Hi all!
My partner (F22) and I (F22) are currently long distance. We began dating during COVID, and were spending a lot of time together out of necessity/safety. In August I moved to begin grad school, and she is in her last year at our undergrad. We have the same issue coming up: She is incredibly spontaneous, and I am a planner.
My love language is definitely quality time –– I need to have a dedicated space that is for me to feel loved. For all of our long distance relationship, we’ve had this repeated issue where I feel loved through commitment. It’s gotten to the point that she thinks I need therapy to work through my inflexibility.
To me, it’s upsetting when she tells me she’ll be out with friends until midnight. Very rarely does she ever stick to her word and does that happen however. Something always comes up, they always want to go to more bars/parties etc. I’m also not a huge partier like that, to be honest. But it really has gotten to a point that if she tells me she’s only planning to be out until I certain time that I laugh because I know the chances of that actually happening are next to nothing. It’s sort of a trust issue now too – It’s hard for me to take her word on anything because things almost always change, and she knows it’s an anxiety inducing situation for me.
Or with visits – one of my closest friends is having a dinner soon, and dates are encouraged. I asked her to make the trip to visit for the weekend, and she initially committed, and then backed out when she found out one of her friends would be visiting that week. Despite having time to see her before the weekend that week, I’m the bad guy for being upset that she committed and then cancelled.
I’m having a hard time trying to figure out if these are long term incompatibility issues, something I should go to therapy to work though (as she has suggested), or short term issues with distance. Prior to distance this was not an issue. Any/all thoughts or similar experiences would be helpful.
TLDR: I have issues with plans changing but my partner is inherently spontaneous. Not sure what a solution is.
1 comment
She shouldn’t be making commitments to you if she doesn’t know she can keep them. That’s the short answer here. The thing with her nights out is a pattern you’re both aware of at this point – you both know if she’s going out, any plan will go out the window, so remove the expectation for her to tell you when she’s going to be back. It’s not a question she can answer.
The dinner with your friend is a different story – in this case she sent you a clear message that the plans she made with you were just a stopgap until something better came up. She should be treating your time as valuable, and she failed to do that in this case. You’re allowed to be upset that she took you for granted and blew you off to see her friend.
If you’re thinking of therapy, you should be going together. This isn’t just a you problem, it’s a question of compatibility, and you both need to be putting in the effort here to make things work. If you’re not willing to meet each other halfway on this, it’s not going to work out.