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My girlfriend is Cinderella and it is stressing me out.
Forbe!
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Well, I've been thinking about posting a thread about this for a few weeks, and things have finally came to a head, so I did. My girlfriend is Cinderella (lets stick with this name for the sake of continuity). She is my best friend. She is a wonderful person. But her mother treats her like a house maid and she just takes it.
A little background information:
My girlfriend and I have been dating for approximately four years. For most of the duration of the relationship, we have been long distance. We met shortly after we both graduated high school. She lives roughly 45 minutes away from me in the Chicago suburbs. After we started dating for a few months, she decided to go to school in Iowa, while I attended a community college near my parents house. She ended up moving back because she didn't like the school, and things were good again. This period was probably the best our relationship has ever been. Well, the following summer, I ended up working a seasonal job in Northern Minnesota, and was away for two months, after which I went away to school in Southern Illinois. While I was in Minnesota, she cheated on me, we had a bit of a rough spot but we got back together and things were good again. Cinderella came and visited me a few times a semester/I visited her. The little bit of time we had together was amazing and things stayed stable. The next summer, she came and worked with me up in Minnesota, where we saw each other at least every other day, and shared our one day off a week together. It was awesome. I ended up going back to school, and she stayed at home to continue going to school.
Her mother is a bit insane. I mean, based upon what I've seen of her/Cinderella tells me about her mother, she has to be bi-polar or manic. She is the most irrational woman I have ever met, and has fits of rage which often end in violence. In the most recent incident, Cinderella made a simple suggestion about something to her mother, in which her mother replied with throwing a doll house at her and telling her to 'Get the fuck out of my house'. This is about par for her behavior lately. Cinderella's stepfather has had two heart attacks, which were both triggered during her fits of rage.
What gets me is, Cinderella simply sits back and takes it. She doesn't try to do anything, and her stepfather doesn't do anything about her mother either. Cinderella was going to visit me two weeks ago (for the first time this semester) and her mother, who knew she was leaving, left her with her little sister (who is three years old), and didn't come back until night. Her stepfather left as well. He also knew she was coming down. The reason I am posting this now is, because after I came back from school today, she messaged me about how her mother isn't letting her eat dinner until she figures out what animal/thing is attacking her tree in the front yard. She is blocking the fridge until she figures it out. Honestly.
About two months ago I had a bit of mental breakdown. I've always had a little bit of an anxiety problem, but never this bad. I wouldn't leave my bed, I would just sleep all day. I wouldn't eat. I would just sit in my bed, feeling like I needed to cry but being unable to. I went to the doctor, and my blood pressure was so high he was going to hospitalize me. I ended up getting put on medication for it, and was sent to a counselor to talk about what could be bothering me. I've been seeing the same counselor every week for the past two months. We talked about little things that bothered me, but after the first session, we started talking about my girlfriend, and that is all she ever asks me about now, I guess the counselor thinks that is the problem.
I want this relationship to continue, but I feel as though we have been stuck at the same level for the past three years. After the first year of feeling like the relationship is fresh, it just sank into this. I don't think our relationship will grow at all without her becoming independent of her mother. I need to see her, and given the nature of my major, I am unable to visit her. It hurts me that Cinderella lets her mother treat her like that.
I don't know what to do. I pretty much just get passive aggressive with her every time she complains to me about her mother, which I never used to do. I feel like this relationship is going rancid, and I'm on the verge of another break down because of it. How do I get through to her? I feel like it is useless. I don't know if I am simply being too controlling or what...
TL;DR
My girlfriend is awesome, her mother is insane. Her mother is so controlling of her that it effects the relationship to the point where it is stressing me out. I can't handle it anymore.
A little background information:
My girlfriend and I have been dating for approximately four years. For most of the duration of the relationship, we have been long distance. We met shortly after we both graduated high school. She lives roughly 45 minutes away from me in the Chicago suburbs. After we started dating for a few months, she decided to go to school in Iowa, while I attended a community college near my parents house. She ended up moving back because she didn't like the school, and things were good again. This period was probably the best our relationship has ever been. Well, the following summer, I ended up working a seasonal job in Northern Minnesota, and was away for two months, after which I went away to school in Southern Illinois. While I was in Minnesota, she cheated on me, we had a bit of a rough spot but we got back together and things were good again. Cinderella came and visited me a few times a semester/I visited her. The little bit of time we had together was amazing and things stayed stable. The next summer, she came and worked with me up in Minnesota, where we saw each other at least every other day, and shared our one day off a week together. It was awesome. I ended up going back to school, and she stayed at home to continue going to school.
Her mother is a bit insane. I mean, based upon what I've seen of her/Cinderella tells me about her mother, she has to be bi-polar or manic. She is the most irrational woman I have ever met, and has fits of rage which often end in violence. In the most recent incident, Cinderella made a simple suggestion about something to her mother, in which her mother replied with throwing a doll house at her and telling her to 'Get the fuck out of my house'. This is about par for her behavior lately. Cinderella's stepfather has had two heart attacks, which were both triggered during her fits of rage.
What gets me is, Cinderella simply sits back and takes it. She doesn't try to do anything, and her stepfather doesn't do anything about her mother either. Cinderella was going to visit me two weeks ago (for the first time this semester) and her mother, who knew she was leaving, left her with her little sister (who is three years old), and didn't come back until night. Her stepfather left as well. He also knew she was coming down. The reason I am posting this now is, because after I came back from school today, she messaged me about how her mother isn't letting her eat dinner until she figures out what animal/thing is attacking her tree in the front yard. She is blocking the fridge until she figures it out. Honestly.
About two months ago I had a bit of mental breakdown. I've always had a little bit of an anxiety problem, but never this bad. I wouldn't leave my bed, I would just sleep all day. I wouldn't eat. I would just sit in my bed, feeling like I needed to cry but being unable to. I went to the doctor, and my blood pressure was so high he was going to hospitalize me. I ended up getting put on medication for it, and was sent to a counselor to talk about what could be bothering me. I've been seeing the same counselor every week for the past two months. We talked about little things that bothered me, but after the first session, we started talking about my girlfriend, and that is all she ever asks me about now, I guess the counselor thinks that is the problem.
I want this relationship to continue, but I feel as though we have been stuck at the same level for the past three years. After the first year of feeling like the relationship is fresh, it just sank into this. I don't think our relationship will grow at all without her becoming independent of her mother. I need to see her, and given the nature of my major, I am unable to visit her. It hurts me that Cinderella lets her mother treat her like that.
I don't know what to do. I pretty much just get passive aggressive with her every time she complains to me about her mother, which I never used to do. I feel like this relationship is going rancid, and I'm on the verge of another break down because of it. How do I get through to her? I feel like it is useless. I don't know if I am simply being too controlling or what...
TL;DR
My girlfriend is awesome, her mother is insane. Her mother is so controlling of her that it effects the relationship to the point where it is stressing me out. I can't handle it anymore.
Forbe! on
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Just so you know, crazy family is a totally justified reason for ending a relationship if it affects your relationship. Not only is this obviously negatively affecting your relationship, it's stressing you out pretty significantly. Maybe it's time you take a break. It doesn't necessarily have to be forever, but just enough time to get your head on straight. Give yourself a few months and see where you want to go from there.
5 fuckin sisters that rode her around like a damn donkey and wrecked her shit when she had the kindness to let them borrow / take them
his solution?
he married her.
married for 3 years and ive never seen a happier couple in my life. they own a small business together and work side by side evreyday.
there are perks to marrying your best friend.
Can your Cinderella move out with friends or something? If she really hates her home-life then she needs to do something about it. You can talk to her about it and whatever, but in the end it's gotta be her decision. You don't want to be in the middle of 'ruining her relationship' with her mother. You might not think it's a good one, but it's still something.
If it were me, I'd just straight up say that I'm not interested in hearing about the latest thing her mother did or anything until she took steps to resolve it for real reals.
Also if you're really breaking down mentally because of the relationship (and not because of other reasons) then you need to end it until you're stable enough to insulate yourself or she has her situation sorted out.
Mentally, she still seems to be that person. She no longer lives with her mother obviously, but something in her.. well.. wants to please through housework. I've never met anyone more self-sufficient than this woman, but man is she freaking crazy.
I don't necessarily have advice, because your girlfriend is just going to deal with it how she deals with it. It's her family dynamic, and you can't change that. She's gotta do it, and if you try to come between the two of them in any obvious way you could cause way more drama than it's worth and make things very difficult on her, especially if she feels like she needs to choose between you.
I will say that you should be doing everything you can to make your therapy sessions about you. If you do determine that the relationship (for whatever reason) is the cause of your stress, then that's something you'll need to address one way or the other.
All I can say is their relationship won't change. The mother clearly has a severe mental disorder and there is no fix or cure for it. She is always going to be a psychopathic raving lunatic that makes your girlfriends life hell. Even if your gf did want to stand up to her and say "stop treating me like shit" it would likely make things worse because the mother doesn't have the capacity to deal with things rationally.
So my advice? There is one thing and one thing only that you can do. Get the hell outta dodge. Even if your gf has to get two jobs even drop out of school for a while until she can afford to put herself through school she needs to get out of there and get her own place. My gf did this and she was a million times happier, and I was happier too because she was happier and I didn't feel like such a useless sack of shit for not being able to help her with her horrible mother.
Sounds like you need to decide if you want to make a run of this or not.
If you want to be with the girl - you probably know if you want to be with her permanently - if so, get her out of the situation and make her an honest woman.
If you don't want to deal with the family just get rid of all of them.
Time to man up?
FIGHT: If this Cinderella of yours is amazing, and special, and worth the crazy-ass domineer psycho-bitch-she-demon from Hell of a mother, then make a stand and do everything in your power to get your gf out of that situation cause what I'm getting from your OP is that she can't do it herself. She needs help. so if she's worth it, fight for her.
FLIGHT: If the good things of Cinderella outweight all the bad, crazy-ass shit going on with her family life, then revert into "Fight" mode. If they don't and having to deal with aforementioned shit is going to drive you into an early grave because of high blood pressure then for the the love of all that remains holy in this insane universe: get the fuck out!
But it takes time. It wasn't until my dad was in his 40's when he finally let go and said "if you want to be nice, i'll be nice. If you're going to keep acting like this, I want no part of it."
Its a difficult thing- just be their for the girl as this goes on.
I called her back and before I said anything she said, essentially:
That she was sorry for always ignoring my advice, and making false promises when it came to leaving her house. She said she was sorry that she made me listen to her complain about things without being there for me when I needed it. She said she spent the day looking for an apartment and found a good one in a good neighborhood, and talked to a financial consultant about what she can do in terms of school loans and personal loans. She said no matter what she will not be living with her family by next semester.
Hopefully she will follow through with it. It means she only has about two months of living there until we both head off to Minnesota for another summer.
Thanks for the advice.
Thats good to hear. No one should have to put up with a raving lunatic. Believe me, I know. Having a parent who has PTSD from vietnam? Yea...
Good luck and treat her right.