My girlfriend went emotionally AWOL and then my mom died. Get out now?

June 17, 2007 12:39 PM

I had the perfect relationship for 2 years. Perfect, happy, every second. Then my mom got sick and my girlfriend started having trouble in school. She responded by sleeping with my roommate and changing her entire personality. Then my mom died. Your advice, please.

The girl in question is 22, so she's young, but not young enough to excuse this.

We've lived together for 2 years. We share every interest and frequently work on things together as well as have fun and do normal couple things. I can't stress enough how perfect the relationship was, for both of us. Then she came up against real hardship for the first time in her life (had to drop out of a competitive major because she couldn't handle it), and suddenly, every destructive coping mechanism I've ever seen from her mother came out in full force.

She seems to block things out, to the point where someone will say something hurtful to her face and she won't even hear it or remember it. Then I'll tell her what happened later, she'll cry and be surprised and upset, and then she'll forget THAT conversation completely. As things have gotten worse, she's started blocking out her emotions even more. I was flying home to be with my mom and she was getting a hotel room with my roommate, who had already stolen money from her (yes, I kicked him out). When I asked what she was thinking, she just said "I wasn't."

I tried to break up with her, probably around 10 times in the weeks after, but each time she talked me out of it. She promised to change, swore that it's her and not me, etc. Then my mom died, unexpectedly, and she came home with me. She was sort of there for me, but still distant.

I have a hard time leaving someone who has been more supportive and compatible with me than anyone I've ever met, every second of every day for 2 years. True, blissful happiness. But then this happens, and everyone that loves me tells me to run as fast as I can. Understandably. But she's agreed to start seeing a therapist. She says it's all her and she wants to fix herself. But my mom just died and I need her right now and she's not really there.

Is there hope? Has anyone rebounded from something like this? Should I just tell her to find a new place to live and get on with my life? How do you weigh 2 years of perfection vs 6 months of terrible?

posted by anonymous to human relations (33 comments total)

sounds like you've been thinking of her through all the rough times... and at the most difficult moment in your life, she WASN'T thinking of you.

sounds a lot less than perfect to me. chalk it up to her emotional immaturity, move on, and find someone who'll be there when you need her.
posted by wayward vagabond at 12:48 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

She came up against the first real hardship of her life, and handled it in a terrible way. It doesn't seem like she would be able to be very supportive for you at a time when you most need support.

I don't know you, and I don't know her, but it sounds like you already know the answer.

Good luck.
posted by Orrorin at 12:50 PM on June 17, 2007

I think she should move out and start therapy, and that you should remain broken up although you can be in contact with each other.

Do you both have other support systems (good friends)? Do you both have activities, jobs, etc that keep you occupied during most of the day? As callous as it may sound, friends and some kind of positive routine are the things that will help you get through difficult times. Seek these things out if you don't have them now.

22 is young. People change a lot at this age. It would not be surprising if you grew apart even under normal circumstances (totally compatible at 20, not compatible at 23) -- and both of you have had more than usual stresses in the last 6 months. She is still figuring her life out, and if you have said "honey, I think you're acting self-destructively", the ball is in her court. She needs to act to get her life back on a good track; you can't do that for her (although you can be encouraging). And it sounds like you are not getting the support you feel you need from her right now. It's time to break up, at least for a while.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:53 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

For your own sake, you need to drop the "it was blissful perfection for every second of every minute of every day for two years" rhetoric.

As long as you do that, you are robbing yourself of the ability to look at your relationship realisitically, and are also robbing yourself of the ability to even conceive of A) changing this relationship, or B) being in another relationship entirely -- because as long as you've already had "perfection," "bliss," and "true happiness" for every minute of the preceding two years, the only way to go is down, right? See the emotional corner you've painted yourself (and your girl) into?

Let me go one step further in bursting your bubble: you didn't have a perfect relationship, because perfect relationships do not exist. Perfect partners do not exist. Only real relationships exist (and they may be good ones or bad ones), with real ups and downs, because they are composed of real people with the full range of real human strengths and weaknesses.

Seeing your relationship and your partner in this light is the only healthy way to move forward, whether with or without her. As long as you cling to the fantasy of "perfection," you'll be paralyzed.
posted by scody at 12:59 PM on June 17, 2007 [19 favorites]

never was there a bad relationship that didn't start out great.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 1:18 PM on June 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

Clearly, your girlfriend has problems. Clearly, she needs to work on those problems. And, clearly, those problems affected you at the worst possible time.

Right now, it seems like the greatest problem you have is just coming to terms with the fact that you needed her and she wasn't there for you. That's not a small, petty thing. Relationships have ended for smaller reasons. It's not easy to forgive someone for just skipping out on that most-basic of requirement in a relationship, and no one will blame you if you never can forgive her for it.

But, the thing is, it certainly seems like there is something big, psychologically, happening to her. It certainly doesn't seem like she is entirely with it, right now, or was anywhere near stable throughout this entire ordeal. In other words, it doesn't entirely seem like it was her completely conscious fault. It's not like she just slept with your roommate for the heck of it, or skipped out when you needed her because she was bored with it all.. Instead, she was in her own form of hell at that same time. Call this mitigating circumstances.

My suggestion would be to take a break from the relationship, spending some time away from her. Again, it seems like you need some space from her--time and distance from her to come to terms with the fact that you couldn't rely on her when you needed to. This will give you some time to heal on your own with other close friends and family members. It will also give her time to see a therapist and figure what the heck is going on in that messed up head of hers.

If you want to try to get a relationship with her to work again, it will take a lot of time. You have trust to rebuild, and she certainly isn't in a place yet to rebuild it. There will not be a quick fix. Instead, it will be a long process in which she figures out, on her own, what is wrong with her. And it will be a long process in which you, on your own, try to come to terms with the anger and pain you feel towards her. And it will certainly be a long process in which the two of you, together, try to work out the problems this whole ordeal has caused. It will be a matter of very tiny baby-steps.

Don't think that, if you need some time alone, that means you'll never want to be with her again. Don't think that requesting to be left alone to heal while she starts therapy is a bad thing. You're both in a lot of pain right now, and it is clear that neither of you can help the other heal right now. Considering how horribly messy your entire situation is, it'd be beneficial to both of you.

Now, if she isn't willing to accept that? If she won't accept the possibility that you need some time away, on your own, to deal with these issues? Or that she needs to step away from you while she deals with these issues that have hurt you so much? I'd see that as a bad sign. I'd see that as a sign that she doesn't realize how significant her actions have been or how dearly she needs psychological help.

I'm resting on the assumption that her behavior is based on some awful, psychological snap that just recently occurred. People do stupid, horrible things when they hurt. People can be terrible to those they love when they're sick. I'm resting on the assumption that her behavior towards you was a horrible symptom of sickness, nothing else. And, if you think that is accurate, then maybe, with time and effort, you can grow to forgive her and love her again once she's no longer as sick. But if you think my assumptions are wrong, or you do not see how she could ever possibly become the person you once loved again, then, well, no amount of baby-steps or time or effort will bring back what you've lost.
posted by Ms. Saint at 1:23 PM on June 17, 2007

You know, I've characterized the entire relationship concept as a giant sine wave. With a potential amplitude of between -100 and 100. And I figure that you'll never get to 100 (or, when you do, it will be incredibly fleeting) and that a relationship shouldn't just be measured on how two people are when things are great, but rather the value of that wave when it's at its very lowest.

When you're going through the roughest times in your life, and when things aren't perfect in your relationship and when things are "bad," how bad are they?

Some people might prefer a relationship where they hover in the quantified "20" range, but dip down into the negatives a lot, just for the chance at a "90," but some people like to play it safe—the highest we'll get is 70 or 80 (except in small, fun bursts), but you'll never dip ridiculously low, even when things are rough.

Think about reducing the distance in between swings—the larger the distance, the closer you're trekking towards bipolar disorder. Not everyone handles adverse, horrible situations well. Not everyone will handle their first experience with a true hardship well. But most people will handle it better than your girlfriend.

And while I wouldn't knock therapy or anything like that, I tend to think that it's a pretty good indication that you could be in for a lot more of these lows with her, whenever the going gets rough. Maturity and a sense of self help combat that, but it sounds like she just didn't want to feel for a while.

It's difficult to leave someone you're otherwise so comfortable with, especially in the face of the prospect of finding someone else who even comes close. But there is a ridiculous amount of available, compatible women out there. And the next one down the line might not be as close to compatible, but you learn that you're compatible in different ways (strange as it sounds) and you realize that it could work with her, too.

I tend to follow a self-proclaimed 80% rule: If a girl is 80% of "what I want in a relationship," then she is already doing better than 99% of the population. This girl sounds like she might be at 80%, but if the other 20% is "girl who is sane in the face of adversity," you probably need to recalibrate.
posted by disillusioned at 1:24 PM on June 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

When you talk to the people who love you now about your "perfect relationship", how do they respond to your description of your relationship as such? Good friends are great at pointing out your blind spots. Grab your best friends and pull their ears. Ask them what they really think and promise not to hold it against them.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:28 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

She ... swore that it's her and not me

... and she's right. It IS her and not you.

Dude, she's telling you she doesn't want to be in the relationship, but she's too cowardly and immature to actually tell you.

She is not a unique snowflake. This. Happens. All. The. Time.

Years from now, you'll look back on this time and wonder why you didn't see it for what it is.

stick a fork in it

Hopefully, several forks. The entire set. Then go to Target and pick up even more forks and stick those in it, too.
posted by frogan at 1:32 PM on June 17, 2007 [4 favorites]

Oh, I also meant to add:

Don't think about it in terms of comparing 2 happy years to 6 unhappy months. Instead, just concentrate on how you feel about her. The point of being in a relationship with someone is to be with them, whether life circumstances are good or bad, because being with her is worth it. So, the question is, do you still feel like being with her is worth whatever life throws? Will it ever, again, seem to be worth it to be with her?

Those two years sure were happy, yeah. And those six months sure were awful, yeah. But all that time is gone now. All that's really there is you, hurt and confused, and her, sick and confused.
posted by Ms. Saint at 1:33 PM on June 17, 2007

There are a lot of people out there capable of making you happy under the best of circumstances but not many who are capable of making things better when they're really bad. You may just have to accept that this woman is not one who will stick with you through the hard times and then decide if you can live with that.
posted by fshgrl at 1:36 PM on June 17, 2007

I want to know more about how you feel. I get the impression that you want to give her some time to work on her issues and haven't lost patience yet, but that since your friends are saying "run away," you're considering overriding your feelings (your willingness to wait) based on their advice. I'd rather hear a decision coming from your own feelings.

But, maybe the lack of emotion is just your writing style, and the "six months of terrible" really felt terrible, and you really do want to be free. In that case, if you are just second guessing your desire to leave based on a shared history, rather than feeling a present, ongoing bond of love and desire to be with her, then yeah, don't wait. Or at minimum, wait from a much greater distance while keeping the door open slightly (as explained in Ms. Saint's first comment).

But I can't tell if you have patience left or not. Honestly, this is one of the hardest relationship AskMe's I've seen. She does sound motivated to change. But is her idea of how she wants to change the same as your idea of getting what you need? And change takes a long time -- do you have that long? Waiting to see if things rebound can also be a slippery slope into permanently agreeing to be miserable, so I'd think about what your landmarks will be -- if you do hang in there with her for a while (close up, or at a distance), how will you decide when to give up?

Sorry, one last point that may be incredibly obvious -- the death of a parent is huge and puts huge stress on relationships. I don't know how the stress relates to your situation, but I doubt it's unrelated. It might make it really urgent that you unload this burdensome relationship now, or it might mean that you've had zero patience for things that ordinarily wouldn't bother you. Few things in your life will be this hard. And I'm really sorry to hear about your mom.
posted by salvia at 1:48 PM on June 17, 2007

Move out and move on.

A decade ago, my younger brother was seeing a girl who was 4 years younger than he was. I thought she was horribly immature, pushed the marriage issue with him much sooner than appropriate, and just generally thought he was probably making a big mistake.

Then my dying father came back to town. It was ugly, and grim, and far outside her experience, but she did not turn away, she didn't waver or have second thoughts about my brother and his family. My estimation of her went up considerably after that, and now a decade later, I'm happy she's my sister-in-law, my brother's best friend, and mother to my nephews.

Your girl doesn't sound like she has that kind of character. She might build it, in time, but you are young, and she's betrayed your trust in a big way. At the very least, you need to take a number of steps back from the situation, start making other plans, and see how both your lives develop.

I'm sorry for all you've been through. I know how hard it is to loose a parent at a point where you are just becoming an adult yourself.
posted by Good Brain at 2:03 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

I am very sorry to hear about your mother. It's really something you're trying to do the best thing for your girlfriend and see the good in her when your life has been going to pieces.

But as to her: This girl responded to your mom getting sick and dying by sleeping with your roommate? I'm not trying to discount her academic troubles, but basically she snaps when things are going bad for her and horrible for you?

As others have said, if she exhibits this behavior now, what happens when something _really_ bad happens to her and not simply to you? What happens when her pet dies, or her friend, or sibling or parent?

Trauma is inherent in our lives. The measure of a man or woman is not how they behave when they are at their best, but rather when their world comes crashing down.

Your girlfriend has failed. Perhaps someday, she'll grow up. We're talking years here, though, not months. In the meantime, move on with your life, and cut her out of it completely. If you try to maintain anything with this girl, you'll just end up picking off the scab before it has a chance to heal.

Also: Recognize that it can be common to be strangely attracted to someone who has cheated on you, and have a weird desire to make the relationship work all the more, to prove you can heal the brokenness. I've tried to do this. I'm sure many others on AskMe have as well. But you can't, and you shouldn't. Let it go and keep the majority of your memories with her as those "perfect" times instead of months and months of extra torment.
posted by Happydaz at 2:10 PM on June 17, 2007

your mom died which is something that i would imagine would be one of the hardest things one might have to deal with in life. your gf's "hardship" was that she had to drop out of a competitive major because she couldn't handle it—and then she couldn't handle not being able to handle it. not to discount the fact that, at 22, that might be a big disappointment–but i feel her reaction is an indication of the level of her emotional maturity.

you need to get away from clinging to your idea that this relationship was "so perfect" because hey, that was then and this is now. relationships are fluid and; they ebb and flow and good ones can weather the ups and downs. you are viewing your relationship based solely on when things were good and now you are experiencing what it's like when things aren't—and you have to ask yourself if this is the kind of relationship you want when things aren't all "blissful perfection."

it's a good sign that she recognizes that she needs to work through what would cause such an extreme reaction to this kind of disappointment—but in the meantime, i agree with those here who suggest you two take a break from each other. i think getting some distance from something that is so emotionally charged and seemingly stuck might be a good idea—at least to be able to step back and evaluate things with a clearer mind, without the pressure of trying to "make things work." it will also give you both (and especially her) the room to grow and mature as individuals, apart from the pressure of having to provide support for another when one or both of you feel you might not be able to do that. if, when you come back together, and you find that all the good things you had together is still there despite the growth and changes, great. but you might also find the changes to be too great and you have become different people due to the hardships you've been through as well as the actual experience of having to deal with the impact those events have had on the both of you personally. as it is now, she is completely unable to provide you with what you need in terms of emotional support—and you are well within your rights to expect a significant other to do that.
posted by violetk at 2:25 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Your girlfriend has very serious problems which she was coping with by being everything you expected and wanted her to be for two solid years. During that time, she was not a real person in her own right, she was a mirror of some fantasy ideal of yours.

This was not remotely a healthy situation for either one of you, but for her it was disastrous. As soon as you turned your attention away from her for just a moment, she no longer knew who she was or what she was doing; she had to find someone new to define her, instantly.

The kind of dissociation you describe, where she cannot remember significant unpleasant events in her life from one day to the next, is notoriously an aftermath of prolonged sexual abuse in childhood.

You say she is young at 22, but you do not say how much older you are. Given her dissociation and a significant age gap, I would wonder if she is re-enacting a history of trauma, with you playing the role of the abuser, but somehow redeeming the abuse.

I know you are going through a very hard time yourself after the death of your mother. I think therapy for both of you is absolutely in order. I also think that if you boot her out now, she will find another man to give her form in a matter of days, or you will get to watch her completely fall apart.
posted by jamjam at 3:21 PM on June 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

I am so sorry that you are having to go through all this. First the death of your Mom, and now your relationship is rocky. I imagine all you want to do is pull the blankets up over your head and hide.

I'm amazed and impressed that you sound, given the circumstances, so rational and also so compassionate. You are really trying to forgive your girlfriend even though you were sucker-punched right at the worst point in your life.

You do need to let her go, though. I know you think everything was perfect in the beginning, but memories become rose-tinted over time. Compared to how things are now, she may even have seemed like a saint then. But, even though she is tearful and apologetic, the fact that she has "talked you out of" breaking up with her suggests to me that this is a manipulative young woman you are dealing with. You probably won't agree with me on that--let me just say that most men, bless their hearts, don't like to believe any of us women manipulate them. But some do, and the best way to get an objective view of whether that's what's going on here is for you both to go to counseling. Her, because she says she has a problem and needs to straighten up, and you because you really do need a support system right now, even though you are holding up beautifully so far.

Please go talk to someone who can help you both!
posted by misha at 3:21 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

The strength and depth of a relationship is clear not during good times, but bad. I hope you choose to let go of someone who is not kind to you, and leave yourself free for the kind of woman you really deserve.

If you keep on forgiving this girl, it teaches her that there is nothing that can't be talked away. Give her an important life lesson here - she has to own her bad behaviour, and act on it.

I'm sorry for your losses.
posted by b33j at 3:37 PM on June 17, 2007

I disagree with many of the posters here. People do messed up things. People regret it. Sometimes they change, and sometimes they don't. It sounds to me as though neither of you really want to break up, so if you can forgive her, then yes, it's absolutely possible that things may be different down the line.

But that bit about the hotel room? I don't buy that for a second. If they don't care enough not to cheat on you, they really aren't going to worry about where they do the deed.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:31 PM on June 17, 2007

Get rid of her.

It would be one thing if she had cheated after many years of marriage ... but you've been together only two years. Plus she did it to you when you most needed her. She's crazy, she can't be trusted, and you owe it to yourself to move on.
posted by jayder at 4:40 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

No matter how great it was before, it clearly isn't working at all now.

Do yourself a favor -- leave her. Do her a favor -- leave her.

I'm sorry you had to go through all of this. My condolences.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 4:41 PM on June 17, 2007

Forgive her.

Yeah, she failed you and the relationship. But even worse, she failed herself and that's probably eating her alive. So take a step back and realize that while you need her to be there, she needs you to be there. Do you want want to be there for her?

My advice: you're both messed up at the moment. Forgive her. Tell her how much she hurt you and hurt your relationship. Tell her she needs some help and that you're there for her (and mean it) but you can't be everything to her, but you're not sure what that means. You two have to take it a day out a time. Tell her you two might never get back together and even if you do, you'll never be quite the same, but for the next few months you're going to see how it goes. Tell her if it happens again, though, she's gone.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:14 PM on June 17, 2007

I'm very sorry about the loss of your mother. I know you must be going through a very hard time and I hope there are people taking care of you right now.

To me it boils down to this:

She failed you at a time when you needed her the most. If you can't rely on her then, when can you?

I lost my mum six months ago, I was a complete and utter fucking mess. I still am. The only thing that has kept me from sinking has been the constant support and care from my boyfriend. I realise your girlfriend was going through some hardship of her own, but honestly? She should have at least kept that aside when she was was with you for your mum's funeral.

It sounds like you spent two years going through an unchallenged relationship, it was easy for both of you to be each other's top priority but as soon as you had to focus on yourself she couldn't be there for you. I won't even go into the cheating aspect which seems like self-destructive behaviour. She probably realises what she's doing and loathing herself because of it. Therapy might help with that but will you be able to trust her again?
posted by liquorice at 5:31 PM on June 17, 2007

Second jamjam
posted by vega5960 at 5:50 PM on June 17, 2007

i'm so sorry. yes, it's over. she's manipulated and used you. it sounds like she has psychological problems, but you have to take care of yourself.

i would send her on your way and get on your own road to recovery as soon as possible. it will be incredibly difficult, but you will learn a lot about yourself in the process, at least. good luck.
posted by thinkingwoman at 6:24 PM on June 17, 2007

Hoo boy. I'm in your girlfriend's position. A battle with depression and anxiety went terribly wrong lately - stress and exhaustion brought me down majorly to the point where I was having breakdowns and couldn't think straight.

The biggest casualty was my relationship. We had gone through hard times before and managed to persevere (hard though it was), but at this point I felt so emotionally empty that I thought I couldn't provide support for my boyfriend anymore. I didn't want to deprive him of a loving, fulfilling relationship just because I was unable to feel anything. I thought he deserved better than to put up with my mess, which he graciously did when things started to go bad.

So I proposed a break. He didn't like the idea but he figured that if it helped me, he'd go with it. I was going nuts over whether to continue or break up. Either option didn't sound fair to either of us. I didn't know what to do.

A few days later, in a fit of desperation, I broke up with him. BAD MOVE. I was trying to be good to him by letting go of his responsibility towards me, but in that process I was essentially making decisions that was only his to make. It was for HIM to decide whether I was worth the trouble, HIM to decide whether he could cope with my foibles. Not me. I didn't want to do it, but it felt like the right thing to do. I immediately regretted it and asked him back...obviously he wasn't too charmed.

That one action hurt him a lot - not so much the "break up" bit but just how I could fluctuate so strongly between feelings. Honestly? I don't know. All I can think of is that my brain went cuckoo. This incident did spur me on to go back to therapy, go back to medication (after years of being off it) - I was no longer able to cope with ANYTHING and needed help.

He still wants to be my friend. He still listens to me, supports me when I am down. He feels disappointed with himself because he hasn't been able to forgive me yet, and he doesn't blame me for anything. There was a point in our relationship where the roles were reversed (he hurt me, I had to decide what to do with him - different reason though) and he can see how I'm feeling. We have had DIFFICULT conversations, but we're still trying to make the best of it.

Right now, though we still really like and are attracted to each other, and want to be with each other, we don't know if it's right to go into a relationship. I'm barely coping with myself, and he's not sure he has enough energy after that hellish week. But we both still want things to work out between us, even if just as friends. But it's hard, and it's painful.

It eats me alive that I could hurt someone so badly like this, especially since I thought I was doing the right thing. Everything backfired on me and took him with it. I never wanted to hurt him. I just wanted the both of us to be happy. Instead, I sabotaged a relationship that was essentially good - not perfect, but good - in the name of protection. Go me. I'm surprised he's still talking to me, let alone wanting to be my friend. I probably wouldn't have had the patience if the tables were turned.

I don't really have any advice for you. I just wanted to show a different position. I hope this works out for you.
posted by divabat at 6:33 PM on June 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

I disagree with those who're saying she's the problem. I don't get any sense of what you feel for her. All the positive stuff you say is about how she fit your model, fit into your life, but you don't say anything about what you actually felt for her as a human being - just that she was "supportive and compatible" until things in her life got rough.

You mention in passing something about how she is picking up coping mechanisms from her mother, so I assume there's some weird family trouble, but you don't go into how you have tried to be there for her during all the trouble she was undergoing.

You also don't make it clear if she dropped the competitive major because she couldn't handle the difficulty, or if the competitive major was the difficulty, as some above have assumed (considering the OP calls it "real hardship" and it results in the GF blacking out, perhaps dropping the major is an after effect, not the hardship itself). You say she was "sort of" there for you when your mother died: were you there for her when whatever happened to her happened?

I don't really get the sense from the way you present things here that you're taking seriously that both of you have to do work in a relationship. She is not just there to take care of you; you have to take care of her, too. I agree with those saying that you measure a relationship when things are tough - on both sides. It's nice that you got along really well for two years when nothing tested you, but that's not how most of life works. That's like living with a college roommate. If you're looking for "in sickness and in health" you have to actually take that stuff seriously and be ready to deal with parts of life that are simply not perfect.
posted by mdn at 6:34 PM on June 17, 2007

mdm:

you're a troll. his mom just died, and he shows all indications that he WAS there for her. the fact that he's even here shows that. when someone says "my mom died and she cheated on me, how can i make it work," and you tell the dude that he's the problem?
posted by empty commercial spaces at 7:41 PM on June 17, 2007

I wasn't trolling; I just got a weird sense from the way the OP presented everything as 'perfect, blissful, every second of the day', without even once actually noting something about how much he cared about this person... I was just struck by the way he was so focused on the ideal nature of her as Girlfriend, ie, as a role rather than a person. It just made it seem like maybe he wasn't really there to communicate with her about the real underlying issues she was dealing with, but just expecting her to fulfill a function. If that were the case, then her implosion might not be so random. Of course, bailing might be the right thing to do nonetheless, because to fix it, you'd have to deal with a different kind of relationship altogether - no way to get back to the world you had before.

It's really impossible to tell from a couple paragraphs who's what - maybe she's nuts, maybe he's deep & communicative - I just thought I'd throw out another angle.
posted by mdn at 8:45 PM on June 17, 2007

Co-dependency and inertia are never good reasons to stick together. It seems to me that this all boils down to you being afraid of being single/alone. It's possible that you two could work things out and get back on track, but there are some pretty major things going on here. Break it off, spend some time away from each other. Deal with being single. And hey, you might just find you like it!

And forget about the whole "it's meant to be" garbage. Relationships work when both people work hard at it, period. It sounds like she's not working so hard. If after a while, you two decide to hook up again, all the better. You'll be wiser people after having spent time apart.
posted by zardoz at 12:04 AM on June 18, 2007

I think you should probably separate, or at least cool it off -- maybe live separately but not start seeing other people immediately, or something like that -- and both go to therapy/counseling.

It's impossible to really give you any good advise based on the little information you've given us. That's not a diss, it's just the nature of this medium. You really need someone who's a lot closer to your situation to give you good advice.

It sounds like your family and friends are telling you to get out of this relationship. I would think hard about listening to them. But if you want to really reassure yourself that you're doing the right thing, talk to a professional, lay everything out, and let them help you.

Sometimes, two years of happiness are just that -- two years of happiness. It's not a guarantee that things can't go sour. Maybe you had your time together and now it's up; lots of relationships even longer than that have ended badly. Someone higher up in the thread said something like "every bad relationship started as a great one," and I think there's some serious wisdom in that. IMO, bad things happen when people try to keep relationships alive after they should have just let them go.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:05 AM on June 18, 2007

So all this destructive stuff is going on, but she didn't agree to get help until after you tried to break up with her? The way you worded it makes it sound like you had suggested it before. If that's the case, then I'd be very suspicious that it would actually do any good. She has to be motivated to help herself for herself, not to try and keep you from leaving her.

Anyone can have a 'perfect' relationship when there are no challenges. She was not willing or able to be there for you when you needed her support. If you could wave a magic wand and make the awful stuff go away, you could have 'perfection' again. But life doesn't work like that. A mixture of 80% easy and 20% hard is probably about as good as life gets. Some people have years of challenges, with only months of smooth sailing. A real partner is there for you in the bad times, and even when you are both wounded, you can at least lean on each other. That isn't happening here.
posted by happyturtle at 10:28 AM on June 18, 2007

I don't think it's possible to know what the right course is right now, without seeing how the therapy works out. It sounds like she really has some deep issues. You say you need someone to be there for you right now, but she's not capable of it and you're not going to be able to form another relationship in time to get emotional support on this issue. Probably the only thing you can do that will get you support is turning to friends and other networks. In fact, both of you need external support networks - her therapist is a good starting point for hers.

As a road to finding healthy coping mechanisms for each of you, perhaps you need to separate, as others have said. Maybe not. It depends on your feelings; if you still love her and want to see her become a healthy person (knowing that won't be a return to 'perfection') perhaps you should stay together. If you just need your own support or don't think she's willing to do the work she needs to make herself a whole person, leave.
posted by Lady Li at 2:11 PM on June 18, 2007