amalek

Hello all, thank you for the forum,

So, my first real relationship encountered a large road bump last night. I am still coming to grips with exactly what happened or what went wrong, so bear with me. Also, bear in mind that this is what would be called "long distance", in that we see each other every weekend but typically not during the week.

We have never had an especially sexual relationship. We always got along extremely well as friends, and the sex was just a nice release for me on top of all of that. She has always professed to being an asexual person by nature. I am not good at servicing her in that regard, as it were, but she has always told me that it wasn't a big deal for her. I took her at face and just figured she didn't mind. I was 21 when I met her, she was 19. We are now 23/21 respectively. Keep in mind, I've never exactly been an exciting guy. The past year or so has been pretty boring, and we haven't done anything adventurous, which is something that she likes. As an aside, I am also awful sexually and despite her assertions to the contrary, I'm sure that has something to do with it.

So, to sum up, it's been two years. Two extremely good years. Thursday, she told me that she was freaking out because of all the work piling up this weekend for college (I graduated, she is a senior). She tells me not to come visit this weekend as was originally planned because I would be a distraction and she might end up hating me. Fair enough, I think. I'll give her the space she wants.

Friday we talk a bit, nothing too serious, and I think all is generally okay. She makes some vague comments which might have to do with the relationship, but I can't tell, so I just assume she's still freaking. She's freaking pretty hard, mind you, but not anything specific enough for me to respond to. She says I love you, I miss you, etc, when we finish the conversation (on AIM).

Saturday, she doesn't answer my texts all day, which is unusual. She finally answers at around 11:30PM, hops on AIM, and tells me that she went to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty with some German guy from her German class. She kissed him somewhere in there. This is the first lie she has ever committed against me. She has never been isolated enough to do something like this, as before I graduated we were around each other constantly. This isn't a huge deal because we had previously discussed this kind of fidelity, and she had even told me that she might end up kissing this guy. I say, okay, whatever, as long as you don't betray me emotionally there won't be problems. This is all on AIM. At the beginning of the season, she kept saying "we won't be able to have lunch - who am I going to have lunch with?" Things like that. I offered to come up once a week to have lunch with her - it's about an hour away from my job, but hey, no big deal. If she's upset, I'll come visit. I want to do it.

She also tells me that she didn't feel anything when she kissed the German guy. She was kissing him to figure out if there was something wrong with our relationship, or something wrong with her (the sexual thing). She found out that she doesn't really enjoy kissing. She doesn't feel any differently about me than she does her roommate or her parents or her friends or the German guy right now. She seems to be freaking out that I will be the one person she can/should rely on. She feels like she's going to be dating me forever, which might be bad because she's still young and still wants to experience more. She wants to know if being in love or if dating someone new can be different than simply best friendship. Is this what love is (she says)? Is this what it's all about? She wants to find out. She wants to find out and not be tethered to me in a purely monogamous relationship or in a dating scenario, as she doesn't even know what dating is. Neither do I, for that matter. This is all what I interpreted. I cannot tell for sure what she was trying to say because I'm very dumb.

So, today, I send a text at around 6:30AM because I was having trouble sleeping, asking if we could at least meet in person to talk about it. She had to work today and do homework all afternoon. She did. We spoke when we got back over webcam and I read to her some thoughts I had jotted down in the meantime. She was smiling a lot, and generally agreeing with what I had to say. We later spoke on MSN for a while, mostly jovial stuff, sometimes relationship stuff. We came to the conclusion that it's not necessarily that she wants to date other people - she's very impulsive by nature. I say, "Do you want to keep going like we were?" Response: "I don't not want to." I ask her if she has lost sexual attraction to me, and she reiterates that it was never really important to her, but the way that I go about sex is probably a major turn off. I treat it like some kind of duty that she has to do, and something that I have to get done. Don't tell me how badly I messed this up, believe me, I know. I also am not as affectionate or romantic as she wants me to be. She has never said this, but I know it to be the case. Slowly, the debate in my mind turned from "she doesn't want to be with me anymore out of no where?!?! she just bought me a present on Wednesday!" to "She's trying to tell me that I have some serious shortcomings and she's second-guessing spending her time with me, no matter how much time that may be."

She told me she would be saying goodbye to the German guy this evening as he is leaving on Monday. She went to get dinner, and isn't back yet. I'm assuming she went out with him and is sorting things out for herself. I am leaving her to her own devices and not sending texts or otherwise harassing her. I am holding out hope that she tries to explain things to him, or at least just gets it out of her system so that I can move forward with improving where I am lacking. I am an extremely selfish person by nature, like all the men in my family, and she has put up with it up until now. I seem to have hit the breaking point Wednesday when I was bugging her about something, and according to her roommate, she doesn't want to be "my girlfriend, mother, and therapist."

So, I figure, okay, I'll extend the olive branch and ask her out on a date, bring it back down to a level where she doesn't feel so threatened, and where we should still be anyway since I've never really taken her on dates, etc. I ask her if she wants to go on a date this weekend, she says "That's fine." I say, hey, look at that, Oktoberfest in NYC on October 5th, this Sunday. Sounds like fun eh? She says, "Yeah, just expensive." We've always pinched our pennies as students, and she doesn't like me buying her things. In retrospect, I should've just done it anyway. I work full-time now, though, and I make good money, so I don't even think twice about spending it on her. She's going home this weekend, and I'm well-acquainted with her parents and they like me. I figure I'll go with her like I usually do, then go to NYC with her on Sunday as planned.

So my question for you is: what next? Regardless of how I fucked up to bring it to this juncture, or maybe I didn't even fuck up at all, what do I do now in regards to her? do I call her when my head clears up a bit? do I just let it go and hope she'll call or text me in the next few days? I still want to take her on this date just to see how it pans out, see if we still have chemistry. How will I know that I should call it quits?

It's very complicated, as you can tell, but I just don't believe that after two years she's ready to drop it like this. We have something too good - she agreed. We have something special, she said - something unique, compared to how others act.

thespian86

That sounds like a very complicated and very complex relationship. I don't think I have any advice but to say that it seems you are not okay with the situation. At all. So pretending you are either makes it worse, or keeps it the same. Both are bad.

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ME: I officially love coffee more then you now.
EX: uh...
ME: So, not much.

amalek

well, I think I'm just in denial, you know? I don't know what happened, and I want it to just go back to how it was, only I'll fix what I was doing wrong. I know it's selfish to ask for that kind of chance, and that it's a pipe-dream, but that's it. I told her how I feel. I don't want to break up with her, I want what we had before her breakdown this weekend.

thespian86

Here is kind of an aside; it has little to do with what the original post says but a reaction to what you just said:

Well lets put it this way Am; lets say that life is full of blind spots, like in a car, and those are the reasons you feel fucked up over things. You just keep backing up and running into shit and then saying "FUCK! Well, now I know it's there" and it'll keep happening over and over again. You can't solve them because you don't know it's there, etc. So you saying your in denial is like me saying I'm fat. It's the worst kind of bullshit because it sounds like you are self aware when really it just sounds like the intelligent self aware thing to say. "I'm in a bad situation, I should say I'm in denial and trying to change it".

Here's the problem with that. You are here not to solve it, but to fix it, like you said. Two totally different things. The difference being patching things or tossing it when you have to. You don't want to toss it, you want to fix it. Maybe you can't though, and yeah, in that way you're in denial, but its one you are unaware of. So let's clear it up man. You don't need to be aware of the problem. Over thinking shit only makes things less clear, and gives you less power. Makes things cluttered. The reason it makes things cluttered, in my opinion, is because "fixing" is simply putting up a filter to see the world through. People think saying "I've learned my lesson; don't fuck with [blank]" is fixing it when really it's just adding another block of shit you carry on you everywhere. And everyone can see it. Most people misinturpret it but they still see something is there.

So how do you fix it. You think it's you which it seems it's not unless you were dishonest with her about how you felt in the first place (which it kind of seems you were). So it's both of your faults. C'est la vie man. You can't fix it. You can't just fix it. It happened, it's different, life does that. It's simply shitty but it's simply true. Somethings in life are like that.

You can adapt though. Learn from it. Maybe you don't like that you are a bad lover and maybe you want a more sexually satisfying relationship (sounds like it). Maybe you want more of an equal stake in a relationship and not feel like you are the needy one (sounds like it). Maybe you need to be a better man for yourself but you never succeed in doing so because you try to do it for others (sounds like it). Take the good person you are and instead of trying to build on it, clutter it further, look at it a different way. Think of it like a full room. I'm not trying to give you more shit to push into that tiny fucking room, already packed with beliefs and needs and human behaviors. I'm just trying to show you there are more then one door. Open some windows. Shit, there's another room and it's adjoining.

I don't have any advice to further this specific case but that is certainly what I see from you as a person; just reading what you put which means there is a lot of room for me to be super wrong. Meh. That's my "I'm an actor trained to live my life in full self-expression" outlook on things; and it seems that you have a hard time with self expression.

__________________
EX: Whats new?
ME: I officially love coffee more then you now.
EX: uh...
ME: So, not much.

amalek

Well, it's pretty much accurate. I feel that I'll try and see if she wants to rebuild with me because, hell, it's been two years, we might as well give it a shot first. If not, I guess you're right. You are right.

jewels

I don't think you'll know where to go until you sit and have a frank discussion, as the friends you profess to be.

If sex between the two of you hasn't been all that, she may be confused. This is wherein, I think, the discussion lies. Maybe you both lack the experience and she's wondering if she can't experience more. This happens to a lot of us at that age.

If she's open to it, it may be a good opportunity to work on this together. If you can really communicate, you can teach one another what you need to truly satisfy one another.

Or maybe it should have stayed at the friendship level and would best be served by returning to that level? This is why you need to talk.

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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

amalek

see, this is the kind of non-overly dramatic response I was looking for. You read the facts and posted accordingly. thank you.

I agree here. She is extremely confused. She says I am her "best male friend" but that the "boyfriend" part seems to be missing. I agree 100% that this is where the discussion lies. She says she wants to see what the difference is between the two - I explained to her that it's nothing, really, only that sometimes they can overlap. I figure the best friend part is much, much harder to find (especially for people like us), so we shouldn't throw the baby out the bathwater so quickly. She had a knee-jerk reaction to some complicated emotions she was having, she was crying on Thursday and Friday (she never cries unless she's very confused or frustrated, which is rare, to say the least).

We were both inexperienced when we started, and that didn't help. We are both attracted to each other, and we had planned to move in, travel abroad, save up for a vacation together. This was at late as Wednesday night, mind you.

Her initial claim was that she wants to "experience more" before settling on someone, but I think she's just wanting some affection and romance. Why else would she want to date random people? She hates people. There's no reason that she's upset about spending "forever" with me, either, since that too will likely happen eventually with someone.

This is not all my fault, as she is very poor at expressing emotion and is compulsive with it, but I feel like I can do better. I want to use this as an opportunity to build on what we have - we can't go back to what it was, but I am confident that when we get to the other side of the tunnel, it will be much, much better, and more mature, than it was before. Where the fault lies is of no consequence once the problems have been identified.

Also, conversation note from MSN:

(after making the date for Sunday)
me: so, is it too late for you to want to be with me?
her: I don't not want to.

little_tippler

I find all this confusing. You're very self-deprecating which is not a good thing for you or anyone you're with. But then you also say you're very selfish, that you can see that in yourself.

You call yourself boring and a bad lover, and selfish to top that off. I'm not sure how you've come to those conclusions. But if this is how you feel about yourself, how can any longterm relationship survive this way? You say you want to go back to what you had. What did you have, something comfortable to keep you occupied a part of the time? I find it very strange that when she kissed some other guy, you were seemingly okay and said to yourself "as long as it's not emotional". I mean, what?!

I think you're being way too much of a doormat. Girls don't like that. There has to be a balance. What makes you think you are boring, or not good sexually? You need to look at yourself and improve your life! If you think these things, it means you're unhappy with them. Change them! Start small and work up to being happy with where you are. Know what you want, or at the very least, what you don't want. It's not about fixing aything, it's about being comfortable with who and where you are.

You are so young...it makes me mad to see someone act so bored and unexcited about living life!

About your relationship...I'd say you're at breaking point. 2 years is a usual crisis moment. I'd say there is so much complication there, and that you really need to look at your life and do what is necessary to stop being so...jaded about everything...I'd say time off would do you both good.

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

amalek

I don't tell her about the self-deprecation. It's not a big deal, I just feel like I can always improve. She's the same way.

I came to these conclusions by looking at the reality of it. I am not good with sex. I am barely comfortable in my own skin due to my past being fat. I have lost weight since then and got some confidence, but I still have some latent issues.

That's what I'm saying, though - the relationship can survive because we've both been willing to work on it up to now. We've never had anything remotely close to this in terms of problems, which shows how emotionally stunted we are I suppose. We simply get along too well as two people to not be able to work on something like sex and romance.

Yes, that is what it turned into: something comfortable to keep us both occupied sometimes. This is where her biggest fear is, I think. She doesn't want that. She doesn't want "good enough". Neither do I.

The guy leaves today. If it were someone more long-term, I'd have already been done with this. It seems to me that she did this purposefully. I asked her, "what if he had been staying in the States?" She said that it wouldn't have played out the same. Her crush on him was simply because he's German.

I'm not emo. I recognize my own shortcomings when they come up, and I choose then to improve them. The problem is, I am so self-centered that I rarely see my own shortcomings. It takes a third party to point them out, and this time it happens to have been my girlfriend.

I made an appointment to sign back up for the gym tonight. I'm not wallowing in self-pity here. I am energized to make myself better for the sake of our relationship. Isn't that what it's all about? And hell, even if it does end up imploding, I'll at least be bettering myself regardless.

Exactly! This is one of the things that is vexing her. She wants romance, she wants spice, she wants to see what is out there. She hates people, though, so I really don't see what dating will get her aside from a few broken hearts and maybe some stalkers along the way.

There's an old proverb from somewhere that you probably know which says that in any crisis comes great opportunities. You could see the opportunities as us parting ways, or you could see them as us sitting down and talking about sex, how comfortable we are, etc.

Maybe some time off would do us good, but it could also perhaps be that too much time off has been detrimental. Like I said, ever since I graduated we've been on a weekends-only schedule.

Manic_Skafe

She may have been confused or dissatisfied with your relationship but that shouldn't excuse the fact that she has lied to you, has gone on a date behind your back, ignores you at her convenience and has kissed someone else.

I've been in her shoes before. So unsure of what I wanted, I strung someone along for months as she was absolutely convinced that there was still room to work on "us". Even while I was dating someone else.

I know you don't want to hear it but she's leaving. More than likely, she's already gone.

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"Porn is a zoo of exotic animals that becomes boring upon ownership." -Nersesian

abaya

Look, man. She's treating you like shit so that she doesn't have to be the one to break up with you. She's hoping that if she treats you badly enough, you'll get pissed off and break up with her, and then she doesn't have to be the bad guy. Yes, that's really how some people work, believe me. You don't want this for the rest of your life. Move on, have some more life experiences, and look back on this in a few years and see it for what it is.

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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

snowy

Yep.

You both are young. She wants to go out and explore life--that's why she did this thing with the German guy. It has NOTHING to do with the fact that he's German, and everything to do with the fact that the opportunity presented itself for her to try something new and exciting.

Call it quits and move on. There's nothing to work on here. If she really cared about you, and was really willing to work things out, she wouldn't have kissed that guy in the first place.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

MSD

Break up, spend a while apart (at least 6 months) with no contact and then try to go back to being friends after you've both moved on and met other people. You're not going to salvage this one and she doesn't want to.

amalek

Yeah, I do think she already left the old relationship. I do think that I can start anew, though, like it should have been the first time through. I want to work on it with her because I think she's worth it.

The "cheating" issue is always overblown by the mainstream type of advice, and besides, I saw it coming. Additionally, the guy leaves today so it was a built-in commitment free fling. I do not hold it against her, considering the circumstances. Maybe she could've broke it to be me in a better way, but that's all that I'm upset about.

She isn't unsure of what she wants. She's the only who always brought up wanting to do things together after she graduated. She. Always she. She is not a whimsical girl like most of them; if anything, she could do with a bit more of it. She wants more. She told me, "I want more for my time." This is the root of it all, laid bare. I stopped being a boyfriend and became like a brother or some strange thing. She has had trouble with this in her mind for some months now, I believe, and it came to a head last week.

I'm not even sure she's convinced she can work on "us", but I have to at least try. It might be too little, too late, but what else can I do at this point? I have to give it a shot for my own sake.
-----Added 29/9/2008 at 12 : 57 : 07-----
me: "Do you think it's too late for you to want to be with me?"

her: "I don't not want to"

that's her way (since you don't know her you wouldn't know this) of saying, no, absolutely not.
-----Added 29/9/2008 at 01 : 00 : 05-----
I believe that I have to try. I do not believe that she has given up completely.

While I agree that it had a lot to do with the fact that she didn't want to regret not doing it, it also is because she has a strange crush on German people. He's not even that great, according to her, she's just confused. It's pretty obvious why.

She convinced herself that I was no longer on board with her as a boyfriend, but rather, I was just using her. Fair assessment, and a harsh truth to have to come to on one's own.

I want to prove to her that I can still be "that guy", the guy that she planned on doing things with after graduating

Even if it ends up being just pissing in the wind, I will at least be able to say that I tried. I would regret it forever if I just gave up here.

anti fishstick

Seems like you two both need to figure some stuff out for yourself. You need to figure out how to be less self-depriciating, confident, assertive, etc. etc. so that your girlfriend (or future girlfriends) don't feel like a therapist to you. She needs to figure out if she can be happy with other people, or by herself. It doesn't seem like she wants to be tied down to a relationship right now, and wants more autonomy. This could conflict with being in a relationship with you right now. Either way, whatever you decide to do, you both need to enjoy life a little more than what your current situation seems to allow...

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Manic_Skafe

I think your mind was made up well before you created this thread. But you should really think about what you've typed above. Anything can be made to seem reasonable but can you honestly say to yourself - from objective as a perspective as you can muster - that her cheating and ignoring you are the result of extenuating circumstances?

If you don't believe yourself to be deserving of better than that then fixing this relationship is the least of your problems.

__________________
"Porn is a zoo of exotic animals that becomes boring upon ownership." -Nersesian

jewels

You said my earlier post was what you were looking for.
But then you keep answering questions, assuming you know the answers. I think she wants this..., Her initial claim ...
Find out what she wants now. Cut the bull. If the majority here, who are looking from the outside, is correct, you can cut your losses. If my words that she may possibly be experiencing something have allowed you to validate what you think she feels, how can you grab onto that without confirming from her exactly what she wants.

I hate to burst your bubble, but sometimes we think we know what someone wants and live accordingly when, in fact, we're way off track. Talk. Do a lot of mirroring in your conversation to be sure you correctly understand one another, because it would seem that communication is not working well at this time.

When the conversation ends, there will be no question. Have a problem? Question the source. Find your answer.

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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain