For context, this is our second time around. We were previously together for three years and then broke up due to long distance, but I’ve recently moved to her city and we reconnected romantically.
So far, things have been going great:
* She regularly initiates plans and we spend the night together 5-6 times a week. She has planned multiple vacations for us through late next year, including a trip abroad and a visit to our home town for her best friend’s wedding. She even cancelled another trip she planned with a friend so that she could use her vacation days on our trip instead, which she entirely planned, initiated, and has fronted all the costs for (which I will repay her for obviously).
* She discusses our future (marriage/kids) and even briefly seriously posed the prospect about eloping and moving to a Europe with me for a job opportunity I received.
* She is emotionally supportive and we have healthy communication about our needs – she gives me assurances about our relationship and gives me assurances about how I “don’t need to worry” about other people in her life.
* She effectively claims me as “her partner” to her coworkers, her roommates, and her family – she’s affectionate to me in public and has posted me on her social media accounts, and she introduces me to people in her life as her partner. She brags about me a lot to them both when we are together and when we’re apart. I go on double dates and couples events with her roommates and friends all the time. She has photos of me and our mementos from our current and previous relationship all around her room, and all of her favorited photos are romantic photos of us.
* She can expressed that she feels that she can be herself around me, is often goofy, emotionally vulnerable, and lets me see a side of her that nobody else sees. Sometimes when we are together, she tells me that she wishes she could lay in bed with me forever.
* She is affectionate and loving – she often compliments me and will tell me she loves me.
* She often prioritizes hanging out with me over other people by her own choice and if someone else wants to hang out with her, she’ll try to schedule around when I’m also busy.
* She is trying to maintain a relationship with my family and wants me to have a relationship with hers. She also wants to hang out with my friends when they visit me who she doesn’t also have a relationship with – so she’s coming as my significant other.
But she gets freaked out by the idea of commitment and the label of being “my girlfriend.” She’s expressed where a lot of this anxiety comes from – she’s actively in therapy, but part of it is rooted in her feeling like she has low energy to do things during the day, and being in a relationship makes her feel like she needs to prioritize me over her own needs (even though she does this voluntarily, and I try to either encourage her to take time for herself or help her when she asks – which she always appreciates). She also wants to feel independent and like she doesn’t need to be “cared for”, and I think generally has long-term fears of marriage.
Her coworkers, family, and roommates really like me and frequently ask her questions about me and what our status is – they keep saying things along the lines of “you’re clearly in love with him and spend all your time with him, just say you’re back together,” which I think triggers some avoidant tendencies in her due to the external pressure on her to define our relationship – she will always reply with “I don’t know what we are but I’m happy and just want to go with out without thinking too much about what our label is” which is weird, but again, her actions are demonstrating commitment if the general mentality is to “trust actions over words”.
So far, I feel like I’m getting most of my needs met in terms of what I want from a relationship, but the lack of labels is starting to bother me. Part of me thinks that as she goes to therapy and we build our trust and comfort with each other over time, we could really end up in a strong, healthy relationship –honestly, outside of the lack of labels, our dynamic right now is everything I would want from a relationship. Should I just take things slow and let her define us at her own pace, or is this a glaring red flag that I should just rip the bandaid off and walk away from?
3 comments
r/fearfulavoidant
You need to have her check in with her therapist about the pacing of the relationship. 5-6 times a week and planning all these vacations? Could be enabling and a little fast….but bringing that up could be awkward. You could talk to a therapist about phrasing it. And about your own stuff too.
This therapist has good stuff. https://www.alanrobarge.com/
Thais Gibson is a good author on attachment styles https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCHQ4lSaKRap5HyrpitrTOhQ
Was in a relationship exactly like this and even told her co workers and friends I’m her fiancé . Don’t kid yourself. This lasted 2 years for me and eventually it ended with me finding out she was lying about a couple things and every argument led to “you don’t understand me and you’re not listening “ when in fact I was never allowed in and always kept at arms length yet she displayed the same things you’re listing to the T. I desperately wanted to understand her and be there for her anxiety and depression issues but I was never allowed in and often projected her issues onto me saying I don’t get her and got gas lighted hard (ie calling me her fiancé ) . Eventually it led to her monkey branching.
My advice is if she’s fearful of the label essentially she’s saying she wants to keep her options open. I would think long and hard about what you want and if it’s a relationship you’re after , even with all these displays she’s showing you but doesn’t want to label it to me is a red flag and I’d walk away.