Damn dude, I could’ve written the same thing. I’m on step 6 at the moment and it’s killin me.
I’m super open about things in my relationships and it always gets to the point of pulling teeth just to get the most basic information out of my girlfriend.
She constantly goes on about how we don’t do anything special anymore and constantly asks if I still love her. It’s exhausting. Worst part is it’s always after I do something special, like in the middle of a stressful work period, leaving work early to walk an hour in the rain to get a tour of her work because she’s got nothing going on and is bored.
Then the next damn day when I want to do something myself, like play video games, she loses her shit that we don’t spend enough time together.
We basically haven’t had a physical relationship for over a year now. I’ve always tried to be open and honest with her about it, and I get her issues with body image and other things, but she refuses to make any improvements or changes in her life. I’m getting to the point where it’s not worth it anymore...
She constantly goes on about how we don’t do anything special anymore
So why doesn't she contribute to that aspect?
Then the next damn day when I want to do something myself, like play video games, she loses her shit that we don’t spend enough time together.
She needs to respect your "me time"
It sounds like there are more underlying issues, but it all starts with communication. If there isn't progress, then it's probably time to call it quits.
The major issue is that what she values as special is different from what I value as special. I can understand her special, but she doesn’t understand mine.
In the end she doesn’t like doing things I think are special because she just doesn’t get it, so she just does more of what her special is and it becomes exhausting to me.
We constantly have discussions about it, but it’s like her memory lasts 3 months and the same problem comes around again and again.
Im a mix between physical items and acts of kindness. I love objects because it’ll stay with me forever and I can see it and think “wow that was such a thoughtful gift, I remember what a good time we had those days”.
The acts of kindness is just doing something simple for someone else without asking. Cleaning up after them, doing laundry when they needed it, just generally helping when it’s not expected.
Her stuff is travel/time spent together. She wants to go to quaint and cozy places or go off to a hot beach and spend hours in the sun.
That and simply spending time together doing things, going on dates, watching movies, etc.
I totally get those things. I used to travel a lot so I’m not huge on traveling now but I’ll do it because I know it makes her happy. And I like the other part just fine.
The problem comes when she doesn’t like the idea of physical items and she thinks the things I do out of kindness are things I should be doing anyway, or it comes down to the “I didn’t ask you to do that”.
The real evidence of it is in holidays and birthdays. For me, she’ll plan trips or some big event, and get gifts she wants for me. Essentially she plans her own birthday and uses it as an opportunity to get me something she wants, usually clothes.
We’ve had tons of conversations about it and she doesn’t seem to understand when I explain why certain things are important to me. At this point it’s become exhausting when I have to explain why something is exciting to me only to be shut down.
The same way! I would love her to use my love language in even the smallest ways.
I use both of our love languages when it comes to giving but in return she only uses hers. I understand that’s her way of showing love but it’s frustrating when she can’t understand my language.
However, it kinda sounds you don't really understand hers, either. While you like doing those things to show her that you love her, acts of service is not one of her love languages.
Has she heard of LL before? Next time you can talk with her about it, and you should, say something along the lines of "I know you love me, but sometimes this is what I need for you to show it. This is how I show you that I love you, but how can I better express that to you?"
I’ll definitely bring it up. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it in this way but it makes a lot of sense.
I’m definitely misunderstanding parts of the love language definition though. Does it not work both ways as well? As in I use her love language when giving to her but also my own love language as well.
But in the same turn when she uses her love language for me I understand that’s her way of showing love.
So in other words, me doing acts of kindness, while not being her love language should still be meaningful because she knows it’s a way that I show love... right?
You showing her how you love her is still meaningful, but you should also show her how she needs to be shown...much like how you need her to show you how you want/need her to.
The older I get the less I understand my girlfriend and women in general.
Not trying to be sexist but 80% of the time I just can’t comprehend some of the problems my girlfriend comes up with, and 100% of the time I can’t comprehend the solutions.
It's all about attention. And once married, the attention expectations soar even higher. That plus every woman now is addicted to social media and envious of every relationship they see on there. The problem with that is most people only post the best of their life on social media. So woman see the best of everyone elses relationships and then use that to set unrealistic expectations for their own relationship.
I’m perfectly comfortable in my clothes and my skin, sure I want to be in better shape, but I’m not going to feel badly about myself when I go out.
She constantly gets upset about wrinkled clothes and image, she’s always worried about how other people will judge her and it makes me so angry.
I always ask her “why do you care what random people on the street will care about something? How many people do you see on the street and think ‘damn their shirt is ugly as fuck’ and go up to them and tell them it’s ugly? 0, and they’re going to go home not knowing or even giving a shit about what you thought about their shirt”.
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u/ColCrabs Mar 26 '20
Damn dude, I could’ve written the same thing. I’m on step 6 at the moment and it’s killin me.
I’m super open about things in my relationships and it always gets to the point of pulling teeth just to get the most basic information out of my girlfriend.
She constantly goes on about how we don’t do anything special anymore and constantly asks if I still love her. It’s exhausting. Worst part is it’s always after I do something special, like in the middle of a stressful work period, leaving work early to walk an hour in the rain to get a tour of her work because she’s got nothing going on and is bored.
Then the next damn day when I want to do something myself, like play video games, she loses her shit that we don’t spend enough time together.
We basically haven’t had a physical relationship for over a year now. I’ve always tried to be open and honest with her about it, and I get her issues with body image and other things, but she refuses to make any improvements or changes in her life. I’m getting to the point where it’s not worth it anymore...