jepso5000 Posted August 6, 2012 Posted August 6, 2012 First time poster here, been reading the forums for awhile and now that I have a bit of a quandary....I'm finally posting a thread. I'll try to keep it as short as I can while giving all relevant information. Anyway, I've (32 years old) been dating this woman (28 years old) for about a month and a half now. We've been out on six dates but she just went away for three weeks on a trip. The relationship has been good so far and we get along on many levels but I've noticed a bit of negativity on her part over the last few weeks...mostly after she went away. The communication (due to it being international and a six hour time difference) was tough to say the least. On top of this she's stayed there three weeks with family...and we all know how that can be. Tough...it's a long time to spend with family on a day to day basis when you're out of your element. Anyway, she'd have to call me first then I'd call her back and she was 6 hours ahead of me...so it would be 11 PM her time usually. As time went on our conversations became more "strained" I think due to her own frustration of being overseas for so long and having to deal with her family plus the difficulty of communicating with me due to the time difference. She's become increasingly more negative as time has gone on. She's also stressed over the fact that she cannot find a decent job and has to come back to her old job (that she hates). She's also had issues with her family while she's there. Overall things haven't been easy for her lately and with that in mind I understand. I told her when she left that we didn't have to talk every day, even once a week was enough since I didn't want to be a burden on her while she was away. She said defensively, "but you said we should only talk once a week...." so we ended up talking nearly daily. I guess she took it as me insinuating that I didn't want to talk to her...where I was just trying to not be overbearing on her. Now, she's going through a rough time and she been getting very negative in general...with all that's going on in her life I can understand this. At the same time I'm not sure if it's just her personality or because right now the chips are down for her. We get along splendidly otherwise when I see her on dates. It just worries me that this is someone who is going to end up picking apart our relationship due to the general stress of her life right now. Anyone ever deal with something like this before when starting to date someone who seemingly is in the dumps? I'm not saying she's depressed...but definitely stressed.
Balzac Posted August 6, 2012 Posted August 6, 2012 At age 28 I'd guess this is her first "Big Girl" job? Did she spend time in grad school? Job stress comes and goes, is she in a search for a new position? I think it takes great maturity when mired in immediate stress, such as foreign family, to resist dumping on a friendly. I'd be concerned but watchful.
Author jepso5000 Posted August 6, 2012 Author Posted August 6, 2012 At age 28 I'd guess this is her first "Big Girl" job? Did she spend time in grad school? Job stress comes and goes, is she in a search for a new position? I think it takes great maturity when mired in immediate stress, such as foreign family, to resist dumping on a friendly. I'd be concerned but watchful. She's out of grad school now and she's actually been job hunting for awhile...the economy sucks right now. She's just working at a BS job for now that she hates while searching for her "big girl" job. I get what you're saying with "dumping on a friendly" and I think that's all it is. I hope, anyway. I just hate to go a few more months with this woman to find out all she does is "dump" on our relationship because the rest of her life isn't going that well.
Balzac Posted August 6, 2012 Posted August 6, 2012 Well, it's reasonable to observe and do some probative questioning about how she handles frustration and adversity. I'd definitely have concerns. Yes, the economy sux but a newly minted grad degree should be able to find a few interviews.
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