I'm seeing my relationship crumble and I'm very unsure how to stop it.

I've visited this site for the past few months reading and learning. My most important lesson being that I was trying to meet my emotional needs thru her. What I mean is.. for example.. I need adoration.. so I'd give adoration looking for the same in return. I've learned thats not how it works. We've talked and I've tried to understand her needs so I can meet them and explained my needs to her. Hard to do at distance but a work in progress and the effort is there and I dont believe this is the root of the problem.

Our failings are coming from constant conflicts that do not end healthy or in some form of agreement or respect for the differing views and the following damge that comes from them. The conflicts usually end with her exiting the discussion angry, followed by a short period of silence before communication resumes. I really think that silence is unhealthy and only present because of the distance. Were we in the same household.. I'd expect some form of nuetral ice breaker communication would come no later than the following morning if not sooner (like as we went to bed).

I can handle discussions that dont end in 100% agreement. I appreciate and value our ability to express different viewpoints and I'd never want us to represent some level of carbon copied thought. I want to hear her view and share mine.

I really think that despite her getting upset during discussions... she does want to hear my honest viewpoint as well. She just doesn't handle it as well in the moment and needs more time to digest it. Acceptable by me if thats all that happened.

It's after the disagreement where I think the troubles are causing damage. First.. the silent treatment both of us attribute to. I cant speak for her feelings on this but for myself.. I would much rather not be silent. It's become a learned response of sorts for me. See.. if I contact her the next morning or whenever, usually thru a text.. I'm often met with coldness initially and it takes her a bit to warm up. I must admit this is damaging for me. A love bank withdrawal even? I'm not sure. I've tried in that initial contact a couple of diffenent styles. I've tried to steer clear of whatever conflict we had previous and just warm back up... but she's told me this annoys her. Like she feels the conversation is fake in some manner. I've had better success with being brief in the warm up and then addressing the conflict so we can move on. However.. and maybe this is a mistake of mine.. there is a part of me that feels sometimes like I'm way too often being the party to initiate that discussion and attempt resolution. My reasoning often being.. if she's chosen to excuse her self and take cool down time.. shouldnt she have some responsibility in re-opening the communication. It leaves me in a form of chase mode often and I do not think thats healthy.

The further problem we have is in that post discussion/rehash.. she often feels I blame her. this usually results in a very defensive posture form her or a defeated posture from her. I'm confused because I dont quite understand how I am to relate what I saw or felt or expected without lovebusting her or DJ'ing her as erroring. I never say: it was your fault this happened. Yet that is usually exactly what she takes from my message or comments. I think I often take responsibilty for my failings and I want to hear what she felt or expected.. but it seems she doesnt resolve conflicts the same way and I am again treating her the way I want to be treated to no success.

It's so hard to think otherwise cause all my life I've been raised to treat others how you want to be treated.

If you've read this much.. thank you!! I will now post my most recent email to her after a discussion turned south and was followed by silence. I need an unbiased eye to point out if this email was pointing a finger because her response (which I will withhold out of respect for her) came back very angry and feeling like I blamed her.. and that she didn't see how she could live up to my expectations.

One other note about my email.. the ending is a strong example of me not being strong and I really loathe that position I'm slipping into. I want to be equals.. but I'm struggling to find the correct way to portray my view/strength without her feeling not good enough or blamed or wrong.

the email:

well I guess it's up to me to say something. doesn't matter that it was you that hid out for a day and a half. doesn't matter that I came to you with something I felt and I thought I could trust you to hear. i begin this pm and I think.. why? what response will i get? but i know the answer to why... cause I love you unconditionally and the response I get.. doesnt change that.

right now i feel like I cant bring a discussion to you of anything that could or will upset you cause all it does is get me banished or punished. i'm so upset right now. i saw you get online yesterday and i thought.. she'll say something. but no.. nothing. i didnt need a total agreement in the discussion. i needed to be heard and i believed bringing sensitive discussions to you was safe. that i could trust you to hear me. it's not safe. i can almost guess what you're thinking right now. you're either getting annoyed/defensive because you think i'm overly dramatic .. or you're feeling defeated and that you cannot give me what i need. right? i hope not though on both counts.. cause if it is either of those.. save it. i'm not overly dramatic.. i'm an individual who thinks for himself that you wont always agree with... and you have given me what i need or i'd not be so utterly in love with you.. honestly that is something thats really within your control only to believe as my efforts have proven a waste of breath.. you're gonna think what you will. no one is perfect all the time.. we will dissappoint each other at times.

As for the cause of this whole mess.. simply a topic we werent in complete agreement on. so what we didnt see eye to eye on it. i mean seriously.. did i say ever it was a deal breaker of some sort?? no. you brought up the people at work opinions about moving away and such and i wanted to tell you something i felt about that regarding a long ago comment by you (moving away from parents and essentially me wanting to feel our new life/family together is wholly the priority). it was freaking valentines night and the woman i love more than anything.. couldnt hear honest feelings from me. that stings. as we said goodnight i told you i love you.. but my discussion with you made it impossible for you to do the same, really? it wasnt a fight.. it was just a discussion i thought.

the last day and a half i've thought to myself you must view my role in your world as simply: to fit in and never rock the boat. it's your world and i'm just part of it as long as i dont mess it up. not our world we are building but more your world that i'm joining. i'm sure thats a rash feeling to have and i know things are never so black and white but you've left me alone with my thoughts since that night. i've been left with only one lesson from that.. to shaddup and not say jack unless asked first. dumb of me to think that way.. i'm sure it is. however.. i waited patiently for you to come back around and say something after the way you left saturday night and hid out sunday. to say it was ok for me to have told you what i felt and although we didnt see eye to eye on all of it that you were still glad i came to you. instead you've said nothing.. which sorta implies it wasn't ok. at this point i feel like i should have just bit my tongue on it all. none of it was relative to our plans.. just a bunch of hypotheticals.

i almost wish i could say i dont give a [censored].. do what you will. or that i could say strongly to just choose me and all my agreements and disagreements alike or just be gone. i cant say either though.. i care way too much and truth be told i'd change most anything i can for a life with you. my heart is invested in you and us and i still want nothing more than to realize that life. so... i wont tell you to do anything or that i dont care. i'll just hope that any response from you leaves me/us with chance at continuing this love affair so i can do my best to take advantage of it. i'll continue to take advantage of my chances with you till i dont have anymore chances. it's all i know how to do. to be me.. and hope you always like me enough to keep trying till go forbid the day comes that you dont any longer. i'm sorry i upset you so often. it's never my intent.

in love with you,


I know I'm failing her. I need to learn to communicate my feelings better.. but I struggle to see me blaming her. I struggle with her defensive posture when hearing my side.

Please help.

I read this far:


...and stopped. This is all blame. You open with a sentiment that basically says, 'You suck because you won't talk, when it was you who was wrong to begin with. I can't trust you.'

Okay, I went and read the rest of the email. It doesn't get any better. I wish I had more to say to help you, but I'm lost for words.

Are you married or are you dating this girl?

Dating. It's in his sig.

thats what I need to hear canwe. I tried a friend but they only told me.. they'd have been mad till the ending. when I hear my girlfriend tell me I'm blaming I don't see it and she (probably due to being hurt) hasnt conveyed it to me asclearly as you did in that short post. Her response is usually anger but I can hardly blame her.

as I said after the email. I am failing her... but with help (thank you) hopefully I wont continue to struggle @ seeing my blaming ways.

Why do you fight so much?

I honestly dont know. This girl has been my best friend and we've always gotten along famously. I know the distance has built frustration and I struggle to say this next line because I'm feeling hyper-aware of my blaming.. but she doesn't handle stress quite as well as I do. I'm very much able to let most daily grind things roll off my back.. I dont mood swing. She has told me she's stressed and depressed.. I know I should understand better that her triggers are quick right now.

I love her very very much. I don't mean to be upsetting her or frustrating her so often. I haven't picked fights and honestly.. the discussion that prompted the silence and my email.. wasn't a fight in my view. I was never upset that night.

She's told me she wants someone who stands up for their view and can speak it to her.. not be rolled over by her. That fits me very well.. however she ends up frustrated by my steadfastness (my stubborness.. not sure.. I feel I concede my fair share of points). I firmly believe now in conveying my view/point I am blaming or diminishing her in some manner.. making her feel wrong rather than helping her understand how I felt effectively.

(Just a note here for fyi purposes/record.. I do NOT name call.. I think my diminishing her is not so open and why I struggle to recognize it till as you pointed out in my email opening.. I had basically said she sucks and not trustworthy.. unintentional mesage on my part but it's there and I need to express my feeling of frustration that she didnt open dialogue without saying she sucks for it. To me her re-opening communication was an etiquette thing.. like saying "your welcome" to a "thank you" - espeically since me trying to reopen lines of communication to early has been met with coldness before that does more harm than good to my sense of security.)

My biggest struggle with us though is her leaving things in a damaged/angry state. I've often closed things with an 'I love you' or something similar but she closes things much colder... usually just a goodbye. Distance plays such a severe role in that ending because.. I'm not there. I cant see her and I feel very much 'out there alone' in those bad endings. Not secure in the relationship. I need to work on that. I've countered that feeling by just minimizing my goodbyes in those moments to match her better.. so I'll just say goodbye or goodnight. I should add.. the cold goodbyes arent only with moments of disagreements like the recent one. If her stress is high or what have you.. she has cold moments. She's apologized for me taking the brunt of that but she hadn't changed the behavior so I had to change mine and go a little more limited on my goodbyes. She noticed of course and commented on them as me losing feeling or "not being into her like" I used to be. When I explained why I changed.. she said I blamed her. I wish I could recall how I explained it but generically I said something to the effect of: too often my big goodbyes weren't responded to very well.. so I stopped to protect myself. Looking now I can see how that is blaming but I'm unsure how else I could have worded it.

She's been thru a rough stretch the last half year. Parents divorced. Weight gain. Single mother of a special needs son with no real help from his father, just stress and annoyance from him. Annoyed with co-workers and she does rather exausting work (she works with special needs kids that she loves.. but it drains her). She said that by the end of her day when her and I talk she usually has nothing left to give and I take the brunt of her stress. Over time this ends up setting me back and I withdraw a bit to recover. Big mistake I know and I'm trying to work at not withdrawing.. however I really need her to work on using me to beat on at the end of a day. I want to be her support.. not her available target.

Sorry for the long post ramblings. Thank you and anyone for any help.

As I was editing my previous post for spelling errors and clarity.. ya know.. proofreading after posting. It occurs to me how much her and I communicate thru text via IM.

In that realm of realtime text.. there is no magic edit button nor is proofreading commonplace. I wonder how often my wordings are poor because I wrote them disjointed or rushed amid mixed thoughts. The same potnetial for her exists. This doesn't alleviate all issues but it occurs to me that we don't fight/argue on the phone to the same degree with even close to the frequency we do in messengers.

Just a thought.

Why the distance between you? Did you once live close by? Who moved?

Here's two words that should help you with this and any other future relationship:

I FEEL...


I FEEL hurt/ignored/lonely/unimportant when my goodbye's are met with what I PERCEIVE AS indifference/hostility/withholding, etc.

And admit it...you didn't change your goodbyes's to protect yourself; you did it to 'show her what it felt like', amiright? A little thing to see if she missed it, right? And you were validated when she did, right? GAMES.

If you sense things going under during an IM/text conversation, just be outright and say, 'This isn't working so well, I FEEL like I'm not getting my point across the way I want to. We're always so good on the phone, so why don't I just call you before this gets out of hand.'

Not, 'You don't understand me'. Instead say, 'I'm struggling to say what I mean.'

We've never lived close by. We met at a distance and I am planning on moving to her in roughly a month.

I will not "admit" I changed my goodbyes to "show her what it feels like" because that would be false. That was something I changed with the help of this site. The goodbyes and my expectations repesents one of my own needs I felt I was trying to meet thru her and thus I was causing my own pain. It's still a work in progress as you can tell 'cause I still struggle with the goodbye balance. However... I wont deny her reaction and missing it gave me a sense of validation.. it did. I wasn't playing games or gunning for such a response from her. I do not want to gain at her expense.

The 'I feel' analysis is excellent.. but could expand further. I see how that line of discussion or wording can lead me the wrong direction. How do I relate those feelings better and how do I get past the perceptions they lead me to? I thought thats why I should relate them to her so she can squelch such perceptions. Maybe that's something I need to learn to do myself?

The comments of the IM convo going awry.. I will try that next time.. and the same goes for wording the misuderstandings (I'm struggling to say what I mean). Thank you.

It'll take a while to get used to it, but you can try stopping yourself every time you want to start a sentence with "You" and figure out a way to say the same thing, but starting with "I".

It's kind of like turning the "When you...I feel.." on it's head, helpful when dealing with someone who feels blamed. "I feel X when Y happens." Not 'when you do Y'. 'When Y happens.' Get it?

I do. Very well explained. Thank you.