TL;DR: My girlfriend demands I am in the same room as her and cries, gets angry, upset and sometimes yells at me if I want time to myself in another room. We live together, work from home together, and pretty much do everything together all the time. I have spoken to her about needing time to myself and explained it is nothing personal. She understands for a little bit of time, but then goes back to her old ways. I am tired of this, and feel drained of my energy and I am getting bitter, frustrated, and annoyed with every little thing she does. She texts me all day long too and sends me videos on instagram and demands that I watch them while I am at work. She has yelled, cried, and become accusatory towards me for missing her phone call and not responding to her texts quickly enough. How can I set boundaries successfully after years of failing?
My girlfriend and I have been together for a few years now. From what I have gathered over the years, she has an anxious attachment style. I try to be supportive and tell her I care for her, love her, and we spend about 95% of our overall time together. I need time to myself to decompress, and this includes going into another room to listen to music, read articles, study for certifications, and just generally relax. If I want to go into another room by myself for a few hours she will often break down into tears, yell at me, or tell me we do not spend enough time together. We both work from home and she suggested that we even set up our working space in the same room (I told her this would not be possible for me). I do pretty much everything with her and I am supportive, loving, and caring. I am starting to feel burnt out, bitter, irritated with every little thing she does because we spend so much time together. She got mad at me for having COVID and needing to isolate from her for a couple of days in another room. There have been times where I want to hang out with my friends for a couple of days for a trip and she breaks down into tears. I have spoken to her honestly about my need for time to decompress in the other room and do things with my friends. She will understand for a little bit and then go back to her ways of crying, yelling, and complaining we do not spend enough time together. She demands I am in the same room as her while I study, but it becomes a distraction for me and I am unable to relax or focus on the things I am working on. Nothing has worked over the last few years (even re-assuring her, spending more quality time together, and remaining in the same room as her while I do what I want to do). I want her to be happy, but it is at the expense of my own sanity and happiness. I feel like if I continue to spend 24/7 with her for the rest of my life and give into her demands of me being near her at all times, I am going to go insane. Again, I have had countless honest discussions about her needs and my needs and attempted many tactics of giving each other time together and time apart to do what we need to do, but it has not worked. Do you have any advice on how to solve this? I do not want her to be unhappy, but I don't want to burn myself and make myself continuously unhappy while catering to her.
Submitted April 01, 2023 at 03:52PM by MirrorNo2811 https://ift.tt/dLhrnoR
No comments:
Post a Comment