|
I guess I kinda screwed up
First time Ive asked a genuine question. Hmm. How to start. This is going to be long. Apologies in advance.
So I'm in a relationship. Been together 3 years this January. Ups and downs as usual for a relationship that long.
I'm trying to figure out how not to tell my life story and give you the details you need here.
For the last year, I've been worthless. Family drama, losing all support including my car, and losing a job that was actually keeping me quite nicely afloat until I could get back to school last summer left me drifting. I have barely had ends meet ever since.
She moved in with me at the beginning of the summer. She's supported me and has helped me try to get myself back on track but I still hadn't found the motivation to get my life back on track. Add on that she isn't a whole lot more motivated than I am, and we ended up working a job where we could both skip work and no one noticed or cared. She tried several other jobs but quit each one after a week.
She's sick of it. She's sick of living paycheck to paycheck and not having any stability in our lives. She's sick of me not having the willpower to pull myself out of the mud. And she's planning to move out, move away, and she says "I just don't want to be in a relationship right now."
I really don't want to lose her. I've worked and I've tried. I let down my responsibilities to the practical side of our life together but I always tried to keep up the relationship side with her.
This weekend she went home to visit family. She left on good terms. She still hasn't come back. She was originally planning to come back on saturday to move out, she has said that instead she will come back and stay a week until the saturday after next. But she says 98% chance she's also leaving.
I don't know what to do. She wants time to be alone, to not have to be stressed out about me or us or anything. Her parents (with whom she was on bad terms until about three weeks ago) are now offering to support her, give her an apartment, get her back in school, and even let her move back here after a semester as long as she's not living with me.
And it should be noted, I am slowly getting my shit together, but it's a long process. I have a few small debts that are still somewhat large to someone of my meager income. I need a better job than I have now and have no way to obtain one. It's just... it's not enough together that she doesn't feel stressed out about it.
She's taking them up on it. I can't blame her, I mean I can't exactly afford to send her to college. But in the process she's dumping me. We had planned for her to move back in December, and I might move up there with her if a job opportunity were found that would let me support myself. Else I'd stay here and she'd move back and we'd continue.
Now she wants to move back asap.
I know that if she leaves in a week, it will kill us. I mean, she's going to want space. She's going to put boundaries on any contact we can have. And the longer it goes on, the longer I'm going to resent her for it. I know that I will eventually drive her away because I am going to cling and I won't be able to help it.
If we go completely out of contact, it's the same thing. We just won't talk anymore, and that will be that.
I have to convince her to stay and fix our relationship, then she can leave. But I don't know how. She doesn't think that it can be fixed right now.
I just don't know. I thought I was going to marry this girl. And I'm closing on 23, so this isn't exactly moony eyed college kids. We've been in it for the long haul.
I just... She's my best friend. She completes me and I trust her more than I've ever been able to trust another human being. I've never encountered that before. I'm not the kind of person who usually ends up in relationships with any depth to them.
I could let her go. I could get over it. I could eventually fall in love again. I know I could get past it. I just don't want to. I refuse to.
I also don't want to face the concept that I have fucked up the best relationship I've ever had to the point that I can't recover it.
Help. I don't care what you have to say. I'm hoping for the slightest bit of inspiration.
[ ]
Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Love Life?
Well, you can't let all of this weight fall on your shoulders. A relationship is a two way street, you know. SHE has to do her share of making it work. It isn't all up to you. It isn't all your fault. It isn't all your problem.
She won't hold a steady job, so the whole financial issue is half her fault.
This is a huge lesson to you and you haven't yet opened your eyes to it. A marriage has many ups and downs as well as a committed relationship. Finances playing a HUGE roll in the downs, but only because people let them. Financial problems are what causes most divorces in this country. Because people let money put a wedge between their marriage.
Lesson: Sounds to me like she is running away in the night because things are getting tough. Better to learn this now, or later in life when children are involved? Of course, best to learn this now.
You've had a hard go recently, and she bails on you.
She is going to her family because obviously support is important to her. That is not how love works, I'm sorry to tell you. :(
People in relationships have their ups and downs, but the goal is to not let the downs get to you. To be happy with one another, not with how much money you have in the bank.
You could try to go to counseling together to try to work out these issues. Without BOTH of you recognizing these problems and BOTH of you going the extra mile to work them out, then your relationship is at a dead end.
It's self defeating to say "I know it will kill us." That might be true. It might end the relationship if she leaves at this point; however, that is her choice. Her decision isn't a snap one. It's been on the horizon for a while.
YOUR choice is whether or not you try to make it work, regardless of her choices. You CAN control your own level of resentment and clinginess. Making a plan on how to address the issues in your relationship while living apart will certainly be more difficult, but it's not impossible.
You need to respect her choices and her ability to make those choices for herself. Even if she makes the wrong ones and even if you disagree. If you can't do that, your relationship is already dead.
Let her go. Keep working on yourself. You have a long way to go and you know it. If you can't do it without her, you weren't going to do it with her.
]
I’ve taken a while to get back to you because I didn’t want to make any snap judgments. But after sitting on this question for a day or so, I’m afraid my answer is still much what it was when I first read your question, and you aren’t going to like me one bit.
Before I get into it I want to say this: I don’t believe you are a horrible person or a horrible boyfriend. I wouldn’t call you failure in any way. I imagine you are probably quite valuable as both. But your behavior at the moment, I have to take you to task on that. Your thinking is irrational and out of line. Please don’t take what I’m about to say as a comment on you as a human being. Take this a comment on your behavior, which needs some serious shaping up, but not necessarily in the ways you think.
You are unfairly refusing to compromise, you are defeating yourself before you even try, and you are not listening to your partner.
Your flat out refusal to even imagine her moving being a necessary step is a problem. It’s disrespectful to her, it’s refusing to recognize her clearly stated values and intentions and to not even allow for the possibility that this is what she needs, or that it’s her choice, is simply belittling.
She isn’t running away in the night. She is being an adult and has communicated her needs as well as she understands them. She needs to leave. She can’t handle the current situation.
It’s self defeating to say ‘I know it will kill us.’ That might be true. It might end the relationship if she leaves at this point; however, that is her choice. She’s been clear about that choice. I can tell simply from your question how clear she has been! She needs out, and she needs out now. Her decision isn’t a snap one. It’s been on the horizon for a while.
YOUR choice is whether or not you try to make it work, regardless of her choices. You CAN control your own level of resentment and clinginess. It might be hard, but you can do it, and it’s probably something you should work on anyways. Making a plan on how to address the issues in your relationship while living apart will certainly be more difficult, but it’s not impossible.
However, you’ve already told yourself every story you can think of after she moves, haven’t you? You’ve already decided that if she moves now, the relationship over. You’ve already labeled it as impossible. It might be true, that the relationship might end, quickly, if she moves, but it’s also your choice to believe that and accept that as the inevitable.
It is also, a way of trying to control her choices, by saying and thinking ‘If you leave now. We’ll never be together again.’ That’s a threat. That’s trying to keep her near by threatening her. It’s not very nice. It also tells her, that if she makes the choice she believes is best for herself, you’ll give up on the relationship.
If she stays, she’ll resent you for that. Deeply. She’ll leave eventually, feeling you wanted to keep her more then you loved her.
You need to respect her choices and her ability to make those choices for herself. Even if she makes the wrong ones and even if you disagree. If you can’t do that, your relationship is already dead, because you don’t trust or respect her.
Let her go. Keep working on yourself. You have a long way to go and you know it. If you can’t do it without her, you weren’t going to do it with her.
Instead of fighting with her about moving, support her through this difficult decision. Let her know what you want, but leave it to her to make her own decisions. If you want to stay together, start making a plan NOW about how you two can address your problems while you are apart. Show her you are interested in her well being as well as the relationships well being. Show her you can see her moving, not as giving up, not as a being doomed, but as a step she needs to take. Respect her, even through your pain, and you might be surprised by what you two can achieve.
]
More Questions: |