which I thought was such a huge cop out. I mean, at least try to make an effort to improve yourself. Since this was my first ever relationship, I didn't realize how terribly she was treating me through all this and how controlling she was being. I think I was trying to make myself fall in love with someone whom I just wasn't right with.

 

It is amazing because I never would have noticed this "taker" trait in her had I just been friends with her as she only revealed this "dark side" to me and not to other friends of hers.

 

My only advice to you would be to try to communicate to her the difficulties she is causing before its too late. By the time I finally was actually able to confront her and not let her get away with that copout answer, our relationship was already long past being doomed as a part of me hated a part of her.

[Draezn]

I feel that my girlfriend is the same way, too. This is the second relationship I've been in (last one lasted 1.5 years), but I feel like I give so much to her already. We've only been going out and seeing a lot of each other for 2 months. She takes things for granted, and tells me this because her last relationships guys always were 'givers' and treated her like a princess. I don't want it to be like this in our relationship, but when I talked to her about it tellnig her that I want her to feel the same way about me she turned it around, and made me feel guilty and apologize in the end. She said that she wanted my heart to be bigger, and that guys should always love the girl more, and that she thinks I analyze our love too much. She also said that I shouldn't expect anything in return, and that my love should be unconditional. When I say things like this it makes her feel like I expect something, and she doesn't want to have to be forced to do something. But why force love?? It should come naturally. Is this some sort of cruel mind game, or does she just not get the picture, or not truly love me? What's goin on!

 

Now, maybe I'm just being too demanding, I don't know. It's not like shes a cOMPLETE taker (ie: she's gone out and bought me stuff a couple times before, written me e-mails saying she missed me.. once or twice). But I just feel like I give WAY more than her (always kissing her, rubbing her, and she's never doing that to me without me taking initiative). The thoughtfulness just isn't there to me, but I know that she loves me. I just hope she can change naturally without forcing anything and that everything will be okay. But I don't know, first time I've been in a situation like this. My last relationship I was the spoiled one and took everything for granted from my ex-girlfriend, and realized how much I missed it afterwards. That's why now I want to be like that and give as much as I can.

 

I think with these "Takers" you should be able to distinguish the really bad seeds when they forget things such as your birthday, etc, etc. There's a line to be drawn, I guess.

[crvidales]

wow (justagirl) thats pretty interesting u know come to think of it i have a friend that goes through the same thing only the is the giver and the guy is the taker they argue sometimes and she does lots of things for this guy but it seem this guy doesnt realize that he has someone great and i think he should treat her better for all she does for him but i mean there still doing ok there still friends and stuff or there going out agian or something im not really sure i think there going out agian at least but the point is if u really like the person i guess love just has that effect on u that makes some people do all they can for the other person just to stay with them or at least through other peoples experiances thats what it seem like

[candianeh2000]

wow Draezn did you date the same girl that i did lol?

 

thats exactly what she would do to me. She would say I needed to do something to prove my love. If I suggested she do something, she would say, "why should I have to prove my love? What's the pressure for?"

 

I know she loved me but I'm not sure it was love in a healthy sense, and yeah she did many of those simalar things.....sending me emails saying she missed me.......she often instigated physical affection and stuff as well but I always felt like she thought I was OBLIGATED to do things for her, whereas when she did something for me, it was a BONUS and that I then was obligated to do something even bigger.

 

I suspect the biggest reason people are either givers or takers is based upon the relationship their parents had. If a girls' mother is a taker, most likely she will be a taker as well, as the relationship she has witnessed for her whole life is one like that. (I'm sure some people have a rebellion of some sort and do the opposite----what do i know lol, im not a psychiatrist, but im sure there is some truth). The same goes for boys. If a boy's father treats his wife terribly, there is a pretty good chance he will as well.

 

Anyway, thats the end of my rant lol.

[Towny]

This is a very good way to generalize the way I have seen relationships work: giving vs. taking. And I also agree with the parental aspect of the argument since I think that at least a portion of the way we view relationships comes from how our parents viewed theirs. I am in a similar situation with my girlfriend where she is a habitual taker and I am the consummate giver. I see this and I know this but as we all know, when you are in a relationship where feelings are involved, it's much harder to break things off. Yeah, sometimes she does little things for me, but it's almost like she feels she "deserves" much more attention. She's had a rough past so I think she feels the world owes her something. I can't begin to tell you how many times she's blown up over excruciatingly trivial things. I, on the other hand came from a very healthy, loving family and it blows my mind that people can be so selfish and blind to whole-hearted attempts to show love and affection. I guess it scares them a little. Too much effort is needed from them to make a relationship work, so they make every excuse not to try. I think in some ways it's just laziness, or perhaps just an extreme form of passive-aggresiveness.

 

As far as advice goes, in my heart of hearts I think that my relationship will end at some point due to these inequalities. At that point I think I will have learned my lesson and find a "giver" of my own. I think that the same will happen to all here in the same situation.

[caliboy]

My case is a little different which might shine some light on things.

 

My relationship use to be a giver/taker relationship. I the giver and she more the taker. She too had been spoiled by all her exes - she's a very attractive and a strong girl with motherly instincts. So I spoiled her a lot and still do somewhat today, but things sort of changed part way through our relationship. I backed off, just cause it got draining always giving and I stopped treating her like such a princess. I wouldn't call her as much. I wouldn't be as affectionate as I had been before. Basically I became less of a giver and she in turn became more of a giver and less of a taker. We got to a point now where we give and take about the same and we're engaged to get married next June I'm not saying this will always be the case, but we love each other very much and I can tell that now because of how's she's changed into more of a giver, rather than us drifting apart once I started to back off.

 

Another thing to remember, that I didn't realize before, is that people show their appreciation in different ways. My fiance got in a bad car accident about 8 months ago, so I've done the driving everyday to and from her house 40 mins away. After awhile that drive (it's a windy, unsafe drive too) can get stressful, but I still do it. I use to get pissed that I was the one always driving and she didn't contribute, but she would contribute in other ways.

 

We give and take in a relationship and it's most likely not going to be the same things we're giving and taking. I say back off from this girl a bit. You must be getting drained from all the giving. Even get a little bitter at how you do more for the relationship. And see how she responds. Maybe you'll find out that she's not a giver regardless of how much you give and in that case, she's not someone you'd want to be committed to.

[the iguana]

Its very interesting how i felt alone in my relationship being give and take. I always felt like i was doing things for her and she not really giving back. I would leave fun little creative things/ messages on her doorstep. She only did it when i said 'how come i don't get anything fun?' Its almost like she's waiting for a cue from me. Especially with visiting or going out for dinner.

 

Often times its me being very caring: scratching her back, braiding her hair, giving her quick pecks, buying her little things, even..ew...rubbing her toes. But she really never does that for me.

 

At one time a female friend of mine (her friend) told me that she Expects a guy to do these things because they're proper manners. " A guy should be spending his money?" I didn't like this answer because in this relationship i recall her liking me first, and monetarily she makes much more and spends on her stupid friends more than me.

 

I dunno, don't respond to this post. I just needed some venting, like every other kind emotional girlfriend-nurturing guy like me.