My two cents worth:
From what you described, she needs to become HSHExGF the 2nd as soon as possible.
Wow. Three hours of argument later: here we have it.
Her side: she believed that she was opening up dialogue on whether I would go with my pals and that we would discuss it further. She didn’t know how important the trip was to me.
My side: you offered, I’m accepting, you should not have offered without considering what you’d do if I accepted. And even if the trip was across the street (or similarly inconsequential), saying “you should go” means you’ve at least considered the possibility that I would go.
She also admitted that she perhaps depends on me being around a whole lot and doesn’t take into consideration that this is a long-distance relationship. And this is, to a large degree, true. I am not blameless in this; the fact that I have weekends pretty much free does mean that we see each other as much as we would if we lived ten minutes away from each other (what with her in med school and me working full-time). So the appearance of normalcy (the base of which I inadvertently created) caused her to assume or create development where less (or none) existed. Having that out in the open will either clarify the relationship or end it, but one of those had to come anyway, better through discussion than through fighting.
So I’m going to St. Catharines with my friends in August. And, in the meantime, we have a fresher look at the relationship.
Yay!
DTB
Dose This Broad?
Ditzy Troubled Basketcase?
Dame’s Been Tokin’?
Help me out here, can I buy a vowel?
Dump the bitch, I’m assuming.
I’m pleased that things seem to be okay for the moment, but I really hope you let her know that playing games is not something adults do in relationships. Making an offer to appease you and then being pissed when you take it is manipulative and ridiculous and it’s not normal or acceptable to behave like that.
Perhaps just mention,“Now that we’ve had this conversation, I trust that I can take everything you say at face value.”
I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What does “create development where less (or none) existed” mean? Does it mean she is thinking (understandably) that you guys are in a serious relationship whereas you are thinking it’s just a fling?
Because I’m sorry but 9 months seems rather long for a “fling.” While she sounds rather controlling and manipulative, it appears as if you’ve been leading the poor girl on for quite awhile.
I hope you can offer some clarification.
I can clarify, not too much now, because I have to crawl into bed, but more tomorrow.
Long version: we’ve been at nine months of seeing each other about 3 weekends out of 4 and talking on the phone 15 to 20 minutes most nights. For me, this doesn’t seem like a lot of time for development- not that I’m averse to it, but we don’t spend a lot of time together that would be conducive to the little discoveries about the other person that mark the gradual growth of a relationship. Of the three weeknds a month we see each other, I drive to see her most of them, because the 8 hours per weekend that I’m driving, she can use those to study. So a lot of her non-school/non-practice hours are spent with me, whereas I invest a lot of time in transit; she’s been shielded from the mundanities that go along with maintaining a relationship, so, to her perception, it’s much easier than it is to mine, plus, it seems like she falls into things faster than I do (thanks to my last relationship, I’m quite guarded).
Short version: If there’s a “relationship timeline” inside peoples’ heads, she’s further along on hers than I am on mine.
I don’t think it’s a “fling,” but I think she’s treating me as in deeper than I am.
Does that make more sense? I get the feeling that it doesn’t, but that’s all I’ve got right now.
The fact that you haven’t reacted badly to her being called a bitch numerous times on this board should be a red flag.
All this for St. Catharines, Ontario" I hope you’ll be doing a wine tour.
Thanks Happy for the explanation. It makes a bit more sense, but I can still completely see where she’s coming from with regards to where she feels you guys are at. 3 weekends a month plus a phone call every night for 9 months still sounds like a fairly serious relationship. It should still sound alarm bells that you appear to get antsy about the “L bomb” in that amount of time. It’s not like you guys have only seen each other one night each month for 9 months. The fact that you drive 8 hours total to spend the weekend with her practically every weekend makes it appear as if you’re a lot more into the relationship than you say you are. That’s a lot of driving to maintain what you’re implying you feel is a casual thing. Most people wouldn’t put that kind of time and effort into someone they’re not feeling pretty serious about.
What I’m trying to say is, she’s probably going to assume you’ve been stringing her along and frankly, it appears that way to me as well. If you haven’t fallen in love with her at this point, you’re probably never going to and it’s not really fair to her to avoid dealing with a situation that’s very much there.
If you want to do the decent thing, I’d strongly urge you to talk to her about it, sooner rather than later. I know you said you’re going to, I just want to make sure you do, for her sake. You might want to be prepared for some anger coming from her, as well. You’re not coming off real well here.
CatFight, if I had a dime for every time someone threw a baseless insult at someone else over the Internet, I’d have… (carry the 2)… a whole lot of dimes. People who only get my side of one instance can’t make an accurate judgment about a person, so why indulge them.
Is she being a bitch here? Not really. She should have thought her offer through a bit more, but she’s not being deliberately cruel.
lezlers, I see what you’re saying. And we actually had a talk about this. The disparity of our feelings has come up as a topic twice, both serious, sit-down, face-to-face talks. My answer to her regarding the disparity is that I do care for her and I do want to be with her, but she can’t expect me to immediately be as intense about this relationship as I was about my last. That doesn’t mean I don’t care, but I just can’t. And I shouldn’t be expected to. This is enough for her.
Remember, we met when I was still with (and in love with) HSHExGF. The first time we hung out together was at a party when a mutual friend of mine and HSHExGF decided (while hammered, of course) it’d be a good idea to stand over me, drill-sargeant-style, and yell at me about what a whore HSHExGF is. So it’s not like I have misled her in any way about why I’m a bit reserved.
In addition, she has said herself that she doesn’t see my repeated trips to Boston as entirely about her. I do have good friends there, who I see occasionally, and I am moving there in August for law school. Are my trips primarily for her? Sure they are, but they’re also because hanging out in Boston is a better time, 3 weekends out of 4, than staying in NYC.
Is it an ideal situation? Of course it’s not. Do I want to end it? No.
But the fact of the matter is that circumstance has put us where we are now, and we’ll either make the best of it or realize that it’s entirely unmanageable.
I’m certainly not leading her on. In fact, I would say it’s quite the opposite. I’ve been more blunt with her about where my head and heart are than anyone I have ever been with. Because I wanted her to know from the very beginning that I wasn’t all there and couldn’t be treated as such. I think I even used the words “caveat emptor.”
Do recognize that people often hear and interpret what they want to hear and interpret…even after two sit down heart to heart serious talks.
This relationship sounds a lot like one of mine. Distance. Him falling harder for me than I did for him. Me coming off a previous bad relationship and taking it slow. Him not really listening to what I was saying - we’d have serious talks and then three weeks later be at the same spot. Him (and to some extent me) blaming all my emotional distance on the previous relationship and not on the core truth - I would never fall in love with him. The problem at the end became that he had convinced himself all of our (read “my”) problems with the relationship had to do with how I’d been damaged and that his role was to “fix me.” And at the end I realized that few of “our” (“my”) problems had anything at all to do with previous relationships and he wasn’t the guy for me.
Thank god for the distance or I would have needed a restraining order. I did move in with my parents briefly after he wouldn’t stop calling and drove two hours to show up unannounced.
I can understand why many people think you should break up with her, but I disagree. Maybe if this were going to be a long distance relationship for the forseeable future, but you’re moving to Boston soon, and that’s going to change the entire dynamic. I think it’s likely that being close to each other will bring a new clarity to the relationship; possiblity it’ll become clear that the relationship isn’t going to work out. Or maybe once the stress of maintaining a relationship long distance is gone, the relationship will be able to grow. I think it would be premature to end your relationship before you see what changes moving (geographically) closer will bring.
ouryL, you felt the need to quote the whole OP (which, by the way, we all have read) to give a three consonant reply?
I agree with Dangerosa, HSHP - it sounds like your girlfriend is hearing what she wants to hear. I also agree with The Weird One - your dynamic will change once you’re in Boston, and it might shake things out. A word of advice, though - once you’re in Boston, make sure you are very firm about your boundaries with her. I can picture a day when you are still telling us you’re not really in love with her, as you move into her apartment.
Well, hopefully she’s not hearing what she wants to hear about the boundary talk either, because we had that one, too. Firmly, I might add.
I’ll be in my first year of law school, something from which no relationship I know has emerged unscathed. I am, in the intellectual sense, going to get the crap beaten out of me every day, then be told to go home and administer further beatings to MYSELF. And remember, I haven’t been a full-time student since 1994, so I’ll have to re-learn all the little things that go with that.
She, on the other hand, will be in her fourth year of medical school, which, I am given to understand, is not the same drain on time that the previous three were. So she’ll have lots of time on her hands, and I will no longer be a four-hour drive away.
We sat down and I laid all this out for her and told her that there was no way to expect our amount of time spent together to increase that first academic year. She (and this is where I hope Dangerosa is wrong) said that she understood that and would not push the issue. So if distance is a barrier, I hope that eliminating it will not increase expectations of time spent. And I have been blunt and up-front about this, quite frankly, because I am more than a little intimidated by the prospect of having all this schoolwork dumped on me, with so much at stake. I have no idea what is in store for me (but everyone says “pure hell”), and this is my future, so addressing it will come first. She gets all this (or says she does).
I do think my moving to Boston will clarify the relationship. It’s easy to romanticize things or ignore problems just because it’s no good to argue when you see so little of the other person. But at the point where we will HAVE to start integrating our lives (even on a purely social/“what are you doing tonight?” level), I think we will see whether or not we’re truly compatible or just everyday boyfriend/girlfriend with high EZPass bills.
I hope, if you do like this woman, that I am wrong as well. We can’t see inside the relationship from outside on a message board - we can only read what you tell us and extrapolate from our own experiences.
Thanks for the further clarification, Happy. Trust me, I understand what you’re about to go through, I’ll be starting my third year (of a four year program) of law school in September. This is on top of working two part-time jobs (one being a clerkship). Your life is about to change dramatically. Fortunately for me, my boyfriend is also a law student so we actually see more of each other around exam time! Your GF should be pretty understanding though, as a fourth year med student. Their academic schedule is just as grueling as ours.
I stand by my assessment though, that if you haven’t fallen in love with her by now, you’re probably not ever going to. You may have other reasons for driving up to Boston almost every weekend, but I doubt she sees that. My concern arises out of having been in her position with an X. After about 3 months I was dumped due to there being “no spark.” I was so hurt, but more than hurt, I was confused. The confusion was what drove me nuts because his actions didn’t mesh with his words, you know? He went out of his way to see me regularly. He wanted to introduce me to his friends and family. Our sex life was…well if there was no spark I’d love to see him when there was one. His actions very much conveyed that there was a spark. At one point, I had felt that he was even more into the relationship than I was! After telling him to take his spark and shove it up his ass, I spent a long time trying to make sense of it. The confusion was so much worse than the hurt, and I wasn’t even in love with the guy.
The point of this really long-winded story? I was looking at his actions, not listening to his words. They just spoke so much louder. Your actions aren’t meshing with your words. I gurantee you she’s looking at your actions and not listening to your words. You’re going to have to make them match up to avoid a great deal of confusion and hurt on her part.
Mine survived quite fine. Ignore that bullshit from Scott Turow’s 1L and all of the other slappies who get their jollies stating doom and gloom prophecies about it. It’s all self-pitying masturbation by a bunch of martyrs who want to feel like they are working so much harder than the rest of the world. You need to ignore people who treat law school like that, and pretend it is something that it isn’t.
You get the same bullshit from people in law school that you got in college. “Man, I was up for 48 hours straight working on 3 papers, my courseload is so hard, blah blah.” Yeah, because he spent the last four weeks jacking around playing Unreal Tournament from 1 until 5 every day after class, and spent the night finding little “out of the way” art shows to go to.
Some people want to make anything they went through seem as though it is a trial by fire. Unfortunately, with the number of attorneys we pump out every year, by definition, law school cannot be a trial by fire, as hundreds of thousands of people are not bright enough or strong enough to survive such a thing. Do not turn law school into that, with regard to your relationships or otherwise.
Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say. "Your words say “no”, but your eyes say “yes.” I would bet you a dollar that’s what your girlfriend is doing, too.