Women and Communication

[Magrus]

Ok, first off, as I've noticed this is one of a few threads I've started in the past few days, my rule on spam. Feel free, chances are it will amuse me, and I'm never against amusement. I'll mention it if I feel otherwise.

That being said, my frustration is this. I just spent 4 hours arguing with my Toy. Now, I can handle arguing, it's part of any form of relationship people have. Sometimes I enjoy them, sometimes I don't want to deal with them whatsoever, and sometimes I don't care. Well, I wasn't upset, she was. It took me two hours, yes, hours, to figure out what was really wrong. Apparently, she's confused on how she feels for me, and this is why she was upset and arguing. Lovely way of reasoning that one I have to say. Why wasn't this topic just brought to my attention and discussed, rather than my being verbally attacked and lost on what's going on? I happen to be rather understanding of confusion in general, especially concerning emotions. I'm lost in my own head most of the time anyways, I can't be mad at someone else for being confused about something if they have reasons for it.

Anyways, apparently a situation has occured where we argue often now. The main reason is, we have an odd relationship in which we both wanted to NOT be very close to anyone. However, both of us have found we're torn on the issue of how we feel for each other and how that should be handled. This is for numerous reasons, least of which are the reasons we first entered into our strange relationship. It's not from fear of being hurt or anything like that at the moment. Rather circumstances and personal things that would make getting closer extremely difficult and hard to deal with because of those things. Since we are both lost on how to act with each other often now, we end up arguing because we're frustrated from it.

This is understandable, logical and would be easily fixed if we could work out what to do. Yet, that can't be done if she just decides to try figuring it all out on her own, and not sharing things with me. Arguing for the sake of venting frustration and not just explaining whats frustrating her isn't a good way of dealing with the problem either.

So, 2 hours arguing until I reasoned out whats going on, and she sputtered into slowly sharing tid bits of information with me. The problem is, she's never really cared for anyone outside a family relationship. Not into boyfriends or getting close like that. I've dealt with only long term relationship attempts before this. So I have experience with serious relationships and she doesn't, and she has found she's lost in how she's starting to feel for me. Never having had to deal with caring for someone in this manner, and not knowing if she really does care like that because she's never dealt with that has made her confused and frustrated and highly argumentative.

2 hours more of discussing all of this, and attempting to explain how relationships work, and all of that ended up with "I'm tired, we can deal with this tomorrow". So, tomorrow I get to look forward to renewing our argument/heated discussion. My wonderful, no stress "relationship" has become a frustrating "where do we stand" situation. Once she figures out how she feels, which will be who knows when, there's still the matter of what do about it and how all of those afore mentioned circumstances and personaly things affect our decisions on what to do.

So, having said that. Why is it people have such a fear of communication? I know I've never been in "the norm" with how I think, or act or much of anything. I really have no shame, or fear of what people may think of me and such. Others in general do, yet, if you don't express your problems and concerns about someone, with that someone you cannot expect that someone to understand and do something about it. If you don't inform someone your upset with them for such and such a thing. Chances are that person will do that thing repeatedly until it is brought up as an upsetting action. So why the fear involved?

I mean, I've made it a point to study people. I analyze why they do things, when and how often all of that. My own little take on psychology and sociology. I know her well enough to have pinpointed what was wrong, and the reasoning behind it and I can probably guess as to where it all will lead based on what I know of her as well. So maybe this is just a rant. I don't know. Over the last week, we've gone from arguing to being far closer than we have the past few months, back and forth since we first started arguing. Apparently something in her just clicked and it's caused all sorts of turmoil. Personally, while she's dealt with this kind of distant relationship her whole life, I haven't. So I've gone by her lead with it, and now, she's changing her mind and feelings and wanting me to take the lead and hasn't mentioned so until tonight but been biting my head off for not doing so for the past week.

Anyone dealt with anything like this? I suppose I'm not looking so much for advice so much as just something to relate to. That and just an alternate method of getting all of the frustration out on this issue and some amusement from it besides drinking. Also, my friends happen to be horribly inept with relationships and come to me for advice in almost everything. They have in general three viewpoints, "screw it", "drink it", or "smoke it". If it doesn't fit there, they have no clue what to do. So, they'd be no help, hence, ta-da. This is here.

[fable]

[QUOTE=Magrus]Why wasn't this topic just brought to my attention and discussed, rather than my being verbally attacked and lost on what's going on?[/quote]

If you don't understand your emotions, or the source of them, it can be very frightening, and hard to communicate.

Anyways, apparently a situation has occured where we argue often now. The main reason is, we have an odd relationship in which we both wanted to NOT be very close to anyone. However, both of us have found we're torn on the issue of how we feel for each other and how that should be handled.

Sounds like you're pretty emotional, yourself. Right now, very frustrated.

This is understandable, logical and would be easily fixed if we could work out what to do. Yet, that can't be done if she just decides to try figuring it all out on her own, and not sharing things with me.

Do you share your own fears with her?

2 hours more of discussing all of this, and attempting to explain how relationships work, and all of that ended up with "I'm tired, we can deal with this tomorrow".

All? That's pretty good. Trying to work through that kind of mess when you're both tired and cranky is a recipe for disaster.

So, having said that. Why is it people have such a fear of communication?

Nobody can hurt you like another human being. You can be robbed or beaten, but you keep your self of self-worth; that isn't taken from you. Another human being can inadvertantly destroy that. And when they're trying, they can do so very much more.

I suspect your girlfriend has had serious issues of this sort with her family. Perhaps see if the two of you can draw up some ground rules for behavior, things that you'll both honor and will make the going a lot easier. Contracts of this sort often work out because they articulate solutions in anticipation of problems that have occurred before. Of course, they're only as good as the willingness of both participants.

Over the last week, we've gone from arguing to being far closer than we have the past few months, back and forth since we first started arguing. Apparently something in her just clicked and it's caused all sorts of turmoil.

Not surprising. The situation has changed; she feels it, and it leaves her uneasy and frightened. What you see as a welcome change, she perceives as a threat. You have to calm her fears about this change. This really sounds more and more like problems that originated at home--as so many emotional scars do.

PS: I don't know if "Women and Communication" is a good name for this thread. It implies that women can't, don't or won't communicate, whereas from everything I've seen (in my limited experience), men and women equally find all sorts of ways to avoid communication. Women have no premium on this. I'd even go so far as to say that my wife is better at communicating logically, rationally, while I'm more in touch with my feelings. Your mileage may differ, but you're impuning one of the two finest sexes in the world by phrasing that thread title as you do.

[Magrus]

Sounds like you're pretty emotional, yourself. Right now, very frustrated.

I'm just frustrated that I wasn't informed when she first noticed this change in how she felt. It was about a month ago, and she just recently found it too hard to cope with and now it's showing.

Do you share your own fears with her?

I do, not all no, but those related to her, yes, and a good bit of others as well. It so happens that I share more with her than anyone else.

All? That's pretty good. Trying to work through that kind of mess when you're both tired and cranky is a recipe for disaster.

Thats true, however, I find 4 hours of arguing to be far too long to simply have come to a point we could have reached in a half hour a month ago should she have shared her situation with me then. Which leads back to my own frustrations.

As to the rest, I know all to well how one person can hurt you if you end up letting them close to you. I know the why of how she acts, in fact, I'm the ONLY person who knows that. Which is probably why she's lost and frightened on how to accept and deal with what she's feeling at the moment. She's shared more with me than anyone else and in doing so is breaking out of her old habits and the emotions resulting from this leave her lost on what to do.

As to my title, I've actually found women tend to deal better than a lot of the guys I know with things, at least in my own experiences. It's not at all a knock on women. I found it a simple way to express to two main things in the thread, a woman and communication. If those two words together happen to offend someone, well, that would be a communication problem in and of itself in a way wouldn' it?

[fable]

I would respond now, but it's 3 AM, and I'm rather tired. So I'm going to hit bed, and will post more in the morning.

Good luck, and I mean that.

[Magrus]

[QUOTE=fable]I would respond now, but it's 3 AM, and I'm rather tired. So I'm going to hit bed, and will post more in the morning.

Good luck, and I mean that. [/QUOTE]

Thanks. I appreciate it.

[Deadalready]

Maybe now isn't the greatest time for me to give life or relationship advice since I haven't been thinking much as of late, but I've tried to digest what you've typed and will try and address each paragraph I can add my own opinion.

~
That being said, my frustration is this. I just spent 4 hours arguing with my Toy. Now, I can handle arguing, it's part of any form of relationship people have. Sometimes I enjoy them, sometimes I don't want to deal with them whatsoever, and sometimes I don't care. Well, I wasn't upset, she was. It took me two hours, yes, hours, to figure out what was really wrong. Apparently, she's confused on how she feels for me, and this is why she was upset and arguing. Lovely way of reasoning that one I have to say. Why wasn't this topic just brought to my attention and discussed, rather than my being verbally attacked and lost on what's going on? I happen to be rather understanding of confusion in general, especially concerning emotions. I'm lost in my own head most of the time anyways, I can't be mad at someone else for being confused about something if they have reasons for it.

The thing is that see in particular is that for an arguement to take place is there has to be two people involved. Your girlfriend didn't come to you to argue with you, she came to you because she wanted to share her feelings with you.

Next time something like this comes up, bite your tongue and *LISTEN* I don't care if you have to stab your leg with a knife but just don't say anything and listen to what she has to say. *Your girlfriend is not blaming you for anything* she just plain and simple wants you to hear her feelings and that will make her feel better.

If you spend so much time observing people then listening to her is nothing hard. Then once she is finished rephrase what you understood - "From what I understood" just try and rephrase what you heard but don't use the words "you" in particular. Don't let yourself get into an arguement in the first place if things really get to the breaking point save both of you trouble and say "Let me think about this for 10 minutes" and go away so both of you can cool down.

Generally speaking arguements start along the lines of "I didn't...", "What do you mean...", "Of course I..." and many others try and avoid them, again remember when a girl talks to you, she isn't blaming you for anything just trying to get you to listen the way she knows best.


Anyways, apparently a situation has occured where we argue often now. The main reason is, we have an odd relationship in which we both wanted to NOT be very close to anyone. However, both of us have found we're torn on the issue of how we feel for each other and how that should be handled. This is for numerous reasons, least of which are the reasons we first entered into our strange relationship. It's not from fear of being hurt or anything like that at the moment. Rather circumstances and personal things that would make getting closer extremely difficult and hard to deal with because of those things. Since we are both lost on how to act with each other often now, we end up arguing because we're frustrated from it.

For me it kind of makes sense that two similar people would get together, but these arguements are the thing that prevents your relationship getting closer. Trust is important and nothing corrodes it like arguements. From what I see she's frustrated because you're not letting her finish, you're frustrated because she's not finishing her side.


This is understandable, logical and would be easily fixed if we could work out what to do. Yet, that can't be done if she just decides to try figuring it all out on her own, and not sharing things with me. Arguing for the sake of venting frustration and not just explaining whats frustrating her isn't a good way of dealing with the problem either.

She is trying to tell you what's wrong, but in her own way; There's a difficult inner meaning to the way most girls talk and that hell no man on earth understands it truely. She's not asking for a solution to her problems, she's asking for someone to listen to her vent; if she litterally asks for your help then help all the way by all means, but again listening without trying to interupt is the best thing you can do.

So, 2 hours arguing until I reasoned out whats going on, and she sputtered into slowly sharing tid bits of information with me. The problem is, she's never really cared for anyone outside a family relationship. Not into boyfriends or getting close like that. I've dealt with only long term relationship attempts before this. So I have experience with serious relationships and she doesn't, and she has found she's lost in how she's starting to feel for me. Never having had to deal with caring for someone in this manner, and not knowing if she really does care like that because she's never dealt with that has made her confused and frustrated and highly argumentative.

She's tired of caring for anyone else, she wants someone to care for her; she just wants someone to make her feel like a princess for a little while.

2 hours more of discussing all of this, and attempting to explain how relationships work, and all of that ended up with "I'm tired, we can deal with this tomorrow". So, tomorrow I get to look forward to renewing our argument/heated discussion. My wonderful, no stress "relationship" has become a frustrating "where do we stand" situation. Once she figures out how she feels, which will be who knows when, there's still the matter of what do about it and how all of those afore mentioned circumstances and personaly things affect our decisions on what to do.

All of the above advice, the problem between communication in particular between men and women is that men instintively try to make the other person feel wrong for their opinion.

This is a typical situation of a bad conversation.
Girl: This is just so hard, I can't do this anymore
Guy: No it's not hard anyone can do this
Girl:

An example of a better one.
Girl: This is just so hard, I can't do this anymore.
Guy: Yeah this is pretty difficult, but don't give up yet.
Girl:

Just rephasing so you don't make her feel wrong and you'll be fine, a girl is intune with her feelings and just wants to hear that she's right.


I've run out of time of addressing what I can but I'll add more later after I've reformatted my computer and come back from sports training.

[Magrus]

You've assumed a lot there in how I am, and how my relationship works.

She started an argument out of frustration, and the only reason I said that is I stayed calm through the whole thing attempting to calm her down. To the point she was getting MORE frustrated by how calm I was. She simply wanted to vent her frustrations for the sake of getting them out and wasn't sure of how to deal with things.

Next time something like this comes up, bite your tongue and *LISTEN*

What makes you assume I DIDN'T listen?

If you spend so much time observing people then listening to her is nothing hard. Then once she is finished rephrase what you understood - "From what I understood" just try and rephrase what you heard but don't use the words "you" in particular. Don't let yourself get into an arguement in the first place if things really get to the breaking point save both of you trouble and say "Let me think about this for 10 minutes" and go away so both of you can cool down.

Actually, I asked her 3 times if she wanted space to calm down or if she wanted to discuss things. She still ranted at me. Thanks though. I DO understand the concept of calming someone down and how to handle an argument.

Generally speaking arguements start along the lines of "I didn't...", "What do you mean...", "Of course I..." and many others try and avoid them, again remember when a girl talks to you, she isn't blaming you for anything just trying to get you to listen the way she knows best.

Sometimes, yet that wasn't the case here. It started by my being affectionate with her and her realizing the affect it had on her.

For me it kind of makes sense that two similar people would get together, but these arguements are the thing that prevents your relationship getting closer. Trust is important and nothing corrodes it like arguements. From what I see she's frustrated because you're not letting her finish, you're frustrated because she's not finishing her side.

No, no and no. What's keeping us from getting closer are some personal situations which would make such a thing extremely difficult to maintain. Working those out is something which would need to be dealt with, and is pointless to start until she resolves her current crisis of sorting out her feelings. I understand the concept of trust, and so does she. She happens to be the only person in my life that I have found to be completely honest with me as a matter of fact. She's frustrated because I'm the cause of her experiencing emotions she's never had to deal with before and this is unexpected and confusing for her. I'm frustrated because she waited a month to tell me and it's taken 4 hour arguments this past week to get it out of her that this is why we've been arguing.

She's tired of caring for anyone else, she wants someone to care for her; she just wants someone to make her feel like a princess for a little while.

Wrong, if you read above, she's never truly cared for anyone else and is starting to. Hence the confusion and frustration.

Just rephasing so you don't make her feel wrong and you'll be fine, a girl is intune with her feelings and just wants to hear that she's right.

Again, it's her feelings which are the issue at the moment. The confusion of what she is feeling and how to handle it to be exact.

I don't mean to seem ungrateful, or rude, but seeing as you decided to skim through here and make a great deal of assumptions which I happen to find quite insulting, what possessed you to reply in such a manner without fully reading what was said? Maybe you haven't been thinking, I get like that myself occasionally. I try not to give advice to people when unable to process the situation though, it's a good way to irritate someone.

I do believe my little "princess" as you put it would want to bite your head off at all of the assumptions you made. It's her pet peeve. I now see why. Up until this revelation tonight, I knew what she wanted because she made it quite clear what it was she did and didn't want from me from the start. It was very simple and clear cut. Now, those boundaries she set in the first place are starting to irritate her as her feelings change. That's sparked our arguments lately. Granted it is often things I've said or did, so I am partly to blame. However, simply informing me of this change when it happend probably would have prevented those arguments. Without knowing she's changed her mind on what she wants, or is working out what to want and why at the moment, I was still acting as she had wanted me to from the start. Not knowing what she wants from me, and getting that same thing as before is what irritated her tonight. It's what made me realize what was going on finally. Knowing now that those things she told me to avoid doing altogether, happen to be what it is she is starting to want at the moment we need to discuss that. As soon as she comes to grips with her feelings we can work out whether we should change those boundaries or not. They were put in place for reasons the both of us agreed upon.

Oh, and if you happen to decide to post more of your wisdom, read first. If you don't understand what was said, or what I meant, ask me before making up assumptions and essentially calling me a pig-headed idiot of a male with no social skills. Thanks.

[C Elegans]

Magrus, how old is your gf? When I read your post, it seems to me that she's quite young.

Apparently, she's confused on how she feels for me, and this is why she was upset and arguing. Lovely way of reasoning that one I have to say. Why wasn't this topic just brought to my attention and discussed, rather than my being verbally attacked and lost on what's going on?

Perhaps she could not properly identify her unpleasant feelings at first, perhaps she didn't realise she was confused about her feelings for you but instead felt just some undifferentiated unpleasant emotions.

Anyways, apparently a situation has occured where we argue often now. The main reason is, we have an odd relationship in which we both wanted to NOT be very close to anyone. However, both of us have found we're torn on the issue of how we feel for each other and how that should be handled. This is for numerous reasons, least of which are the reasons we first entered into our strange relationship. It's not from fear of being hurt or anything like that at the moment. Rather circumstances and personal things that would make getting closer extremely difficult and hard to deal with because of those things. Since we are both lost on how to act with each other often now, we end up arguing because we're frustrated from it.

I think you need to make up your mind, both of you. It's meaningsless to continue a relationship that ends up in arguing all the time just because you don't know what you want. Arguing is fine if it leads forward, to development, but not if just happen as a way to vent other things, or just happen because you can't help it.

My wonderful, no stress "relationship" has become a frustrating "where do we stand" situation.

Which is a sign of either you, the girl or both of you, not being sure what you were doing when you started this relationship. Relationships often change, and yours is changing right now. Either you can try to discuss this and go through the changes together, or you can take a break and make up your mind separately. In any case I think it's important that you both define what you want each other and the relationship for.

Anyone dealt with anything like this? I suppose I'm not looking so much for advice so much as just something to relate to.

Not really. In relationships, I don't deal with people who don't know what they want because I find it unattractive and quite boring. I like to start relationships in a open, non-demanding and non-deterministic way and they I and the other person keep discussing what we want out of the relationship, how serious we want to be etc, and if we change our minds along the way, we just say so. Obviously I have met many men who initially is fine with having a more distant relationship but then after some time end up being disappointed that the relationship does not automatically become more loving and closer, but if that happens, you just need to discuss it without taking responsibility for the other persons unfulfilled expectations.

Personally, I think the problem is that you have choosen a girl who is quite emotionally immature and have little self-knowledge and limited experience, and if that is the case, then you must be prepared to offer a lot of patience and support.

[Magrus]

Magrus, how old is your gf? When I read your post, it seems to me that she's quite young.

She'll be 21 in less than 2 weeks.

Perhaps she could not properly identify her unpleasant feelings at first, perhaps she didn't realise she was confused about her feelings for you but instead felt just some undifferentiated unpleasant emotions.

I wouldn't say "unpleasant", they seem to shock her and confuse her. She simply hasn't ever found someone she's felt extremely close to yet.

I think you need to make up your mind, both of you. It's meaningsless to continue a relationship that ends up in arguing all the time just because you don't know what you want. Arguing is fine if it leads forward, to development, but not if just happen as a way to vent other things, or just happen because you can't help it.

Which was my point earlier tonight with her exactly.

Which is a sign of either you, the girl or both of you, not being sure what you were doing when you started this relationship. Relationships often change, and yours is changing right now. Either you can try to discuss this and go through the changes together, or you can take a break and make up your mind separately. In any case I think it's important that you both define what you want each other and the relationship for.

We knew exactly what we were doing when we started. It's the fact things are changing and we're in that awkward stage of figuring out what to do with it at the moment. She's been working on it for some time now, and I just found out.

Personally, I think the problem is that you have choosen a girl who is quite emotionally immature and have little self-knowledge and limited experience, and if that is the case, then you must be prepared to offer a lot of patience and support.

Limited experience yes, the rest no.

Not really. In relationships, I don't deal with people who don't know what they want because I find it unattractive and quite boring. I like to start relationships in a open, non-demanding and non-deterministic way and they I and the other person keep discussing what we want out of the relationship, how serious we want to be etc, and if we change our minds along the way, we just say so. Obviously I have met many men who initially is fine with having a more distant relationship but then after some time end up being disappointed that the relationship does not automatically become more loving and closer, but if that happens, you just need to discuss it without taking responsibility for the other persons unfulfilled expectations.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but in what you've just said above, you quite remind me of her actually. All in all, she's never fallen in love, or anything close to it before. I would be the first to inspire emotions of the sort in her. She had assumed she would go through life without having to deal with that and just have a sort of polygamous, unrestricted type of relationship with people based on sex and friendships. I believe her problem would be trying to figure out whether she wants to give in to these new emotions, or do her best to shut them away and stay as she is. Our relationship was set up as a distant type of thing based on sex and friendship and has now started to grow past that. While I have dealt with that, she hasn't. Our care-free relationship, and her care-free romantic life changed and I can understand how that would shock her. I know the first time I had strong feelings for someone, it just hit me and I was stunned by it and didn't know how to react to it.

[C Elegans]

We knew exactly what we were doing when we started. It's the fact things are changing and we're in that awkward stage of figuring out what to do with it at the moment. She's been working on it for some time now, and I just found out.
<snip>
Limited experience yes, the rest no.

So then, what's the problem really? Then I don't understand what's the problem. You started out a more distant relationship, then it turned more emotional than you expected. Yep, relationships often change. You just need to decide whether you should keep your relationship more distant, change it to a closer relationship, or split up. There is no reason whatsoever to argue about this.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but in what you've just said above, you quite remind me of her actually.

Well I am not sure what you mean with your above statement, but it's excellent if she has the same attitude as me, because that means nothing could be easier that just let her decide whether she wants a closer, more developed relationship to you or not. Again, there is nothing to argue about, she just needs to make up her mind.

All in all, she's never fallen in love, or anything close to it before. I would be the first to inspire emotions of the sort in her. She had assumed she would go through life without having to deal with that and just have a sort of polygamous, unrestricted type of relationship with people based on sex and friendships. I believe her problem would be trying to figure out whether she wants to give in to these new emotions, or do her best to shut them away and stay as she is.

I am surprised it has not happened to her before since she is 21, but falling in love is of course very unpredictable. It sounds like she's making a very big deal out of it, is she afraid of falling in love or something, does she believe she will get hurt more easily or so?

[fable]

[QUOTE=Magrus]As to the rest, I know all to well how one person can hurt you if you end up letting them close to you. I know the why of how she acts, in fact, I'm the ONLY person who knows that. Which is probably why she's lost and frightened on how to accept and deal with what she's feeling at the moment. She's shared more with me than anyone else and in doing so is breaking out of her old habits and the emotions resulting from this leave her lost on what to do.[/quote]

Do you feel this emotional can of worms is something you want to deal with? Do you want to maintain/deepen the relationship? Does she?

These are questions you need to ask yourself. If so, you'll continue to reap a mix of frustration and breakthroughs, from the sound of it. Assuming she's sturdy enough psychologically and committed enough to what you've both got to see it through. Alternatively, she can break things off--or you can. You'll feel like dirt, but it may be the only way to deal with matters if the periods of frustration become long, frequent, and intolerable.

[Cuchulain82]

Long reply, so please give it a chance

I have some experience with difficult situations in relationships.

Re: CE

In relationships...in a open, non-demanding and non-deterministic way...you just need to discuss it without taking responsibility for the other persons unfulfilled expectations

I have to agree with the above (abbreviated) text of what CE said. I think the key word is expectation. I have been in many long term relationships, all of which had different starting situations and expectations. Some have been very committed from the start, others open, but what always undermines the communication you are trying to facilitate are the expectations of the people involved.

Your girlfriend expects things from you and you expect things from her- this is a given. For example, from the start it sounds like you expected the relationship to take a course that it is currently following- starting out casual, becoming more committed and closer with time, keeping open the possibility of a (very) long term, monogamous relationship. However, it seems that your girlfriend not only had different expectations, she also probably couldn’t even imagine or conceive of that result occurring. So, not only did you two start in different places, now she is being force to deal with the last thing she expected to change- namely, herself. By your account she is getting slammed with new emotions so who can blame her for not know how to process them.

I have found that the true trick is first discovering what your expectations are of the other person, and then communicating them to each other and doing so in a constructive manner. I have been in relationships in which my girlfriend’s expectations could be paraphrased as “You will make me happy.” As you can imagine, the expectations were too much and it broke our ability to be together; furthermore, we didn’t realize this until long after we were done dating.

More CE:

Personally, I think the problem is that you have chosen a girl who is quite emotionally immature and have little self-knowledge and limited experience, and if that is the case, then you must be prepared to offer a lot of patience and support

Unfortunately, I agree with CE here too. Even if she isn’t 100% accurate, my intuition is that she is more right than wrong. It’s fine if your girl hasn’t been in a situation like this before, but it will definitely require more time from you and probably more 4 hour “conversations” from time to time. Only you can decide if your effort is worth investing.

Re: 4 hour fights
Every couple has to have fights/discussions/time to work things out. Every couple does it differently. I am a practical guy, so I have a few tips:
-Make sure you have both had something to eat recently- hungry people are irritable and will escalate a situation
-Make sure you are both not overly tired- fighting is always hard because it is very tiring, and most discussions seem to happen late, so just bear it in mind
-Be in a comfortable environment- fighting in a public place/other uncomfortable area only makes things worse. Make sure you are somewhere that feels safe and that you aren't pressed for time
-Try to have personal space available- sometimes people just need to get away, which is why arguments in a car can get so nasty
-Begin by accepting 50% of the blame- this is always a good frame of mind to start with. You have half the relationship and so you get half the blame. Feeling like one person is responsible creates a bad dynamic
-Remember, you are fighting because you feel very strongly
-Be nice, not mean


I hope this helps. If you get a chance reply and say how things are going.

Good luck!

[dragon wench]

When I began reading your posts, Magrus, they struck a deep chord with me. I used to be that girl, perhaps I still am. So, while I suspect her circumstances are different to my own, I identify with all she is undergoing.

When I first began to get involved with boys/men I was, quite literally, terrified of emotional attachment and commitment. When I started to see a guy, I would openly tell him that I was not in it for keeps and I also informed him not to come running up to me in an angry fury if he saw me across the street with somebody else. My "relationships" consisted of friendship and sex; as soon as I began to feel something deeper, I would bolt.
Even to this day, I have only ever known one person to whom I could say "I love you," spontaneously and without reserve. With anybody else, even when I've truly cared for them, it has been a struggle.

From what I see, your reason for frustration stems from the fact that your 'girlfriend' did not broach the topic of her confusion much sooner. I can understand where you are coming from. The thing is, though, when somebody is afraid of emotional involvement it is not easy for them to just come out with this kind of stuff. One, the person needs to be able to digest and process it all within themselves before discussing it with the other individual involved. Two, at another level, there is the risk of hurt. From what you say, it sounds as though you agreed together that the "relationship," would remain a casual one. So.... chances are that maybe, even subconsciously, she has been afraid you might still view her in that distant light. And, to be honest, having read your various posts, I get the sense you very much do project the impression that you view any kind of deeply involved relationship with considerable ambiguity.

But you know, relationships can take many different forms. It seems to me that so often people feel a need to define the exact nature of a relationship. They will get to a point and wonder, "Is this friendship?" "Is this a relationship?" "What are we?"
My own view is that this should not be necessary. If you feel you are more than friends, but not necessarily a couple, than go with that. It's okay not to have a cookie cutter definition of what you are.

[Magrus]

So then, what's the problem really?

I am surprised it has not happened to her before since she is 21, but falling in love is of course very unpredictable. It sounds like she's making a very big deal out of it, is she afraid of falling in love or something, does she believe she will get hurt more easily or so?

The problem being is she just doesn't know how to handle her emotions and since DW struck home with a lot of things, I'll refer to her post to answer your question I suppose.

When I started to see a guy, I would openly tell him that I was not in it for keeps and I also informed him not to come running up to me in an angry fury if he saw me across the street with somebody else. My "relationships" consisted of friendship and sex; as soon as I began to feel something deeper, I would bolt.

This would be her problem exactly. I don't think she's been afraid of love until very recently when this all started to be honest. She's just never dealt with it, and being that it happens to be an extremely intense and confusing emotion it's made feeling this emotion all the more confusing to her. She's only dealt with guys as distant toys to play with. Having met someone who breaks her out of that mindset is making her head spin I do believe.

From what you say, it sounds as though you agreed together that the "relationship," would remain a casual one. So.... chances are that maybe, even subconsciously, she has been afraid you might still view her in that distant light. And, to be honest, having read your various posts, I get the sense you very much do project the impression that you view any kind of deeply involved relationship with considerable ambiguity.

Do you feel this emotional can of worms is something you want to deal with? Do you want to maintain/deepen the relationship? Does she?

What I want from her, is altogether contradictory from what I can have I'm afraid. At this point it seems the both of us happen to want a deeper relationship. However, based on a few things with our lives, being together seems impossible. I've dealt with odd situations before with relationships, such as ending up long distance because of college and such. With the situations we'd be dealing with, I have to look at to realistically and it looks to be that if we DID further the relationship it would only be for a few months before having to break it off. Without getting into the specific's and I'd rather not, I think this happens to be increasing her frustration and confusion.

She's not only trying to cope with how she feels and understanding this, but what to do with it. Deciding that is hard enough for her given her experiences, but moreso knowing if she gives into this new emotion and acts on it, it would be for a very limited time only. While I've dealt with having loved and lost, in more than a few ways, she never has. I wouldn't at all be opposed to acting on those feelings with her, I'd be afraid to hurt her with it as it would only be temporary.

However, it seems that your girlfriend not only had different expectations, she also probably couldn’t even imagine or conceive of that result occurring. So, not only did you two start in different places, now she is being force to deal with the last thing she expected to change- namely, herself. By your account she is getting slammed with new emotions so who can blame her for not know how to process them.

Sort of, we both set off wanting a casual relationship only. Now it's changed for the both of us. I have dealt with it before, she hasn't, which leads to her being slammed with new emotions.

It’s fine if your girl hasn’t been in a situation like this before, but it will definitely require more time from you and probably more 4 hour “conversations” from time to time. Only you can decide if your effort is worth investing.

I don't have a problem with arguing or discussing like this to work things out. It does happen to irritate me when I have to argue for days to work something out though that could have been simply said without having to go through all of that. I'm an efficiency nut, so that got under my skin. Discussing things is something that often gets me into trouble, I vent then and there in the discussion if I feel it's needed, go off on my own to calm down and come back to work things out. If we can work it out, I'm fine. I won't hold a grudge on what was said with the argument and once it's fixed, it's over and done with.

With her, having to sit down and discuss her emotions, and her wants and such is terribly difficult for her as she just hasn't had to do that yet either with a guy. She keeps her thoughts and feelings to herself and hasn't yet dealt with any kind of relationship where you have to open up and share those things with someone else to make the relationship work. The cause of our argument last night was that she's wanted to try pushing that a bit further and get more out of the relationship to try how it works, but without having to let me know that. Just to see if she likes it before moving onto that kind of thing. I don't see how that could work, and she got upset because it wasn't. We laid down boundaries and her wanting that crossed the boundaries she had set before. So while she got upset with saying she wanted more later in the night during our arguing, what set her off in the first place was the fact what we were doing happened to strike to close to home with what she's been wanting and set off all of the confusion and frustration again.

That led to my getting confused in the argument and needing to question her on the why of everything. Now that I know she wants a little space before discussing everything again to think, that's fine. So long as we both are on the same page, I don't mind the arguing all that much, it's a necessary evil.

[Cuchulain82]

So long as we both are on the same page

Hopefully this thread will help you figure out what that page is.

Often the simple act of giving your situation a voice forces you to think it through, and that can be more helpful than anything else- GB provides a good forum (no pun intended) to do that in.

[Magrus]

Thanks, and yeah, as I said at first, I was more wanting to just rant and see if anyone else had dealt with a similar situation or not than anything else. Comparing experiences with someone having gone through it tends to shed light on things I wouldn't have thought of on my own.

[VonDondu]

I suspect that many of the difficulties that exist between you and your partner stem from conflicts between her feelings and her intentions. "I'm not supposed to feel the way I feel. I want to stick to my original intentions, but my heart is complaining about it. We weren't supposed to be dependent on each other, but I feel dependent on her now. I can't tell her how I feel because I'd be breaking our agreement. She wants me to tell her the truth, but she doesn't want to hear the truth. Should I put up a front, or should I let out my frustration? No matter what I do, she can tell that something is wrong, and we end up arguing about it."

Humans think too much sometimes, and they think they can just make their feelings go away, to the point where they don't know how they feel anymore. That's my guess, anyway.

[fable]

What I want from her, is altogether contradictory from what I can have I'm afraid. At this point it seems the both of us happen to want a deeper relationship. However, based on a few things with our lives, being together seems impossible. I've dealt with odd situations before with relationships, such as ending up long distance because of college and such. With the situations we'd be dealing with, I have to look at to realistically and it looks to be that if we DID further the relationship it would only be for a few months before having to break it off. Without getting into the specific's and I'd rather not, I think this happens to be increasing her frustration and confusion.

Then it sounds as though you're expecting to break this up, in any case. If you haven't voiced this fact to her, then you're leading her on. If she knows it already, then the two of you clearly need to sit down now and talk the matter out, and decide whether you want a relationship to continue even though it's going to be ended in a few months. In my experience, that's doomed to failure.

[CM]

I e-mailed this to my SO and this is what she had to say "Oh boy. It sounds as if you wrote it.". You and I are stuck in the same boat. Any help with this will directly help me so start typing you wankers

[Magrus]

@VonDondu, your basically right on there. I informed her how I felt a while ago and we agreed to remain within the limits we set on our relationship despite that. Now, she's moved onto returning those feelings and never told me. I dealt with the fact she wanted it to be casual and an open relationship, even with her bringing other people into it. Now, she's torn because she can't sleep at night without me, and misses me too much to involve anyone else. That's not something she is at all used to dealing with.

@Fable, our only consideration is if it's worth getting into and having to end it. For myself, I'd rather take what time I have with her as I can get it. I have my feelings for her, whether I hide them or not won't change that. Expressing them seems more beneficial than not. However, I've dealt with losing that kind of relationship before. She hasn't and while she's wanting it on one hand, she's afraid of losing it just after adjusting to it.

[QUOTE=CM] I e-mailed this to my SO and this is what she had to say "Oh boy. It sounds as if you wrote it.". You and I are stuck in the same boat. Any help with this will directly help me so start typing you wankers [/QUOTE]

Always glad that my misfortunes can help others.

At the moment, I just need to talk with her again, and chances are that will be late tonight. Neither of us got sleep at all so who knows how that will go.