A
male
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:i need some help dealing with really difficult feelings i'm having in my relationshipboth myself and my girlfriend have physical medical conditions that prevent us from driving, so we depend on others for rides. her family is a very, very close family, with many events and activities planned, and also with a lot of family friends. basically, every weekend there's at least one or two things the family does together in some way. she lives in the same town as me which is about a ninety minute drive from the most prominent family members. we live in a large city with good public transportation, her family mostly lives in country or rural areas or in very small towns with no transportation at all.we both have jobs and are very busy during the week, and have little time to do much together as a couple other than maybe talking on the phone and getting supper at local places once or twice a week. this means that weekends have generally been our time, and we've always made sure to structure our plans around her family schedule, so that we can do both. but lately the people in her family who usually drove her to events are deciding they'd rather pick her up a day or two early so that they can not have to worry about coming to get her on an event day. they have suddenly shifted to doing this every single weekend.a typical thing might be that we make plans for a saturday, but there's an event on sunday afternoon. so in the past, someone would just come get her on sunday morning. we would use whatever transportation we had available to do our plans, which for us is just a way of life so we always planned for it. it worked out pretty good at the time, she got to do all of the family events she wanted, we got to do the things we wanted, and often times i would do things with her family too. sometimes she would go visit early for a weekend, but not that frequently.but today, that same situation i just mentioned would instead be "can we pick you up right after work on friday evening, and you can stay over at our house until the event sunday so we can not drive on saturday and sunday?" they may even just offer to bring her back directly to work monday morning, so she'd actually stay over the entire time from when she leaves work friday till when she starts again monday.this of course messes with the plan we had for saturday. it means that she ends up sitting in an apartment on saturday doing nothing but watching tv or reading, when we had planned to do something. there's no activity directly interfering with our plan, it's the timing of the rides people are offering her that is.so the whole problem revolves around the transportation problem. for one thing, even though I would be invited to go with her on friday evening to her family's place, one, the people who are picking her up live in small apartments in a very small town where even one guest is a stretch, she sleeps on the couch and there would be nowhere for me to sleep, and two, it means we would just end up stuck together in a cramped apartment with her family members, with no privacy and nothing anywhere near as exciting to do as what we had planned.so for me, this has started to become really frustrating. not only am i seeing less and less of her, and not only have we had to cancel weekend plans for weeks in a row, but i'm also starting to miss being able to go to her family events with her. these family events are very important to her, which is great, i'm happy to see she has a good connection with family. she feels that family events should have quite a high priority. the issue is really that in the past she never had to choose between me and family. now, because her family has changed how they want to give her rides, she's being forced to choose. if she goes with her family, she can't do things with me, and vice versa.we have looked into transportation options that would help us get to her family on our own, but it's just too expensive compared to the "only-for-gas" or "free" driving from her family. it's something we simply can't afford on our current budgets. where we are, the cost of transportation out to a rural area 90 minutes away could easily cost over $140 each way. my own family doesn't live nearby, so that's no help. and even our local friends would expect to be paid quite a bit to take time out of _their_ weekends to drive.so i suggested she could check into if other family members could maybe help pick her up the day of at least sometimes, and this is where a rift is forming between us: she'll check on it, and find out that everyone _else_ has weekend plans and thus wouldn't have time to drive her. i feel that this is a little unbalanced, because i feel like my gf is being asked to give up all her plans so that everyone else can keep their plans, but nobody is ever willing to reciprocate for her so she can keep her plans. in her mind, though, that's just life. like she does not see why i feel there's a problem. the exchange might go like: her-"well it wouldn't be fair to ask them to change plans for me." me-"i feel like you've been canceling plans with me and friends and everything else for a while to accommodate their schedule so is it really that unfair to ask that your plans be considered?" her-"yes because they're the ones driving."short of some sort of miracle that would let us drive, i'm not sure how we can clear the air between us at least and start to work on how to compromise. right now, since we've had to cancel plans so many times, we're starting to just get angry at each other from all the stress. i recognize this is starting and i want to stop it before it gets worse, but short of me just accepting that we (and even her friends and her) will not be doing things on weekends _or_ during the week because we're busy, which will put her on edge, or short of her deciding that she will lower the importance of family events in herself, i'm not sure how to bring us back to the right track. advice? 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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (12 February 2015): Her family are doing her a favour so she should be greatFul.
If that favour isn't perfect then you have the power to fix this; get a driver's licence. One or both of you.
Problem fixed.
In the mean time either get a taxi and split the cost. Or carry on as you are now.
You've both taken for granted the lift from her family without getting your lives in order. Sorry but they have plans too and can't be ferrying a fully functional adult around the place.
A
female
reader, chigirl  +, writes (12 February 2015):
 Every other weekend she goes with her family, and then with you. End of the problem. If that means she will sit alone on Sunday then so be it. You got to put some effort into your relationship as well, or else it dies. That's just life, as she put it. There needs to be sacrifices. If her family can't pick her up, fine, no problem. They don't have to. But that means she wont go, and she needs to accept that. As do you. Your relationship shouldn't suffer just because her family becomes demanding.
But anyway, it needs to be up to her. You should just tell her you would like to see more of her, and suggest that every other weekend you see her on Saturday, and make a deal of it. Then don't mention the family and whatever will happen to her family-plans. Just say you're tired of plans getting canceled and miss hanging out with her.
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A
female
reader, kirra07  +, writes (12 February 2015):
I suggest giving her a little more time before mentioning anything. Don't pressure her, just let her know that you love her and miss her. If you push, then she will probably choose her family. Whoever forces their partner to choose is usually ultimately the one that gets dropped. So if you can't force the issue, try to see if this will resolve itself. I usually don't recommend seeing if problems solve themselves (because they usually don't), but in this case, there is a decent chance they will. This is because:
1) the relatives that are housing her should get sick of losing THEIR privacy every week for basically half the week.
2) your girlfriend should get bored of losing her weekends, sitting in an apartment
3) your girlfriend should start to miss you.
4) your girlfriend should start to get stressed from losing so many days at home. Weekends are often the times that people do laundry, cook, clean, do groceries, etc. If she loses all that time every weekend, that should stress her out.
She is right that she doesn't really have the right to ask others to change their plans to drive her. And if you keep pushing, you will push her away. So just try to sit tight for a few more weeks, and see if things right themselves. Hopefully those that give the ride will want their privacy and go back to Sunday rides. Or your girlfriend will decide to do biweekly visits instead. It seems like this situation can't go on indefinitely.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (12 February 2015): I'm afraid you'll have to just cope with the time that you have, or ask her to spend every second weekend with you. She can't ask her family to change their plans, what they're doing is an extra, she's not doing something for them by receiving a ride, they are doing her a favour and her changing her plans to accomodate that does not change the fact they're still doing her a favour.
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