Angry Girlfriend

[AngryOutbursts]

Hi everyone,

 

This happened a few hours ago, and I needed to get it off my chest and get some opinions. So here we go:

 

My girlfriend asks me to come over and help her clean her room with her sister. Her room is a mega-mess for a variety of reasons. She owns too much stuff for the space she lives in (we moved back home, she's living in her parent's apartment in a tiny bedroom). She's a masters student, and works full time. She's 31, I'm 27.

 

So, I say sure. I give up one of my weekend days to help her (I'm also a full time student, and work mon-fri full time, and starting a business on the side). We hang out for a while, eat, and chill with her sister. Then we start cleaning. Things are OK at first. Her sister is folding and hanging stacks of clothes, I'm helping sort garbage/daily items.

 

Her sister asks her whether she wants to make a path to her closet first, or to her bed first. She responds to make a path to her closet first. As we're sorting her daily items (makeup, wash up stuff etc) she starts becoming noticeably annoyed. At first, I thought she was annoyed at the mess. But I guess she was annoyed with me.

 

She starts asking me stuff like "what now" "what are we supposed to do now" etc.. kinda like a kid who doesn't want to clean their room and wants you to hold their hand. I try to be supportive and tell her "I think we should put the daily stuff over here, and have a box of stuff you're getting rid of, etc". I give her some direction. She continues with the same questions as we're going through it.

 

She's going at a snails pace (her sister and I both made it clear we had limited time to spend on this today... I school work due, and her sister has things at home to do) so her sister starts prodding her along a bit. I decide to take her lead and I tell her we'll start moving some of the boxes/items in the way - basically we're doing this FOR her. I told her just to stand there and stack items in another area or put them in the hall to clear THIS area so we can organize it and then move stuff back when we're done.

 

She's fine for about 2 minutes and then out of nowhere I hand her something and she starts laughing at me at first, like it's a joke and says "Where am I supposed to put this?" but before her sentence can end it turns from a laughing joke to a serious tone and she's angry in the blink of an eye. She starts raising her voice at me "what the hell am I supposed to do with this?" and saying "I thought you had a plan" and asking what my plan is because she has no room for anything to be stacked.

 

So I respond and I say "We're going to have to either stack things or put things into the hallway, then organize this area, and then we can move things back... but we'll put it back so it's neat and organized." It's like she didn't hear me at all, because she just starts raising her voice more into a yell at me - saying the same thing "I thought you had a ****ing plan" and "theres no ****ing space"... and so on.

 

At first I tried repeating myself - we need to stack stuff, or put in the hall. I know it's annoying, but there's literally no other way. She keeps yelling the same things as above, so I got fed up and I left her room. I went into the family room and sat on the couch. I figured she'd cool off or something.

 

I was wrong. She yells at me "So you're done then?" I said calmly "It sounds like you don't really want my help right now".

 

Then out of nowhere I hear her picking up all of the clutter in her room and start throwing it all over the place. Her sister runs over and starts shouting at her "stop! stop!!!" etc. My girlfriend shouts "well he's driving me NUTS right now!" Her sister says "Well then ask him to leave but don't start throwing all your **** around!"

 

My gf shouts out "I need you to leave" so I get up without a word, put my shoes on, and grab my stuff. Her parents come home at this very moment so I open the door and say hello to her mom (her dad was still downstairs). As soon as she hears her mom come home she comes up and intercepts us at the doorway and says "Hi mom! (my name) is being ridiculous right now!" We kinda just look at each other, and her mom walks away. Then my gf gets in my face and starts yelling at me again, but this time she starts asking me "Why the **** didn't you answer me?" I was taken aback... I said what do you mean? She says "Why the **** didn't you answer my question? I kept asking you if you had a plan and you never ****ing responded" I was absolutely floored - so I told her calmly "I did respond, I told you that we would need to stack stuff in the room, and/or put things in the hallway to clear a path to the closet like you wanted. I told you there's no way around it. That was my response."

 

She just gets pissed, says nothing, and walks away. So I walked out and drove home. I needed to get this out of my system, but I'd also like to get some opinions on this. What the heck happened here?

[hippychick3]

Why exactly is she STILL your girlfriend? Has she always treated you like a doormat?

 

I can't believe you're even questioning her ungrateful, childish, and abusive behavior. I would never want anything to do with her ever again.

 

Please find your dignity, dump this "child," and find someone who is actually emotionally stable.

[Zahara]

What a turnoff. She sounds like a complete brat. I have to think this isn't the first time she's treated you this way. You teach people how to treat you. Don't be a doormat.

[JewelD]

Why does she need help cleaning her own room in her parent's apartment??? And then had the nerve to get upset with you about it.

 

She threw a temper tantrum like a 5 year old. I wouldn't put up with that.

[LostOnes05]

She sounds like a real piece of work. I've learned that some women just can't accept help and direction, even if they ask. Best thing to do in this instance is to give it a few days and take time away from her to think. Don't reach out until she does and certainly don't help her clean her stuff anymore. She's an adult, she'll get it done or she'll have a messy room. She could be setting you up for a break up too. Everything you do will be wrong or annoying, even when you are clearly right. Just take note of her actions, and if they match her words. If not, prepare yourself.

[AngryOutbursts]

Why does she need help cleaning her own room in her parent's apartment??? And then had the nerve to get upset with you about it.

 

She threw a temper tantrum like a 5 year old. I wouldn't put up with that.

 

To be fair I didn't put up with it, I walked out. Haha, who knows maybe I'll never hear from her again?! I'm surely not going to contact her first. I feel like I'm owed an apology at least.

 

As far as helping her clean... well, I feel the same way. I try to be understanding that we're all different and we all have trouble with different things. For instance I let my car get trashed out last year, really bad... due to laziness and not wanting to clean in the cold weather.

 

Basically I just try to be helpful. We lived together for a year and we didn't have the clutter problem she has now, so I don't think of it as a habitual thing, necessarily. Just a circumstance.

[AngryOutbursts]

She sounds like a real piece of work. I've learned that some women just can't accept help and direction, even if they ask. Best thing to do in this instance is to give it a few days and take time away from her to think. Don't reach out until she does and certainly don't help her clean her stuff anymore. She's an adult, she'll get it done or she'll have a messy room. She could be setting you up for a break up too. Everything you do will be wrong or annoying, even when you are clearly right. Just take note of her actions, and if they match her words. If not, prepare yourself.

 

 

I don't think you're wrong. Things have been unsteady with us lately if I'm being perfectly honest. It does seem like I can't do much right. The biggest "issue" we have is that she's on some jag about communication. She says she hates the way I talk to her. I don't really get it, I don't raise my voice. I'm calm. I try to work through situations. I work in law enforcement, so I kinda diffuse situations on a daily basis. Situations much worse than mine... but even so, it's like she refuses to listen to me or accept anything I say.

 

I know this is a sign of a looming break up, but I can't figure out why. We've been together nearly 3 years. I'd say we've had "normal ups and downs". We lived together for a year, had to move back home cuz we both switched jobs, and she took a pay cut and couldn't afford it with her bills. We were both very sad about moving out and wanted to get back to living together. She's always had this complaint about me though, with the communication thing. Lately seems much worse, and she's got a mega-short fuse with me.

[Popsicle]

Have you ever seen those TV shows about hoarders and pack-rats? They get REALLY ANGRY when people start touching their stuff and asking them to get rid of it. It's some sort of psychological problem they have. There's even a scene in a movie called "Hello, my name is Doris" (love that movie!) where she get mad when people start pushing her to throw away stuff she's hoarded.

[basil67]

Have you ever seen those TV shows about hoarders and pack-rats? They get REALLY ANGRY when people start touching their stuff and asking them to get rid of it. It's some sort of psychological problem they have. There's even a scene in a movie called "Hello, my name is Doris" (love that movie!) where she get mad when people start pushing her to throw away stuff she's hoarded.

 

I wondered about this too. If she's got a hoarding issue (and it does sound like her room was extremely messy if you were having to make paths in the mess) her reaction could have had an anxiety base.

 

I'm not suggesting that you put up with it or stay around. But I am suggesting that there could be a mental health issue and not just her simply being a 'brat'.

[JewelD]

To be fair I didn't put up with it, I walked out. Haha, who knows maybe I'll never hear from her again?! I'm surely not going to contact her first. I feel like I'm owed an apology at least.

 

As far as helping her clean... well, I feel the same way. I try to be understanding that we're all different and we all have trouble with different things. For instance I let my car get trashed out last year, really bad... due to laziness and not wanting to clean in the cold weather.

 

Basically I just try to be helpful. We lived together for a year and we didn't have the clutter problem she has now, so I don't think of it as a habitual thing, necessarily. Just a circumstance.

 

No excuses, she's a grown woman, she can clean her own room or at least be kind to people who are helping her. And I mean I wouldn't put up with it as in I would not continue dating this person.

[Buddhist]

So you're spending your spare time cleaning up her room which quickly frankly sounds like a bomb hit it. At the first angry outburst I would have put my shoes on and left. You're doing her a favour. If you're such a pain then she can do it herself without you there.

[ChickiePops]

The only explanation I can think of is that she's lost her mind...

[bubbaganoosh]

If it was me and I got my ass chewed out for trying to help, I would have told her to take all her clutter and put it where the sun doesn't shine sideways.

 

Then I would have told her that when her attitude changes to give you a call and start the conversation off by saying I'm sorry.

[LostOnes05]

Just look at her and say, "Something’s wrong with her medula oblongata!" (from the Waterboy movie)

[Hoosfoos]

Don't expect things to get any better from her. If you move in with her or God forbid marry her, she will only get more comfortable hurling abuse your way and blaming you for her behavior. Run, don't walk away, and don't look back.

[LargoLagg]

Have you ever seen those TV shows about hoarders and pack-rats? They get REALLY ANGRY when people start touching their stuff and asking them to get rid of it. It's some sort of psychological problem they have. There's even a scene in a movie called "Hello, my name is Doris" (love that movie!) where she get mad when people start pushing her to throw away stuff she's hoarded.

Bingo! We have a winner! A masters student has so much crap in her tiny room that she has to enlist 2 helpers, you have to "clear paths" and remove items from the room. She goes off the rails because you're just as overwhelmed by the mess as she is, and you don't have a magic wand to make it better. Maybe you said something about the mess, about the effort or about something and it set her off and now, you've done the thing that all relationships blossom or die from. You've met the real her.

 

The mother's reaction is the confirming clue. GF accuses you of being impossible, probably in a tone of voice she's heard a million times before, and mom walked away. She knew what was coming next, and didn't want to be part of it.

 

I'd count my lucky stars and bail.

[AngryOutbursts]

Bingo! We have a winner! A masters student has so much crap in her tiny room that she has to enlist 2 helpers, you have to "clear paths" and remove items from the room. She goes off the rails because you're just as overwhelmed by the mess as she is, and you don't have a magic wand to make it better. Maybe you said something about the mess, about the effort or about something and it set her off and now, you've done the thing that all relationships blossom or die from. You've met the real her.

 

The mother's reaction is the confirming clue. GF accuses you of being impossible, probably in a tone of voice she's heard a million times before, and mom walked away. She knew what was coming next, and didn't want to be part of it.

 

I'd count my lucky stars and bail.

 

Well, I should have specified this but her mom/dad doesn't really speak English. My gf is first generation, born/raised in the states. I consider myself lucky sometimes that her mom probably doesn't understand what she's saying, even if she gathers that we're arguing or whatever.

 

But yeah, I get what you're saying, it's probably true regardless of her English capability, haha.

[LastAcorn99]

I believe that for a relationship to thrive, respect, mutual respect, is very important. While we should understand when the ones we love have a bad day and are irritable, I feel that disrespectful behavior should be addressed, before it turns the relationship toxic. I would suggest that you and your girlfriend sit down and have a meaningful discussion regarding this in the coming days. All the best!

[LargoLagg]

Well, I should have specified this but her mom/dad doesn't really speak English.

Even weirder. GF knows that her mom doesn't speak English, knows that you know too, but tells her in English anyway!

 

Mom knew enough to get the hell out of Dodge. The specifics weren't necessary.

[Mrin]

Suggestion here: this really isn't about picking up her room. You guys used to live together on your own. Something went astray and you had to move back home. She's now living in a small room at home. When she yelled at you about not having a plan, maybe it was about getting out of the situation you're/she's in and back into her/your own place?

[AngryOutbursts]

Suggestion here: this really isn't about picking up her room. You guys used to live together on your own. Something went astray and you had to move back home. She's now living in a small room at home. When she yelled at you about not having a plan, maybe it was about getting out of the situation you're/she's in and back into her/your own place?

 

 

A valid suggestion, and maybe you're right. Unfortunately, it's not really a problem we can fix immediately.. and something we both agreed on. Let me elaborate.

 

We moved back home because I lost my previous job, and she decided to leave her job (but shortly found her new job after that). I didn't have any bad blood or anything at my work. I worked for a friend's family's business. It was small, and limited space. They weren't doing well and downsized. I was one of the only non-family employees, so guess who got cut.

 

My gf was at the same job for 7+ years, needed a change. She worked an in-between job and ultimately found her current (great) position within a couple months. So, the downtime between jobs for both of us put us in a bit of a pinch. We helped each other out, both paid each other back and all that. No problems there.

 

The bigger issue was that during the course of living with her, I found out she had a lot of debt she hadn't shared with me. I mean, she told me she had debt, but I've never been in debt (don't even have student loans, been working since I was 15) so I was extremely naive. I didn't even get my first credit card until I was like 22. When she said she had "substantial debt" I figured it was like a few thousand at most.

 

I knew she had student loans, a car payment, you know... "normal" debt for people our age. That didn't bother me. What I found out, though, is that she had (to me) a lot of debt outside of that, just from shopping. (which is why she has so much ****). I think it was something like $15-20k.

 

Needless to say, we had many arguments over this issue. She also put herself in debt helping her family through some tough times, but I overlooked that because I would do the same. To make this long story longer, we sat down eventually when it was time to move out (and after) and we discussed plans for the future. Although we were both eager to move out again, I told her flat out that I refused to move back out without seeing her make an effort to pay her debt down - and I'd prefer if by the time we moved out she was nearly done if not done paying off her consumer debt. Of course this also led to many arguments about marriage etc. The relationship felt kinda sour after all this. I mean, I flat told her I won't marry or get engaged to someone with that kinda consumer debt. Student loans and stuff, I understand, but not shopping.

 

Anyway, in her defense, it's taken almost 1 year, but she's paid about half of it off already. I make (and save) a lot of money from my job, especially since I'm living at home, have zero debt, and I don't spend much. I even told her if she keeps working really hard at it (maybe pay it down by half again?) in the next 6 months I'd be willing to erase the rest of her debt for her if it means she could start saving instead, and we could move out and actually get started on life.

 

Of course, none of that will happen if she's going to flip out on me about this kinda stuff

[ExpatInItaly]

Stop enabling and parenting her.

 

You don't need to clean her room and you certainly don't need to erase her debt.

 

She has issues that she needs to sort out and she needs to grow up. Whatever the problems are, she just showed you she has very little respect for you and is an ungrateful person.

 

Sorry OP, but I think you need to move from this. It's toxic.

[elaine567]

This girl is "chaos" personified and now she is "angry chaos" personified.

 

I know you no doubt "love" her but where is this actually going? I think you need to step back and reassess this whole relationship

She is building a lot of resentment here and that is not going to go away anytime soon.

All this shouting at you, I can assure you, was NOT only about you cleaning her room.

 

I have seen some very messy student accommodation, dirty dishes, books and papers strewn around, clothes on the floor, old takeaway food, beer bottles... but all the ones I have seen would have taken one person about an hour or two of serious work, to clean it up and they never involve "clearing paths", or moving stuff out into the hallway to get some space to work.

This is a very serious problem here.

Do you really want to have to "clear a path" at home in order to see your kids? Do you really want to spend your life in debt and walking on eggshells?

Think about this very carefully.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hope-relationships/201409/the-psychology-behind-hoarding

[Redhead14]

Hi everyone,

 

This happened a few hours ago, and I needed to get it off my chest and get some opinions. So here we go:

 

My girlfriend asks me to come over and help her clean her room with her sister. Her room is a mega-mess for a variety of reasons. She owns too much stuff for the space she lives in (we moved back home, she's living in her parent's apartment in a tiny bedroom). She's a masters student, and works full time. She's 31, I'm 27.

 

So, I say sure. I give up one of my weekend days to help her (I'm also a full time student, and work mon-fri full time, and starting a business on the side). We hang out for a while, eat, and chill with her sister. Then we start cleaning. Things are OK at first. Her sister is folding and hanging stacks of clothes, I'm helping sort garbage/daily items.

 

Her sister asks her whether she wants to make a path to her closet first, or to her bed first. She responds to make a path to her closet first. As we're sorting her daily items (makeup, wash up stuff etc) she starts becoming noticeably annoyed. At first, I thought she was annoyed at the mess. But I guess she was annoyed with me.

 

She starts asking me stuff like "what now" "what are we supposed to do now" etc.. kinda like a kid who doesn't want to clean their room and wants you to hold their hand. I try to be supportive and tell her "I think we should put the daily stuff over here, and have a box of stuff you're getting rid of, etc". I give her some direction. She continues with the same questions as we're going through it.

 

She's going at a snails pace (her sister and I both made it clear we had limited time to spend on this today... I school work due, and her sister has things at home to do) so her sister starts prodding her along a bit. I decide to take her lead and I tell her we'll start moving some of the boxes/items in the way - basically we're doing this FOR her. I told her just to stand there and stack items in another area or put them in the hall to clear THIS area so we can organize it and then move stuff back when we're done.

 

She's fine for about 2 minutes and then out of nowhere I hand her something and she starts laughing at me at first, like it's a joke and says "Where am I supposed to put this?" but before her sentence can end it turns from a laughing joke to a serious tone and she's angry in the blink of an eye. She starts raising her voice at me "what the hell am I supposed to do with this?" and saying "I thought you had a plan" and asking what my plan is because she has no room for anything to be stacked.

 

So I respond and I say "We're going to have to either stack things or put things into the hallway, then organize this area, and then we can move things back... but we'll put it back so it's neat and organized." It's like she didn't hear me at all, because she just starts raising her voice more into a yell at me - saying the same thing "I thought you had a ****ing plan" and "theres no ****ing space"... and so on.

 

At first I tried repeating myself - we need to stack stuff, or put in the hall. I know it's annoying, but there's literally no other way. She keeps yelling the same things as above, so I got fed up and I left her room. I went into the family room and sat on the couch. I figured she'd cool off or something.

 

I was wrong. She yells at me "So you're done then?" I said calmly "It sounds like you don't really want my help right now".

 

Then out of nowhere I hear her picking up all of the clutter in her room and start throwing it all over the place. Her sister runs over and starts shouting at her "stop! stop!!!" etc. My girlfriend shouts "well he's driving me NUTS right now!" Her sister says "Well then ask him to leave but don't start throwing all your **** around!"

 

My gf shouts out "I need you to leave" so I get up without a word, put my shoes on, and grab my stuff. Her parents come home at this very moment so I open the door and say hello to her mom (her dad was still downstairs). As soon as she hears her mom come home she comes up and intercepts us at the doorway and says "Hi mom! (my name) is being ridiculous right now!" We kinda just look at each other, and her mom walks away. Then my gf gets in my face and starts yelling at me again, but this time she starts asking me "Why the **** didn't you answer me?" I was taken aback... I said what do you mean? She says "Why the **** didn't you answer my question? I kept asking you if you had a plan and you never ****ing responded" I was absolutely floored - so I told her calmly "I did respond, I told you that we would need to stack stuff in the room, and/or put things in the hallway to clear a path to the closet like you wanted. I told you there's no way around it. That was my response."

 

She just gets pissed, says nothing, and walks away. So I walked out and drove home. I needed to get this out of my system, but I'd also like to get some opinions on this. What the heck happened here?

 

It sounds to me like she is a hoarder . . . hoarders find it very difficult to part with things, even garbage sometimes. The process of cleaning and getting rid of stuff creates a ton of anxiety and often results in anger and procrastination. She is sabotaging the process because she doesn't want to deal with it. This is not just about being disorganized or having too little space . . . it's a bigger issue usually. They are shop-a-holics or "collectors" also as a rule.

[duncsvoice]

I've been with someone who will explode with rage out of nothing. It will never, ever get any better, and you will get the blame for everything. For your own health get out.