So me and my girlfriend has been in a long-distance relationship for almost 5 years. It has been very great and I love her very much. But there has been some issues between us that has not been fixed through out the years. Which is our communication with each other. We both feel like the other person isn’t listening or understanding what we say. She also cuts me off when I’m talking and she’s been saying that I’m just using that as an excuse lately, when I'm not. I’m not a big talker and I know I have issues with communication because I was never taught how. I've accepted that as an issue and I've tried to fix it. She also knows and accepts that I'm not.
But it is so hard to communicate to her because she doesn’t listen when I tell her that she’s not a good communicator because communication is just about talking. It's also about listening and understanding the person. She says that she is because she's the one who's always trying to fix a situation when I shut down sometimes. we have both looked up strategies and communicationvideos to better our communication . It works for a while and goes back to being bad.
Tl;Dr But what should I do. She is basically my best and only friend and I don't want to lose that. I feel as if I was closer with my other friends as much as I am with her. I would have broken up with her already. So I guess it's the fear of being lonely and not having anyone to talk too that's keeping me here.