DrGrumbles612
08-30-2008, 01:58 PM
Warning: this will be long. Kudos to all who get through it.
Here’s the story. I met a girl in a FaceBook group in December 2006. We started talking a lot the next two months, online and on phone. I felt a connection and felt like I could talk about anything. I went over from my home state of Idaho to Indiana in March 2007 to see her for the first time.
Well, it went amazing, so she came over to my home state for a week in July that year and I went back to Indiana for a week right after last Christmas. Things hadn’t been so great last fall, as I got really bad at communicating consistently (new promotion at work and school wore me out) and the New Years visit brought us closer than ever. Last May, she came to my college graduation and helped me move to Indiana, where I currently live with her and her parents. I am 24 and she is almost 21.
So far, we have had many problems. Maybe the biggest issue was going straight from LDR to living with one another (I didn’t find a job until early August, so I had no choice). But it seems like we clash on certain things. My g/f is very open with herself to me and loves discussion. She has a strong personality and very strong opinions on all that she believes. She is Christian, vegan, and very interested in medical genetics. I’m more private and have always kept distance with my geeky rock music interests (not sharing them with others, because I don’t want to look like a geek and bore others), as well as not being very opinionated. I have slightly different views on spirituality (I believe in God, but bristle at some Christian beliefs) and don’t agree with veganism. When I do talk about what I like, she either seems to be bored or openly disagrees. This causes me to retreat and not talk about things, which ticks her off. I sometimes feel like I can’t have separate interests, which she refutes. I just don’t like talking about things I like that she doesn’t, or doing things I know she doesn’t care for. There starts a communication issue.
She often says she feels like the man in the relationship, that I don’t take initiative enough and capitulate too easily, i.e. be too ‘agreeable.’ Which I can see, but she is strong and knows what she wants, which makes it hard for me to take initiative. She also tends to pick apart a lot of things about me, like physical stuff and the way I do things; I don’t think a day has gone by where she hasn’t done that at least once. It makes me feel like a project sometimes.
I think part of it was my not being ready for a relationship. I’m very introverted, and prone to being a loner/recluse. So is she. We also tend to distance ourselves from others, although she is better about it than I am. I also have spotty self-esteem, which probably explains my privacy and not being open. I personalize a lot of things and blame too many things on myself, which has created a lot of fights. I dislike conflict, while she loves discussion and sharing her views on everything. I have never been in a real relationship before, and she’s had a history of bad b/f’s.
She says I have changed since I’ve been in Indiana, and I think she has too. But she doesn’t take responsibility in the relationship, she makes it sound like it’s all my problem. She says she picks apart things because that’s what girls do when something is missing. She just came back from vacation to see her friend in Minnesota, and she said she acted more like herself there then she has around me, because since I don’t act myself (this I believe, I don’t always feel comfortable around her) she doesn’t want to either. I think she also liked a little time apart from me, which is OK. We had no alone time before that, because I felt like she would accuse me of not wanting to be with her. But that part isn’t an issue.
I don’t like talking about my family as much, because my Dad doesn’t seem to like her. When she found out, she said I didn’t need to tell them when things were going wrong and that she doesn’t feel like she should see them until she knows that they like her. I do sometimes get homesick, because I did live in Idaho all my life and I am close to my parents and my two brothers. I get along great with her family, but now I feel the strain of still ‘living at home,’ so to speak (I lived with my parents up until moving here, mostly due to school). She doesn’t get along great with her parents, and they squabble over the smallest things.
Our families are very different and so was our upbringing. My parents are very conservative, proper, and private. Her parents are more open, talk about everything, and have had fighting back in their history. I myself have prided myself on being sociable with people AND being a private loner at the same time. Before this relationship, the balance swung too far on the loner side. And now it has swung on the people side, as me and her were with each other 24/7 too early.
We love each other, and there are good times. She is very attractive and genuine, and is amazing with kids. She will be a great mother for sure. She is smart, focused, and very goal-oriented. We have similar goals physically (wait until marriage). I am thinking that maybe if I were more of myself around her and respect myself more, we would get along better and not have recurring ‘talks’ and issues. But I also worry that we might be too different and not made for each other, and have too differing goals. Our families are on different parts of the country, and both of us want to live closer to our respective family. I have a temp job here in Indy, and the job market for my field is probably better here than in Idaho.
Our goals in life seem to be different. We both want to be somewhat close to our respective families. Problem is, mine are all out West in Seattle or Idaho. Hers are more spread out, but none of them live in the West. So if we stayed together, one of us would have to be far away from their family. I think she also knows herself more than I know myself. I sometimes feel I’m not ready for a relationship, because of my not being open and my unusual desire to be alone and do things alone. My brother is like that too, only much more so.
I have considered moving out to get my own apartment lately. Now that I have a 9-5 job (though it is temp), I feel more comfortable in the financial side of things. My g/f does not have a job, she is 100% dedicated to school. Thus, if we lived together in our own aptment, the finances might fall on me. I also wonder if it would be good for our relationship; since going from LDR to living together might have been too much of an adjustment, and we are in each other’s space all the time. Also, our physical activity isn’t the same as it used to be. We don’t do as much of it as we used to, because of our ‘fights’ and because I don’t know how longer I can hold out before wanting . She still has 3 years of one degree left, one year off to get her health together (she has several conditions such as narcolepsy, and chronic pains in the back, neck, and jaw), and a few years for her other degree. She doesn’t want a family until afterwards (which I don’t blame her at all for), but that means 6-7 years before marriage/, and all of that spent living together might not work. I've also considered moving back to Idaho at some point, if things were just going to keep at a stalemate forever.
What should I do? Should I work on my own self-esteem issues personally, and see what happens? Or did we move too quickly in the relationship (from LDR to living together), and need my own space to deal with being an adult before I can expect the relationship to get better? Or are we too incompatible. I don’t want to lose her, and I know she doesn’t want to lose me. Even after a fight, she’ll still hug me in bed. I know she cares a lot about me and loves me, and I love her too. But I don’t want the issues to circle itself over and over. So what should I do?
Here’s the story. I met a girl in a FaceBook group in December 2006. We started talking a lot the next two months, online and on phone. I felt a connection and felt like I could talk about anything. I went over from my home state of Idaho to Indiana in March 2007 to see her for the first time.
Well, it went amazing, so she came over to my home state for a week in July that year and I went back to Indiana for a week right after last Christmas. Things hadn’t been so great last fall, as I got really bad at communicating consistently (new promotion at work and school wore me out) and the New Years visit brought us closer than ever. Last May, she came to my college graduation and helped me move to Indiana, where I currently live with her and her parents. I am 24 and she is almost 21.
So far, we have had many problems. Maybe the biggest issue was going straight from LDR to living with one another (I didn’t find a job until early August, so I had no choice). But it seems like we clash on certain things. My g/f is very open with herself to me and loves discussion. She has a strong personality and very strong opinions on all that she believes. She is Christian, vegan, and very interested in medical genetics. I’m more private and have always kept distance with my geeky rock music interests (not sharing them with others, because I don’t want to look like a geek and bore others), as well as not being very opinionated. I have slightly different views on spirituality (I believe in God, but bristle at some Christian beliefs) and don’t agree with veganism. When I do talk about what I like, she either seems to be bored or openly disagrees. This causes me to retreat and not talk about things, which ticks her off. I sometimes feel like I can’t have separate interests, which she refutes. I just don’t like talking about things I like that she doesn’t, or doing things I know she doesn’t care for. There starts a communication issue.
She often says she feels like the man in the relationship, that I don’t take initiative enough and capitulate too easily, i.e. be too ‘agreeable.’ Which I can see, but she is strong and knows what she wants, which makes it hard for me to take initiative. She also tends to pick apart a lot of things about me, like physical stuff and the way I do things; I don’t think a day has gone by where she hasn’t done that at least once. It makes me feel like a project sometimes.
I think part of it was my not being ready for a relationship. I’m very introverted, and prone to being a loner/recluse. So is she. We also tend to distance ourselves from others, although she is better about it than I am. I also have spotty self-esteem, which probably explains my privacy and not being open. I personalize a lot of things and blame too many things on myself, which has created a lot of fights. I dislike conflict, while she loves discussion and sharing her views on everything. I have never been in a real relationship before, and she’s had a history of bad b/f’s.
She says I have changed since I’ve been in Indiana, and I think she has too. But she doesn’t take responsibility in the relationship, she makes it sound like it’s all my problem. She says she picks apart things because that’s what girls do when something is missing. She just came back from vacation to see her friend in Minnesota, and she said she acted more like herself there then she has around me, because since I don’t act myself (this I believe, I don’t always feel comfortable around her) she doesn’t want to either. I think she also liked a little time apart from me, which is OK. We had no alone time before that, because I felt like she would accuse me of not wanting to be with her. But that part isn’t an issue.
I don’t like talking about my family as much, because my Dad doesn’t seem to like her. When she found out, she said I didn’t need to tell them when things were going wrong and that she doesn’t feel like she should see them until she knows that they like her. I do sometimes get homesick, because I did live in Idaho all my life and I am close to my parents and my two brothers. I get along great with her family, but now I feel the strain of still ‘living at home,’ so to speak (I lived with my parents up until moving here, mostly due to school). She doesn’t get along great with her parents, and they squabble over the smallest things.
Our families are very different and so was our upbringing. My parents are very conservative, proper, and private. Her parents are more open, talk about everything, and have had fighting back in their history. I myself have prided myself on being sociable with people AND being a private loner at the same time. Before this relationship, the balance swung too far on the loner side. And now it has swung on the people side, as me and her were with each other 24/7 too early.
We love each other, and there are good times. She is very attractive and genuine, and is amazing with kids. She will be a great mother for sure. She is smart, focused, and very goal-oriented. We have similar goals physically (wait until marriage). I am thinking that maybe if I were more of myself around her and respect myself more, we would get along better and not have recurring ‘talks’ and issues. But I also worry that we might be too different and not made for each other, and have too differing goals. Our families are on different parts of the country, and both of us want to live closer to our respective family. I have a temp job here in Indy, and the job market for my field is probably better here than in Idaho.
Our goals in life seem to be different. We both want to be somewhat close to our respective families. Problem is, mine are all out West in Seattle or Idaho. Hers are more spread out, but none of them live in the West. So if we stayed together, one of us would have to be far away from their family. I think she also knows herself more than I know myself. I sometimes feel I’m not ready for a relationship, because of my not being open and my unusual desire to be alone and do things alone. My brother is like that too, only much more so.
I have considered moving out to get my own apartment lately. Now that I have a 9-5 job (though it is temp), I feel more comfortable in the financial side of things. My g/f does not have a job, she is 100% dedicated to school. Thus, if we lived together in our own aptment, the finances might fall on me. I also wonder if it would be good for our relationship; since going from LDR to living together might have been too much of an adjustment, and we are in each other’s space all the time. Also, our physical activity isn’t the same as it used to be. We don’t do as much of it as we used to, because of our ‘fights’ and because I don’t know how longer I can hold out before wanting . She still has 3 years of one degree left, one year off to get her health together (she has several conditions such as narcolepsy, and chronic pains in the back, neck, and jaw), and a few years for her other degree. She doesn’t want a family until afterwards (which I don’t blame her at all for), but that means 6-7 years before marriage/, and all of that spent living together might not work. I've also considered moving back to Idaho at some point, if things were just going to keep at a stalemate forever.
What should I do? Should I work on my own self-esteem issues personally, and see what happens? Or did we move too quickly in the relationship (from LDR to living together), and need my own space to deal with being an adult before I can expect the relationship to get better? Or are we too incompatible. I don’t want to lose her, and I know she doesn’t want to lose me. Even after a fight, she’ll still hug me in bed. I know she cares a lot about me and loves me, and I love her too. But I don’t want the issues to circle itself over and over. So what should I do?