LDR struggles

[PeteGer]

Hi there.

 

I'm having problems in a long distance relationship, and I don't really know what to do. We're both in our late thirties, I'm from Germany and she from the USA.

 

So, 7 or 8 months ago I sent on a dating site a message to somebody, we quickly exchanged messages, mailed, voice chatted and video chatted, when we both had the time on weekends up to 8 hours a day. That calmed down after a month to about 2 hours a day. She also sent me physical letters every now and then and a gift, I sent her some fancy socks as a gift and flowers when a friend of hers passed away. When we had more work to do, then we sent each other voice messages and long mails, but we chatted normally every day for some time.

 

Then I visited her for nearly two weeks (we went on a road trip), came back, we continued our chats and so on. Then she got more and more stressed, because she lives in a small city she doesn't want to live in, and wanted to get out as fast as possible (as a teacher that is not always that simple). She wanted to move to a specific other city, closer to her family. That, so far, didn't work out, she didn't get positive responses yet.

This has hit her self esteem a lot and made her panic, because she is really unhappy at the place she currently lives at. I tried my best to support her. I sent her a long deep physical letter too that she loved, tried to assist her with positive words and advice.

 

So far so good. Then, one and half weeks ago, she suddenly stopped reading my messages. We use an app for exchanging messages that lets you see whether a person has read it or not.

That was unusual. Even if she wouldn't have time to reply soon enough, she'd at least often enough check her phone and read them. So, her not having a look at my messages for more than 12 hours has never happened before. I just assumed that she was super busy (though she'd normally tell me that). I wondered whether she was angry at me, as I wished her earlier a happy mothers day, since I thought it referred in the USA to women in general, and she was quite annoyed because she has no good relationship to her mother. I apologized, explained the misunderstanding, and that was the last I heard of her for that.

 

Now, the following days she sent me messages every now and then, sometimes about job interviews and the like, but inbetween messages that seemed to me like she didn't want to talk to me for a while anymore. Like, she told me that...

- ... she didn't want to shut me out.

- ... she has to spend more time on her friends and getting out of the house.

- ... she feels like she always has to choose, like between talking to me and getting stuff for her job done.

- ... she feels like she needs some time to hike by herself.

- ... she is currently very selfish.

- ... that she still wants to visit me.

- ... that she needs to fix her life and sort things out.

 

And, as said, she'd no longer video chat with me, or voice chat, or send mails. She wouldn't read my messages anymore until a day or two later, and then take another day or two to reply.

 

I was quite sad about that. I was missing her. But I didn't want to send her more messages than really necessary, because if she needs more time for herself, then I should give her the time to fix things and sort things out, right?

 

Then at some point we started having a text chat. I did tell her that 'd appreciate a video chat, as this would help me understand better (due to facial expression and voice), but she stuck to text chat. She told me that in the couple of days before that:

- She didn't feel supported.

- That I was confused and didn't know what to do and thus didn't do anything.

- That she is worried that I will always disengage when things got difficult.

- That she doesn't want to have to carefully choose every single word she says to me.

- That it's my choice whether I believe her or not.

- That I was the one who decided that she wanted to be left alone.

- That it doesn't matter why I thought that she wanted to be left alone.

- That when she is stressed she might not always be able to reassure me that she wants this relationship, and that she is worried that I might just disappear.

- That the problem is not the way we communicate, but a basic lack of trust on my behalf.

 

And I got really annoyed by that. I didn't want to have that talk, especially not by chat. I felt hurt because she kept telling me how I am feeling instead of believing me what I'm telling her, that she was not interested in why I thought that she wanted for a while no more contact.

I tried to swallow my emotions and hurt feelings, and approach things rationally. I told her that if she felt pressured to video chat, then I didn't know that, and what way we could solve that. Just video chat more rarely, would that work? But she ignored that.

I said that I have a high risk to misunderstand things if we just text chat (maybe because of cultural differences or languages proficiencies or whatever), and that, if it's something important, we should really at least voice chat about it. But she just wiped that suggestion and explanation away, saying that she disagrees.

 

And now, she even referred back when we had a discussion when I visited her. We were checking out a big American city, I was talking about my impressions of the city and asking her questions, and she got all of a sudden super angry, and told me that I keep asking her questions of which I know she doesn't know the answer and that I should stop that and whatnot. I was surprised, if not shocked. I just tried to make conversation. I didn't expect her to know everything, I just wanted to talk. Then I remembered that we haven't had breakfast yet and that she repeatedly said at other times that she doesn't like talking before breakfast, so I was annoyed by myself for forgetting that. As we were on our way to a breakfast place, for that reason and to have my feelings calm down I just shut up. And now, months later she is accusing me for having been more quiet then until half an hour later when we had breakfast.

 

I don't know... I feel somehow trapped. She keeps telling me that I'm important and our relationship is important to her and she wants me around and so on. But it feels as if she has very high expectations that I should behave in a very specific way, and when I don't meet those expectations she gets angry. And it annoys me when she tells me how I feel, especially when it's not true (like "you are confused and thus don't do anything"). Or when she doesn't even care why I thought she didn't want to talk for a while.

 

Or, just as one more example: when I visited her, she invited some friends over for dinner. She was all day long super nervous about that, and when she gets nervous she gets very easily irritated. She was like a train at full speed doing her things, preparing this and that. I tried to help, but as I didn't know my way around I felt all the time that I was just in the way, slowing her down, making her more irritated. So after several attempts of helping her, I just picked up a book, stayed nearby so we could still talk or whatever and I read. And just yesterday she again blamed me for having done that.

 

I only try to make her happy. I know that I'm not an easy person, but I really try to be supportive and cheer her up and do whatever is needed.

She has a job interview? I try to cheer her up and motivate her.

A job interview didn't turn out? I tell her lots of reasons why I think that it's not too bad, and not all it lost and how things will get better.

She wants more distance and time for herself? I'm sad about that, but I give her that.

 

But it seems that no matter what I do, if it's not exactly what she had in mind, it's immediately wrong and I'm all to blame for it. I feel misunderstood, hurt and annoyed, and I don't really know what to do.

 

We had plants to visit more times and then maybe move together. But now I'm on the verge of quitting this, because I'm just sad now.

 

I mean, as said, I don't now what to do. When I suggest something or try to solve something, she disregards that and wipes that away. When I offer talking about my view, she is not interested as I only talk about myself.

 

I don't know... I hope that this is just a difficult phase or something, but I'm really unsure now. I want to make her happy, but right now it seems that I can't do that. I feel like I can't message or mail her right now, but if I don't, she will blame me for being too passive or whatever. I guess I'll just be available in that partner chat if she wants to talk, but otherwise just do my thing.

 

I don't know what I expect here. I guess I just had to get this off my heart.

[d0nnivain]

I'm sorry. This is very unfair of her. You didn't cause her problems, nor should you be. For heaven's sake you are half way around the world.

[coolheadal]

Have you two met in person yet? Not just video or whatapps deal have you physically met? Your in Germany she's in USA. So much can happen that you don't even know about because your not with her 24/7..I've learned about this stuff myself I have gone through it for about 3 years before throwing int he towel. What you can do is back off and let her contact you and stop texting so much. All this is doing your head in mate.. Don't let her get to you like this. Not healthy at all..

[PeteGer]

I'm sorry. This is very unfair of her. You didn't cause her problems, nor should you be. For heaven's sake you are half way around the world.

 

Well, it's just my side you are hearing. So maybe I'm doing everything wrong. I don't know.

 

There is nobody else who knows the situation well enough to make an objective opinion.

 

She mentioned yesterday, that she would rather have other important things to talk about than these draining mails. So I thought "well, let's better ask what that is, so that she knows I'm interested", and I ask her. And the reply is that she's been feeling alone for weeks, and she can't handle me pretending that's not the case.

And... I don't know what to say here. The last one and a half weeks she reduced our contact to a fraction of what it was before. That wasn't me. The weeks before that she was super busy with job interviews, and I tried everything to support her, but didn't complain about us having less contact, because that seemed unfair. I mean, she is more busy than usual with very important things, so how could I whine here "we don't have enough contact"? I just don't know what to do.

 

Have you two met in person yet? Not just video or whatapps deal have you physically met? Your in Germany she's in USA. So much can happen that you don't even know about because your not with her 24/7..I've learned about this stuff myself I have gone through it for about 3 years before throwing int he towel. What you can do is back off and let her contact you and stop texting so much. All this is doing your head in mate.. Don't let her get to you like this. Not healthy at all..

 

Yes, about two months ago I went over to the USA, and we spent a week on a road trip and a couple of days at her home.

 

What you can do is back off and let her contact you and stop texting so much. All this is doing your head in mate.. Don't let her get to you like this. Not healthy at all..

But now she is messaging me that she feels alone. At the same time she doesn't want to have any video chat. But for me, at least voice chat (if not video chat) is the only way I feel really connected, because text just doesn't do it. But she insists on text.

How am I supposed to make her feel less alone, if she wants less contact and less video chat? I don't get it.

 

And, here is another thing: we're both quite sex positive. We like talking about it and like having it. Before we met, we had a lot of phone sex and the like, and it was fun.

After we met, when we returned home... On the one hand she was sending me messages like she missed me so much, she cried because she felt like she screwed things up, and so on. At the same time, in the two months since, she never wanted to have any kind of phone sex or whatnot again. When a couple of weeks after returning this was apparent, I asked her why that's the case, and she replied that now that she knows me physically, the phone / online thing just doesn't do it anymore.

 

I don't know. I mean, it takes a long time to get to know somebody without being in that persons presence most of the time. But to me, that explanation makes no real sense. We both loved doing that before we met, and after that it got reduced to zero. Of course it doesn't replace the real physical thing, but it could still provide some sort of closeness. In any case, reducing it that suddenly to zero seemed to me like an indicator that there is a problem here that she doesn't want to talk about.

But I just thought "well, ok, maybe that's just the way it is. I should just trust her." I thought about asking her about that, whether that is really all there is, but I don't want to push her in this regard. If she doesn't want it, then we won't have that.

 

Sometimes I have to think back when we were on that road trip. She was driving, I was making a list of what we have to shop next. Then we had this talk:

She: "Please add s'mores."

Me: "S'mores? Ok. What was that again?" (as said, I'm German and my vocabulary is not perfect)

She: "I told you earlier what it is."

Me: "I'm sorry. I don't remember. What is it?"

She: "You don't have to know. Just write it down."

 

I don't know about cultural differences, but such a reply is just soooo hurtful to me. I just shrugged and wrote it down, because I was hurt and know that having a discussion when being emotional is not the best thing to do. She later explained that she was super nervous about my visit, and when she is nervous she gets easily irritated.

 

Well... as said, I don't know what to do.

So she sent me that mail. I'm about to go to work soon. If I don't reply, she will get annoyed and accuse me for not reacting. But what should I do? I considered writing something in the lines of "We should really have a video chat. Those mails and text messages just make things worse. I can't have a decent conversation with you with just those, especially when it's an important subject."

But then again, she said she already felt pressured to video chat, so I don't want to repeat that mistake. But by mail there are too many misunderstandings and hurt feelings without the ability to reply. I told her that multiple times, and she said she disagrees and that we communicate better by mail. But I don't think so.

 

I have the urge to give in to my emotions and reply something in the lines of: "I try my best to meet your expectations, but it seems I can't. You have job interviews, and I do my best to support you. That's not good enough I hear now. You say you want more time for yourself and us to spend less time, and I let you have that. And then that's wrong too. I make suggestions on how to improve the situations, and you ignore them. I tell you what I think we should do to fix things, and you just say you disagree and wipe away all that."

 

I've the urge to write something in the lines of that. But I know that's stupid. It would just hurt her.

[ExpatInItaly]

This is far too much work for someone you've met only once in person, and who lives on another continent.

 

She wants your attention when it suits her, but she's clearly lost a lot of interest. This isn't sustainable and not the foundation of a healthy relationship, particularly when you're so far apart and don't actually know each other all that well in person.

 

I'm sorry OP, but I don't see this working out well in the end. She's already on her way out and trying to make it your fault.

[justwhoiam]

Hi Pete,

 

Been there, done that. I've been in a LDR for around 6 years, just in reversed roles: I'm the European woman, he's the American guy.

 

I think that to keep up a LDR you either need to go out of your way, or you both must be "open". I can't remember cases of the latter, though, that have been successful. By successful I mean not leading to a permanent breakup at some point.

 

What do you expect from this relationship? Do you have any goals? Does she share your same goals?

 

I sent on a dating site a message to somebody

Is she the only one you got in touch with through the dating site? Anyone local?

 

I tried my best to support her.

How?

 

one and half weeks ago, she suddenly stopped reading my messages [... ] I just assumed that she was super busy (though she'd normally tell me that)

Too bad. You shouldn't assume.

Don't you have her phone number? Can't you pick up the phone and check? If she were just a virtual friend, I would just wait it out, but apparently she's not. What are you to her? And what is she to you? I don't accept limbo. I need to know where I stand. But then again, she's American and she might not need that. But worth bringing it up and ask. You never know the things you can find out. If you call her cell phone using Skype, you can have lengthy conversations (hours) for just a few €cents. Voice is a bit muffled though, compared to VOIP.

 

What I get from her lines:

"I didn't want to shut you out" = hey, even if you don't hear from me, that doesn't mean I don't want to hear from you. Drop me a darn line now and then. Cheer me up. Do something. Let me know you're there!

 

"I want to spend more time with my friends and get out of the house" = I seriously doubt she wrote "I have to". Please check the exact words. Anyway, is it possible that you were involved in some social event of any kind (going out with friends, going to a party, seeing people at night, etc.) Because there's a chance the message here is "why would I have to spend all this time with you missing out of other things when you don't to begin with?" Besides that, this can be a genuine thought she shared with you, as she doesn't want to end up socially alienated.

 

"she feels like she always has to choose, like between talking to me and getting stuff for her job done" = She can't say no to you when you're around, but maybe you can plan time ahead. Like: are you available at 1 pm for a call? Or 5 pm your time? (you name it). She won't feel like her day's gone without doing what she needs to get done without renouncing time with you.

 

Did you talk about vacations? What is she doing for the summer? When would she visit you in Germany? Is there a chance she's struggling with money? What's your financial situation? How often could you afford to visit her?

 

I was quite sad about that. I was missing her. But I didn't want to send her more messages than really necessary, because if she needs more time for herself, then I should give her the time to fix things and sort things out, right?

You wanted to act cool, and that played against you. I think she needs to have time to hike, see friends, go out, etc. and know that you are in love with her, and you don't give that out by acting cool.

 

If that can console you, I never go video. He does though. So if you're OK with that and you don't mind being put on the spot out there, offer that. Don't demand she videochats with you. I like seeing him on cam.

 

I was talking about my impressions of the city and asking her questions, and she got all of a sudden super angry, and told me that I keep asking her questions of which I know she doesn't know the answer and that I should stop that and whatnot.

Ok, now, this is out of place. I could take that if she was bothered about something else, and therefore quite irritable. Otherwise, no. She should be flattered by your curiosity about her world. Or maybe she was just tired and couldn't put up with your questions. Let her free to share with you, without pressuring her. Like: "I want to know more about this city, I'm reading an article online... If you have anything you feel like sharing with me, I'd be honored to learn from you."

 

Then I remembered that we haven't had breakfast yet and that she repeatedly said at other times that she doesn't like talking before breakfast, so I was annoyed by myself for forgetting that.

Have you ever asked her about it?

 

it feels as if she has very high expectations that I should behave in a very specific way, and when I don't meet those expectations she gets angry

Aren't most women like that somehow?

 

as I didn't know my way around I felt all the time that I was just in the way, slowing her down, making her more irritated. So after several attempts of helping her, I just picked up a book, stayed nearby so we could still talk or whatever and I read.

What were your attempts? Let me guess, like "Can I do anything to help"?

 

Did you try with "Can I lay the table?"

 

I feel misunderstood, hurt and annoyed, and I don't really know what to do.

Welcome to the LDR club!

 

now I'm on the verge of quitting this

Understable. Only you know what you feel like doing. Follow that.

 

I feel like I can't message or mail her right now, but if I don't, she will blame me for being too passive or whatever.

If you intend to go on with this (potential?) relationship, go out of your way trying not to expect anything in return. Leave her nice love messages and let her know you'll be available whenever she has some time. If she proves to be too selfish, then let her go.

[Chilli]

She doesn't sound like she has the intelligence to deal with what LD takes , or the self sacrifice needed it all seems me me me to me , ahh. from her l mean.

You wanna make her happy but does she care less about you being happy?

Has she ever said or tried to make you happy or equally ?

 

Sorry to sound harsh but l'm really wondering about any quality and depth with her tbh.l don't think personally you have a women that has what it takes to make things work sorry.

[PeteGer]

Thanks for the replies and sorry for the long time I required to reply. This subject just rattled me a bit. We had basically no communication since the last time, which is, as said, an insane difference to the first six months when we got to know each other, when we'd talk sometimes for 5 or more hours straight.

 

Today we did have a video chat though. She said that she thought that the communication didn't work that well, and that she is super stressed because of her looking for a new job and a different place to move to, and she just can't handle it all, so she needs a break. I'm not that naive anymore, to think that a break means the option of continueing this at some other point.

 

I did hope that we could just unravel the misunderstandings and grow with the experience. She was really emotional during the video chat, so I didn't want to push her into that direction too much. On the other hand I thought that maybe she expected me to fight more for this, but she seemed somewhat determined, and I can't attempt to force something on this on somebody who has tears running down the cheeks.

 

I'd be still up for trying to sort things out, but then again I have currently a quite stable life, so... I feel a bit like a failure, in so far as I really wanted to make her happy, and achieved the opposite. She still said stuff like "you are a lovely person" and "I missed you" and whatnot, but eh... That doesn't really change the situation. It makes me doubt my ability to keep a relationship healthy and alive. I try to tell myself that it's not like as if I did anything fundamentally wrong, as misunderstandings can happen, and that solving a problem in a LDR relationship is not that easy if the other person doesn't want to talk about it. But still...

 

Oh well, that's life. I was for such a long time so sure that this would work out. That I'd have found the one. And always this looming question: "What could I have done differently?". Eh... Well, time to rearrange my summer vacation plans I guess, back to solo hiking.

Edited June 2, 2018 by PeteGer

[Chilli]

Basically she was too weak and selfish to make it work.

If a woman's gonna make that work she has to be made of the good stuff and she wasn't.

 

Don't blame yourself except in choosing the wrong woman .

[Gijs089]

I feel for you man. The pain can be horrible.

It's like you can't recognize that person anymore, especially after that good connection, even thinking it is the person you want to be with... they let them know at some point, she already did a few times.

 

I'm currently going through a similar situation, you are not alone.

It's really strange how nature seem to work, the more loving and caring you are the more we get pushed away.

This is not your fault, it has nothing to do with you, he is protecting herself from being hurt, this are games that can make you crazy, whether she does it consciously or not.. having barely contact makes anyone wonder what went wrong. What she did in the car when you were there was rude in my opinion, she has defenitly let herself known right there.

You did the most courageous thing man, a lot of people are too self involved with their lives, she was/is as well..

Treat yourself with something nice, you did the strongest thing. something to be proud of.

 

I'm struggling with this as well, relationships get too important, especially ldr can make it an overthinking business. Get abundance back of woman in your life, have no contact with her anymore see where that goes (how hard that is)

You are not alone

 

All the best,

Gijs

[TheFinalWord]

Just my personal opinion, I'm sure there's exceptions, but you can't build a relationship online. Things like Skype, text, etc. can keep things on maintenance until the next visit occurs. Eventually, and this is something that must be acknowledged by both parties...long distance must come to an end at some point or what you have is a pen pal.

 

The reason I don't think LDR can grow is because you don't get to really know the person...their daily habits, mood, chemistry. What ends up happening is your mind creates a false representation of what this person is, and fills in the blanks, instead of who they really are. Case in point, this person you are now interacting with is not the person you thought you were dealing with. Why? Online has created a fantasy of what this person is like.

 

People can usually hide who they are for around 90 days. With online, I've found this can be extended two or three times this amount because interactions are sporadic. If you only actually see each other a couple times a year, it's almost like you are starting over every time as the excitement of meeting puts everyone on their best behavior. This person sounds like a poor communicator. You probably would have found this out in a couple of dates, but with online its taken longer to find out how this person is, and in the mean time you've put months of your life on hold. Don't get hung up on this person.

Edited June 13, 2018 by TheFinalWord