I love my girlfriend, but I’m not confident in the effectiveness of our partnership.
My partner and I have been together for over 5 years and she was one of my first romantic partners that has made me feel very secure and loved. We are heading towards marriage, and yet I continue to have doubts.
Beyond the obvious such as attraction, morals, values and shared interests, I feel how two people successfully navigate life together is important. I need someone I know I can rely on, trust with big decisions and can keep it together atleast for a short time if something bad happens.
In our relationship I feel as if I’m always carrying the burden of the adult parts of our life, financial planning, maintenance of the home, cleaning, how to care for our parents, etc. She seems carefree on these matters, she doesn’t worry about how to manage our mortgage, or take care of items so they last longer, or what to do about our elderly parents. When something breaks, I spend endless hours on YouTube trying to fix it, if I can’t fix it, I get quotes. I take time off work so I can let the repair folks in, etc.
We have fundamentally different approaches to decisions, having come from an immigrant family that struggled in the beginning financially and to adapt to a new country, I’m always analytical about our expensive purchases and major life decisions. I always look at the cost-benefits, she prefers expediency and convenience.
We’re comfortable, but not rich, I don’t want to live beyond my means. I don’t expect her to think like me or do all the things I do, I just want her to care about these things, be more independent, help me plan, make decisions with me, do things without me asking.
We’ve talked about these feelings before and my needs, leading to tears, I make her feel inadequate.
She’s afraid to drive places without me, she doesn’t like talking on the phone so I do all the service calls, she doesn’t clean after herself unless I ask. She is anxious when I travel work or am with family.
She’s been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, I know allot of her behaviours are associated with this and I’ve tried to be strong for us. I tried to let things go that bothered me, it’s her mental health, it’s not her I told myself. She’s on medication, she has a counsellor, she seems well most days, but I still feel so alone when managing our life decisions.
We love each other, we have many common social values, we have fun, shared interests, supportive families, and yet, I have doubts.
I realized that no partner will be perfect, so I shouldn’t expect to find someone that meets all my needs or me theirs.
Is this one of those cases to compromise and let it go, or, am I being selfish by not letting HER go when these matters are important to my confidence in our long term partnership?
TLDR; I love my partner and she loves me, but I feel burdened by all the life decisions and planning I have to do alone. Is this something I can compromise on, or are these doubts substantial enough where we should end our relationship?
Submitted August 28, 2020 at 11:53PM by S3124 https://ift.tt/3ltYHIF
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