Questions & Answers

Hey Terra,

My gf and I have been together for just over 5 months, we are in college together and live only 100 yards away so its different than her previous dating experience. We are both deeply in love with each other. She comes from a bad background and it took a long time to get to the point were she really trusts me. And I trust her but she is a naturally flirtatious person and even though she has worked on it for me she still flirts a little too much, but that isn't even my question, sorry. Anyway I have clinical depression and in high school I was very shy but came out a little my senior year, now I am about the same as I was that year. My problem is a mix between my self esteem and her apparent unwillingness to tell me how she is feeling, normally everything is great but then seemingly out of the blue she gets in these moods in which everything I do frustrates her. And when I ask what is wrong she says "nothing." but I know her well enough to read her and know she is lying. When she gets in these moods I have no warning so I feel like I'm to blame, and maybe I am so with my confidence problem I get really down and scared I'm gonna lose her. What can I do to get her to open up or at least help make her not get in these moods?

I think I am with her too much but I am so in love and she is my best friend so I want to spend the majority of my time with her. What should I do to help this?

By the way she is transferring after this semester and I want to go to but my grades are too poor right now to get in, and I'm afraid I'll lose her if I take another semester to raise my grades and then go to her. We are really in love and we have talked about marriage and agreed that we want it but we cant now because of parents, education, money and such. What should I do?

So in love

Dear So in love,

I agree with you, you are "with her too much." A very wise poet named Kahlil Gibran wrote: "Let there be spaces in your togetherness." It sounds like the two of you need much more space in yours!

The "moods" you're describing sound like they are coming from your girlfriend's feeling closed in by this relationship. I don't necessarily think there's anything you are doing to make her feel this way, it's just that you are both expecting way too much from a relationship at this point in your lives. You want the other person to fulfill all over your emotional needs. That's not the way it works.

You're in college, you're living free of your parents for the first time ever, and look at what you've set up! A situation where neither of you has any freedom to explore other interests, other social relationships. What's the point of "being in love" if it causes you to shut out everything else worth investigating, everything else that could contribute to the adult you are becoming?

My suggestion is that the two of you make an appointment with an on-campus counselor and talk about what's going on here. It doesn't sound like either of you is growing in healthy ways within this relationship. You could both benefit from talking with a trained counselor who could help you express the fears and frustrations as well as the expectations you have for this relationship.

I wish you well.

In friendship,

Terra

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