Long Post - Moving In Together In 2 Days, But Having Frequent Arguments Lately

[masaki1085]

This is a long post. I am in desperate need of some advice, as my relationship with my girlfriend feels like it’s in a lot of trouble. We have been arguing a lot recently in the past two months. And I am set to move in with her two days from now.

 

My current life situation is that I am a schoolteacher. I work in a fairly affluent school district that pays pretty well for a schoolteacher’s salary.

 

My girlfriend’s life situation is much different – she has a college degree but has been unsuccessful finding a job that relates to her degree, so at the moment she works two part-time jobs with no benefits. She also suffers from a kidney disease as well as from depression. Her COBRA health insurance that she is currently on runs out at the end of the month, and she finds herself facing the possibility of having to fork over a lot of money to get insurance to cover her preexisting conditions.

 

As most of these stories go, things were going very, very well in the beginning for us, and we felt very comfortable and confident about things. We had talked for a while about getting engaged and getting married and set a timetable for such events.

 

She took antidepressants to treat her depression, but about four months into our relationship, she decided to stop taking one of her two medications. This ended up messing with her sex drive and we started have sex less frequently, and this began a cycle of arguments because I didn’t understand at the time what was causing it. Eventually, she decided to go off of the other medication, which remedied her sex drive somewhat (and arguments), until stress came.

 

Needless to say, she is under a lot of stress based on her life situation that I explained, and when this reality became clearer to her a few months ago, it seemed like she began to react to the stress much more negatively, and as her stress was communicated to me, I began reacting to it negatively and we began arguing more, and we had disagreements about how she was handling her stress and her depression.

 

Because we were planning to move in with each other, about two months ago I had to cancel my lease to my apartment, and I am moving into her house. Because we had been arguing because of our disagreements about how she is managing her stress, she expressed that she was worried and not confident about the living together situation. The living together situation is complicated, because currently she lives with her step-dad, who is moving out of her house. If I move in, she will be able to keep her house and I will be able to help her out financially in a rather significant way. If I don’t move in, she will either have to find a roommate, or sell the house. Because I had terminated my lease, I became really scared and worried about her confidence in everything, and this was the first time that she had communicated her worries to me. We began arguing more, and these arguments had been continuing up until last week. I would find myself getting really upset about her fears.

 

On top of all of this, one of her ex-boyfriends who is now currently one of her very best friends came into town last week, and her wanting to hang out with him while he was in town caused additional tension between us.

 

The previous two issues I mentioned caused two very tense, very heated, knock down, drag out fights this past week. We worked through them, and I decided to take a day over the weekend to go on a drive on my own and clear my head. The reason I went on a drive was that I wanted to thinking about ways to help fix the problem—to break the cycle of arguing. I love her, and I don’t want to lose her, and I feel that the arguments have caused a rift between us.

 

When I came back from my trip, we waited a few days until last night and had a big talk. No arguing. No fighting. Cleared the air on a lot of things. We apologized for things as well.

 

She mentioned that she is really worried our future, and in her case, she is worried about her job, financial and health-related situation—and has communicated to me that while she still loves me and she doesn’t want to end things and break up, because of the fighting, she feels that she might need to wait awhile longer before thinking about engagement or marriage. She is also scared about committing, especially to living together, because if the job situation does not pan out for her, she does not want to trap herself here, especially because we have been fighting and she has lost the confidence she once had.

 

She told me last night that she still loves me and I am important to her, and she does not want to break up. I do not want this either, because despite all of the arguments (usually weekly), we still enjoy each other’s company and we do have fun hanging out with each other. I love her, and after my drive and clearing my head I feel much more committed to trying to break the argument cycle and try my best not to be argumentative and to not get as upset about things. I have communicated these things to her.

 

However, I am worried about the living together situation now. As we fought last week, most of my stuff is already at her house. In addition, I start back to work in less than a week and it would be really difficult to find an apartment, move (especially after moving once already) and set up a new place to live. At the same time, while I don’t want to create a situation where I could be taken advantage of, if we decide to change our plans, she will also have the added stress of trying to support herself and keep her house, find a roommate, or sell it—on top of all of the stress.

 

As she said she loves me and that she does not want to end things, she is much more of a chronic worrier than I am, and I fear that her fears and negativity might get the best of her regardless. And because the other stresses in her life are draining her, I fear she might not want to put forth the energy anymore. I do not wish to argue anymore, and to be honest I feel determined and committed to breaking the argument cycle and to fix this troubled relationship. I am worried that I might be too late. I can’t sleep at night because I am so worried. I don’t want to lose her, and I don’t want to keep pushing her away.

 

And the situation could be fixable given that we both feel that we don’t want to end things. Today, although she communicated that she was still a little worried (but she's worried about other things besides her and I), we have seemingly communicated back forth through our day as normal. Maybe there's hope?

 

Or the situation could be a total disaster.

 

Thoughts (and prayers) are appreciated. Thank you so much for reading.