Hi Everyone!
So I’ve been in a relationship now for just shy of 3.5 years. Over the last year we had to do long distance because I am currently going through my medical school training across the country, but in 6 months I will be back in our home town when I do clinical rotations. She is recently graduated from college and is working 32 hrs at a clinic while taking a 5 unit class and applying for graduate school.
She is the most loyal and endearing person, and has great treats about her that I want in a partner. However, she has always had a major issue with anxiety. She used to and still tries to cope with this with copious amounts of weed, which I did not think anything of at first. But, she has developed a clear dependency to it and unless she is high she is really easily agitatable and overly sensitive to converse with.
Some context, she constantly feels the need to complain about little things like how she’s too tired for work, how her boss and coworkers don’t like her, how she doesn’t have friends, how school sucks, how everything is just miserable and that she hates herself. It’s almost a mixture of anxiety and negativity that is just constant. I don’t think a day has gone by over our long distance relationship where she has not complained about something.
I used to have more patience for these things, but as I have tried to use different approaches to console her from solutions oriented advice to positive affirmations and just listening. The anxiety and emotions just never seemed to resolve. I have brought this up many times to her as a problem and recently she has begun to tell me she feels like she can’t express herself and is walking in eggshells around me, perhaps because over time I have told her that if she continues to constantly complain it would drive us apart. I don’t understand how I am being unreasonable here. I am getting desperate and have told her multiple times to go see a therapist which I suppose could seem like an insensitive response to someone who is trying to vent to you in the moment, at which she first felt offended to now she agrees it’s a good idea but that she just can’t find the right therapist and it’s just so hard and how it’s something extra to add on her list that makes her feel just too overwhelmed… she has been “looking” for 6 months now.
After going through hell and back in med school and seeing how resilient my other classmates are and positive in the face of adversity it really makes me question whether her behavior is something she cannot change. I don’t want to break up with her, but if she can’t get her anxiety and negative emotions in check without constantly complaining to me I just don’t see myself raising a family or being successful with someone like that in my life.
Has anyone else had to deal with a similar experience in a partner and how has it resolved or played out with you?
TLDR: Gf of 3.5 yrs has a constantly anxious demeanor, puts her in a negative headspace/attitude, last year we started long distance. Tried to console her in every way I know, but nothing seems to change her situation.. I don’t know what to do.
3 comments
It’s not that she can’t change, it’s that she won’t.
You cannot help someone who won’t help themself. Who refuses to seek professional help. So she is just dragging you down, exhausting you, your carer-fatigue has kicked in; yet for what? You can’t be her therapist, and you can’t prescribe her anti-anxiety meds. And you’re going through med school, ffs, you need a partner who supports you, not the other way round. So you need to start putting your own mental health first.
By which, of course, I mean break up.
Yep.
Most therapists are booked into have a waiting list several months long. And it sounds like she really isn’t trying very hard. Just about any therapist should be good enough. There is also more than she could do like trying to get into some programs that would help her, maybe yoga, or mindfulness, or stress relief or anything like that, exercise, eating healthier, books, anything.
I just don’t see her making any progress towards her mental health issues.
And just like you experienced, anxiety can be a brain chemical thing and you talking to her might help her to feel better for 20 minutes but it does absolutely nothing for the long-term problem in her life and in her brain.
I think that the answer to your question is here on the sub. You might peruse around the different questions about anxiety. I’ve seen a couple of threads here where partners who have been left because of their anxiety said it was the best thing that ever happened to them because they finally got the help that they needed and their life changed immensely for the better.
People in medicine is shown to have a tendency towards choosing more -troubled- individuals as their SO.
its their calling to save people after all. Whats more romantic than saving your loved one?
I tell you what. You are dealing with an emotional vampire. People who are perpetually searching for a therapist and never find are showing some resistance to starting therapy. So do not expect any change in the neartime future.
You have to question yourself:
Can you live long term with a girl like that?
Can you live longterm being her caretaker?
I bet you are the one always listening but never venting. Also, I dare to guess that you are a people’s pleaser individual.
Having an emotional vampire beside you is exhaustive in the long term and you will start resenting her. Do not internalise your idea that you have to save her. You shouldnt.
She needs to see a therapist and/or psychiatrist.