geekyLover Posted October 8, 2006 Posted October 8, 2006 I've been in a relationship with a really cute girl for a little over two and a half years. In that time she's turned my outlook on life around and I've tried to expose her to new things. She's told me that she loves me (sometimes), and I know that I love her. Starting in May we've have had to suffer from a long distance relationship. This long distance period is to last between six to nine months (due to our seperate internships). Before this we lived with each other, and the plan is to do so after her internship brings her back. At the beginning of this long distance she asked to keep in contact every day. I was a little hesitant since I didn't know what my schedule would hold, but quickly agreed in the interest of keeping ourselves accessible to each other. Before I left our relationship became long distance she told me that she wanted me to become "more responsible" in six months or we might have to stop seeing each other romantically. Over the first three months (during my first internship) I did become much better at handling money, and the one time that I did splurge was because I couldn't resist buying her a gift on a visit (a little bit of me wanted to show that I am indeed trying to make sacrifices for her). I'm also expecting my GPA to go up. However something that I've been considering since the beginning of this is that I don't understand how her general feeling of me (and my responsibility) is supposed to change without being around her. I'm also afraid that she doesn't understand this concept. Hence I'm afraid that I could've made leaps and bounds and still not gone anywhere for her. In return for this challenge I've been asking for a lot of small changes from her: usually just being more physical with showing emotions (hugs, embraces, etc). We're both INTJ. Recently she complained over webcam that she was afraid that she was being selfish for presenting this challenge, I told her that I merely thought of it as a sacrifice, and that many partners have to make sacrifices during long lasting relationships. She also felt badly because I've recently come down with Mono and she can't come to visit. I was fine with that since I don't want to get her sick anyway (I have to wait at least until Oct 27th to visit her). During this recent conversation she put out the idea that she "wanted a break" because then she wouldn't be "making us feel bad" since she was constantly busy with her new friends at her internship and wasn't very available for me. She's always felt guilty about feeling attracted to other guys - I always tell her that 'it's ok, it's the act of responding to it that'd I'd have a problem with.' She mentioned this during the conversation, but I took it as normal, if as usual, disconcerting. Truth be told I wouldn't mind having more access to her (due to my friends not hanging out with me, making her my only real human contact outside of schoolwork), but told her that if she wanted a break that that would present a lot more problems than solutions (especially with me) and would have reprecussions later on when we were to continue later. At the end of the conversation I told her to that we should just change the way we communicate since she is so busy. Here's the thing that irked me into this posting of all of this: I said to her that I surmised that there are few reasons for her to 'want a break' for the reasons presented to me, and asked her if she wanted to tell me anything that I didn't already know. She didn't respond... granted we moved on a few seconds later, but the fact that she didn't respond really scared me since I've been completely honest with her and have generally expected her to not keep things from me. If she had said 'no' I'd have been more comfortable than I am now, the fact that she didn't irked me. Sorry for the long post.
Author geekyLover Posted October 23, 2006 Author Posted October 23, 2006 Ok even though I never got a reply from this thread I'll update it in order to at least organize myself even if I'm not gonna get comments. I just got back from seeing her after a 7hr drive down and a 7hr drive back. Originally I was supposed to wait till next weekend for her to visit. However I feel my grades would slip from the stress if I didn't get it resolved ASAP. The first night I'm down she goes through the same BS excuses she had before about breaking up, including feeling guilty about my sacrificing for her. Then after I tear apart every answer she has she lays down the real reason it came to this: she slept with another man (in her words she said "I cheated on you once"). Obviously I was devestated, but sought the exact nature of the encounter. She said it happened because I called her so often that it made her feel guilty, and that stress stacked up from everywhere else that she wanted to kill herself. She said if she didn't get to feel "alive" that night she'd do herself in. She called me (I even checked my phone for missed calls, and I did miss one around the time she reported) but I missed it, and she called one other person who she could talk to, but he was unable to pickup as well. She slept with a guy from a diff department from her job who she felt that she trusted, and that she stopped before the end because she didn't actually 'feel alive'. She never told me his name and she said they used protection (asked about diseases too). She said that she'd never do it again. So step forward to our meeting: I forgive her, and for the first day blame myself for not being there for her. However during this day she has a 5 hour slot of time she has to go to a social gathering (later I mention to her that I could've come along, and says she didn't think of it). I also talk to her friend, he puts it into a proper perspective for me. I should be asking myself what am I giving, and what is she giving in this relationship? Also if she needs a break I should give it to her. The reason I trusted this guys was that he used to be in the navy and knew plenty of LDRs. He made me realize that she needs a break, but she has to build my trust again, and she has to actually grow as well. The main reason this happened was that she has a continuing issue of not telling me that she has a problem before the problem comes to a head. The other thing is that he had never heard of a person coming forward with the fact that they had cheated to their partner, and that spoke volumes about her love for me (even though she was questioning her love for me). I also told her to never speak to the guy again (for a variety of reasons). Step forward to now: My trust is all but gone with her, and I loved her yesterday, but I don't know how I feel today. I talked with a friend of mine, and he said if things aren't resolved within 2 weeks things will simply fall to the floor. This makes sense to me since my gf generally will never think about a problem and store it in the back of her mind until she's ready to get an ulcer. Pros: Feeling more confident Have a new goal in life Cons: Feeling angrier Uncertain Future (was originally planning on proposing at the beginning of spring) Trust is broken (and will take years to function fully again) Scared for her (due to her repressing stress, and not telling me) --------------------------- So my current questions are: Should I trust her story in it's entirety since she may have changed details to make me feel better? How can I assure myself that she will bother to make changes to make the relationship better? How can I know whether or not I will love her again? Will she ever try to grow a patience for small quirks between us even though I have no problem with the quirks?
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