Relationship went from good, to "I need to separate for awhile"

[ColtonCM]

This is going to be a complicated story to explain, but I'll try my best. I need the advice because quite frankly I don't know what to do.

 

I started dating my girlfriend awhile ago. We needed each other for a lot of things, motivation... better work ethic... better lifestyles. In general we helped each other become better people. We helped each other deal with our problems. We come from family backgrounds with multiple problems.

 

Her mom is a drug addict that moves from house to house evading the law and shooting up with heroin and cocaine. She looks like she's 70 years old when she's only in her 40s. Her dad is a severe alcoholic who constantly gets drunk and does stupid things, like pawn her laptop to buy more booze. His health is bad, and now he is in jail for a year for violating probation. Her aunt was a nazi to her in high school, gave her no freedom, didn't even work with her to help her get her education. She worked two jobs in high school and did one of the most rigorous academic programs available in the entire world and her aunt would sometimes inhibit her ability to have a responsible social life and get school things done.

 

I come from a background of domestic violence. My dad beat my mom nearly all 19 years she was with him. 10 of those 19 years he was actively cheating on her. My mom left my dad and I chose to live with her because of my dad's personality. Eventually my dad and I reconciled and he changed as a person, but my mom never managed to climb out of the low-income rut. Now she is 50 and dating another 50 year old to try and "marry into security" so to speak. My dad lives in Florida with a mail-order wife that probably doesn't even love him. My whole family life is effed up. My dad's side of my family hates my mom's and vice versa. Nothing I do can help reconcile them.

 

Needless to say the commonality of these family issues brought us together in a very intimate way and things really snowballed. I don't even think we dated a month before we could tell we really loved each other. We started saying the phrase "I love you" really soon in our relationship. We never doubted each other.

 

There were a few instances where she cheated on me, but she was given alcoholic drinks that she thought was something but was a drink that was actually much stronger. She was probably pretty wasted when she cheated, she says that all she remembered was the actual sexual act and not what led into it. This happened twice. She has a self-destructive tendency to get herself into terrible situations because she has not had a very stable mental childhood.

 

So here is the problem:

 

We are now in college together. She is telling me that she doesn't want a relationship because she wants to deal with other problems (her mom just got cancer, her dad landed another year in jail, and her brother entered high school with no guidance and living under the same nazi aunt, she pays about $850 in bills each month and has to work while in college as well). She says that our relationship is too much pressure right now. She can't handle the pressure.

 

I've tried telling her that I'm here for her and I don't want her to feel pressured. I want her to feel free and independent and secure but still have me there for her intimate needs. She does not want any of this at all.

 

Naturally, I start to think that she just doesn't love me anymore. Maybe she met someone else in college (she liked me a lot because of my intelligence, but here everyone is equally intelligent or more intelligent than I am). Maybe she just fell out of love with me the old fashioned way by getting bored with who I am as a person (I'm a more shy type, I don't like to socialize a whole lot, but I will go out with friends and do activities. I'm a gamer, breakdancer, and science-nerd, but she seems to like all of these qualities so I don't think this is a problem).

 

So I was here getting into the dumps thinking that the girl of my dreams and the girl I've loved for a very long time just doesn't love me anymore.

 

But she told me that she does love me. She was ambiguous at first. She would say things like, "can't you love a friend?" So I instantly thought she was trying to move me into the friend zone. So I asked her to be honest, to tell me if I was only ever going to be looked at as a friend and nothing more and she said that she loves me the same as how she always has, she's just confused about her life with all the things going on.

 

So we argued a lot, yelled a lot, cried a lot, and tried to explain each other's sides a lot too, but that usually led to more arguing, crying, yelling, and then trying to explain again.

 

To me, I can't understand why she would want to toss away a relationship such as ours without putting forward the effort to fix it. To her, she can't understand why I don't understand her need to have space for awhile, be alone, and not tied to a relationship.

 

I've been telling her that I don't want her to feel tied-down, pressured, or anything of that sort. That we can still be in a relationship without dictating each others lives. She seems to think that this is impossible.

 

So here is what's going down.

 

She is going back to our hometown for a couple days which is about two hours south of our college.

 

I asked her if she was ever going to be able to start our relationship again, and I told her to be totally honest, and she said, "I don't know what I want."

 

I told her that if we wanted to go along with this separation thing, that it has to go both ways. She asked me to basically downgrade to her best friend and not worry about a relationship. That screams major friend-zoning right there. I told her that its not possible for me to do that. I said that she can't expect me to chuck the intimate love I had for her and settle for best friends and not be depressed and upset about it. Every time this discussion/argument would start, she would always tell me, "You don't have to stop being in love with me, just give me time to figure myself out!"

 

She has horrible self-esteem issues because of relationships she's had in the past that were mentally detrimental to herself.

 

Eventually she agreed that the separation would be equal. She would get her space and not have a relationship to worry about, but at the same time I wouldn't have to play the role of her best friend, be with her all the time. I basically told her that if I was ever going to lose the love I had for her, then I needed to not see or talk to her for however long it took. I told her that I would be there for emergencies just in case, because her life is very emergency-prone. Other than that, I said that I'm going to keep my distance as well. On top of all of this, I told her to think long and hard about the relationship we've had and if she wants it, and she always replies with, "I just don't know."

 

I got her to agree to enter a dialogue session with me online. We will write each other online letters venting each others grievances about our relationship. Each of us will take the time to explain what we think the other person did that hurt the relationship, the things we did to hurt each other's feelings, and how (if possible) these things can be changed to hopefully have our relationship start back up again in the future.

 

When I got her to concede to this I thought that I had made ground. I thought we were going to lay all of our problems down onto the table and solve them together, but then she came back with the uncertain phrase, "But what if I still decide I don't want a relationship after this, will you still be a friend to me?"

 

I just don't know what to think. Has she already fallen out of love with me? Am I already too far in the friend zone?

 

I KNOW, and yes I absolutely KNOW that we did fall in love with each other. The things we did together, the moments we had, the reliance we had upon each other, and the things we would say in private could NOT have been done or said unless we had unconditional love for each other.

 

What should I do to try and salvage the situation? I don't know how long she is going to take to figure herself out and know if she is ready for a relationship. It could be a week, it could be years from now.

 

I'm giving up hope that this is even worth pursuing because she always throws in comments in our discussions that make me assume that she already views me as just a friend and doesn't want that to change. Every time I tell her that, she says, "Its not fair for you to assume how I feel, only I know what I feel and I know that what I feel is confusion."

 

I've told her time and time again that if she doesn't ever want to be in a relationship with me again, to just TELL ME so that I can move on and get over and then try to be her friend again when I am completely over it, but she always tells me that she doesn't know what she wants.

 

Do you think she's being honest? If someone like me told you to be honest about the friend-zone thing, would you be?

 

Need advice on how to move forward here.

[Mike_d]

couple of things from my copy/paste file that I'll share:

 

If your Ex wanted to be with you, SHE WOULD!

 

Women will always find a guy attractive who is

 

1. Confident

2. Charming

3. Challenge

 

Don't put your life on hold for her

 

If a girl told me "im 95% into you" I'd be 100% out the door a minute later.

 

but when a woman loves, she doesn't wait to get ready, she doens't hook up with other guys, she just goes for YOU. And this woman is NOT going for you.

 

Just think: WTF is stopping her from being with you happily ever after? When a woman loves and is loved back, she is the happiest thing in the world. You love her - if she loves you back, there would be no obstacle, right? But she is miserable.

 

do you really want to *make* somebody be with you? let her miss you, let her figure out what she lost. but she cant do that till she gets some space, so give her every last bit of space she needs and make yourself scarce

[CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC]

Took my ex about 2 months to miss me after she left me. I let her back in my life, same thing happened again 3 months later. IMO its better to just let go all together. Cause chances are if she does get her "space", she's going to be needing it again later. I wish I would have just let myself heal the first time rather than having a go at it again. I know it's hard cause were looking for that quick fix, but you'll be better off in the long run letting go.