Hello folks. I wanted to get some opinions here about a situation that happened with my gf. So me (32 m & her (28 ), who have been together for a bit over 8 months & living together for the past 3 months) came to a week trip visiting from LA to NYC.
Everything was going well and we had so much fun together until the last day of trip. That day, she wanted to dedicate it to drive all the way to Niagara Falls ( Over 6 hours drive from our hotel in NYC., and drive back same day, so you can imagine how that would be. And despite my attempts all week trying to convince her that it’s going to be so exhausting doing that in 1 day, I ended up driving her there cause I saw she really wanted it.
We arrived there to the American side of the falls and it was pretty nice and took cute pictures. As you may know, though, the Canadian side of the falls is much more nicer than the American side. However, she couldn’t make it to the Canadian side due to paperwork issues. I did have my passport card with me and I kinda wanted to go check out the Canadian side since we drove all the way there already, so I asked her if I can cross the bridge really quick to go check the other side and it won’t take long.
Her answer was “Okay but what I’m gonna do here ” and I told her if you want you can shop in the shopping plaza across street and also I will leave you the car keys in case you want to drive around. She said “Okay” with a bit of an attitude, and I walked her to inside the mall.
I know she wasn’t very happy about me going but in my mind I was thinking okay I’m sure she will understand that it’s something that could be a once in a lifetime experience and l’m gonna enjoy and it won’t take long plus she’ll appreciate that I drove all the way to the falls just for her even if I didn’t want to go so it’d not be terrible for me to do a quick walk to the other side and come back.
So I crossed the bride to the Canadian side took some pictures & brought her some souvenirs & came back to our meeting spot (the whole thing took an hour or less from the time I left her at the mall).
However, when I came back to our meeting spot I couldn’t find the car so I called her and she told me that she is on her way to Buffalo city “About 25 mins away and if I want I can Uber to her, with an attitude”. Of course I got pissed off and told her at least lemme know that you are leaving , out of respect.
She ended up driving back to me in a few minutes and then we started having a big argument.
All I heard was her yelling saying that don’t really care about her , and I’m selfish and don’t love her and everything I said to her is a lie and no guy would do this to his girlfriend and she basically said that’s if for us!!
I yelled back of course and told her what’s the big deal if I went on a quick walk to check the other side since we are already here and I came all the way just for you, and I didn’t like leave you on the street or anything, it was a nice mall and you also had the car. I literally stayed on the other side for just 20 mins and the rest was walking back & forth and buying her souvenirs from the duty free so it didn’t take more than an hour.
She technically described me that l’m not a man saying ” no man would leave his girlfriend like this and imagine if someone did this to your daughter” and she wanted to break up!
I’m trying to understand if this is a normal reaction to this situation or mabe she is a bit sensitive cause of her paperwork situation that wouldn’t allow her to cross the border or it’s something else! I really don’t know and I’m going a bit crazy here.
I even tried to give an example to her of if we went on a theme park together for the first time and we enjoyed many rides together but there is a couple rides that she wants to do but I can’t do them cause I’m scared or whatever reason. I’d still want her to go on those rides even if I won’t be happy waiting for her doing nothing but I’ll understand it’s something she wanna do & enjoy. So I wouldn’t wait until she is done and tell her we will break up because she left me waiting!
All I heard after giving that example that it’s not related and I’m being manipulative!
Any thoughts?!
TL;DR my gf thinks that leaving her in a shopping mall for an hour and I go do something that she can’t join me on, and it might be a once in a lifetime experience for me makes me a terrible man and and reason to break up.
6 comments
You need to put some paragraph breaks in your text or people can’t read it easily. You have to use two spaces
A normal.immature reaction.
Some people think you’re not allowed fun or time separately from them.
I get why she was disappointed/upset, but she did not handle it well and her reaction was pretty extreme IMO. She could have spoken up more before you went across, it was only an hour, and her communication about it after the fact was not good. That being said, you did leave her in a mall for an hour to do the thing that she seemed to be looking forward to the most on the trip, so that’s a tough thing to feel great about for her. Not that I even think you were “wrong” to do it, but I get where she’s coming from to some degree. If I were in your shoes, I’d definitely be wondering if this is indicative of how she handles stress or fights, which would give me pause about the relationship overall.
Eh this isn’t really a once in a lifetime experience. Is there anything stopping you from going back in a few years when she gets her paperwork done? She clearly wanted to go but couldn’t so no it’s not like a theme park ride. At a ride I’d imagine you’d wait in line together and for 2 mins she’d wait for you. But that’s if she didn’t want to go. So your example is clearly not the same. She also reacted poorly but what did you expect her to do. She drove away to buffalo out of spite. So that’s not good of her. Everyone sort of did something here. Neither of you are right
Dude, you were on a trip with your gf, and then you didn’t exactly give her any indication beforehand that you might want to cross to the Canadian side and leave her for an hour. She obviously was surprised by it and took it as you wanting to get some space from her.
You should’ve given her a heads up on the drive that you wanted to do that given you knew she couldn’t come with you. Her reaction wasn’t great, but you didn’t do great either.
Ultimately a breakdown in communication, talk it through, if there’s something you want to do in the future when she’s with you that she can’t join you on, give her some warning on it!
Yes, it makes sense that she’s mad, but I think a more fundamental communication issue made everything play out the way it did.
It sounds like you really didn’t want to do this trip. You can kinda pick three routes – say you don’t want to go, go and just accept it’s a long drive, agree to go but say you’ll want to go to the Canadian side on your own. Decide together before you’re in the car.
By not doing this, leaving her at the mall kind of seems like punishing her for having to go on a trip you didn’t want to take.
Especially given that you’re living together it’s important to practice communicating honestly and non-defensively. I’ve seen people say make it you two vs. the problem, not you vs. each other.