Girlfriend mad for no apparent reason

[faithfully]

I just feel so down sometimes. I am struggling not to fall back into depression. I’ve reached out to “friends”, but I guess I don’t really have any. I want someone to talk to. Sometimes people on CAF help, but often they just try to blame me and make me sound like a bad person. I already feel bad enough. Thanks for anyone helping. I don’t want to be depressed…

Get yourself to a priest. Set an appt. and talk!!! You don’t sound like you have anything to be blamed for! Where do you get that anyone is making you out to be a bad person? I don’t see that anywhere.

Depression is VERY real. You should seek some sort of treatment for it. But without trying to DX you… you might see about getting a Vit. D test to see if you’re low. It’s def. the time of year in ALL parts of the country. I can’t tell you how many people I know that are extremely low and depressed, given one pill after another, that cleared up with Vit. D supplementation. You should do some research in this arena.

Well, I do hope you work things out with your girlfriend. Hang in there!

 

[Maureen1125]

If she doesn’t want to be open and communicate with you then you are both wasting your time. After 2 years of dating she either A) wants a formal commitment from you…hence the “Do you really love me” **** or B) she wants out but wants you to be the “bad guy” and dump her.

Honestly, I would tell her point blank that if she can’t talk you to about her problems now, then you don’t see “forever” working out.

 

[ChiRho]

I am a woman, and probably a LOT of people are going to jump on me for this but here goes. I am totally on YOUR side about the micro wave incident. If someone is going to be so pig-headed as to keep coming close to you after you have REPEATEDLY said ‘just one second’ you are totally justified in using a not nice tone of voice. I would even go so far as to say profanity is forgiveable in this case.

It has been my experience that people who like to ‘get in your way’ when you are busy doing something else just have a total lack of something in the intellect department. Adults know that you don’t sing out loud when someone is trying to point something out on the TV and then when you turn your attention to something else get in your way. It comes across as she is one of the people who constantly need to be #1 priority and can’t even take the back bench for 5 minutes so you can put something in the microwave

Now, as for marrying her. She obviously can not communicate her feelings. If she was disappointed in your Valentines day… She needs to express it in a mature way. I would seriously think twice about her because this is what your marriage will be like unless communicaton improves.

And I can relate to being unemplyed and having no friends. 7 years ago, I lost my job and found out none of my friends were worth having. You really have to be unemplyed for extended period to understand how CRUEL people are to the unemployed. It is shocking how some love to rub it in your face. So, you have a friend in Christ with me on that one.

Praying for you

CM

I agree 100% with this.

Moping and being unkind to someone you care about is not a mature way to show disapproval, especially not at her age. So, unless you did something incredibly obtuse and either didn’t notice it or aren’t telling us about it, you have reason to wonder.

How has she dealt with bad news and unfortunate circumstances in the past? Is there a pattern? Sometimes things are aberrations, but mostly they are not.

 

[EasterJoy]

I hear what you’re saying. I don’t have a job right now, so I don’t want to propose yet. Sometimes I feel like a really terrible human being for not having proposed to her yet. I doubt anyone could know how bad I feel. So if you guys want to add on to that, go ahead. Not saying that’s what you did. People always think guys just try to manipulate girls and stuff. I’m not doing that. I definitely want only what’s best for her.

Why on earth would you feel like a bad guy for not proposing when you have no way to support a family? Call me old-fashioned, but it sounds responsible to me. Not proposing when you and she still communicate so poorly seems extremely wise.

If you want what is best for her, then even if you get a great job in no event should you consider proposing until she quits expecting you to be a mind-reader. If you pick up on her hints, this is great. Wonderful. If not, she ought not punish you. I don’t think I need to say: Vice Versa!! If this is what you get in courtship, do not expect marriage to fix it. Marry the woman you want to live with until you take your last breath, not a “fixer upper.”

I have news for you: You can come out and say that “Yeah, whatever” married to a “pissy demeanor” is BS, because it obviously is BS! I think the wording I would use would be more like “That’s impossible to believe. Do you want to try again?” It is not only OK to say you aren’t going to accept that for an answer any more, it would be a good idea. Anger is OK, but obviously passive-aggression is not. If she doesn’t want to talk, she can just say so: “I’m upset, but I’m not ready to talk. Let’s talk about it when I calm down a bit.” Fair enough. Judging by the comedy routines I hear, a wife who claims that she is not upset when she is clearly ready to blow a gasket is fine for some guys. If you don’t cope very well with it, though, that is no black mark against you. It sounds like sanity to me.

Did I mention I was female? If you need her to be direct, insist that she be direct. You don’t have to go to AA or Al-Anon to know that.

 

[Charlotte1776]

Now, as for marrying her. She obviously can not communicate her feelings. If she was disappointed in your Valentines day… She needs to express it in a mature way. I would seriously think twice about her because this is what your marriage will be like unless communicaton improves.

I was thinking the same thing. In marriage, communication is absolutely vital and it doesn’t sound like she is very good at it. It might be a learned behavior - if she grew up with people in her life who blew up at her every time she brought up a problem or expressed an opinion, she probably coped by never learning how to properly communicate her thoughts and emotions and instead kept them to herself. She may not even be aware that she does it. If that’s the case, she needs to come to a level of self-awareness about her possible shortcomings and be willing to work on improving herself. I know I had ingrained behaviors and though patterns that I was completely unaware of until my husband pointed them out, and I had to work on changing them in order to become a better wife and have a better relationship with my spouse. My husband also had to do the same.

You also can’t ignore the possibility that you might have some issues to tackle as well if the relationship is going to improve. You said you got upset with her when she wasn’t paying attention to something you pointed out on TV, and that “I guess I wasn’t the nicest after a while” during the microwave incident, yet you also say that you don’t think you were mean to her at all while she was there. It sounds like you were mean to her but might not have realized it. She told you why she was upset (that you were treating her poorly after not having seen her for a few days) so I suppose it’s not entirely fair to say her anger came out of nowhere or that she wouldn’t give you a reason for it. It sounds like what happened is that you were irritated with her and got snippy and rude a few times without realizing how harsh it sounded, and she reacted by being hurt and angry. Even if you apologized, if you don’t think you did anything wrong and think she was being ridiculous, she would see right through it and it would have done no good. In fact, it would have only made things worse.

I think there are probably some underlying issues that aren’t being addressed. I agree with the other poster that if you have been her boyfriend for two years already but have shown no intention to marry her, she may start to feel like she’s being strung along and wonder how much longer she should hold out. At 27, she does not have time to waste on a dead-end relationship that isn’t serious. She’s probably struggling with a lot of hard questions about the relationship and it all may be coming to a head right now. You both will need to ask yourselves whether you want to to continue, while keeping in mind that the same communication issues that are present now will also plague your marriage unless they are addressed now.

 

[EasterJoy]

I just feel so down sometimes. I am struggling not to fall back into depression. I’ve reached out to “friends”, but I guess I don’t really have any. I want someone to talk to. Sometimes people on CAF help, but often they just try to blame me and make me sound like a bad person. I already feel bad enough. Thanks for anyone helping. I don’t want to be depressed…

Some periods of life are like that. It does not mean anything against you as a person. True friends are a great gift, and sometimes they are hard to find. Don’t feel bad if you don’t have any. Ask God to help you to find some. I hope that doesn’t sound corny, but it worked for me.

 

[mark_a]

If she doesn’t want to be open and communicate with you then you are both wasting your time. After 2 years of dating she either A) wants a formal commitment from you…hence the “Do you really love me” **** or B) she wants out but wants you to be the “bad guy” and dump her.

I’m pleasantly encouraged by the # of women here telling it like it is!!

 

[mark_a]

I am a woman, and probably a LOT of people are going to jump on me for this but here goes. I am totally on YOUR side about the micro wave incident. If someone is going to be so pig-headed as to keep coming close to you after you have REPEATEDLY said ‘just one second’ you are totally justified in using a not nice tone of voice. I would even go so far as to say profanity is forgiveable in this case.

It has been my experience that people who like to ‘get in your way’ when you are busy doing something else just have a total lack of something in the intellect department. Adults know that you don’t sing out loud when someone is trying to point something out on the TV and then when you turn your attention to something else get in your way. It comes across as she is one of the people who constantly need to be #1 priority and can’t even take the back bench for 5 minutes so you can put something in the microwave

 

[Marie682]

In my experience, when I act like your girlfriend it’s almost always about something bigger, even if I don’t realize it at the time.

What you think you’re arguing about and what you’re actually arguing about are probably two different things. You, as a guy, can do one little thing that isn’t so great, and it becomes a reminder to her of something else. Sometimes, deep down I am upset about something and I’m not even consciously aware of it, until I get upset about something stupid and through talking realize what it’s really about. So my advice to you is to try to figure out the bigger reason she is acting this way. It may very well be that you haven’t proposed yet, or it could be something else. Maybe you haven’t been as attentive to her as you could be, and rejecting her wanting to be close to you was the icing on the cake.

And don’t ever apologize if you aren’t truly sorry. That makes it worse. Or, even worse is saying “I’m sorry you feel that way”. That makes me want to scream. Your approach can truly diffuse the situation, if you do it right. Apologizing when it’s not genuine and asking “what the problem is” clearly didn’t work. So, acknowledge that you hurt her (because, whether or not you think she shouldn’t be, she was hurt), tell her that you love her and that you shouldn’t have been so grouchy. If she’s a mature person, she’ll start looking at herself and realize that she probably overreacted. Someone has to start.

And yes, sometimes it’s about hormones. I make no excuses for myself- my boyfriend has learned to ride it out and even tell me when I’m being ridiculous. If this is a factor with your girlfriend, she needs to be able to take responsibility for that and do the best she can to keep it together. And you can help her by figuring out when it’s best to just keep your distance and let it blow over. No small feat, I understand. But after two years, you must know whether this is a cyclical thing or not, and if it is you need to figure out whether you love her enough to learn how to deal with it the rest of your life. I know I get a little nutty, I always apologize afterward when I do, and my boyfriend has (lucky for me) learned that it’s not his fault, learned to just listen to me and let it blow over. He’s no walk in the park all the time either, but if I’m truly out of line he will say “please don’t talk to me that way”. And I’ll stop.

It sounds to me like you both could stand to work on the communication. It can be helped, but both of you have to take an honest look at how you deal with each other and focus on how you’re treating the other person instead of how you’re being treated in the moment.

 

[EasterJoy]

Brother, there is one word that describes this : Women
They are a strange and weird species, mind boggling the male species for several centuries (most likely even longer, but i can’t spell that word) (yes even since the fall!), we can’t live with them, can’t live without them, we just have to roll with it

I don’t think so, not any more than “boys will be boys” ought to let men off the hook when they act like jerks. Women should not be let off the hook when they’re passive-aggressive, use relational aggression, or when they punish other people for failure to read their minds.

These are nasty habits, and while it is realistic that it will take patience and a gentle firmness to break them–it is an act of love to “roll with it”! –nobody should have to simply resign himself to putting up with them. The goal is “on earth as it is in Heaven”, after all! The sins most popular among women are not exempt.

 

[Skeptic92]

I don’t think so, not any more than “boys will be boys” ought to let men off the hook when they act like jerks. Women should not be let off the hook when they’re passive-aggressive, use relational aggression, or when they punish other people for failure to read their minds.

These are nasty habits, and while it is realistic that it will take patience and a gentle firmness to break them–it is an act of love to “roll with it”! –nobody should have to simply resign himself to putting up with them. The goal is “on earth as it is in Heaven”, after all! The sins most popular among women are not exempt.

It was meant to be a said jokingly, but the internet doesn’t let us put across tone that well, I agree, but noone can say that the opposite sex doesn’t confuse them .

On a serious note now, your and your other half need to sit down and talk, communication is the foundation to a stable relationship (yes and love, a relationship can’t stand without love), you must talk to her, and her with you, to sort out the problems, especially if your thinking about popping the big question

 

[EasterJoy]

It was meant to be a said jokingly, but the internet doesn’t let us put across tone that well, I agree, but noone can say that the opposite sex doesn’t confuse them

OK, I’ll come clean. I have many brothers, I went to a country school where the boys outnumbered the girls about 6:1. Guys seem pretty straight forward. It is my own sex that tends to puzzle me! (And yes, that includes myself!)

 

[EEgirl]

OK, I’ll come clean. I have many brothers, I went to a country school where the boys outnumbered the girls about 6:1. Guys seem pretty straight forward. It is my own sex that tends to puzzle me! (And yes, that includes myself!)

I agree. I have only brothers, I studied engineering, and I work as an engineer. I don’t find men that mysterious either.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

she has since sent me an a txt msg saying she was sorry. and so did I.

I just hate when that kind of stuff happens. it’s not that she doesn’t communicate at all. but I just find the harder I try, the worse it get. I guess I get annoyed when she says stuff like “yeah whatever” and her general demeanor is very standoffish and pissy. I just don’t know what to do.

In all honesty, I guess I’ve learned that the best thing sometimes is to just let it go for a couple of hours, then talk about it after…

Sorry I was so abrupt with you before. I think you have been given wise advice since my snippy response, and I am glad to hear that you have had some insight about not forcing issues at the time they are happening. Some people can deal with things on the spot but it sounds as though neither you nor your girlfriend are in that category.

When a woman says “yeah whatever” she is angry about something. And if she snips back “Nothing!” when you ask her what is wrong, something is very wrong, she just doesn’t want to tell you right then.

We women can be such difficult creatures, can’t we?

 

[Rafaela]

When a woman says “yeah whatever” she is angry about something. And if she snips back “Nothing!” when you ask her what is wrong, something is very wrong, she just doesn’t want to tell you right then.

Been there, done that… After sometime I understood that my now husband had no clue on why I was angry, and I break it down for him, in to very easily chewable pieces…

I think it might be that she was waiting for some romantic gesture from you on Valentine’s day . Particularly if your girlfriend is big on romantic “girl” movies.

 

[EasterJoy]

Been there, done that… After sometime I understood that my now husband had no clue on why I was angry, and I break it down for him, in to very easily chewable pieces…

I think it might be that she was waiting for some romantic gesture from you on Valentine’s day . Particularly if your girlfriend is big on romantic “girl” movies.

At this point, it would not hurt if the OP started in on “Twenty Questions” to get to the bottom of this. Then, when that’s over, he needs to say, “Well, why didn’t you say so? I can be thoughtful without being told, but we do need to know about what you think of as thoughtful and what you don’t.”

Whatever it was that she was expecting, it isn’t a universal expectation. Some of us are surprised to find that our expectations are less prevalent in the general population than we think! If the OP gets his girlfriend the book, “The 5 Love Languages”, she’ll understand that thoughtful means different things to different people. Maybe they can talk, and these things will happen less often.

As in: he can tell her that he does not consider slamming cupboard doors to be a loving way of lodging a complaint…