Am I being unreasonable?

[Jaiba79]

Hi there,

 

I signed up here, because sometimes I think I could use some non biased advice and opinions. Like right now. Here's the story, and I would be interested to hear what others think about it.

 

My girlfriend of three years and I have been bickering lately because I am planning to go to a conference in California in a few weeks. Originally the plan was that I would go up there on a Friday, spend the weekend there, then attend the conference from Monday to Friday, and my girlfriend would meet me up there and we would spend the weekend there together. About a month ago, her dad got sick, and has been in the hospital. She went to visit him immediately. I asked if she wanted me to go with her, and she said that I didn't need to go. About a week later, I was needing to buy my plane tickets for my conference, and so were were trying to figure out our plans. Instead of meeting me that last weekend and spending it together, she was going to spend the next week going to visit her father and family, since it falls on her spring break. My conference is the week before. We had talked about the possibility of my flying to my conference, and then flying over to her to spend the weekend with her before I flew back home, but tickets of a reasonable price were not available to do that. So in the end, I bought my tickets and am ultimately spending two weekends bookending a five day conference with me getting back sunday afternoon. The tickets she got to go visit her father and family have her leaving the monday morning right after I get back. She's planning to be gone for 5 days.

 

This conference is something I have been wanting to go to since before I even met my girlfriend. It is something that is important to me, although its not more important than my relationship. Also, one of my best friends lives in the city where the conference is, and I will be staying with him and visiting with him, which I don;t get to do very often.

 

So here is the issue. She is furious at me because I haven't changed my tickets to come back Friday so that we can see each other that weekend before she leaves. When I asked her if she wanted me to come back early, I said: "I would like to stay till the end of the conference on Friday if I could, but I would come back early. She said that she wouldn't want me to come back early if I didn't want to come back. When I asked what she meant, she said that she was upset that I didn't want to come back early to spend time with her after being apart from her for so long, and because she was going to be gone for another 5 days. I told her that, of course I would miss her, and I was sorry that she wasn't able to spend the weekend up there with me, but I felt it wasn't fair of her to say that because I wanted to stay up there that extra weekend to visit with my friend, that it didn't mean that I didn't want to see her. I tried to explain that it was possible for me to want more than one thing. That I could miss her, but also want to visit and spend some time with a good friend of mine. I understand that she is dissapointed. I was dissapointed when she said that she couldn't meet me up there on that last weekend. and I totally understood why. But she is angry at me because it seems like she can't stand the idea that I would want to stay an extra two days to visit with my friend. Its not that I refuse to come back early, I am capable of coming back early, and would genuinely be happy to be back with her again. But that she thinks that my wanting to stay a few extra days IF I could equals me not wanting to be with her. I disagree with that. We will ultimately be apart for 14 days. 9 days with a period of about 12 hours from when I get back to when I take her to the airport before she is gone for another 5 days. We see each other frequently right now, and I know we would see each other a lot when we get back, because we have been apart for so long. Not to mention we would still talk on the phone everyday.

 

Is it unreasonable for me to want to stay over there for a few more days, even if it means we only see each other for 12 hours instead of 2 days before she leaves again?

 

Thanks for listening

[thatmatt]

No, I don't think it's unreasonable. However, that said, although she seems to be getting angry at you over something small, remember that emotionally she is probably under a LOT of stress due to her dad being sick, especially if he has been sick for almost a month now, it's probably starting to wear on her physically, mentally, and emotionally. You've already booked the tickets, so you can't really go back now. Just apologize, and be really sweet about not meaning to upset her, and although you will only see her for 12 hours before she leaves, be really supportive, help her with things, cook her breakfast/dinner depending on when she's leaving, etc. Normally I think she would be overreacting, but think of this as a time to prove to her that you are always there to support her, and are patient with her. The key here is patience, because although she is not being patient with you, she is very emotionally distraut, and even though it might be hard to stay strong and sweet when shes angry at you, you have to believe that when she gets back, or when all this clears up, she will realize that although she wasn't really in the best place, you were supporting and loving and patient, and she will greatly appreciate it. You two have been together for 3 years, so I'm assuming both of you are patient, compromising people. Just wait it out and be supportive, she'll thank you for it!

[oh_what_am_I_doing]

I agree that the fact that her dad is ill is totally stressing her out, and making her more on edge than what she probably normally is. Send flowers to the hospital room, perhaps, or to her parents' place, letting them know you're thinking about them even though you can't be there.

 

I don't suppose you're a doctor who has kids every other weekend, are you? There was another poster I was reading about today whose boyfriend was taking off for a conference in CA, and she's pretty pissed about that.

 

If you're two different peope, perhaps it's a full moon?