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UPDATE 1: I have had another talk with my girlfriend after things settled from last nights discussion. Like some of you suggested, emotions ran quite high. I have been able to use your advise to better map the problem we’re facing.
It seems clear now that the issue is indeed that she dislikes her (solo) life when I am not around and she tries to escape it by keeping herself busy when I am away. She does not have another person she can confide in like she can with me. I have told her that it is obvious that I am the persons she likes to get emotional support from but that it is not a task for me to bear alone. I’ve made it clear that it is too much burden to carry for a single person and that she should not be dependent solely on me.
When I confronted her with the fact that I should be a nice extra on top of an already happy live, she told me that indeed she did not feel good when she is alone. We’ve established that the problem is not me being away, but her being alone. Right now I am just happy I have said what I wanted to say, she was happy about me being honest with her. She understands that it is not healthy to be emotionally depended on me alone but at the same time is scared because I told her it’s not a burden I can carry. I think it all boils down to her having to find her own person within the relationship, and learning to deal with her self in different situations including ones where I am not around.
I really want to thank you for your responses so far, if there’s any update I will post it here.
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Recently me and my girlfriend of 2 years (living together for \~1 year) have had quite a lot of arguments around the fact that I like to go on vacations with friends. My girlfriend and I have a really good and trusting relationship, we talk a lot about almost everything with each other and we both don’t back away from ‘hard’ talks. We’ve had issues in the past, but we mostly come to a good in between solution on them and move on. But this one, we can’t seem to crack.
Some context: Friends always have been very important to me. I have quite a lot of them, split up between different groups. When I have had issues with previous relationships or other ‘life problems’ I could always rely on my friends to catch me when something goes sideways. For my girlfriend this is different, she has only about 2-3 real friends, and really only one she can confide in when somethings up. She mostly goes to her parents for those kinds of situations but says even they don’t quite understand her or only come up with solutions instead of just listening. Furthermore, she’s an only child and I have an older brother and younger sister who I love to hang out with. We’ve had a long talk yesterday resulting in her admitting that she thinks the only one who really ‘sees’ her and listens to her is me. Which, I can imagine, can be frustrating at times.
Now a few months ago the topic came up that 2 of my friends (she’s met before) would like to go on a surfing trip together for 2 weeks end of June. Meanwhile my girlfriend and I had already planned a holiday of three weeks in August. When I brought the surfing trip up, she got very emotional and couldn’t understand why I’d want to spend so much time without her. Her being at home with nothing to do essentially while I am away having a fun time with friends, it seemed to sting her quite a bit. We’ve had a discussion which lasted till late at night, I understood her viewpoint and for her it’s obviously not really a fun situation for me to be away for so long, and her being home alone struggling to fill the time. So I think I made a reasonable concession by cutting the trip to one week and at the time she seemed fine with this decision. She felt one week wouldn’t be so bad, and we left it at that.
Now the trip is in about a month and since I have been invited to a few other events of which 2 also happen in June before the trip. Nothing big, just a day of card gaming with friends and a concert with a mate of mine. Mentioning the latter yesterday seemed to trigger my GF to think about all the times I will be away.Now I know that she doesn’t like it when I bring up events which she is not a part of, so I do feel a little bad when I do so. (Also I have had a pretty toxic relationship before in which I could not plan anything without my ex getting angry, so I always feel some resistance bringing stuff like this up). We both know she’s working on the fact that she doesn’t like when I am away, sometimes even a night I planned with mates seems too much for her, but other nights she’s fine. But she says she thinks there are a few limits she really struggles with. Me being away for more than a day at a time is one of them she just can’t wrap her head around. For her it’s a fait accompli slowly creeping toward her, nothing she can do about it.
The problem seems to be part jealousy and part FOMO. She says she doesn’t like it when I do all those things with friends because she’d rather I do them with her and that she really wants to be happy for me when away, but can’t ‘feel’ it like I can the other way around. Furthermore she hates being home alone having nothing to do. We’ve found out that if she’s distracted with other stuff, it’s easier for her to be alone. For instance when she has a busy school week when I am away, she just focusses on that. But if she has the week off while I am away, she struggles way more to keep herself busy.
Now we’re really looking for a way to deal with this problem. To us it doesn’t seem like an issue to be breaking up over, because the rest of the relationship seems to work fine. Your average Wednesday so to speak is wonderful and nothing to be upset about. So we’re looking for a way we can both be happy while I am away, me not thinking about her feeling miserable when I’m gone, and her feeling okay while I’m from home. I don’t have the need to be away for more than a week each year, but I’d like for it to be something I can keep doing.
TL;DR: My girlfriend feels miserable when I am away from home for longer than a few days at a time while doing fun stuff without her being present. We’ve talked about it a lot but don’t seem to be able to come up with a solution that suits us both.
38 comments
Lol how do you see this going if you guys actually NEED to spend like a week or so fully apart? Let’s say something happens and you need to visit family.
Come on my friend, you know she’s either got to get a grip or you have to dump her.
You’ll probably breakup anyways, and with her current maturity and foundation it’s inevitable.
You date to find someone who matches with your CURRENT FORM. You don’t date someone with hopes they will change. That’s not fair to either of you.
Sounds like she has some life lessons to work through before she makes those changes – and it will be a while before she does.
Just drop her, it’s not worth arguing about or missing out on a trip with your friends. You’re only 25 once.
I’ve been your girlfriend. The issue is just that she needs friends. You can’t be her only outlet to do things out of the house and to have fun. She should be able to occupy her time and herself while you’re gone. The problem is she can’t. So you’re out having a blast and shes just sitting at home waiting for you to come back probably jealous and wishing you were there so she’s not bored. From her end it sucks. But at the same time you’re doing nothing wrong! You’re allowed to go out with your friends and have fun without her! She really needs to work on expanding her circle and finding ways to take up her time without you. In the long run this will kill your relationship if she doesn’t. And its just not healthy for her. You will also get burnt out being the only one she feels a connection with etc. you cannot be everything to her. Your her boyfriend. That’s the role you fill. She needs to find other people to fill the other roles and stop relying on you so much. And until then realizing that it’s hard and her being upset you’re away is a her problem she needs to work on can help a lot. When I first started realizing it instead of bugging my SO or waiting around for him I’d watch movies he doesn’t like. Or blast music. Take a me day with a bath and wine and snacks etc. I came to love some of the alone time and ended up diving back into hobbies/interest I had lost because they weren’t things we could do together. Taking the time to entertain myself helped a lot. Now I don’t feel resentful when my SO goes out and I’ve started doing things on my own he doesn’t like instead of being sad he’s having fun when I’m not. Still working on the more friends thing, but that takes time and can be hard.
She needs her own life. You can’t live your life being everything to her.
She needs to get a life of her own. She should be able to manage without you for a few days. If my fiancé went away for 2 weeks, I’d definitely miss him a lot but I would also enjoy the time to myself getting to do exactly as I want. You are both young and should make the most of it – I’d encourage her to reconnect with her friends and take up some hobbies. But you could also invite her to some of these events with you? The card gaming and concert. It’s normal to get FOMO at times, but nobody should use that as an excuse to stop someone else having a life.
>she got very emotional and couldn’t understand why I’d want to spend so much time without her.
run for your life. Seriously. This shit is creepy. This person is not mature.
I don’t think it’s jealousy of FOMO, she doesn’t have the rich and varied connections in her life that you do and as such is a bit lost without you. She needs to try and vary her hobbies, focus on herself more basically in order to find things and people she can vibe with. I feel bad for her it’s hard to socialise and build friendships as an adult
At an earlier point in my life, I was the one sitting at home while my SO was off on trips with her friends or away on work. Like a lot a lot. While I’m not a particularly social person to begin with, I’d sometimes get more than a bit lonely.
What I did was to just sit with the feeling a few minutes and then go find something to do because I recognized that it wasn’t reasonable of me to get upset over it. Most of the travel was out of her control and what wasn’t was a well deserved break and bringing me along for a week with her friends would have been fucking miserable for me.
Projects, hobbies, games, movies, and fucking around on the Internet were all reasonable ways to occupy my time when I wasn’t working. Any need for commiserating could wait for a phone call every day or two. You know, an actual phone call where you communicate in real time. Way more satisfying than texting and it takes a lot less wall clock time. Plus there’s a lot less room for miscommunication because tone can be conveyed better than it is in a text only medium.
So my suggestion is to encourage her to find things she enjoys and offer to schedule a time to talk on the phone every couple of days, even if it’s only for 10 or 15 minutes. As a longer term project, do some more social activities with her so that she can find some friends.
I kinda feel her. My bf also has a ton of friends, split into three groups. While I have none (well one friend, but we live so far from each other now and barely have contact) He goes on vacation abroad with his friends every single year while I try to fill up my time. I understand that being away with his boys, exploring and shit is fun and important to him and he shouldn’t give that up because I have a hard time making friends or having something else to do besides work, school and hobbies.
Encourage her to make her own circle of friends and have her own life outside of being with you. Maybe she’ll also be happy for you that you do have a group of friends and a social life
2 weeks away is really tough for me too, for me it’s like that’s cutting into vacation time we could have together. I think 1 week was a great compromise. It helps me when we are doing different things to get a text either in the morning or at night. And the rest of the situation needs to be solved by her. She needs new hobbies or volunteer activities to keep her busy and give her the chance to meet new people.
I’ll try to say this in the nicest possible way, but you are not her emotional support animal.
I don’t get why she doesn’t go on some trips with you? Whenever my bf has a trip he invites me. Sometimes I say no, sometimes I say yes.
If you’ve been together for 2 years, wouldn’t she have been introduced to, and have hung out with your friends multiple times?
And it’s definitely not fair what she’s doing, especially since it has nothing to do with you going away and everything to do with her not having other stuff going on.
You shouldn’t have had to compromise your trip length but it was kind of you to.
It’s unhealthy for her to not be able to spend anytime alone, regardless of your relationship. This can change as people get older but still.
It can be difficult balancing a relationship and active friendships. I think compromising on the length of the trips is a good step since several weeks at a time is very long to be away. I would also talk about how you will communicate with each other while you’re gone. Will you be able to talk and text regularly to check in? Also, prior to your trips/activities, I would help her plan things she’s going to do while your away like a girls night with her friend, visiting a parent, or watching a show/reading a book you like so you can both talk about it. Maybe you can play a game online with her to check in occasionally like a words with friends or something like that. Just little things to touch base and get her mind off you being gone.
I’m not as social as my husband, nor do I travel for work like he does. We had some similar issues to work through. Now, it doesn’t faze me as much because I know what to expect, he checks in frequently, and how to keep myself busy. This is something you can work through together. Just be sensitive to each other’s needs and communicate.
This level of codependency is unhealthy. There is no justification for this behaviour. It is not your fault that your family backgrounds are different and therefore have had different experiences. It is not your fault or a problem to fix that you have a fulfilling social life. The idea that a 23yr old can’t survive a week alone because she has nothing to do is frankly ridiculous. When people start using language like “you are the one person who gets me, the only one I can talk to etc etc”, you have a problem and it will only escalate. This coddling that she’s looking for is going to eventually kill your relationship. Its not unique, we’ve all seen it.
If you spent a week at a hospital or one of your siblings needed you out of state, you’d have a crisis o your hands in the form of a grown woman? C’mon man.
I’ve been in her place and the only thing that will fix this issue is for her to not depend on you so much. One person being your boyfriend, best friend, only friend, only entertainment is way too much pressure for you.
I understand her bc I’ve been her but she has to learn how to depend on herself more than you. How to entertain herself, how to find new hobbies, new people to befriend, how to get closer with her family. You sound very caring and understanding which is great but I think this is more of a ‘her’ problem.
Adult who can’t be by themselves for a week or two have a problem. She needs to address that problem. This relationship sounds very suffocating.
I don’t have a lot of friends but I also don’t mind spending time alone.
Is the issue that SHE wants to be doing these things with you? Concerts are a group activity, did you invite her? Do you make other plans with just her? I know you’ve got vacation plans with her, but do you go to concerts, dinner, events, and other outings?
Well I will speak for myself. I am a girlfriend who would be excited to be out with someone else than my partner because I am independent. I would have jokingly said “Nice! Two weeks without you!! Whooo!” And still miss you, but happy for you that you are having fun. I am laidback person.
I wouldn’t want to be with someone who can’t let me go out and have fun without being guilt trip for wanting to go. But that’s your decision. Once again, I’m speaking about me. Every woman are different. Your choice to stay and try to improve things with her or tell her that you feel what you feel and want to out.
Haha I seriously hope you’re not my boyfriend writing this :(, I know I have the exact same problem as your girlfriend but I am working very hard with also psychiatric help to not be like this.
Your girlfriend needs to work on herself in this case. I’m your girlfriend in the idea that I’m also an only child, have very few friends and hang with my parents a lot but honestly I love being alone. I have my own hobbies, activities and I just enjoy hanging on my couch watching bad tv solo. Your girlfriend needs to learn to be alone and amuse herself, I’m kind of surprised as an only child she isn’t already good at that….
What did she do before you were together? Just sit around all day doing nothing?
Oooof I was this girlfriend once. My friend group for the first three years of college was all dudes, then me and my best girlfriend. Well, I ended up dating one of the guys in the group and my girlfriend ended up transferring. Suddenly I went from having a thriving friend group that I loved, to feeling like the tag along girlfriend. If they wanted to have a “guys night” it basically just meant a night with all the same people except me. I took it very very hard every time because I had no friends of my own, so I’d just lay around my room depressed all night. It was bad and I ended up completely tanking the relationship because I became so codependent on my boyfriend. He felt like all I had.
He ended up dumping me and it was awful, but I stayed single and finally found some friends and became a healthier person with healthier attachment styles and was so much happier. I really hope it doesn’t come to that with you guys, but your girlfriend really needs to break this cycle. I’d suggest therapy for her codependency and Bumble BFF (dating app for friends). It’s a lot of effort and won’t feel fair to her that she has to put all this effort in when you don’t, but what she’s doing right now isn’t healthy and she needs to stop taking it out on you. I just know the pain she’s feeling and really feel for her. Best of luck man.
Let’s be real, you jumped from one toxic relationship to another; you have the same issue but your partners just react differently.
This is not a you problem or an us problem, it’s a her problem. She is a grown woman who should have the ability to be alone and occupy herself. Don’t coddle this behavior or it will only get worst because she will slowly make her life evolve solely around you until you are suffocating and resentful.
She needs therapy, friends, hobbies; she needs a life outside of you.
It’s not going to get any better, just warning you.
Bring her with you? Problem solved
Friendships are very, very important to mental health man. A lot of different studies and research out that that make the argument a strong and supportive social network of platonic friends and family may actually be more advantageous to a human’s mental health than a partner.
Now I’m not saying this is true or false, I’m just telling you what I’ve read. Also from my own experience I can tell you this much; I have a ground of 3 other friends who I see very often. 90% of the time, we all hang out as a group. Meaning us and the gals either having a fire at our house or doing some event. But also once or twice a month us boys go and do something just us like mountain biking or kayaking. And it’s super important for our friendship. Also, once a year we go on a ski trip together for about 10 days. Usually just the boys, but last year the girls came and it ended up causing a lot of problems. One of my friends actually broke up over it.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Our girlfriends all understand how important our friendships are and they are actually very happy for us that we’ve had these lifelong friendships and we’re so close, and they think it is very special and encourage us to hang out just us. But one of my friend’s girlfriend is the complete opposite. They just started dating about a year ago and she seethes with anger any time he hangs out with us without her. I’ve heard her beg him, literally plead to cancel with us one night because she wanted to be with him. Mind you, they basically live together. They see eachother every, single, day since they started dating-besides the rare events he can hang out with us alone. We can all know she is actively trying to isolate him from us, which again is causing problems among the friend group.
Now the main difference between her and everyone else’s GF? She has no life. She has no friends, she has no hobbies, she doesn’t even have a job. Her BF is her only outlet for just about everything which makes her extremely jealous, possessive and dependent. Your situation doesn’t sound quite as bad, but it sounds like it is heading in that direction. The biggest problem here is that your GF needs to find a life of her own outside of you. I’m sure if she had friends she loved spending time with, she would be letting you know that she’d be going on a vacation with them once a year if given the opportunity. Time apart with friends is vital for a healthy life and relationship/
My boyfriend has the coolest job in the world and gets to travel most of the year doing really fun things. I’m quite often jealous and feel sad about not sharing these experiences with him. However I would never want him to not go and live his best life. I fill my time and make sure my own life is just as fun and get my own hobbies and friends. Also relationships that are so insular and only rely on each other are not very strong as it does create a lot of jealousy and even anxiety on both sides which can lead to resentment. It seems like your gf is renting the fact you’re able to have fun without her which isn’t fair at all on you. She needs to accept you have separate lives which of course are enriched when together but she can’t rely on you for her only source of happiness. Perhaps she could join sports groups or take up a new hobby. If she’s not interested in forming her own fulfilled life and is happy existing without it then that’s fine too but as long as it’s not at the expense of your fun and friendships. Otherwise this sounds like she could manipulate you into spending all your time with her in a relationship that could be perceived as controlling and even abusive.
Does she ever get invited? Like a game night or a concert seems like one of those she may enjoy? Also what about the 3 week trip? Are you going? Do you go away with her too?
I think there are a lot of things here. Does she feel like you take the time to do those things with her? Do you have game nights, go to concerts, take spontaneously trips away together? If not then this may be where the resentment comes from. It’s great to have a circle of friends to do things with if she has friends she can spend time with that aren’t far away it would be good for them to plan things together. Alternatively some friend groups just don’t get together like that on a frequent basis so it can be hard to watch from sidelines and sit things out. I do think you guys working on her not being so dependant on you is great but when you live with someone it’s a bit different to see your partner going off all the time even if it’s well meaning.
This brings me to my second point of the fact that since you two live together and your relationship is seemingly in a more serious than casual place, do your friends make the effort to invite her along, get to know her, or spend time as a group? Not everything and every event requires your SO to be invited and coparticipate together, but it is hurtful to know that someone has a more serious partner who the friend group ignores and only wants to hang with their old buddy business as usual. You two are a unit. Now I’m not implying this is what’s happening here as I don’t know you. But I see this sometimes when couples get to a more mature age that friends have a hard time seeing another friend move on with a relationship, carrying on as usual with the good old days isn’t an option when you cultivate a long term relationship and it’s best for everyone to know each other and be cordial.
I love alone time but even I would feel lonely if my boyfriend took off for two weeks to go surfing. Does she want to go? Is it feasible to get her to come for maybe just the one week? If she definitely doesn’t want to go then it would be good for her to cultivate her own interests, including leaving the house activities such as going on a walk, swimming, gym, going to a coffee shop, library etc. This may also just be an incompatibility in how you see time together Vs time apart or time with friends. It is a spectrum and whilst not a deal breaker it can affect your social lives a lot.
If none of the above applies here I would encourage journaling or therapy. There’s a really good book called Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before which provides therapy like self exercises that help fix low mood and anxious hang ups about day to day life occurrences.
I relate to your girlfriend in that I don’t have many close friends. I’ve worked to have them over the years, but how I was raised and a number of events have given me real trust issues in relationships. And I don’t mean trusting a boyfriend; I mean trusting friends and family.
If you care about her, then know she’s on a tough journey. There are things I need to learn that most people did when they were like 13 or 14. Not sure if that’s exactly her situation but if she doesn’t have close friends then I suspect she missed something along the way of her life and probably isn’t sure how to create friendships now.
Hope she’s willing to try this path, tho. She can only benefit from it.
Coming from the side of the girlfriend and also being (pretty much) an only child it can take a lot more work to be fully independent due to needing a “close” connection with someone to compensate for the lack of closeness felt in our early years from not having siblings and/or a strong sense of family. Of course my story shouldn’t be attributed to everyone, but because I didn’t receive this level of security, clinging desperately to close relationships filled that void for me and made it hard and draining to be alone.
Though, this does not mean that she’s justified in relying on you entirely. After focusing on myself for a while I realized that being alone was a crucial part in understanding myself and my own needs and in turn the importance of my independence.
She needs to know that when more time is spent alone, you won’t need other people to *feel* whole anymore.
Moreover, if you continue to extend your support she will learn to understand that stability and security can be attained even without constant communication and in the long run, hopefully your relationship will be more compromising and enjoyable for the both of you. Best wishes to you and your GF 🙂
I’ve dated and quickly dumped girls like this.
They have no real friends and they don’t have siblings. You become their whole world while they aren’t that for you.
“Why do you want to spend so much time away from me.”
They don’t have hobbies and want all your time.
Needy as fuck.
Help her find friends are find a way out because they’ll be your future. Not being allowed to go do stuff with other people.
Do you ever do things like that with your girlfriend? I get the other comments, but have you gone on holiday with her yet?
I think a very real question to ask is how the relationahip, when you’re there, hampers her ability to make friends and be social.
I am not saying you do it consciously, or that the problem is your behavior.
What i know from personal experiences is that inveatment in a relationship/family has a negative effect on how people socialize and sustain friendships. Expecting that she has a plug and play social network the minute you’re not around is very unrealistic.
on some more minor level, i kind of am your girlfriend and i can confidently say that the issue is not you doing your own thing. both she and i need to learn more ways to be comfortable and happy when our significant others are busy or just having a good time without us. it’s nothing personal, and deep down we want our partners to have fun and not worry!
it just sounds like she’s lonely and a little depressed, but luckily this is something she can work on by making new friends and developing new hobbies.
Somewhat related – make sure that she wants to be with you and isn’t your girlfriend because she’d rather not be alone.
This was… a surprisingly pleasant and mature series of events. I have no advice or questions or anything, just wanted to say good on you and everyone giving advice. What a refreshing change of pace
Is this an attachment style issue? Do you know you and your partner’s styles?
Ultimately, she needs to figure out how to be comfortable being away from you because you are permitted your autonomy and time to spend with the other pillars in your life. Connections aren’t always easy for everyone to make but it’s unhealthy for her to be completely dependent on you for regulation.
She reminds me of my friend. Whenever she gets into a relationship she disappears. I once asked her to go on a trip and she laughed, said she would never without her SO. Guess who came crawling back to plan something once she got dumped? I cut her off. Your gf prob has no friends because their over her shit. OP some women have no identity outside the man their dating, they care about men/relationships more then anything in their life. Time to tell her this isn’t OK. Most men enable that behaviour but you seem pretty normal.