In need of relationship advice

[JustinK]

I have also been told I overthink.

It’s simply my personality. Some people will understand; some won’t.

And I do think she needs to learn to give you up. If she’s not giving you anything… If she’s not reconciled to the fact that sometimes she can’t have what she wants, that she’s going to sometimes be disappointed… Then this isn’t going to work in the long run.

You can’t be the only one who gives. One-sided giving may be Christian love, but it isn’t what makes a marriage.

Silver, thanks for posting again.

I see my ability to overthink as both a gift and a curse. Sometimes, it feels like nobody will understand me because people often just tell me I think too much.

I think she knows that. She’s made mentions a few times of thinking of leaving. Of course, whenever that happened I felt compelled to talk to her about it. Though I admit, recently when she has mentioned that, I have begun to think of a new life. An exciting and scary life. One full of surprises and bad dates and first kisses and going to movies. It has started to look more attractive to me the more she gets upset with me for having to work late or whatever other silly reason she may be upset with me for.

It’s not like she’s not giving me anything, though. She’s there for me. She gives me companionship.

Sometimes, she’s more what I need more than what I want. I need love and companionship. I don’t want the stress and the thought of disappointing her with things I may or may not do. That’s where the thought of starting over with someone new sounds really good.

Like I said, she’s talked about this, too. She has thought about moving on or what life could be with someone else. But we always work it out and it always ends up with us talking again.

I’ve learned that she’s going to be disappointed. I’ve also learned not to care too much about it anymore because some of the things she gets disappointed about are just silly. She recognizes this. It took a LONG time to get to this point.

It feels like I’m the only one who gives, and it may seem that way. But I feel once I see it from her perspective, it will make more sense. That’s the biggest issue is us not understanding each other. That’s why I feel the need to meet up more than we do now, to connect better. However, the more we meet up, the harder it is going to be to let go of her if that time ever comes.

The best advantage of a long distance relationship is because you don’t see them all the time, things hurt a lot less than they would in person.

I loved what you said bout one-sided giving. It’s Christian love, but not what makes a marriage. A marriage takes two people giving of themselves to each other. Not just one person loving and the other not reciprocating.

Side note: That’s what’s so great about God. He’ll give everything even if you give nothing.

Thanks again for your post.

-Justin

 

[JustinK]

Don’t worry about your long posts.

I, for one, appreciate good grammar enough to keep reading when I find it. And a lot of stuff resonates with feelings I had about past virtual relationships… But they always reached a breaking point. Only one ever made it to a first meeting, let alone close to a second.

But all this doubt and wondering is quite natural given the circumstances… However, you need be able to separate. My LD and I have gone a night without talking, or just a quick good night, due to circumstances… But it’s a good exercise regardless. Like fasting. We did it once just on principle… A Friday fast of sorts. And yes, it felt strange for for a couple hours. But life went on. And we talked the next night.

Silver, it’s good to hear my rambling is appreciated!

I’ve always tend to have had mostly online friendships as that’s where I like to spend most of my time. There have been a few people that I would love to meet in person. But, like you, only one has. And that is her.

I agree with the doubt. At a far distance, there’s so much to think about.

With the fasting thing, we have gone a night or two without really talking. I didn’t mind it some nights. It felt nice to chill and not have to worry about disappointing her because she had ‘given me permission.’ That’s another thing, I feel like I have to ask her permission for things I want to do because I know sometimes she does really want to talk to me.

Lately though, I’ve figured that yea, she might be upset with me for a night but we both know it’s for silly reasons. She’s recognized that she can be crazy sometimes, which I think is good. It will make it easier to bring some of the points up that I have found on here.

She’s asked me before how I put up with her. I just tell her that I do.

She’s also told me that I’m the only person she hasn’t pushed away in her life. I don’t think she’s been with an overthinking guy who tries his best to put others before himself before. Those kind of people seem to be dying out, unfortunately.

I’m glad people are interested in what I have to say. This is really my first time talking about my relationship to other people and it’s so nice to be able to talk things out.

Thanks for putting up with the long posts.

-Justin

 

[SilverShadow22]

It’s easy to feel taken advantage of if you’re the sort of person who gives and gives and the other seems to be doing less. It’s also the risk you run for loyalty.

Being truly honest, I would say loyalty is my best virtue. I don’t yank people around and I don’t give up on them easily. However, I do pick my inner circle rather carefully and the edges come and go. I can’t devote full energy to that many people at once.

 

[Lou2U]

For awhile, I thought that’s what love was. Making people happy. But I’ve found out it tends to turn me into a doormat and at the cost of my on happiness. As far as ‘dropping everything for her’, I also thought that meant she means more to me than those other things. I thought that was a good thing.

By the way, a perfect example of this: My phone just started dying and I was scrambling for a charger. Not for me. For her. I didn’t want to make her upset when I didn’t text her because of a dead phone. Yesterday my brother and his girlfriend came home. We played mini-golf and then came home to play a board game after dinner. She called and I immediately left the game to talk to her while my family was waiting on me to come back. I didn’t want to tell her I wanted to play the game because she would have took that to mean I like the game more than talking to her. It’s… complicated dealing with those situations.

This kind of situation is ideal for establishing boundaries. You have to be able to tell her that you are busy with your family without her getting upset. If she does take offence, you have to consider if you can live with it in your relationship because if you bypass your family once, she will expect you to do it again. That isn’t fair to your family or to you. She needs to understand that you can’t drop everything to talk to her, and that isn’t a thing you can help her do. You can talk to her about it and set boundaries, but it is up to her to act o it. If she isn’t willing to do it or she does it in a passive aggressive kind of way, that’s an issue. Love isn’t accepting anything when you aren’t happy about it. Love isn’t taking offence when someone else is busy.

I feel as though there is a lot of things I won’t be able to tell her just because of who we both are. For instance, she just texted me and asked if I would come to Chicago if she went there. I said I would and that I would take a train. She asked why I wouldn’t just drive. I told her that driving in Chicago sucks. I’m not fond of driving too much anyway. I tend to get nervous rather easily. Anyway, when she gets upset and doesn’t want to hear something, all she says is ‘K’. Which is what she said. So, nevermind that I’d still want to see you, you’re mad that I’m not willing to drive to see you. See what I’m getting at?

A strong relationship is one where you feel able to tell the other person anything. Not telling someone things just makes it worse, because it sets off a precedence of you not wanting to tell her in case she takes offence and then her becoming angry because you haven’t told her. It’s like a cycle, and it makes you lose trust.

You have a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why you don’t want to drive. You don’t particularly like it and you don’t feel comfortable with it. She has no right to be upset with you because you won’t do what she says. She is trying to manipulate you into doing what she wants. You can be as good a boyfriend as you like, but she isn’t being a good girlfriend to you.

Though I agree with the dangers of not communicating and leading her on because of it. Part of me does want to wait to see what happens when we actually can hang out together. But part of me knows that it’s going to be an uphill battle if we decide to move forward with the relationship and I’m not sure I want that. It’s just doubt, I guess.

Definitely. It’s up to you to decide whether you want this relationship or not. Don’t stay in it out of a sense of obligation or because you don’t want to upset her or leave her alone, stay in the relationship because you want to be.

I do have a ‘saving people’ attitude with a lot of things in my life. For a lot of my life, it’s led to me being the doormat so that other people’s feet stay dry. I took it as being strong enough to take it, but now I’m not sure.

Ignoring your own feelings isn’t healthy for you or for a relationship. You need to have honesty because with honesty comes trust and with trust comes love. Don’t omit out of worry. Be honest, and if it doesn’t work out, it was never meant to.

Lou, thanks for posting again.

I agree with you. Depending on another to supply you with happiness is unrealistic most times. Sometimes, it works out. But most times, the person winds up with a broken heart.

I don’t think it does work out. It is always unrealistic to put all your happiness onto one person, and it takes you from a person to more of an obsession.

I feel like I see this relationship in a kind of mixed-up way because of this. She depends on me to be there for her, to give her that happiness. But I know I can’t always be there for her. This causes a lot of unneeded tension and stress. I hate disappointing her, but I also hate not being able to live my own life sometimes.

You can’t give her that happiness. It simply isn’t possible. It damages your relationship with her because of resentment, it damages your relationships with others because you can’t spend time with them as you would like to. It is her expectations that are unrealistic and wrong, quite frankly. She is putting too much pressure on you and is expecting you to make her happy. You can’t. She can only be truly happy when she finds happiness from herself. Until then, your relationship isn’t going to be what it could be. But it is up to her to change this and if she doesn’t, I can’t see a lot of hope. Don’t let this relationship become a big mess of resentment, upset and stress. If it does, it isn’t working and you need to leave. You aren’t obligated to stay because she is putting unhealthy pressure on you.

Lou

 

[JustinK]

It’s easy to feel taken advantage of if you’re the sort of person who gives and gives and the other seems to be doing less. It’s also the risk you run for loyalty.

Being truly honest, I would say loyalty is my best virtue. I don’t yank people around and I don’t give up on them easily. However, I do pick my inner circle rather carefully and the edges come and go. I can’t devote full energy to that many people at once.

Silver, I definitely agree. Loyalty comes with a price, for sure. I had a job situation where I tried to be as good of a worker as possible. This meant staying late, picking up shifts, and coming in whenever they called. This eventually turned into me getting stuck on the overnight shift for half a year since people kept quitting and I was reliable. I hated hearing the phone ring because I always knew it would be them asking me to come in. It got pretty bad. It took me a LONG time to be able to say no to them.

Loyalty is also my best virtue. I was talking to a coworker about the overnight situation and he said he wouldn’t do that no matter what they gave him. I responded, “I guess I’m too loyal.” I’ll never forget what he said. “Loyalty implies a choice.”

With her, I guess there’s a part of me that’s sticking with it out of loyalty. But it really doesn’t feel like I have a choice most times. Especially now. It’s either see it through however long I can and try my best at it, or lose her. I feel I owe it to us to at least see what life could be like with her in person. But then I run the risk of breaking her heart the longer I stay with her and am unsure of it.

I’m reminded of what a counselor told me once. I had asked if it was mean to not like someone. I had a similar situation before. For some reason, I had felt attached to a girl I had took to prom in high school. I didn’t really like her as anything more than a friend, but I felt like a part of me couldn’t let it go. Anyway, my counselor told me it wasn’t mean. Looking back, I don’t know why I felt that way. But looking at it in the moment, I feel the same sense of ‘obligation’ to my girlfriend. Not sure what to make of it.

Thank you again for posting.

Regards.

-Justin

 

[ADS1987]

Remember how young you are. Dont be scared to end a bad relationship because you are too tied down to the emotions in having someone. It would be worse if you married someone, got tied down and both of you learned you really didnt like each other once the emotions all faded away.

You need to be able to have friends. Even in marriage. You still must be independent people in a marriage. It is not healthy to not have friends. Yes, there is a lot of dependency on each other in a marriage but you both still must have your own friends, interests and personalities. You will forever be restraining who you are just to please someone who is extremely controlling. You need to consider whether or not this relationship is somewhat abusive for you.

If she really loved you, she wouldnt be trying to make you feel guilty for not being at her service at all times. She is just using you for her own emotional and physical needs. A women who loves you wont make you choose between a night out with family and with talking with her. There is plenty of time in a day, week and month to talk. 3-4 hours when you are with family should not be a problem or lead her to start threatening and abusing you.

You have to be your own man. Dont let the manly sword do all the talking for you. The manly sword is very sensitive and can lead to you making impulsive decisions. It can only keep you dependent on someone. Use your mind and make clear decisions.

The biggest piece of advice Talk to your closest friends and family about her. Ideally male friends and family. The reason I say this is that often times female friends and family think in similar ways and can try to see things through the woman’s lens instead of through the lens of sensibility and logic. Men speaking to men tend to be more logical and know how to advise another man better on if a women is good for you or not. With whatever decision you make, you need it to be done with logic and separated from as much emotion as you can. Emotions are strong things and can lead us to make really horrible decisions.

 

[JustinK]

This kind of situation is ideal for establishing boundaries. You have to be able to tell her that you are busy with your family without her getting upset. If she does take offence, you have to consider if you can live with it in your relationship because if you bypass your family once, she will expect you to do it again. That isn’t fair to your family or to you. She needs to understand that you can’t drop everything to talk to her, and that isn’t a thing you can help her do. You can talk to her about it and set boundaries, but it is up to her to act o it. If she isn’t willing to do it or she does it in a passive aggressive kind of way, that’s an issue. Love isn’t accepting anything when you aren’t happy about it. Love isn’t taking offence when someone else is busy.

A strong relationship is one where you feel able to tell the other person anything. Not telling someone things just makes it worse, because it sets off a precedence of you not wanting to tell her in case she takes offence and then her becoming angry because you haven’t told her. It’s like a cycle, and it makes you lose trust.

You have a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why you don’t want to drive. You don’t particularly like it and you don’t feel comfortable with it. She has no right to be upset with you because you won’t do what she says. She is trying to manipulate you into doing what she wants. You can be as good a boyfriend as you like, but she isn’t being a good girlfriend to you.

Definitely. It’s up to you to decide whether you want this relationship or not. Don’t stay in it out of a sense of obligation or because you don’t want to upset her or leave her alone, stay in the relationship because you want to be.

Ignoring your own feelings isn’t healthy for you or for a relationship. You need to have honesty because with honesty comes trust and with trust comes love. Don’t omit out of worry. Be honest, and if it doesn’t work out, it was never meant to.

I don’t think it does work out. It is always unrealistic to put all your happiness onto one person, and it takes you from a person to more of an obsession.

You can’t give her that happiness. It simply isn’t possible. It damages your relationship with her because of resentment, it damages your relationships with others because you can’t spend time with them as you would like to. It is her expectations that are unrealistic and wrong, quite frankly. She is putting too much pressure on you and is expecting you to make her happy. You can’t. She can only be truly happy when she finds happiness from herself. Until then, your relationship isn’t going to be what it could be. But it is up to her to change this and if she doesn’t, I can’t see a lot of hope. Don’t let this relationship become a big mess of resentment, upset and stress. If it does, it isn’t working and you need to leave. You aren’t obligated to stay because she is putting unhealthy pressure on you.

Lou

Lou, thanks for posting again. You have some great insights!

I agree with the boundaries. However, that’s going to take a lot of work. There’s been 4 (almost 5) years of me dropping pretty much everything for her. Whenever she texts, I answer. Whenever she calls, I answer. If I get a text at work, I do what I can to check it right away. I’m okay with trying to set some boundaries, it’s just going to take some readjusting and hope that she doesn’t see it as me not wanting to be with her.

I feel like I can tell her a lot. Though sometimes, things get lost in differences of understanding. It is a cycle and one I’m trying to break.

It mostly feels like it’s up to what I can do in my power to make it work. That’s where it gets a little stressful.

Some days I want the relationship. Some days I don’t. Believe me, it seems vastly easier to start all over again with someone else. But, I see love as working through the hard things. Now it’s just a matter of communicating and establishing what we both want and where we both stand.

I’ve learned that ignoring my own feelings is something that I can’t do. It just leads to hurt. It’s going to take some work to tell her how I feel about certain things, but I think we’ll get there.

Yea, I’ve also learned to try to be happy with yourself and not rely on someone else. I have recently started to do the things that I want to do, and if she has a problem with it, she can tell me. I’m going to try to talk more things out with her than I used to. It’s the only way this is going to develop into anything. I know I’m over being worried if she’s upset with me for silly things, though. I want to care for her, but not to the point it makes me sick from the stress and worry.

I used to think giving her that happiness meant that I was there for her. That I was a good friend/boyfriend. I agree that once she finds happiness in herself, she should rely on me less, which will in turn give m a break from feeling the pressure of being relied on so heavily.

As far as the not feeling obligated to stay. Eh, that’s also going to take some time to properly sort out. There’s been a LOT of memories and good times with her. However, I recognize that doesn’t require me to stay if I find out we aren’t compatible in the end. I’ve learned a great deal from this relationship already about myself as well as other people. I won’t regret it if it ends up going sour, but I will probably miss what might have been if we saw past each others flaws or tried harder to work things out. I know I’ve tried as hard as I can, now I’m learning to pull back a little and see where it goes.

Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut. It helps me reflect a lot.

Best.

 

[JustinK]

Remember how young you are. Dont be scared to end a bad relationship because you are too tied down to the emotions in having someone. It would be worse if you married someone, got tied down and both of you learned you really didnt like each other once the emotions all faded away.

You need to be able to have friends. Even in marriage. You still must be independent people in a marriage. It is not healthy to not have friends. Yes, there is a lot of dependency on each other in a marriage but you both still must have your own friends, interests and personalities. You will forever be restraining who you are just to please someone who is extremely controlling. You need to consider whether or not this relationship is somewhat abusive for you.

If she really loved you, she wouldnt be trying to make you feel guilty for not being at her service at all times. She is just using you for her own emotional and physical needs. A women who loves you wont make you choose between a night out with family and with talking with her. There is plenty of time in a day, week and month to talk. 3-4 hours when you are with family should not be a problem or lead her to start threatening and abusing you.

You have to be your own man. Dont let the manly sword do all the talking for you. The manly sword is very sensitive and can lead to you making impulsive decisions. It can only keep you dependent on someone. Use your mind and make clear decisions.

The biggest piece of advice Talk to your closest friends and family about her. Ideally male friends and family. The reason I say this is that often times female friends and family think in similar ways and can try to see things through the woman’s lens instead of through the lens of sensibility and logic. Men speaking to men tend to be more logical and know how to advise another man better on if a women is good for you or not. With whatever decision you make, you need it to be done with logic and separated from as much emotion as you can. Emotions are strong things and can lead us to make really horrible decisions.

ADS, thanks for your post.

I agree it would be much worse if we ended up getting married and then having the issues. It wouldn’t be fun at all. But I think this is why I keep going back to the ‘I need to get to know her in person’, especially if we’re talking about anything marriage related. I’m not about to marry someone I’ve only met up with twice.

I recognize I am young. However, I haven’t really begun to live the life that I want. I mean, it’s my first relationship. At 26! Think of all I could have learned about myself if I dated in high school like normal relationships.

Yea, I don’t have many friends. Mainly just her and a few other people. And I feel unable to do things with them most times due to a sense of obligation to her. I feel like people should be able to socialize and be independent in relationships, for sure. This relationship does seem incredibly one-sided a lot of the time.

Oh, man. There have been so many times where I have felt pressure to choose between doing what I want and doing things with her because I feel it’s the right thing or I don’t want to upset her. Nearly everything I do revolves around her in some way or another. It adds a lot of unneeded pressure and resentment. A lot of this stems from misunderstandings. If she calls me and we talk for 4 hours, that’s fine some nights. But other times, I can remember conversations going something like, “We’ve been talking for 4 hours” “Oh, I guess you don’t want to talk to me.” I get that she wants to talk to me and I want to talk to her. But sometimes, I just want to relax after work or something. She’s told me before that she knows we have our own lives and she doesn’t expect me glued to her hip. I still feel that way most times. But I agree, if she loved me like she claims, she shouldn’t make me feel guilty for doing my own thing. I’m learning to let some things go in regards to this and if she loves me, she should learn to accept the change.

Sometimes, being my own man seems impossible. But I have no clue on how to begin to tell her that without criticizing her or making her upset.

This is good advice. I need to try to see this as outside of myself. Outside of my emotions. While a relationship is strong with emotions, it can cloud your logic pretty easy. Looking at it from a logical standpoint brings a different view. It is clear to see we are two very different people with not a lot in common.

Thanks for making me think about these things.

Best.

-Justin

 

[JustinK]

She said she needed to talk to me. And a little while later, I get a text saying, “I need a break.”

Apparently she has been stressing due to the distance between us and wants a step back.

She said she loves me but there is no intimacy with us. (Intimacy meaning physical closeness, so of course there’s no intimacy).

She asked if that was alright with me and I told her that if she thinks it would be best to have a break, that might be the thing that is needed to help clean this mess up.

So I started crying as I texted her.

She called me right after I sent the text and heard me crying. She was concerned and asked why I was crying. We talked about it. In fact, it was a good talk. It was the talk that has been needing to happen.

I also learned that a break to her means ‘a step back’. She said she doesn’t think she could just stop talking to me. I still am a little confused with that. Like, she wants to keep talking to me every day but just as a friend, I guess. I’m not quite sure how to talk to her. I guess how we always used to. Though part of me could have used a break break to assess my feelings for her.

She talked with her roommate about me about me I guess and her roommate doesn’t know why she’s still with me.

She doesn’t ever know if she can fully trust what I’m doing.

She doesn’t know if she’s good enough for me and if I’m just settling.

(I’ve discovered I’m what she wants and she hasn’t thought of being with anyone else).

She even brought up ‘giving 110% while feeling like the other person does nothing’.

She told me that she never knows if I say things just to make her happy.

All in all, it appears that what I’ve said here has inadvertently come across in my actions (or lack of).

I feel like this was a talk that needed to happen and I’m glad it did. It opens new avenues of communication that were blocked off before. Hopefully now, it will be easy to tell her how I feel about certain things without feeling the pressure of upsetting her near as much as I felt before.

Edit: We’re already talking a lot better than we have been and I’ve told her some of my thoughts. We’ll see how this goes.