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Girlfriend stressed, relationship strained
Lewisham
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi there,
I've been with my current girlfriend for 2 years now, 3 if you include a year when we were apart so that I can finish my degree, where we spoke every day on the phone.
Because she is from the US and I the UK, we moved to New Zealand so that we could be together. I love her very much, I know she loves me too, and we even discussed marriage just last week.
But she is stressed out. Either she's fine, or she's stressed out, and I get it. She is studying for her Masters, and keeps saying that it makes her so stressed and tired that it's been the worst year of her life, because she doesn't have the social structures she needs. She hasn't got any friends to vent with, and her family is not here. It's just her and I, and she feels isolated because of it.
The stress is compounded by the fact she has a neat freak personality, to the point now where I am not allowed to wash my own clothes or clean any part of the house because I do not do it in exactly the same methodology as her. She feels like she's babysitting me because I can't live up to, what I feel, are her insane standards around the house.
Today she ordered me to "Eat your lunch now" because she had to go somewhere in three hours, and I somehow was going to destroy the kitchen (making TOAST) and she couldn't relax unless she was there to clean it up. I told her that she could ask nicely, rather than making it an order, and she flipped out. She is on a knife-edge most of the time. I feel like I'm in a minefield, and, for the most part, I feel that when I am being given a choice on something, either choice is going to be the wrong one so she can shout at me and relieve the stress she gets elsewhere.
I understand the difficulty of being stressed, and I want to support her, but the only way she seems to be able to do it is by lashing out at me. I'm not an emotional punching bag or a shrinking violet, and I'm not prepared to be that person. Almost always I get angry when I feel like she is victimising me. This time, I just sat there and said nothing and ate my lunch. I've stopped caring. I no longer feel any responsibility towards making her feel happy, because I don't feel responsible for her being upset. I don't feel like anything I do is able to change it, and that what she needs is for me to take some more abuse. She's currently crying in the bedroom, and I can't even be bothered to go and see how she is, because I know all I'll get is to be told to fuck off and that I'm an asshole.
I love her very much, and 95% of the time I am very happy to be with her. It's this 5%, that constantly recurs, that is not my doing, and that even after we've discussed it and she even said she was going to get councelling, it comes up again and again and again. It doesn't feel like it will ever go away, and it makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel like we're not supposed to be together, and it makes me feel very scared about committing to anything. What's she going to be like if we have kids? Financial troubles? General stuff that happens in life? I don't feel like she can always rely on all these social structures she says she needs, if she can't function correctly (not necessarily deliriously happy, just not flipping out all the time) with just me, how can we be together for the rest of our lives? She seems to think that this is the hardest it will ever be, and I just don't think that's true.
She's mad herself so upset that she's now throwing up in the bathroom. I still don't care, because me requesting her to not order me around does not warrant that ending. I simply don't feel part of the cause and effect.
I've been with my current girlfriend for 2 years now, 3 if you include a year when we were apart so that I can finish my degree, where we spoke every day on the phone.
Because she is from the US and I the UK, we moved to New Zealand so that we could be together. I love her very much, I know she loves me too, and we even discussed marriage just last week.
But she is stressed out. Either she's fine, or she's stressed out, and I get it. She is studying for her Masters, and keeps saying that it makes her so stressed and tired that it's been the worst year of her life, because she doesn't have the social structures she needs. She hasn't got any friends to vent with, and her family is not here. It's just her and I, and she feels isolated because of it.
The stress is compounded by the fact she has a neat freak personality, to the point now where I am not allowed to wash my own clothes or clean any part of the house because I do not do it in exactly the same methodology as her. She feels like she's babysitting me because I can't live up to, what I feel, are her insane standards around the house.
Today she ordered me to "Eat your lunch now" because she had to go somewhere in three hours, and I somehow was going to destroy the kitchen (making TOAST) and she couldn't relax unless she was there to clean it up. I told her that she could ask nicely, rather than making it an order, and she flipped out. She is on a knife-edge most of the time. I feel like I'm in a minefield, and, for the most part, I feel that when I am being given a choice on something, either choice is going to be the wrong one so she can shout at me and relieve the stress she gets elsewhere.
I understand the difficulty of being stressed, and I want to support her, but the only way she seems to be able to do it is by lashing out at me. I'm not an emotional punching bag or a shrinking violet, and I'm not prepared to be that person. Almost always I get angry when I feel like she is victimising me. This time, I just sat there and said nothing and ate my lunch. I've stopped caring. I no longer feel any responsibility towards making her feel happy, because I don't feel responsible for her being upset. I don't feel like anything I do is able to change it, and that what she needs is for me to take some more abuse. She's currently crying in the bedroom, and I can't even be bothered to go and see how she is, because I know all I'll get is to be told to fuck off and that I'm an asshole.
I love her very much, and 95% of the time I am very happy to be with her. It's this 5%, that constantly recurs, that is not my doing, and that even after we've discussed it and she even said she was going to get councelling, it comes up again and again and again. It doesn't feel like it will ever go away, and it makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel like we're not supposed to be together, and it makes me feel very scared about committing to anything. What's she going to be like if we have kids? Financial troubles? General stuff that happens in life? I don't feel like she can always rely on all these social structures she says she needs, if she can't function correctly (not necessarily deliriously happy, just not flipping out all the time) with just me, how can we be together for the rest of our lives? She seems to think that this is the hardest it will ever be, and I just don't think that's true.
She's mad herself so upset that she's now throwing up in the bathroom. I still don't care, because me requesting her to not order me around does not warrant that ending. I simply don't feel part of the cause and effect.
Lewisham on
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This won't be what you want to hear, but you need to fix your perspective. If your partner is hurt, it doesn't matter whether you hurt her or somebody else hurt her or even if life as a whole is directly or indirectly painful, your function as a partner is to do what you can to heal that hurt. A relationship is mutual support structure, and if as you say she is so desperately affected by lacking other support structures, it means she will unconsciously try to get everything out of you. The best thing you can do, besides standing up and delivering, is get her some friends. Push her into some interest groups or something.
The other thing here is you say you're upset with 5% of the time in your relationship. You really think you can get 100%? Come on, that's unrealistic, you're damn lucky to have a 95% happy relationship. If you spend your life looking for perfection, you'll waste your life. Perfection does not exist within the human condition, it's a myth created by religion and philosophy to provide a terminology for a state that exists beyond human attainability.
Sometimes, but this can also be an indicator that you're on the slippery slope right into codependency. As the best lawyer I've ever known told me, "reasonable people can still disagree." Two eminently reasonable people can disagree on how clean a house should be, for example, and this sort of thing is where you should compromise in a relationship. When it goes beyond reasonableness and into neurosis, then the best way to "heal that hurt" might be to recommend an attitude or perspective adjustment.
No, perfection does not exist in any relationship. However, you should be looking for progress. If you don't see it, this is a big problem. Are her issues getting worse, better, or staying the same? If they're not getting better, then ask yourself "why?" Is it situational - do you think they'll ease when she gets through this rough patch with her Masters and being far from home? Or do you think this is indicative of a more endemic pattern, and something else will fill the 'stress void' left after this phase of life is over (and there always are things to stress a person out)?
Seeing a therapist is not a bad idea, it can help you get these feelings out in the open, and it can help to kickstart someone out of a rut. Sometimes. Or sometimes that person is stuck. I think you're right to be concerned; these issues don't often go away entirely on their own, and they don't get easier once you're in a (more) committed state.
A very wise man once said the opposite of love isn't hatred it's apathy. If you lack all those feelings you need to really realise whether or not you Love her or you just think you do.
At the very least you need to sit down and get her some counciling or at the very least get her to sit down and make her realise that she can't control the world and that it doesn't always need to be perfect. Bread saga is a perfect example of things that don't need to be perfect.
Satans..... hints.....
Agreed, halfway through the OPs post, I was thinking "OCD" first and foremost.
You seem to care about her, but not her "moods" or some such. It's always important to understand when to show empathy, and when to help her move forward, But you need to know where and why her emotions (aside from the standard box 'o' emotion) are coming from.
Has she ever been diagnosed with an behavioral disorders? Have you?
If the only problem is her being a "psycho neat freak x1000" I'd say try to work through that will all means available.
Thanks for the advice, I think councelling is a good idea. I will look into it.
Sorry about a not very detailed response, it's a bit raw for me to process right now.