Hello, I'm a first time poster, you can call me Joel. I'm 26, partner is 22. We've been together since Fall of 2006, and living together since July of 2008. We're both employed full-time...and have never ever argued about finances...

The issue we're having has me puzzled. She was raised by her well-to-do mother and has 3 brothers...her mother was such a prominent mothering/fathering figure that SHE(my partner), at one time, had no use for a man. I know very little about her father...I'm taking the tiny bits she gives me in stride...hey! when she's ready to talk I'll be there.

She get's very angry abotu many things, considered little things by me. Example: Drying clothes that have been in the washer sitting for 4-6 hours, the way I made mac n' cheese. I brush these things off...but when she accuses me of cheating on her with another woman REPEATEDLY when there is 0 reasoning/cause, has me baffled.

There is also her mother, the nurse-practitioner, mother/father, "what she says/does is always the best." I can accept that and her mother adores who I am and how I treat her daughter. Everytime her mother is having a tough time with her bf(of over 1.5 years) my significant other gets repeatedly hateful, unconfrontational, depressed, calls herself fat, etc. It really get's old...and my patience is wearing thin.

For this reason I've called a therapist, just 20 mintues ago actually, to see if there's something I may be doing wrong or if there's a way to help relieve her stress. I know she's stressed right now, we're Union workers and layoffs are quite imminent, her vehicle needs work done on it but she wont let me do it, lease is almost up and the office is beating around the bush pushing our application through...there are so many things. I feel I do a decent job dealing with these issues (personally) and this is reflected by my drive to help others around me..helping others helps me help myself(make sense?)

We've sat down and had repsectable discussions on our personal and intrapersoanl affairs and we've come to mutual understanding. Then a day or two later it's like we've never discussed anything.

I don't even know how to put the situation in perspective for you all. Please ask any/all questions? that may help me...I feel jumbled up inside. Thank you!

Welcome to MarriageBuilders, Joel...

Have you read the Basic Concepts and other articles on this website to familiarize yourself with Dr. Harley's concepts? I suggest this to give you a construct to view your current relationship.

Which isn't a marriage. He has articles about how living with one another before marriage actually harms the marriage if it gets to that place.

I believe you're experiencing this very conflict...of being intimate with someone without commitment. The insecurity you mention with possibilities arising...layoffs, money, influence, non-influence, etc. are underscored that you're working at this relationship without a net. Not that marriage saves you from pain, worry or fear...means that you know you committed in vows to it so you have direction, application, even when you don't feel like it.

Neither of you have this.

What if she were your wife, your equal partner...would it be okay if she felt stress? Is it your job to relieve or change what she feels, or mind your part of not adding to it?

What do you say and do when the laundry sits for six hours? Do you own what you did, why you did and why and how you won't do it again? Or are you saying she's wrong, shouldn't think, feel, believe, perceive as she does? I don't know what blowing it off really means...can mean conflict avoidance (which isn't love); can mean not fixating on it, not blowing it up out of proportion or denial.

Or other stuff entirely.

Would you consider when she expresses harsh contempt for herself you feel fearful because what she does to herself, she'll do to others, including you?

Do you experience her preferences as criticism, judgments on you...or when she judges others?

About how wide her mother's influence is...in marriage, the marriage comes first...could be what's bugging you is seeing into the future, contemplation for this to be a marriage, it's your belief that you would have less influence, consideration (being listened to and understood) than her mother?

Makes sense to me that through helping others you help yourself...I believe in that two-way street...in all ways.

Welcome.

LA

Thank you very much for the candid reply. Yes, I've read through the notes Dr. Harley has provided on this subject. I will read through again to clarify a couple points.

If she was my wife, and she was stressed I can't relieve that stress for her...nor is it my job, but my duty would be to willingly offer any help and comfort, through sickness and health. Sometimes that may mean to sit back...sometimes not.

We work slightly different hours and she's sometimes in bed before I even get home from work. We both do our part (laundry, dishes, taking care of the cat...etc.) I seen laundry in the dryer and washer so I do as I always do. Fold the laundry and put the wet laundry in the dryer, then fold it. I called her at lunch the next afternoon and she said she was going to her friends house and she wouldn;t be able to work on the laundry, I said that was fine by me and I would work on it when I got home. She asked me if I rewashed the laundry the previous night that had been sitting in there before drying it, I told her no, I just dried it. Then the phone line just cut out, she actually hung up on me-I learned this when I called her back. She wasn't wrong for perceiving it as laziness, I just didn't know how long it had been sitting in the washer, but the ill thing was how she approached me without explaining why it made her so upset.

In this situation 'blowing-it-off' means not being totally blown out of the water and reacting irrationally to something of this nature-especially laundry-I learned from my peers to pick your battles.

"Would you consider when she expresses harsh contempt for herself you feel fearful because what she does to herself, she'll do to others, including you?"

I've thoroughly considered this question. My experiences with her lead me to this answer, YES to ALL OF THE ABOVE.

"Do you experience her preferences as criticism, judgments on you...or when she judges others?"

When I experience her preferences, it usually is criticism, judgementations, and when and if she's ever upset with someone/or something else that has negatively impacted her daily life/routine...there's ALWAYS some type of reprocussion on me. She tends to lash out at those closest (except her mother) when things aren't going so well. For example, she wanted to bid back to a 2nd shift job but management wasn't accepting transfers at this time because of the economy....she blamed me because I'm in direct contact with upper management...but I'm in the Engineering department, not placement or HR department.

This is a given: She will aways listen to her mother before anyone else, her mother is the only one who can provide neg/pos criticism without reprisal and complications.

I know she's not ready for a commitment at this time, and we've talked about this and I've accepted it. I know her mother will never get married again, that has been confirmed. As far as I know, her mother wouldn't/hasn't interferred with any parts of our relationship...I'm talking about DIRECTLY compromising out relationship...like suggestively telling her reasons to be fearful of getting into a committed relationship with me or any other man.

Once again, I don't know what's being said or done "behind closed doors" when I'm not around. Now, for INDIRECT, when her mother is having issues with her partner, it DOES affect our relationship. Whenever her mother isn't talking to her partner, I get the same treatment. Now that her mother is kicking out her partner, I'm getting kicked out as well....the only reason I got from my gf is that I need to get out before she starts resenting me. She's gone as far as comparing me to her mother's bf. That really hurts, because I've seen firsthand numerous times how this guy is bringing her mother down. I feel helpless with our situation...and...as the the minutes/hours/days/weeks tick by my thoughts lead me to believe she's never cared one bit about my feelings for her, my own goals, dreams, and ambitions.

She is moving back in with her mother, I got this news today. I think the fact that they were together alone without a counterpart parenting figure for my gf whole life that they learned to solely depend on each other for emotional support-this makes sense to me.

I've taken a few of those "Emotional Abuse" checklists, although the ones I took were directed for woman who are abused and fairly biased, and the results showed that there's a lot of emotional abuse coming from her. On another note, I think that she perceives me as the abuser because I don't react or support her as her mother has for years. I tend to find good in something even when the situation tends to be REALLY negative, and she seems to dwell on all the negativity...even if it's from a decade ago.

All the signs point to the door and never look back for me.......