Eric640

Allright, this is a really long story story so if you're easily bored then this isn't for you.

I'm 18 years old and I've dated 3 girls in my whole life. I don't know how wierd that is, I guess if I go by my friends examples then it's average but who knows. Anyways, I've never really met my girlfriends parents except in pasing up untill this relationship. I'll get into this later.

This girl I am dating now is named Allie, and she is 18 also. I've been seeing her for 8mos.

Now we met in highshool and now that highschool is over, we've gone to different universities. She goes to Miami of Ohio and I go to Medical College of Ohio. We are seperated by about 200 miles. She lives on campus @ Miami, I live at home since Its only about a 15min drive to my school. This isn't the issue though, we've always known this would happen.

Allie is supposedly bi-polar. I say supposedly because I have NEVER seen the symptoms. Whatever the case my be, weather it's a for real thing or an imagined or mis diagnosed thing, I guess I don't really care. It doesn't affect our relationship in any way so I am not worried about it. She does take medication (very expensive medication at that) for it off and on.

Heres the thing though, this "disorder" has led Allie to have an extremely close relationship with her mother. Allies mother is VERY involved with her life and VERY protective of her. They talk EVERY NIGHT, and I mean EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Now somehow I've earned the trust of her mother, I don't know why but I've become as close to her mother as I have to Allie. Allies mom considers me a part of their family... and it's getting scary.

First there's the whole phonecall issue. It's LONG DISTANCE to call her. I buy those 300 minute phonecards for like 30$ at the store so it's not OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive to call her, but still. If I call her everynight then I' eat one of those phonecards every week or two.

I can't afford that!

So my frequency of calling her has gone down. Somehow her mom found out about this and now shes inquiring about why I don't call Allie more than once or twice a week.

Secondly, Allie doesn't have a car on campus and she doesn't have a drivers license either. Now it's a 200+ mile drive down to her campus and Allies parents are still supporting her. Allie comes home fairly often and her parents have been driving her back and forth. Lately, in the interest of helping them out a little, (and being able to see Allie more often) the last two times I split the work with them. I drove down to pick her up and they took her back. This drive is absolutley exhausting (6 hrs round trip of over 400mi) and my car is OLD (95 Escort, 160,000mi) it CANNOT take the abuse of driving like that and I NEED my car to get to school.

I can't afford to replace my car if it breaks, and if I keep driving it this hard it's just a question of time untill it gives out. Again, let me state: I need my car to drive to school, if my car breaks and I can't replace it I WILL NOT be able to go to school untill I replace it.

Her mother now expects me to provide some %age of the transportation and has been actively making me feel bad about it when I refuse.

Now Allies mom is starting to push other things on me. First of all she's had conversations with me and directly asked me questions like "are you dating other people" and alluded to things like "I don't know exactly where this is going but...". Now I don't know what to do.

I LIKE this girl. I don't want to leave her. I want to dump her damn mother.

Heres another thing her mom has told me. "I just don't want Allie to get hurt, if she finds out you're seeing other people she could get depressed." (because of her supposed illness) Now come on, I'm 18 and let me tell you, this is NOT the last girl I will ever date.

Just for the record I'm not seeing anyone else right now, nor do I have any other active interests.

I don't want this relationship with her mother and I'm tired of being made to feel GUILTY about not calling her ofen (it's long distance) not driving 400mi to pick her up (my car CANNOT take the abuse) and I don't know but I'm starting to get the idea that her mother would be REALLY happy if we got engaged at Christmas or something and I'm at no where NEAR that level of commitment.

I'm scared.




PS: Hopefully this made sense. It's kind of a long story with a lot of details and I skipped around a lot so if something doesn't make sense I'll clarify it, just point it out.

fhqwhgads

Not what I expected when the title talks about "loosing" a girl.

TheBrit

Is talking to the mother out of the question? I mean, she must pick up the phone, just say "Can I talk to you for a couple of minutes."

boredom

Hahah i was thinking way something else like pacifist in RVB. okay um sheesh this is hard, id actually just talk to the mother and explain your position. Cant help with the guilt thing, thats one thing that i have very little feeling for(mother conditioning me to be unfeeling)

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Burke and Major Dad.
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onodrim

Wow, you've got youself a tough situation here. I think the best policy would be to talk to the Mother. Tell her what you've said, be honest about your concerns and feelings, and if she's a reasonable person, she should back off. If she doens't listen to you, then I'd talk to your girlfriend, maybe she could get through to your mother. At this point I'd say honesty is your best policy. Good luck!

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"The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides"
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Willravel

Your girlfriends psychological problems are not your burden. You will have to learn to live with them, but her mother using it as a bargining chip is a bit underhanded. You aren't seeing other people. It seems to be her idea that you're cheating. Her mother seems to be living vicariously through your gf, and she is being paranoid about you cheating on her. I have to admit that what her mother is doing seems more serious than her daughters supposed bipolar problem.

What I would do in your shoes: It's time to be honest (as most people beefore me have said). "I love your daughter very much. I love her enough to call her and visit her as much as is possible. I can't do the impossible, though. What would be impossible is to call her every night. What would be impossible is to drive and see her as often as you seem to want me to. I am willing to do everything I can to be with her, but ther are limits to waht I can do right now. I can't give up school to see her more often, as my car is old and could brake down any second. I can't call her every night because I don't have the money. If (insert gf/daughters name her) is worried about me, we'll talk and work it out. I appreciate your concern, but we have this handeled. Thanks."

lunchbox

I can't really add anything, be honest tell her your concerns, tell her why you can't do everything she expects. Also, I hate to bring this up but if you're completely ruling out her being the one for you (which you seem to be doing) then why put yourself through this? yea its going to be hard to make that decision but if she's just some girl you want to see casually and want to date other girls eventually don't even put yourself in this situation. You don't need to be killing yourself or putting all this stress on you if you don't want her to be the last girl you ever date.

CityOfAngels

Seriously; I was about to reply with the following:
1. Why on earth would you want to do that?
2. If you reallly want to know, start off by wetting your fingers...

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Eric640

Sorry to dissapoint you guys...
Title edited to be less sensational.

LOL at #2 though.

Eric640

Hmmm. Interesting point.

However if that's the case then why would I ever bother dating anyone, afterall, it just begs the question: "How long do you have to date someone to know they are the one?"

Let's just say I'm not really planning that far into the future. It's not that it absolutley positively could not happen, but it feels unlikely. However it's not like I disklike her, in fact quite the opposite or else I wouldn't be bothering with this long distance shit in the first place.

Eric640

Thanks for that, I guess you guys are right. Talking to the mother is clearly the most logical step to take. I do appreciate the feedback.

EDIT: Sorry for the triple post. Is there anyway to reply to multiple posters in one post without opening multiple browsers and doing the quotes manually?

Rlyss

I agree with what someone said about the mother living vicariously. It sounds to me like you've got a relationship with the mother and not her. I saw an episode of Malcolm in the Middle lately where Malcolm got along so well with the girl's family that he spent all his time with them, and the girl would go out with her friends, and he wouldn't even realize.

I think you can be honest all you want (and you should) but I just can't see this happening. You can really like a woman, even love her, but that doesn't mean you have to marry her, and that's especially not a decision you should make at age eighteen. Personally I think you should explain your situation to the mother (willravel's words are perfect) and then focus more on your girlfriend. Forget the mother, you're not dating her. Stress that you can't afford the phone calls and the driving. Tell her it's not a matter of prioritizing your money, it's just that can't afford it.

See how your girlfriend feels about it all. If she's cool with only seeing you once every few months or a phone call once a week, then forget the mother's wishes. But it sounds to me like whatever the mother wants, the girlfriend's going to want, and I don't think there's a way out of that.

By the way, are you trying to lose her or are you trying to work through these problems?

exizldelfuego

So like others said, the biggest problem here is the mother. How does the GF feel about her mother being such a huge part of her life? It might be time to cut the umbilical cord...
But mother aside (and assuming you want to keep the relationship going), a couple of things you could do. If you actually want to talk to her more often, get a cell phone with no long distance fees. Should cost between $30 and $50 per month so cheaper than the phone cards for more time. And it might be worth looking into bus routes/fairs. If she really wants to travel home so often she should get well-acquainted with the grey dog (and it sounds like that's something her parents might pay for). And if you want to see her WITHOUT the mother, just spend a weekend with her on her campus (Go there, don't bring her home). Two 3-hr trips on different days is a lot better than one 6hr trip on one day.

Untitled

To leech of Ex's post, (which I 100% agree with) I might add that VIA rail has '6packs'. 6 oone way tickets (3 roundtrips) between 2 destinations. Very very useful!