Feeling lost

LegacyUser

The last few weeks with my girlfriend haven't been great, all coming to a head 2 weeks ago. She's a college student with a heavy workload and a job. We were planning a weekend together, and went about it...and it went horribly wrong within the first few hours. Her attitude the night before had been excitement, but on the first day she was completely sour and miserable for no reason (she had even clarified there was no reason at all). To make matters worse, she took it out on me something awful, I was ignored, abandoned and left feeling crappy, only to receive a text a few minutes later apologising for what had happened. At this point I was confused, but put it down to maybe her just feeling down and acting up. The following day, things went a little better and we managed to have a fun time, and then evening came, and she became distant. She had a headache and went to bed, I followed her after cleaning up, and she was asleep. The next morning she spent most of her time on her phone, refusing to address the elephant in the room, so I just gave up and we went our separate ways. Ever since then she's been hot & cold, one minute she's excited for our plans and the next she's ignoring me, or being short with me, or taking out her problems on me. I honestly don't know how to feel, I love her and I want to be with her, but some days just wear me down and I can't cope. I feel like I'm either the punching bag or the problem, despite all the apologies and the blame she's placing on herself, things aren't getting any better. I don't know how to deal with this, and I'm angry at myself because sometimes I feel like I'm being selfish, but I can't see any reason for her to be acting like this.

Matteroffact

This isn't good enough OP. You do not deserve treatment like this. The only explanation I can think of is that she is not that into you and I don't mean to be harsh. A good relationship should not feel like this. If you cannot get satisfactory answers by chatting to her about how you feel then I would call it a day.

berger89

it could be stress? like you say, she's in college and works. i know i would have been super cranky at times when I was in college..I wouldn't mean to be.
the littlest things would frustrate me, but id take it out on the ones closest to me, like my parents or my best friend.

so maybe she doesn't know what she wants? maybe she needs her own space for a little bit because of college.
don't get me wrong..you sound like a lovely bf, but maybe you need to sit down with her and discuss it..see whats going on in her head

tinz18

Hi OP, It sounds like me when I take on too much and get over-stressed- I suffer from anxiety so I can have some major highs and lows. When low, I get down and just want to burrow under the duvet and make the world go away. If myself and my boyfriend have something planned for the weekend during this time I drag myself along through the motions and feel guilty for ruining what was meant to be a fun weekend. Add my boyfriend constantly asking if I'm okay (which is the nice thing to do) it can drive me further down into the guilt spiral because a lot of times there's no reason or trigger for the down- it just is what it is. If she suffers from migraines (that headache could be a migraine) it could be worth going to a doctor as it can affect mood too- I get highly irritable before and after a migraine. Has she talked to her counselors at college? They might help with the stress, although working while trying to do any intense course can take it out of even the most happy-go-lucky person.

LegacyUser

OP here, sorry for the huge delay, things have been a bit all over the place lately.

Anyway, we had a chat, in fact, more than one about this whole thing. She's going through stress with college, and I she does get migraines, as do I and many I know so I know how bad they can get. I really had to push with this one because it seemed like she didn't know which way was up, and after a while she realised that the stress was self-imposed. It's frustrating because no matter what I do, she seems to bury herself - unnecessarily - in her work and she can't turn it off at all. She's currently talking to a councilor and while a lot of the problems are gone, a few more are left and I'm still unsure as to what to do. It just seems like she overworks and has her expectations set far too high, to the point where it's effecting her health as she's continually stressing. She's considering taking a GP visit to discuss her options, and I know I'm not in the same position as her so I can't fully understand what she's going through, but it just feels like she's obsessed with some bigger goal and right now she just doesn't seem able for it, mentally I mean. It's all she ever talks about at this point and even though I try to reassure her, she just ignores or gets sort of passive aggressive towards me. I want to help, somehow, but it really feels like there's no room in her life for me if she can't put aside a weekend or even a day without talking about college.

tinz18

OP- just a pointer and sorry if it comes across as harsh but I've been where your girlfriend is (and I'm aware was lucky to have a patient boyfriend). You seem to be taking it on yourself to help "fix" her (my boyfriend does the same with me so don't feel bad- its a guy thing). The way how girls deal with things is they talk- they don't always want solutions, they just want to get the thoughts out there. It can be highly aggravating having someone tell you "sure if you only do this you'll be fine" especially when you suffer from anxiety and a lot of the time you can't figure out what's causing it- it might not be college work. In my case I was using work as a bandaid i.e. I buried myself in work so as not to deal with how my personal life and ideals were crashing down around me- as long as I was performing well in work I had something to feel good about myself.

The overworking and high expectations will be dealt with in due time during counselling, you seem to believe counselling is a systematic approach to stress issues- its not. Most sessions revolve around the patient who could ramble about something trivial one day and a serious traumatic incident the next (in my personal experience). It will take time, for some of us its six months, for my friend she's a year at it and still has things to deal with.

It's up to you to decide how long you are willing to wait. Also people talk about what happens in her life, if she's buried in college work of course all she'll talk about college- what else is there? Same way I talk about college and my boyfriend talks about work all the time. Maybe rather than adding extra pressure for her to talk about something else maybe encourage her to take a night off and go out with her girlfriends- then you'd have something else to talk about?

LegacyUser

tinz18 wrote: »

OP- just a pointer and sorry if it comes across as harsh but I've been where your girlfriend is (and I'm aware was lucky to have a patient boyfriend). You seem to be taking it on yourself to help "fix" her (my boyfriend does the same with me so don't feel bad- its a guy thing). The way how girls deal with things is they talk- they don't always want solutions, they just want to get the thoughts out there. It can be highly aggravating having someone tell you "sure if you only do this you'll be fine" especially when you suffer from anxiety and a lot of the time you can't figure out what's causing it- it might not be college work. In my case I was using work as a bandaid i.e. I buried myself in work so as not to deal with how my personal life and ideals were crashing down around me- as long as I was performing well in work I had something to feel good about myself.

The overworking and high expectations will be dealt with in due time during counselling, you seem to believe counselling is a systematic approach to stress issues- its not. Most sessions revolve around the patient who could ramble about something trivial one day and a serious traumatic incident the next (in my personal experience). It will take time, for some of us its six months, for my friend she's a year at it and still has things to deal with.

It's up to you to decide how long you are willing to wait. Also people talk about what happens in her life, if she's buried in college work of course all she'll talk about college- what else is there? Same way I talk about college and my boyfriend talks about work all the time. Maybe rather than adding extra pressure for her to talk about something else maybe encourage her to take a night off and go out with her girlfriends- then you'd have something else to talk about?

Well, as it stands, all I ever do is tell her it's going to be ok. I don't have a reference point for what she's doing so I can't tell her what she could do, just a general 'it's going to be fine' or 'maybe talk to the councilor about it' when things get rough (this usually results in annoyance regardless). I listen as much as I can but when the problems are literally always the same, even when she's had her anxieties proven wrong, there's only so long I can listen knowing that it'll just be the same thing again when this crisis is over, especially when we've plans and she can't relax, making me feel like I'm a problem.

I'm well aware of how counselling works, I've been there, but this is not her first session and it's been a total of maybe, on and off, two years going into a third and it isn't helping with any of the serious issues. It usually goes stress -> panic attack -> depression -> passive aggressive displaced anger and repeat, and it's not getting any better the harder she pushes herself, and that's the root issue. I can listen for hours, and I'll hear the same thing consistently, but it's getting worse by the day and I try to make sure she knows that I've no issue with her needing to do college work or her job but despite all of that, I receive all the anger and this has really started getting bad.

I don't 'add pressure', I simply try to talk about things that interest the two of us, topics that we both enjoy, but she can't seem to tear herself away from even thinking about her work and it's frustrating when she buries herself in her phone to avoid even the slightest of issues. At some point, much like it was with me, she has to accept that counselling is only half the battle and that she has to make positive life changes. At present, what you're suggesting is my lack of understanding being the problem - that's not the case. I've been where she is, I figured out that I was the problem and I took steps to help myself coupled with the counselling. She goes out with her friends, I encourage it, but if she does have a good night I'm just informed of that, I get maybe two sentences and we're back to uncomfortable college/work 'talk' (as you've put it, I've to listen...and basically that means it's going to be constant, one-way communication).

Tiddlypeeps

If she is treating you bad a large percentage of the time and is making no progress in changing this, even with the counselling, then you shouldn't feel bad for not wanting to put up with it indefinitely. It sounds like you think leaving her at this point would make you a bad person because she is at least in some way trying to work through her issues. It wouldn't make you a bad person at all. Her hot and cold temperament sounds head melting and there is only so much a person can take.

LegacyUser

Feelingselfish wrote: »

I've been where she is, I figured out that I was the problem and I took steps to help myself coupled with the counselling. She goes out with her friends, I encourage it, but if she does have a good night I'm just informed of that, I get maybe two sentences and we're back to uncomfortable college/work 'talk' (as you've put it, I've to listen...and basically that means it's going to be constant, one-way communication).

How long have you been going out with her? Has the relationship been always like this or just recently?
Maybe you need to take a step back and give her some space or take a complete break from each other, its seems like the relationship is very one sided, you are getting all the flak and the bad moods at the moment. As another poster said there is only so much negative behaviour and moodiness one can tolerate and from reading your posts she is using you as her emotional punchbag and thats not fair on you. All relationships go through ups and downs, and people argue and have fights etc but in this case you seem to getting the worst of it. You go away for a romantic weekend and it was ruined because she was in bad form for the whole lot of it.

keane2097

It strikes me that very few OPs in these threads ever ask themselves what they think they are getting out of these relationships they are in.