Hi everyone, me (24f) and my gf (23f) have been together for 2 years now, she’s been my first serious relationship too. We both suffer from depression and anxiety while she also suffers from PTSD after a traumatic accident that killed the kid she was with when they were in middle school, I think. I say this cause it’s very heavy for me and I’ve always kept it to myself cause it’s her business but it’s become too much and I feel this kid’s presence in the air sometimes and I don’t know how to deal with it.
Things have been piling up for the last 10 months now, I worked on my mental health a lot in the summer and got better but she keeps doing worse and worse. As someone who understands depression, I don’t feel like judging and I care about her so I wanna give her all the support and time and space as possible, but to be honest with you sometimes I don’t even know if she even wants it or if she cares about me anymore and that’s really a lot for me cause I feel like an afterthought or worse like I’m making her life worse.
I think I’m so tired lately cause I feel as if the relationship already ended, she told me she has to think about kissing me as if it doesn’t even come natural to her anymore, and again I understand depression but it hurts very bad haha. We live in two different towns and she never asks to call or anything, when I’m in the city near her town (because i go to uni there) I still feel like we could see each other but it feels as if there’s always an excuse why we can’t. Or at least for the amount of time we spend apart those couple times are not enough for me.
Last time she told me she \*thinks\* she wants to stay with me but she has no idea what she needs from me or the relationship. She said she can’t tell me who to be or how to act with her and that her issues are hers only and that I shouldn’t be dealing with them. She said she wants to put herself first now and that I just have to do whatever I want basically cause she can’t help. She told me she enjoys her new friends’ presence more sometimes cause that way she pretends she’s fine and they only joke with nothing serious on the table so it’s easier. She also apologized afterward cause she worded it wrong but you get the gist, I think.
To be honest with you, one of the biggest issues in our relationship has always been our differences in communication: i wanna talk about things even if they seem silly or small but she doesn’t like to talk at all, and she gets defensive and mean sometimes. I feel guilty saying this but I think our emotional maturity levels are very unbalanced, such as our relationship skills.
I’ve been back to my town for a few weeks now and met up with an old friend and she asked how things were going with my gf and I think even before I said anything she saw the look on my face and cried for me too. So since I am also very frustrated and angry I just broke down completely and started saying how bad it is lately and that I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. I do it cause I’m also constantly afraid that I exaggerate everything or that I make things up but like as I was telling things that happened or that she said to me, my friend kept telling me that it’s toxic and I should leave as soon as possible. I also mentioned the dead kid part because I feel like she brought it up in the relationship lately and it’s so heavy for me so I wanted to hear from someone else if idk it’s normal? but I feel the shittiest person ever now and I’ve been not sleeping well for days and I keep churning on this.
I realize probably it’s also because me and my friend are different character-wise so maybe I don’t trust her 100% and I get very protective of my gf, but at the same time I feel disgusted in myself and like I’m nothing but an asshole for complaining about the relationship. I feel like I deserve all things bad for opening up and like I disrespected my gf in ways that cannot be redeemed and just like I’m a terrible person. I’m also afraid now of people’s opinions I think, and no matter how this ends between me and my gf I don’t want my friends to hate her because of me or talk bad about her or anything. I’m hurt and angry but even if or when we break up I wish her to heal and everything good that can happen to a person so I feel so guilty for letting my anger out with my friend and talk about things that happened between us. Even more cause I know I also have my faults and I probably made it look like it’s all on her and I hate myself for it.
I’m sorry for the long post but thank you for anyone reading and replying, you guys are great.
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TL;DR! : my (24f) relationship with my gf (23f) feels like it reached its end. I’m hurting and I’m mad and frustrated which led me to break down and vent about her and the relationship with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and now I feel terrible for it like I’m the worst person on planet earth and I don’t deserve my gf nor her respect
1 comment
I’ll be honest, I skim-read some of this, so apologies if I missed the nuances, but I’ll summarise my thoughts:
1. You’re allowed to discuss your relationship with your friends, particularly when it’s going badly. That’s fine, provided that you focus on your feelings rather than her flaws, and provided you don’t break confidences or share embarrassing, personal or medical information of hers.
2. Don’t confuse not wanting to talk about feelings with emotional immaturity. There are a number of ways of dealing with things, there’s no one correct way. You’re approaching this from an, ‘I’m right, she’s wrong’ perspective, like she’s flawed somehow for not wanting to discuss her emotions in depth. That’s not the case. She’s told you what she needs from you- act like she’s fine, don’t keep rehashing her mental health issues and past traumas with her because she doesn’t find it helpful in dealing with them. Let her take the lead in this.