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Problems that involve a girl
Hazardous_Health
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've been dating a girl for five years and I am completely in love with her. I can't imagine life without her and when I am with her I have moments of sheer bliss just from being near her. We're both 21, and pretty serious about one another. She wants to get married later in life and have kids and have pets and a house and have all of that with me and I partially feel that way.
It has nothing to do with her, that part I'm not questioning. If I was to have that kind of life with someone I most definitely would want it be with her. The problem is, is that I don't know if that really is the kind of life I want to lead. I think about wanting to travel and not being tied down to just one stationary place or being responsible for anyone but myself.
Another thing though is that she nags. She nags about my driving, if she thinks I'm being rude, or just small things that she doesn't think is nagging but I do. She asks me what are some ways she could go about telling me something annoys her or if I'm doing something she thinks is rude, (examples would be she doesn't like the way I always make right turns at red lights even if there isn't a sign around saying I can't, or when I snicker at getting a math problem right when the rest of the class is stalling, she thinks it could hurt people's feelings). Yet this annoys and hurts me to no end and makes me feel as though there isn't anything I can do to make her happy. She is also sometimes insensitive and thinks I'm being too sensitive sometimes to her comments. She says she doesn't mean them in harsh ways, but I want her to be more sensitive to me as well.
Through out our relationship, even though I love her and can't view life without her and don't want to, I feel like I don't know who I am anymore and think I should find myself again. I told her this and she was obviously hurt and thinks that I don't love her and that I'm with her so I won't be alone and that if that was important to me that I should leave her and do whatever it is that I have to do to like myself again because she doesn't want to hold me back. However, I don't want to lose this girl. I've experienced a great deal of positive change being with her and being with someone who cares about my future and made me care about my future, but at the same time, I feel as though I'm losing myself.
Do I break up with my girlfriend and go off to find myself? Or do I stay with her, work on our communication and find myself while being with her?
We're not looking to get married any time soon, so it's nothing like that. I just don't want to get married to her 10 years down the line and then find out I'm not happy where I am and leave her.
It has nothing to do with her, that part I'm not questioning. If I was to have that kind of life with someone I most definitely would want it be with her. The problem is, is that I don't know if that really is the kind of life I want to lead. I think about wanting to travel and not being tied down to just one stationary place or being responsible for anyone but myself.
Another thing though is that she nags. She nags about my driving, if she thinks I'm being rude, or just small things that she doesn't think is nagging but I do. She asks me what are some ways she could go about telling me something annoys her or if I'm doing something she thinks is rude, (examples would be she doesn't like the way I always make right turns at red lights even if there isn't a sign around saying I can't, or when I snicker at getting a math problem right when the rest of the class is stalling, she thinks it could hurt people's feelings). Yet this annoys and hurts me to no end and makes me feel as though there isn't anything I can do to make her happy. She is also sometimes insensitive and thinks I'm being too sensitive sometimes to her comments. She says she doesn't mean them in harsh ways, but I want her to be more sensitive to me as well.
Through out our relationship, even though I love her and can't view life without her and don't want to, I feel like I don't know who I am anymore and think I should find myself again. I told her this and she was obviously hurt and thinks that I don't love her and that I'm with her so I won't be alone and that if that was important to me that I should leave her and do whatever it is that I have to do to like myself again because she doesn't want to hold me back. However, I don't want to lose this girl. I've experienced a great deal of positive change being with her and being with someone who cares about my future and made me care about my future, but at the same time, I feel as though I'm losing myself.
Do I break up with my girlfriend and go off to find myself? Or do I stay with her, work on our communication and find myself while being with her?
We're not looking to get married any time soon, so it's nothing like that. I just don't want to get married to her 10 years down the line and then find out I'm not happy where I am and leave her.
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I really think you need to talk to her again. This time, emphasize that you really do love her, and explain to her that you're in a bit of a dilemma. How old are you? This is important. Young men usually don't like the idea of being tied down, having a family and all of that. As you get older, you could find yourself more receptive to the concept of marraige and children.
If your girlfriend cares about you as much as it sounds, she will at least try to understand where you're coming from. Make sure that, when bringing up topics like her "nagging," that you do not speak in an accusatory tone. It sounds cliche, but phrasing the sentence "I feel ____ when you do this," is much more easily received than "I wish you wouldn't _____." You also need to be sure that you listen to her when she responds. If at all possible, avoid raising your voice, because that's just going to make things worse; people stop thinking rationally when they start shouting.
So in short, I'd work on communication. If you still have trouble, perhaps consult a couple's counselor. The long and short of the matter is, nobody here can really tell you what to do just by reading a few paragraphs of the story from one person's point of view. Without understanding her point of view, it's very difficult to recommend any sort of drastic action. As a strong proponent of therapy and psychology in general, I think that a third party mediator without an emotional investment would be the best means of resolving this issue.
Most of all, do not try and hide these feelings. You need to be honest and up front with her, even if it hurts. Pushing these feelings away is only going to make things worse later.
Talk it out, but I think if you really love this girl, this feeling you have will pass.
You need to ask her to not nag on you, and you need to see if you can meet her halfway. If you do most of the driving, and she nags you, make her drive more often (and don't nag her). When you talk about these things, be up front and say that it's because you love spending time with her that you bring it up -- not because you're looking to leave.
It's easy to want a house/kids/pets because it's seen as "the norm" for an adult life. That doesn't mean it's for everyone, or that those who do get there do so at the same time. My wife's parents were married for some 6 years and went on vacations all around places before they had kids.
Hard to make a call on the nagging, honesty is actually a pretty decent find, and in one of the examples you provided you were being kind of douchey. Maybe you wish she was less naggy, maybe she wishes you were more considerate. You won't get much sympathy for getting called on your bullshit, even if it hurts your feelings. If she's playing you down in different ways, let's say cutting your abilites down in front of your friends, or mocking the way you do things, then sure, I can understand. But if you're being a bit of a prick and she's still letting you know, maybe you're letting your bruised ego cloud the shine on the gold you're sitting on there. Hard to say, its probably a mixture of things, so it would be difficult to pin anything down from here.
As far as commitment, sure, you can wander off in search of door number two. You picked this girl up before young adulthood, and it would be completely understandable to want to try other things and people and figure out how you fit into the world. No placeholder though. So when you go searching for Door Number 2, you get fucked if Door #1 is already the grand prize. There tends to be more doors and prizes, but not a one of them will be the same.
Oh and travelling as a couple is a hell of a lot of fun, provided your partner is also a very good friend.
I am in the unfortunate position of someone who has to nag. I love my husband, he's the best man in the world as far as I'm concerned, and he has two flaws:
1) He is sweet and wonderful to me, but I'm given to understand that before he met me he was pretty bitter, and he has a habit of being.. well.. mean sometimes. Not to me, but to other people, and maybe not so much mean as inconsiderate. I have found myself elbowing him in the ribs on occasion. He's not going to stop because I don't know that he gets what the big deal is, but if I tell him it bothers ME I can hope that he will try to at least do it less in my presence, and he usually does.
2) If I do not tell him to do something over and over and over and finally get exasperated and then a little mad, he probably won't do it. I'm not talking about cleaning out the cat box or doing the dishes or taking out the trash, although it comes up once in a while, but rather things like doing his taxes or cashing his paycheck. One day I got so tired of finding paychecks from 6 months ago lying around I physically dragged him to the bank by his pinky to set up direct debit. He doesn't always think to take care of himself.
While I'm sure he could find a girl who would happily let the IRS haul his ass away, and you could probably find a girl who would just let everyone in your math class think you're a giant douchenozzle rather than point out to you how irritating you're being, that's probably not really a good enough reason to call it quits.
The house-car-family thing might be though. How far off in the future is she thinking? You guys are still young. It sounds like she's probably mature enough to have this conversation with you without freaking out, and if that's the case my advice is that you talk to her about it, because that will give you the best idea of how you feel and where you two stand.
If she nags you about something and she's not just having a bad day, she probably feels it's important. Talk to her about whatever it is, tell her why you do what you do, and if she's insistent then try to compromise.
I'll agree with him that the first example about nagging you brought up(snickering at how 'easy' math is) is kinda of a douche thing to do.
Tell her how you feel and how you're not ready for all that stuff and you might be surprised at what you hear. Your OP is a little ambiguous as I'm not sure what you guys discussed, to me it sounds like you only told her that you feel like you've lost yourself excluding all the juicy bits.
To me, it seems like you are using her "nagging" (and I put that in quotes because it your examples suggest that they are situations that are a) easily avoided or b) situations where she's probably justified in calling you out) as a rationalization (at least, in part) for your disquiet about the relationship.
What? She's not justified. If he's allowed to turn at a red light, what's wrong with it? This warrants no nagging. How far must you go to always buy the peace?
If that's not the case, then yeah, she's nagging.
Turning on red lights? Why should this be sacrificed? What kind of explanation can go behind this?
You can't just make ridiculous demands without backup.
Yeah, that sounds shallow, but take it back a step. Usually people don't develop a singular "odd" thing that stands out like that, but rather have a host of limitations and rules that govern their own life -- rules that simply wouldn't mesh with my own. RToR is an incredibly minor thing by itself, but it doesn't make sense -- it's legal, it's usually safe (unsafe intersections typically disallow RToR), and not doing it is a great way to piss off drivers behind you. Which makes me think -- if she's weird about something as minor about a RToR when he is the one driving, what else is weird about her?
If you're actually committing moving violations, then yeah she's in the right and you're being a douche. I know a guy who runs red lights around baltimore all the time (he says they're "too long") and since he hasn't been pulled over he figures it's no problem. He's at least somewhat smart about it, and only does it when he's driving by himself, but it's still pretty idiotic.
Actually it is. It's incredibly foolish to judge a person entirely by their driving habits. I don't like driving at all. That must mean I'm a lazy fuck, right? Because I'm not allowed to have any quirks by your standards.
So if your wife doesn't like you turning left, you should always just turn right three times to reach the same point.
Understand that I get what you guys are saying, that love/marriage is about compromises and sacrifices, but they have to make some kind of logical sense. You can't just go around and making weird demands. And who's gotta make the sacrifice?
And this isn't just the red light thing. What about the math problem? He can't snicker because it'd be hurtful but she can nag him?
Obviously these are minor issues, so the OP shouldn't break up just for these. What he needs to do is sit down and talk about it like an adult. Relationships aren't just about compromises, they're also about communication. In fact, there should be a whole lot of it in any relationship.
That's not what he said. A passenger complaining about the driver breaking traffic laws isn't nagging at all, but complaining about a legal right turn on red is called just plain being wrong, unless he doesn't bother looking left first or something. RToR where not prohibited is legal in every US state with only the occasional exception like NYC.
That said, I wouldn't do it anytime where there is traffic.
However, we're drifting from the topic.
of the two nagging examples you provided, however, one is very dependent on the laws of where you live, while in the other, the nagging is justified. Snickering because you think you're better than the other people in your class is being a douche. You're not there to beat everyone else, you're there to pass the class for yourself. Snickering just makes everyone dislike you. Her pointing this out is not nagging.
No, it just means I wouldn't want to form a long-term, intimate, co-habitating relationship with you. Don't worry; I'm sure there's many reasons why it wouldn't work out between us.
It's really no different than someone who's irrational about living in a city, or some other element that's part of a larger "problem." I have a coworker who recently broke up with a boyfriend after they had moved in together. They moved into an apartment in the city, because she doesn't have a license (she's 24) and works near the apt. He's from the county, and believes that the city is a cesspool. So not only did it make him miserable, but he also held the driving thing over her head -- not even taking her to the grocery store or the pharmacy.
Needless to say, now that she's dumped the guy, her stories of how her new boyfriend is actually excited to drive her to a nice grocery store on the weekend have a certain charm to them.
But, you know, you can bring slippery slopes in if you want. I don't think that helps the OP though.
"Right turn on red" is kind of an alien concept, to me, given that we drive on the left over here. Over here there's no provision for "left turn on red" unless the intersection either includes a slip lane (in which case you give way to the cross traffic) or gives you a green left turn arrow. Anyway, that's beside the point, because she obviously feels she has a reason to bring it up - maybe it makes her feel unsafe? I'm not sure it's safe to assume she's just doing it to be pedantic.
It's not clear from the OP why she takes issue with it but it's something the OP should discuss with her.
I suppose I wasn't clear initially - I meant she was justified in calling the OP out in his behavior during math class. If I were in that class and some dude was snickering constantly because he was getting the work done quicker then I would definitely think he was a prick. If it were my partner doing the snickering then I'd be pretty embarrassed.
So what did you tell her?
I told her I didn't want her to change, but that I tried to give her examples on how better to tell me something.
We ultimately decided to work on our communication. I guess what spurred this freak out was that I had just watched American Beauty with her and I could see her doing the exact same thing the main character's wife did when they were on the couch making out (none of the other stuff though, but just being mindful of the sofa while holding a beer and making out). I just don't want to be like him. She said to me though was that his problem wasn't that he didn't live up his youth, but that he didn't control his present to being how he wanted it to be.
So we're just going to talk about it more and work on our communication. She doesn't want to get married till after we're both out of college and I started after her, so it wouldn't be till we're 24-26 somewhere in there. So she's not looking to do it quickly. She wants to make sure this is for real and not jump into anything and even after marriage she wants to have time to just be a married couple before even having kids.
Oh, to answer everyone's question, we're in Philadelphia.
I really hate it when people say "marriage/relationships are about compromise" and their solution is to do whatever the hell the other person wants you to, regardless of how silly it is.