A
male
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:I will try to keep this short... my girlfriend and I have dated for a little over 2 years, and we're in college together. Recently we've started to have some problems. Lately she's been "standing me up" a lot more, canceling plans frequently (more often than not). Her reasons for canceling usually are sound and reasonable - needs extra time for homework for example. But a major reason she does this is because she visits her family. I do understand needing to see your family but its to where she spends almost all her free time with them and almost none with me.I have tried to talk about this with her in the past but she usually will just get angry and repeat things her family says, like "family comes first." I finally sat her down a couple weeks ago and told her that this is affecting our relationship seriously and asked if there's anything she can tell me about why she does this, and she told me some things that are pretty horrifying, sad enough to almost bring me to tears listening to her. The upshot of it is that she feels unwanted. Her conception was an accident and she found this out because of a fight she overheard between her parents about something she asked for that, unknown to her, interfered with plans they had. There's a lot more to it that I don't want to post here but basically she seems to feel she has to "prove" that she is worth something and the only way she knows of to do that at this point is to submit to her family whenever they ask - telling her family "no" results in harsh arguments where she's told directly that she's not worth anything. Its also worth noting she's dated before, but all of her exes left her (she never did any breaking up), and usually over something trivial, so it only reinforced the idea that she's not very wanted.We did talk for quite a bit and she asked if we could come to a compromise - that she needs to slowly learn to moderate the amount of time she gives family and work on these emotional issues, but she can't change everything overnight. I do understand that change takes time and effort. The agreement we came to was that she would promise to see me more often, with some specifics like how often and for how long, if I would agree to try to understand more as she works on slowly learning to resist her family. This all sounded good to me. But it's been a few weeks and nothing's changed - it's still the same, blowing me off for family and so on. I really do love her and I'm not ready to give up on her. When she isn't worrying about family, she's amazing. The issue seems to focus entirely around this family problem. She is completely faithful and hasn't ever directly lied about where she's been or why she canceled plans or anything. She seems resistant to counseling because she's tried it before for other issues and only got "canned" answers that didn't really help her, like "You need to start thinking you're worth more than that." but with no extra help.I can tell she doesn't want it this way. If even the possibility that we might not work out comes up somehow, she freaks out and tells me I'm the best thing that's happened and she can't give up on me and us. As someone who has suffered some depression myself in the past, I do understand not always being able to control how you feel, so I don't fully believe in the idea that "everything you feel is your choice and is 100% within your control." I do know what she's going through on some level and I love her enough and am committed to her enough to stick with her, but... is there any hope? Is there anything I'm not doing that I could be to help her? Is there something I'm doing wrong?
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female
reader, fishdish +, writes (9 September 2012):
 I have a few thoughts, not very organized, I don't think.
Out of respect for your girlfriend, you're really vague about the details of what she's discovered, so without knowing more, I wonder if just her talking to her family about what she overhead would help, discussing how she interpreted what she heard hurt her feelings, made her feel unwanted, and like she has to prove her worth to them.
A lot of "oops babies" are still loved, so I can't tell if it's the parents that are putting her down, or her. It sounds like she's aggregating a lot of losses (the ex's, the parents) into 'undesirability,' and I don't see how this is fair because you're clearly showing her affection and that she is desired-by you!Can she bring you along for moral support/so that you see her more too and she doesn't have to choose between the both of you?
If this is not an option, I'm wondering why she is hanging out MORE with them if they are actually a toxic bunch, telling her she's not worth much if she doesn't see them. It's not healthy for her self-esteem. Maybe she just needs the Right counselor and hasn't found him/her yet.
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