I'm still looking for answers

[BrightlyBlazing]

I'm a grad student and lesbian. About 14 months ago I met an amazing undergraduate senior (also a lesbian) with whom I had a lot in common, and we really hit it off. We became friends at first, and then grew closer over the year, watching shows and movies together, and I helped her with homework a lot and encouraged her to go to grad school, and in February I let her know that I had developed deep feelings for her and asked her out. She turned me down. Oddly, though, it seemed to bring us closer. She started telling me about her interest in a mutual friend. I encouraged her to pursue it, because it seemed like a good fit for her and she really, really cared about the other girl, maybe loved her, who also seemed interested. But she was turned down.

 

We got through the next month or so together as friends, and then dealt with a very personal and emotional loss together (deeper loss for her than for me, but it also affected me deeply). She started a new job (which was hard for her, because she has deep social anxiety issues), and I helped her to face that. We started joking that we were an amazing team, a duo that could handle anything together. Best Friends.

 

I was trying to get over her. I went on dates, I flirted with girls, but I didn't want anyone but her. But it was miserable dating, and one time she asked why going on dates with people never made me happy and I told her 'it wasn't the person I wanted to be with.' She cuddled me and watched our favorite show with me.

 

I was resigned and accepting of the fact that we were only going to be best friends, and I was cool with that. But one day as we were both working on final papers together, she suddenly started initiating affection with me. When I asked her what was going on, she said she was interested in dating. A week later I was standing in front of my class (I was a TA) and introducing my 'girlfriend' to them (she was listening to the lecture.)

 

The first month of our relationship was amazing. Just really the happiest I have ever been in my life. We were both doing final papers but we spent pretty much all day together otherwise. We were working together on research projects and helping each other stay sane with finals stress and studying around the clock but we were also extremely affectionate and romantic. We were sleeping together (I discovered that I really love being big spoon for the first time in my life) and making schedules together -- I've lived with girlfriends before, but this was intimacy and partnership on a whole other level and I loved it. At times I needed a little time to myself so I would relax quietly with a game or book or show while she studied, or she would do the same, but the energy of interest and connectivity was strong and ... I felt at home with her. She said the same.

 

I said and suggested nothing of the future during this time. I was happy living in the present. Because I'd had feelings for her for so long and didn't want to hide them I asked if it was okay if I said 'I love you,' and she said it was fine, that it made her feel happy and that she'd known for months. She also knew what I wanted out of the future, that I wanted to get married, have a nice house with lots of space and minimal furniture, have a dog and go on fancy vacations with my wife, eventually have kids ... but I didn't bring any of that up during the first month. I didn't want to rush things and screw them up. I wanted this one to work, so I didn't talk about the future -- unless she brought it up.

 

And ... she brought it up A LOT. But she said and did conflicting and confusing things -- she said 'I want to take things' slow (which I said I fully supported, because I loved her and I wanted to get it right), and didn't want to have sex 'yet' (which I was totally cool with), and wasn't ready to say 'I love you' (which, again, I said was completely cool and that I wasn't in any rush and she could take her time because I wasn't going anywhere) but on the other hand she was sending me pictures of houses and asking me if we could live there, and asking me if we'd have dogs, and if our life together in those houses would be like x, y, and z. Because I loved her so much and because we were so happy, I ... didn't think to slow ~her~ down, so I'd respond and say 'that sound wonderful,' 'yes, me too,' 'gosh, I'd love that.' She was a little intense that first month, but I didn't think anything of it because I was ~so happy.~

 

We'd talked before getting together about how important communication and honesty was to a relationship, and we made a great team, and we relied upon each other and trusted each other and we faced our days together (even when we were completely busy with our separate lives and projects and classes) and sent each other encouraging messages and flirts and then at the end of every day she went and hung out with her friends for a bit and I hung out with mine or did grading or something else before we got together to unwind, vent/talk, maybe watch something together, make out, and go to sleep. I figured -- we were ideal. Goals. We could handle anything that came our way.

 

After the end of the semester, though, things began to change. She moved home officially to stay with her family but we kept our nightly sleeping-together rituals intact via long distance. Our night time ritual became very important to her, as it was the time of day when she had me all to herself and she could share some of her favorite shows with me and be affectionate before we went to bed. Because it was important to her it became important to me too. We weren't spending as much time together, but that was fine with me -- I encouraged her to do summer things, like hanging out with family and friends and her dog and taking time off before grad school started in the fall.

 

We still didn't have any official plans together, beyond me moving to where she and her family lived sometime 'soon,' but her daydreaming about the future kept ramping up. She wanted to talk kids names and decorating schemes (for our eventual house) and ... I didn't slow her down. I didn't ask her to wait until she was sure. I just... I bought in. I'd never fallen in love with 'my best friend' before, and I just sorta figured that when you've known someone for a while before you get together, this sort of thing must just naturally happen.

 

But even though she was still making daydream plans for our future (which I kept telling her sounded wonderful and amazing and was completely on board for), emotional distance began to creep into our relationship. The sense of connectedness that we'd shared in the first month began to fade away. She didn't kiss me as much anymore, or make out with me, or reach for my hand, or cuddle me. I noticed the drop in intimacy and was a little concerned about it happening so early in the second month of our relationship, but I decided to follow her lead and let her set the pace (as I had been doing all along.) She'd been in relationships before that she'd complained had become all about the physical at a certain point, and even though we weren't having sex I didn't want to make her feel rushed, or pressured, so I met her at her level of intimacy for a while, but as it kept dropping I started doing more and more of the intimacy work for us, initiating conversations with deep questions and encouraging her to tell me stories about her childhood and her past (I already knew a bunch, but I figured the more we talked to each other the healthier our intimacy would be), but she stopped being very interested in those conversations and more absorbed in ... reality tv, and lying on the couch, cuddling her dog, sleeping a lot more.

 

It seemed like she might be a little depressed, so I encouraged her to go out, hang with friends, stick to her exercise routine, and I took her on a few really fancy dates -- trips to museums, a movie, tour of where I lived, fancy dinner and movie, etc -- while also enjoying our casual cuddle time and gaming/show watching at home. We'd made a big to-do of exchanging favorite shirts with each other and wearing them whenever we wanted to feel closer to each other. We planned to cook dinners together in the future and went to sleep together every night.

 

Nothing I could do seemed to reverse the intimacy decay, though. Though we acted like a perfectly happy couple, and I WAS happy, I was worried that she didn't seem to want to be intimate with me as she had once been. I encouraged her to think of places she'd like to take me, things she wanted to show me, but she never did. I encouraged her to work on actually planning the house she wanted, but that didn't materialize either. We had planned to play a bunch of WoW together over the break, but after one or two gaming sessions (we had problem getting voice chat to work b/c I didn't have a microphone at first and hers didn't seem to work initially) she seemed to lose interest in that as well. We were spending less and less time together, and less and less of it was ... well, intimate.

 

I didn't know what was going on -- was it us, was it post-graduation blues, was she having problems with her family? A couple of times I checked in with her -- was she happy, was I meeting her emotional needs, did she need me to do anything differently, or stop doing something? Was anything in her life getting her down? She said I was PERFECT. That she'd never been happier. I was meeting all of her emotional needs. She was just a little down, but she'd bounce back. I listened to her and trusted her.

 

At the 3 month mark, her daydreaming about the future reached its peak. After going to the doctor one day (routine checkup) I came home and she was delighted to hear that I was healthy and told me that she wanted me to live a long and happy life -- with her. I was overjoyed (albeit surprised) by the declaration and told her I wanted the exact same with her. It'd been 3 months, and based on what she was saying I kept attributing our lowered intimacy to her feeling depressed. And partly I worried that she might be worried about giving her heart away to someone who wasn't proposing marriage and babies with her all the time, so I kept being very loving and tender and affectionate and made big plans for her coming birthday and every time she mentioned the future I told her that I couldn't wait and that I was so happy. She'd told me she loved me a few times in passing, but that she wasn't ready 'to say it' like I did, and I wasn't pushing her. We still weren't having sex but we were talking about it a lot and how much she was looking forward to it with me. Her parents didn't know that I, the girlfriend, existed -- but I wasn't too worried about that yet either. Coming out as a girl in a committed relationship with another girl happens slowly when you're part of a conservative family. I wasn't pressing her for commitments or plans -- just enjoying the ride. But I was tantalized about what she was saying about the future. I ... had really started to believe that it was what she wanted, and even though I had never meant to, I started banking on it - hard. As we hit three months I started to think 'maybe it's time to think about moving in a few more months' time.'

 

I started mentioning looking at apartments together. For us. Instead of keeping some of her stuff at home and her sleeping over at my place, we'd get an apartment big enough for two -- and a dog. I started looking at listings on line and found a few prospects near her home, and she asked me a couple times about what I'd found out and I suggested we look together sometime (she seemed open to it, but never brought it up again.)

 

But the emotional/intimacy distancing kept getting worse. She was obsessing over her big family vacation (I, as the gay girlfriend, was not and would never be invited to because she knew that if she brought me along to the big extended family vacation that she and her parents would be disowned from the family), and I figured she was just super excited about that and distant, but then she almost forgot my birthday and I started getting scared. She started getting mildly annoyed when I was around as well. But on my birthday (at 1am the next morning actually) she told me (again) that I was the best girlfriend ever and that she was so happy and she looked forward to many more birthdays with me in the future. I told her the same.

 

When she went on her big vacation, I told her she didn't need to worry about me, that she should just go off and have fun and I'd see her when she got back, but she said that was nonsense, that she wanted to chat with me on skype all day and watch stuff together online at night. I told her she really didn't need to do that, but that if she wanted to -- I'd love to, so I made plans with friends to do stuff during the day and looked forward to late evenings with my girl. But while she was on vacation, none of that happened. She was too busy. We barely talked. We watched nothing together. I told her not to worry about it, to just focus on having fun and I'd see her when she got back, and I gave her a lot of space.

 

She had a really amazing time on vacation. But for some reason it depressed her and made her miserable too. The few times we talked she seemed more annoyed by me than anything, and overwhelmed by being around so many people, so when she got back from vacation I tried to give her some space and some alone time to recharge her batteries. But aside from a single afternoon, she wouldn't take it.

 

She was lifeless and flat after the vacation. All she wanted to do was play a video game alone and occassionally watch TV with me out of the corner of her eye. She shared some affection with me, but it always had the air of obligation about it - like something she was doing but didn't really want to do. We had one 'passionate' make out session that felt ... almost clinical, on her end. I kept trying to reignite her passion by being sexy with her (sexy snapchats and lingerie), but she'd just tell me how beautiful I was, and the topic would move on. My instincts were telling me to panic, but whenever I asked 'are you happy, baby?' 'are you down about vacation being over?' 'are you sure you don't need a little space?' 'am I doing anything that's annoying you?' she'd say that she was fine, that she was happy with me, that she was just a little down about vacation being over and overwhelmed by too many people, that I wasn't doing anything and that if I was she would tell me. And although my instincts were in panic mode, I chose to trust her, but I also voluntarily gave her more space, getting more involved in my work and spending more time with my friends so that she wouldn't feel pressured by me just 'being around.' And I ... just kept trusting her, despite my instincts.

 

After all she was my best friend, right? We were a team. She wanted that big future together. She was still talking about it! Making plans. Asking me about the apartments. I started coming up with a plan for us moving in together in a few months, getting a dog, and going on vacation together to a convention she wanted to go to later that year -- and was getting ready to surprise her with it. She kept saying that in our future she'd do this with me, or that with me. And I held on to that. I kept using intimacy conversation starters to try and kick start conversations. She'd talk to me all day about her favorite shows, or politics, or the news, but trying to get her to have a deep conversation with me was almost impossible anymore. But she also started doing and saying things that scared me too. She started missing or hinting at missing our evening couple time before bed -- which had once been so important to her -- I tried to remind her that it was important time, but she consistently deprioritized it, playing games until sleep time or just falling asleep early. She refused to let me look at her computer and try to fix the problems it was having (I'm a bit of an IT savant and I'd done it before.) She started talking about how her friend had just ended a 3 month relationship and that the girl she'd been dating was acting obsessively and clingy afterwards. She started saying (a few times) that if I ever wanted to do 'X' with her sexually or romantically, we were done. (I never did, but...) It just felt to me like she was prepping to let me go. And yet at the same time telling me she loved me with all of her heart (unprompted, after I told her I loved her one day) and that she was happy, and that she couldn't wait to spend the rest of her life with me and come home to me every day.

 

On her 22nd birthday, I gave her the big birthday package I'd been working on for months: a couple of bad love poems and a fanfiction dedicated to her. She loved being my muse -- or so she'd once said -- and I was excited to show her just how deeply she'd inspired me. She was so deeply touched and happy. Two days later she told me she loved me with all her heart. A day after that (3 weeks after my birthday when she'd said she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me and that I was the best girlfriend ever) she dumped me.

 

When she dumped me, she started by saying she'd been down in the dumps since vacation. Finally!, I thought to myself, she's talking to me again! I jumped into helpful-girlfriend mode and started active listening in the hopes that I could help somehow, but then the conversation suddenly veered into her telling me that I was her best friend, and that she wasn't in a good place to be in a relationship right now.

 

I asked her to let me stay, to fight for us, to be patient with her, to give her space and time, to work on anything in our relationship that might be bothering her. She kept saying that she didn't know how she was going to feel from day to day, that some days she wanted to be with me and to have our future together and other days she wanted to be alone. That she didn't know if she could be what I wanted. That she didn't think her feelings were continuing, or progressing. That she didn't love me after all. That I deserved someone better, someone who could promise me those feelings. She didn't want to drag me along and have me uproot my life for her if she was just going to leave me one day down the road when she ran out of feelings for me.

 

I told her - as I had done time and again since we'd gotten together - that I was in no rush, and that I wasn't going anywhere. That SHE was the one I wanted, that I didn't want anyone else. That I was ready for us to have times when we were not clicking emotionally and to fight for us and work on us, and that if she wanted me to stay and fight for her that I wouldn't give up on her. But I also told her that if -- for herself -- she wanted to be single, that I would let her go, because I never wanted her to feel obligated to do anything with me. She opted for being single, but asked if we could be friends again, because I was her best friend and she 'needed me' in her life. I told her I couldn't go backwards like that anymore, that I couldn't unwrite the way I felt (I had just started buying into the idea of spending the rest of my life with this girl, and friendship was not enough anymore.) She said she understood. Then I wished her well, and happiness, and told her I needed to be alone.

 

That was two months ago. We haven't spoken since -- except once after the Louisiana floods when I wanted to make sure she was alive, 2 weeks after we broke up -- and I've gone NC. I blocked her on skype, deleted her off of gaming applications, and deleted/remade my tumblr so that I could blog about my hurt feelings without hurting hers. The hurt has somewhat lessened, but has not yet gone. I don't look her up on social media. NC has helped, but I keep aching to have her back. I can't think of her as just a friend anymore, and I know trying to be friends would only hurt me and probably ruin what's left of our goodwill, so I keep my distance. (She could still reach me by e-mail or text if she really needed to.)

 

I just wish I could understand. I know I should have slowed her down at the start, not listened to the big dreams she had for us, not believed in the future she kept talking about -- that I should have paid more attention to the big red flags: we never (in almost 4 months) had sex, she never said she loved me (in so many words: 'I love you') she only told one relative about me -- but somehow I believed that because we were best friends, and had had each others' backs in the past, that I could just ... trust her when she said 'she did love me, she just wasn't ready to say it' and that if something was wrong she would come to me and talk to me, or at the very least be honest when I asked if she was happy, if everything was going well, if I was doing a good job at girlfriending for her. And that if worst came to worst, that she would fight for us instead of just walk away.

 

But instead, she kept telling me she was happy, that I was perfect, that she loved me, that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me, up until the day she dumped me. She lied to me when I asked if anything was wrong. She didn't talk to me, and she just gave up on us instead of trying to fight for us. And here I am, feeling... hurt, and used, and led on, and a little betrayed. Retrospectively, it seems likely to me that she wasn't really over the girl she'd had feelings for earlier in the year when she asked me out, and that she threw herself off of the deep end into our relationship both because she knew I'd catch her (because I was clearly in love with her) but also because she wanted those things -- big commitment, deep romance, passion, love -- with SOMEONE (anyone, maybe.) She wanted a relationship -- end goal. That most likely she was happy playing around with the idea of the big future and the happily ever after until I started taking steps to make it a reality, and then either panicked, or realized she'd never had those feelings for ME after all, and felt trapped and miserable and obliged.

 

But I can't stop worrying that somehow -- I ****ed this up. That I ruined my chance with the girl of my dreams. That somehow ... I failed to be the loving-enough, romantic-enough, passionate-enough, whatever-enough girlfriend she needed. That I let her get away. The thought breaks my heart. I think on some level that I could handle the idea that she never really wanted ME, personally, or that she threw herself into dreams of a big future without being really ready for one and then panicked when it started to materialize, but I don't know if I could easily get over the feeling that I had somehow failed her as a girlfriend. I poured my heart and soul into our relationship -- I was all in, committed, sure, and mature enough to keep my independent personal life going strong, to prepare myself for the possibility it might not work out, that I needed to be ready if she bailed. But now that she has bailed, I'm stuck with this heartbreaking fear that somehow I screwed this up...

 

So, please, LS community. Help me understand what (if anything) I might have done wrong here. What I should have done instead. Whether this was ... my failure, or just a case of her not being ready or not being that into me. I'd really appreciate it if you could help me put my mind at ease. I know I'm a catch, as far as gay girls go, and I know there's someone else out there for me -- if I never hear from my ex again (hope is a stubborn beast), but I don't want to mess up the next relationship if I can help it. Help me learn from my last one?

Edited September 28, 2016 by BrightlyBlazing

[Toodaloo]

I don't think you did anything in particular. I just think you are both at different stages in life and while she wants all that in the future now it is possible and a reality? Well thats a bit frightening.

 

Nothing for you to be doing here apart from looking after yourself and accepting that sometimes it just doesn't work out.

 

Sorry about that. Just the way it goes sometimes.

[Quiet Storms]

You are an eloquent and talented writer.

 

I don't think you did anything wrong, per se. I think her age was likely a factor, as even 5 or 6 years can make a big difference when someone is 21. So you two were somewhat in different places in life. Not too many people know what they want for the rest of their life at age 21.

 

I also think it is possible that you were too accommodating, letting her set the pace for the relationship at all stages. She may not have known exactly how to handle that (which I realize is the opposite of what you were trying to do in giving her space). I might suggest that next time around you could be more forward in terms of what YOU want out of the relationship, instead of agreeing with her as she came up with ideas and thoughts. I know you were being supportive but she may have needed more ongoing structure from you, if that makes sense.

[BrightlyBlazing]

I also think it is possible that you were too accommodating, letting her set the pace for the relationship at all stages. She may not have known exactly how to handle that (which I realize is the opposite of what you were trying to do in giving her space). I might suggest that next time around you could be more forward in terms of what YOU want out of the relationship, instead of agreeing with her as she came up with ideas and thoughts. I know you were being supportive but she may have needed more ongoing structure from you, if that makes sense.

 

*nods* That makes sense. I did try to provide some structure, but probably not as much as I could have. I wanted her to feel free, not trapped or contained or smothered. And I told her as much. I knew she was younger and I didn't want her to feel tied down -- I wanted her to be able to take her life in any direction she wanted, as long as she included me on the journey. "I just want to take the adventure with you." And that worked while we were still at school, we made our plans together, and when I needed time with her I just ... asked for it. I knew I could, because of the connection and intimacy between us. I didn't need very much, which made me a very low-stress girlfriend during finals season: just a little cuddle time and some affection.

 

It was when she moved home that this dynamic became strained. She started spending a lot of time on her own or with family and friends, and although it surprised and disappointed me that we weren't spending as much time together at first, I thought I understood -- she was home for the summer, of course she'd want to spend time with family and friends. The least I could do was be supportive -- she was only 21, after all, and had just graduated from college.

 

I did try to provide some structure: I took her out on dates, I encouraged her to take me on some, I suggested that we keep up our normal routine as well as we could -- spend some time gaming together, watching stuff together, keeping up our couple time at night before bed, suggested we exchange shirts, tried to make time for us to talk and connect, but I didn't want to push her to conform to any particular model of relationship while she was at home for the summer, you know? I figured -- we'd have plenty of time in our future to redefine our dynamic when I was living closer, that ... 2, 3 months into a relationship it was no big deal if she wanted to put some more emphasis on spending time with her parents before we moved to the next step. Grad School would be starting in August and we'd be back to doing homework together, talking about our studies, working on things together. So I... let her take the lead during the summer. Encouraged her to spend time with her friends whenever she wanted to, with her parents whenever she could, expressly told her "I don't want to stand between you and your summer fun -- we'll have plenty of time to be alone together in the future."

 

Of course, when things started deteriorating I tried to provide more structure -- I encouraged her to start a blog together (which she never contributed to), to keep to our nightly rituals, to talk to me about what she was feeling and thinking, but... all my instincts were telling me that what she really wanted was space, and I just hoped that if I could give her that then she'd come back to me refreshed and enthusiastic once again. I let her know that I needed a base line level of connection (a smattering of regular attention and affection), and that I missed our old dynamic of being closely involved in each other's daily plans and in contact across the distance between us. All she did was kiss me.

 

I trusted her. That we were working towards the same goal, and that if the goal changed she would let me know and invite me in on that. It was a choice I made, but... one I believed I could make because I believed she had chosen me the way I had chosen her -- 100%.

 

Maybe what I should really do in my next relationship (aside from slowing things the hell down) is let the other girl know going in what that once I fall I fall hard, and that she ought to be sure she really wants me before she commits to me, because if this last relationship is any indication, being with me can kinda sweep you off your feet.

Edited September 29, 2016 by BrightlyBlazing