My girlfriend[26/F] and I[26/M] are in therapy, but I feel like it isen't helping us as my girlfriend dosen't want to change.

English is not my first language, sorry.

My girlfriend and I have been together 4 years. The first 2 years I spent with her, were the happiest days of my life. She changed me as a person, in a good way, and I don't think I would be where I am today without her.

1 year and a half ago, my girlfriend and I moved in together. 6 months later, my girlfriend was a completely different person. She went from being a mature, independet, loving person to acting like a child who can't think for itself. Our relationship started feeling more like that of a parent/child and less like an actual relationship. I tried talking to my girlfriend about the problems in our relationship on many occasions and she would always end up crying and say "I don't know how to be a good girlfriend".

5 months ago, we started seeing a therapist. During our first session (each session is 2 hours long), my girlfriend opened up about her feelings, her relationship to her parents and her personal problems - all of the stuff affecting her/our relationship. She seemed very keen on trying to fix this stuff and was very open when the therapist talked to her about ways to improve the situation. At the end of the session, both of us were asked to go home and make a list of personal goals/dreams and write a short description of what we considered to be a healthy relationship.

My girlfriend didn't do any of this. I talked about my own list on many different occasions and she said she was going to do her list too, but she just didn't. Her excuse was that she was used to me telling her to do that sort of stuff and forgot about it.

The last 5 months has been like this - we go to see the therapist, my girlfriend cries and talks about her personal problems, the therapist talks about ways to be a good partner/have a healthy relationship and tells us "you need to do this and that in order to break this pattern you're in", we go home and my girlfriend does this and that for exactly 1 week and then she returns to her old pattern. When I talk to her about how much her behavior is hurting me, she starts crying and stops talking, sometimes she just stares into space for hours on end and then she does the exact same things, the things I explicitly told her hurt me, again and again, while crying about how she "can't be a good girlfriend". Rinse and repeat at the end of each month.

I don't see my girlfriend making even progress, but even worse, I'm starting to feel like she isen't even trying to progress at this point, she has this attitude of "I'm a bad girlfriend, but at least I know I am a bad girlfriend, please pity me".

I really don't understand why things have gotten like this. She was a completely different person those first 2½ years and now she is like this and despite being told, again and again, I am unhappy and hurting, she does nothing to change the situation and she just puts on this attitude of "I don't know how to change".

Please tell me, is it time to give up?

TL;DR - My girlfriend of 4 years has become a completely different person and I am no longer happy about our relationships. She says she wants to be a better partner, but despite therapy, I don't see her putting any effort into any sort of change at all. Is it time to give up?

Submitted July 28, 2018 at 03:42AM by Katteglad https://ift.tt/2AiVbNF