We met during my internship abroad and have now been in an LDR for a year without seeing each other. We live on different sides of the world (10-hour time zone difference) and have no concrete plans to meet again due to his work and my studies.

Lately, his effort has completely plummeted. I share my daily life and initiate all words of affection, but get nothing back, leaving me feeling sad and invisible. Sensing he was emotionally detaching, I finally sent a text saying “I think it would be nice to talk soon."

It has been over 48 hours with no reply. He actually opened the app yesterday to leave an emoji reaction on the message right above my request, so I know he saw it and is actively avoiding my invite to connect.

He has a demanding job, but it takes 5 seconds to send a text. I feel like he has completely checked out but is “too nice” to end things, forcing me to be the one to break it off. I don’t know what to do. I feel stuck.

beside communication because we both are too busy to talk nowadays but yet we still talk for 5mins

I’m (M20) years old, and recently my girlfriend(f20) and I broke up after being together for about a year. This was my first relationship, and honestly, I’m struggling a lot with losing her.
We’re both Indian, but she moved to the US when she was 10 years old, while I live in India. We were in a long-distance relationship. We had talked about our future, and my plan was to move to the US eventually. She once told me she would never leave me, so I genuinely believed we would find a way to make things work.
She was my first love, and I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love her. Losing her has been incredibly painful because I genuinely thought she was the person I would build my future with.
What went wrong?
We had different opinions about certain things, and I enjoyed discussing and debating different perspectives. I always thought that having differences in a relationship was normal. To me, two people didn’t have to agree on everything to love each other or have a successful relationship. I believed we could understand each other’s perspectives, respect our differences, and find ways to work through disagreements together.
However, she seemed to see things differently. From what I understood, these differences were more than just normal disagreements to her. They were things she felt made us incompatible, and she questioned whether our differences in opinions would affect our future together, including how we might raise children.
Looking back, I realise that we didn’t know how to communicate about our differences in a way that worked for both of us. Over time, our disagreements and differences in opinions contributed to resentment on her side.
I didn’t know she had been building up this resentment while we were together. Because we were in a long-distance relationship, I wasn’t aware of how much certain things were affecting her emotionally. I only found out when she eventually told me about the resentment she had been carrying.
After she explained this to me, I told her that I didn’t want her to bottle up her feelings and that I wanted her to tell me when something was bothering her. I genuinely wanted us to communicate openly so we could understand each other and work through our problems.
When she explained her feelings and asked me about certain things I’d said, I would explain my reasoning and what I meant. I thought explaining my intentions would help her understand my perspective and resolve the disagreement.
But looking back, I realise that explaining why I said something didn’t necessarily address the emotional hurt my words had caused her. I was concentrating on helping her understand what I meant, while she also needed me to understand how my words had affected her.
I think this was one of the problems in our communication. I didn’t always recognise the emotional impact of my words, and she had accumulated resentment that I hadn’t known about until she told me.
She told me she had tried many times to explain these issues to me, but I failed to understand her. She also told me she doesn’t believe me when I say I can change.
That hurts because I genuinely want to improve. I can see things now that I didn’t fully understand when we were together. I know that recognising these things after the breakup doesn’t undo how she felt, and I understand why she might not trust my promises anymore.
I wish I’d understood her sooner, when she was still trying to make things work.
At the same time, our relationship wasn’t entirely bad. We loved and cared about each other, shared good moments, and had a lot that I genuinely valued. That’s part of why I’m finding this so difficult to accept.

I have been with my LDP for nearly 2 years now, they are the best thing that has ever happened to me and tick every box I ever had. However, we live 4.5 hours away from each other and both have young children.

Initially, she was going to move to me, as she prefers the area but her child’s other parent said that they wouldn’t be willing to move or have the child move without them and so that put pay to that idea.

So the only way the gap could now close is if I move, this initially didn’t look possible due to my child’s other parent being very involved in their life and not being able to take them away from that however, in the last 3 months, my child’s other parent has had a change of heart and has agreed to move to my LDPs location with us. Which will allow us to close the gap, which is amazing news.

The issue I keep getting stuck on, is taking my child away from their very involved grandparents, they are going to be devastated, and the relationship will be different between them all and honestly I feel so guilty about it. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being so selfish, but at the same time, this is an opportunity to have the life I’ve always wanted and my partner is amazing with my child and he loves them so much.

At the moment, I see my LDP probably 3 weekends a month, we do the drive often, so I know I can keep up regular visits to grandparents, but it won’t be the same as it is right now.

The prospects work wise and school wise are better where my partner lives, and the house we can afford is larger. I just keep coming back to the guilt.

HELP - would you make the move?

TLDR : when I want to break up with my gf her passed away is this a good time or not?

For context I(25M) is talking to a girl(21F) for more than a year and we officially became bf and gf after few months of talking. But ever since after that I'm having difficulties cuz we are in different countries and time zones are different that made our communication difficult and she responds me whenever she wants but expects me in a seconds even tho I'm in uni and studying. Cherry on top she talks with a guy-friend which I hate absolutely ( he proposed to her even tho he knows that she is already in relationship ). Not only this there are some incidents happened which lead me to the decision of break-up with her but when it's time to break-up with her father passed away 4 days ago. I wonder is this the good time to break up with her or not? I don't know what to do cuz I'm position where I can't leave her in a position like or stay in this relationship.

I'm a 22 yo man from California. She's a 19 year old woman from Austria.

8 months.

And I know, it isn't long as some others here. But it was my first real relationship, my first relationship as an adult, and the first time I can confidently say I have deeply loved someone and felt at home.

We had a talk about 2 weeks ago concerning the sustainability of the relationship. She's 19, but still lives with her parents, which AFAIK is fairly common in Europe. But, her mother and oldest brother aren't exactly good people, and neither of her parents really believe in mental health issues. If she even dares oversleep or spend a day off to decompress, her mom gets mad at her.

So, our relationship was already somewhat strained by external factors beyond just us. I had hope it would work out, since she spoke about heading off to university and getting a dorm.

This would not materialize, pushing her plans for schooling out to next year. This also made the distance more unbearable since she desperately wanted someone to turn to, but couldn't.

We met in person back at the end of July, up to the middle of August. It was a 15 day stay if you count arrival and departure dates.

And maybe I'm too young to be saying this, but so far, those days were among some of the happiest in my life. In general the months we were together were some of the happiest.

When she was telling me about her decision to end things yesterday night, she told me that she was grateful to have met me, and that she agrees that those experiences and memories we shared were things that made her immensely happy.

She still thinks we are "soulmates" in the sense of how compatible we are as people. It was mostly her desire to focus on herself and put herself as priority that pushed her to make the decision she did, in addition to the conditions in which our relationship took place. And she wishes to stay in contact as friends if possible. I am fully intending to give it time for both of us to heal before we give being friends a shot. I still enjoy her company and her as a person, and we both agree that we don't want to lose each other.

There is still a chance, years down the line, that we could reconnect. But she doesn't want long distance. How I'd manage that isn't something I know of yet. Unless any of you have ideas. It isn't a guarantee though, and I plan to best focus on myself in the coming years.

Maybe it's just because she was my first love. But I believe that it was a case of meeting the right person at the wrong time. And part of me wonders if I'd meet someone else who is right for me, even when the circumstances are ideal.

She's smart, even if she doesn't see it. She's a big dreamer, and is true to her heart. And she's really funny.

I just want to share this with someone. Breakups are hard. And ever since she made her decision official, I have felt this near constant pit in my stomach.

And yet, I still believe that for a moment, I was home.

Hi everyone! This is my first Reddit post, and I’d really appreciate advice from people who have been in similar situations.

My husband is in the US military, and I’m still in the Philippines. He wants us to have an open relationship while we’re long-distance, with the understanding that we’ll return to monogamy once I move to the US and we can finally live together.

The difficult part is that he has been unfaithful in the past, and I’m still healing from that. He also tends to be avoidant and emotionally distant, which makes maintaining our connection challenging.

When we first discussed opening our relationship, we agreed on certain rules and boundaries. However, he didn’t honor them because he was being petty, and that really hurt me. It made me question how we can make this arrangement work without trust and respect.

I genuinely love my husband and want our marriage to work. I’m willing to try an open relationship while we wait to close the distance, but deep down, I’ve always wanted monogamy. I’m struggling to figure out whether I can genuinely be happy with this arrangement or if I’m only agreeing because I’m afraid of losing him.

For those who have experienced something similar:
1. How do you handle an open LDR when you ultimately want monogamy?
2. Can trust be rebuilt when boundaries have already been broken?
3. Has anyone successfully transitioned from an open relationship back to monogamy after closing the distance?
4. How do you know when you’re compromising for your marriage versus sacrificing your own happiness?

I love him and want us to work, but I’m emotionally exhausted and don’t want to lose myself in the process.
I’d appreciate honest advice, especially from those who have been through something similar. Thank you!

its been 2 days since i left my baby at the airport and oh my god i feel so miserable 😞.we cried together before i had to go and it was such a painful experience

i cried the while time at the airport and seeing the flight taking off and seeing the city that my baby is in being further away js breaks my heart.how do you guys navigate this?

so for context me and my bf have been dating for around 8 months and we are long distance.
for the past couple of months, like in the past 2/3 months, hes been acting super different and dry, he doesn't reply to the ily and hes just dry in everything we do, i keep being the same, im a jealous girl and the distance doesnt make it better but i always try to keep my jealousy for myself, but lately hes being overly sensitive about it. i know i might be too much sometimes but ive been already trying to stop. i know i might be the problem sometimes but every time when we talk it through it he always says that its fine, its nothing, that he doesn't care. hes not reacting to anything like some of our spicy jokes, inside jokes and stuff like that. idk what to do i love him so much but i dont think he loves me

I 26f have been dating (long distance) my 29m bf for 3.5 years now. We live in different continents but have met 4 times before. Lately since 4 months he has been extremely depressed to the point he ghosts me for days or weeks and a month. It's a very weird situation because we are basically engaged.
We were planning to marry in Denmark last year for legal and visa related reason but I was refused to enter his country. I am form a 3rd world country and my passport is very weak...
We planned to apply for another visa but for that I need some documents from him. We had planned what we were going to handle this.
Everything was going ok but suddenly his depression hit all time high(he had always been a depressed person but never ghosted me. Infact he would get terrified if I didn't text him back within a day).
He sends me money even when he is ghosting me and last time we talk I asked him if he still loves me and wants a family with me to which he said yes but that he needs time.
The thing is, this is all taking a toll on my health, I have lost multiple kgs and my my hair is falling like never before because of stress. My parents know something is wrong but they can't tell and I can't tell them because they won't approve of this relationship and probably take away all my freedom if they knew.
We had planned our lives together and we love each other, this happened so suddenly. Idk what to do.
I hate that I have a weak passport and I hate that I am poor.
Depression sucks

I didn’t want to bother with screenshots so transcript below. Some context, this has been on going issue for a few months.

I’m 31/F and he’s 30/M

We are in a LDR. We’ve met irl once and I have tickets to see him again in February.

He’s got a chronic illness (undiagnosed) and often has episodes of bad pain and when it starts to settle he has been known to be offline for half a day or more trying to sleep. Fine. Typically he’s clingy and wants to b on call 24/7 with me when he doesn’t feel great. I love being his support. But when I’m having my own symptoms and I’m struggling with my mental health I will ask him for a call or I’ll tell him how I’m feeling. But whenever I ask for a call when I’m upset he tells me he’s busy. He thinks texting is enough but for me it’s not. We’ve been together almost a year. He’s got avoidant tendencies but doesn’t think he does. Yes I’ve communicated a lot. He never comes back with a counteroffer. Like for example if I asked for a call but he’s busy, he could offer to call when he’s done with x or in x amount of time for x amount of time. Like 5 mins would have meant the world of a difference to me but instead of trying to compromise he just basically told me no.

After the below conversations, it’s been over 24hrs since I’ve heard from him. I don’t want to be the first to message and I hate playing games but I’ve carried this relationship a lot emotionally and it’s affecting me. I really love him and want to find a way to make things work for both of us but he doesn’t seem to understand how to compromise.

Is there anymore I could have done? Was I not clear enough? Or is ball really in his court?

Prior to this convo below. I had already told him at the start of the day before he got online:

“Been really struggling the last few days mentally and I wish you were around for support…but I understand why you haven’t been and i do want you to rest. I don’t want to make you feel guilty for being exhausted and in pain. Just feel like I’m going through it alone again.. and it sucks. sigh I love being your support when you’re having a bad storm and your mind is trying to storm too… I just sometimes wish I could receive some of that support back when I’m lowest. I know it’s a monthly thing and timing sucks, and I’m sure it’s exhausting to talk to me when I’m anxious….ofc I manage myself the best I can but… I selfishly want you take care of me :(“

—-

Me:
Could you keep me company tonight? I want to hear your voice
I'm so tired

Him:
tbh i think i might not be that good company, kinda trying to be everywhere at once atm but at least got my lamps changed above the stove xD got lucky that i had correct ones in the closet
and yeah you said that you didnt really get good sleep last night, it sux because it feels like then whole day dont have that energy
on friday you got that event so thats nice \^\^ have you got it all figured out or does something need to be done stil

Me:
Is it that you don't think you will be good company because you are multitasking or is it because you don't want it be on call?
I haven't had energy this whole weekend baby
And yeah. Idk. We will see how the event goes. Nothing needs to be done for it

Him:
yeah same x) and well thats good its all ready then \^\^ but sorry i dont understand the question :D

Me:
I'm asking for you to call me because I've been lonely and upset and your presence makes me feel better. I'm offering you a way to be my support. So is it cuz you're too busy for me. Or is it because you don't want to be on call with me?
Can I be a priority for a little bit?
You can be honest.

Him:
when you type it like that it makes it sound like im avoiding you x) no, i'm not just good company atm since last week wasnt the most productive so got things to do around house so not on PC at all time

**Me:**
But you are
Are those things time sensitive?
Is changing a light bulb more important than comforting your partner? Youve told me to tell you when I really need you. Because before you don't always know. Then when I do it seems You are asleep or busy. It doesn't feel like You are making space for me. When you told me your always reachable when your awake is not true.

Him:
i have been keeping you company ever since i woke up.. just because we are not having a call on 24/7 it doesnt mean i dont care, and that light bulb question was just silly that i dont even bother to answer that

After that I was very upset and frustrated so I said okay fine goodnight.

😮‍💨😣

Does anyone know if a product that's dedicated to facetiming with decent or better quality?

Hi everyone

I'm sorry for my English but I'm not English native tongue.

I'm a 26M and my girlfriend F24. We were in a long-distance relationship until a month ago (we lived in two different cities, about two hours apart). I'm a doctor, and after graduating, I decided to start my residency in her city rather than mine so that we could close the distance and being close each other. So, I moved here.

We don't live together at the moment because she isn't working, and she has told me that she'd rather wait until she's financially independent before moving in together, even though I've assured her that I would be able to support both of us financially.

Anyway, apart from my girlfriend, I don't know anyone here. I'm really, really happy that we finally closed the distance but, when 'ìm not with her, I'm basically very lonely. My entire family, along with all my friends and acquaintances, are back in my hometown. On top of that, I find this city quite depressing, and I really miss the places and landscapes I've always been surrounded by. When I don't see her, I feel very sad, because i don't have any friends, relative or people dear to me exept my gf of course. I'm trying to make new friends here but it's not easy at all.

Do you think it would be reasonable for me to go back to my hometown one weekend a month? Would that be too much?

I'd do it not only to see my family, but also to spend time with all my friends back home and maintain those friendships, which I'm really afraid of losing now that I've moved away.

For various personal reasons, my girlfriend might not always be able to come with me when I visit my hometown, so sometimes I'd have to go on my own.

Do you think spending one weekend a month back home would be too much?

Thanks so much

any advice really really appreciated!

My bf and I are LD (11 months) and have been in an argument for like 4 days now, we are unable to resolve it because everytime we try he does something or says something that makes me wonder if he truly understands or just wants to close the argument. without real repair. He also keeps working on his laptop whilst I’m trying to solve it with him.

We had an argument and without going into the details, I spent my whole Saturday crying. He said his apology but also in the same breath said I’m blowing things way out of proportion which made my feelings feel silly and the apology not sincere. He also keeps saying that I should know his intentions and give him some good faith. Eventually, he did give a very long heartfelt apology and I truly did feel happy and at peace.

However…the next day i had a horrible sadness all day and realised there were a few things I never got to say to him about how I felt, so I wanted to bring this up to him, it wasn’t my intention to open it up again but rather just share my feelings, get it off my mind etc…when I tried to explain to him what was still in my mind, He seemed reluctant to discuss. When I try to talk to him he is distracted by working or gets out his laptop to work mid convo. he asked “do you really wanted to go over everything again.” In an annoyed way. I felt like a burden although I get he he may have been feeling exhausted too. He said he feels I am beating him with a stick for what’s already happened. Which was hurtful to hear since I was just sharing my feelings.

I know we love eachother so much, I know he also never would intentionally make me feel this way, but I’ve spent so much time crying over this and I feel anxious to bring something up to him in the future. He’s usually so good at making things better after an argument, and the most romantic bf ever, but for some reason he’s not working with me on this and thinks I just want to keep dragging things out on purpose. The things that upsets me the fear that he sees me differently and will fall out of love with me.

I guess I also want to know, has anyone else ever still felt that things were unresolved even after an apology has been said?

hi everyone. my partner (22m) and i (22f) are both pursuing graduate degrees, with me pursing a phd in chem and him pursuing his md. weve been friends for years but started dating in around april and started long distance in july. we were on the phone not too long ago doing one of those stupid “is your partner allowed to do…” tiktoks. one of the questions was: “is your boyfriend allowed to go to parties that his ex attends” and i said no, since it is my personal opinion that exes should not be friends. his response to that was “well, [town he is in] is small.”

i inquired more about whether or not he would tell me if he did happen to go to a larger gathering where his ex would be, since i know he mentioned how small his hometown and how intertwined friend groups could be. he said he already had attended such gatherings and didn’t mention it to be since i told him i was not interested in the nature of his relationships with his exes. his reasoning behind this was that when we first started dating, i personally was not a fan of the ex talk since i felt like the more i knew, the more insecure it would make me feel about myself. then on top of that, he tells me they are attending the same medical school. i know md programs are extremely competitive and you’d want to go to the best program you get into but hearing this months after he started school instead of immediately was a huge slap in the face for me. i know i mentioned i was iffy about the ex talk but i think that it’s important for me to know regardless and it would’ve been easier for me to process months ago as opposed to 5 months into their school year.

they were still together when they were applying to med school and it makes me feel insecure and as if i am intruding on a decision they probably made together. i understand that medical school is a huge commitment and that he shouldn’t have to compromise his education or career because of a past relationship. i would never expect him to do that. however, i can’t help but feel uncomfortable knowing that they are now experiencing something they potentially envisioned doing together while they were still in a relationship.

i think what bothers me the most is that i wasn’t given the opportunity to process this information when we first started dating. i understand that i initially expressed discomfort with discussing exes, but i feel like there’s a difference between knowing the intimate details of a past relationship and knowing that your partner is going to be attending the same medical school as someone he was with for two years, especially considering how they broke up a few months before we started dating.

i also recognize that some of my feelings are rooted in insecurity, and i don’t want to project that onto him or make him feel like he’s done something wrong simply for attending the same school as his ex. at the same time, i feel like this is something that should have been communicated regardless of whether or not i initially wanted to discuss past relationships.

being long distance already requires an immense amount of trust, and finding this out so unexpectedly has made me question how much i actually know about his day-to-day life. i don’t want to spend the next four years feeling anxious about the possibility of them interacting, but i also don’t want to throw away a relationship with someone i genuinely love over something that may ultimately mean nothing.

i’m honestly just struggling to reconcile the fact that someone who was such a significant part of his life is still going to be physically present throughout such a formative period, while i’m hundreds of miles away. i know that their relationship is over, but emotionally, it’s difficult not to feel like i’m on the outside looking in.

i guess i’m wondering whether i’m being unreasonable for feeling hurt that he didn’t disclose this sooner, especially given my initial reluctance to discuss exes. he’s been trying to reassure me but due to the shock of it all, i’m honestly really struggling to even hear him out without getting overwhelmed by my own emotions. i also don’t want to be unfair to him or spend the next four years of my life feeling insecure about my relationship. before this, i really felt like this relationship could be something that could last a really long time and i hate that im starting to second guess that now.

additionally, from an outside perspective, is it possible for me to move on from this given that we have an otherwise healthy relationship? i don’t want to just convince myself im okay with something even though im really not.

tldr: my long distance bf recently revealed that he attends the same medical school as his ex of 2 years, whom he broke up with shortly before we started dating. they were still together when applying to medical school, and I only found out by accident during a TikTok couples game. he’s also attended gatherings where she’s been present without mentioning it. although I initially told him I didn’t want to discuss exes, I feel like this was important information to disclose. hes been reassuring me, but I’m struggling with the insecurity of knowing they’ll spend the next 4 years in the same environment while I’m hundreds of miles away. am i unreasonable for being upset that he didn’t tell me sooner, and how do I move past this?

My girlfriend (F24)and I (M28) have been in a long-distance relationship for a while now. We meet for 2-3 days every 45 days or so, and honestly, things have been going really strong between us. My family knows about her now, and they absolutely love her. She hasn’t told her family yet because she doesn’t want to complicate things with them, which I understand.

The biggest problem, though, is that our schedules are completely different. I’m in an MBA college, and she works night shifts. She wakes up around 7 PM and leaves for work at 8:30 PM. I get to talk to her for about 20 minutes during her break at 12:30 AM, and then I wake up early, around 8:30 AM, to talk to her before she sleeps.

I know we’re both busy, and I understand that making time for each other isn’t always easy. But lately, I’ve been struggling with the way we communicate.
She has some pretty significant communication issues. Sometimes she suddenly becomes really cold and distant. At other times, she’ll talk about how, if everything goes well, we’ll be together forever. And then there are days when things feel completely normal between us.

The inconsistency confuses me.

She doesn’t communicate much on her own, either. Most of the time, I’m the one asking questions, starting conversations, and trying to get her to open up. Sometimes I feel like I have to dig for answers instead of her willingly sharing things with me.
I know myself well enough to admit that I’m a very passionate lover. When I’m in love, I want to give my partner a lot of attention, and naturally, I want to feel that same enthusiasm coming back. I want to know about her day, what’s bothering her, what she’s thinking about, and the little things happening in her life.

I’m not expecting her to be available 24/7. I know she has work, responsibilities, and her own life. But sometimes, even when we do get time to talk, I don’t feel that she’s making much of an effort to connect with me. And that hurts, especially when I’m rearranging my sleep schedule just to spend a little time with her.

Now I’m wondering whether I should dial down my efforts a little. Not to play games or punish her, but perhaps to stop putting so much energy into the relationship and see if things become more balanced.
The problem is that I feel she’d get really upset if I suddenly started communicating less. I don’t want her to feel neglected, but I also don’t want to keep feeling like I’m chasing emotional closeness all the time.

What should I do? Should I dial down my efforts and give her more space, or would that make things worse? How do I communicate my needs without making her feel pressured? And for those in LDRs, how do you maintain emotional closeness when your schedules barely align?

I love this girl and genuinely see a future with her. I just want to make this work without losing myself in the process.

TL;DR: My girlfriend and I are in an LDR and meet for 2-3 days every 45 days. I’m in an MBA college, and she works night shifts, so we barely get time to talk. I’m usually the one initiating conversations and asking questions, while she sometimes gets cold and distant, despite occasionally talking about our future together. I understand she’s busy, but I feel like I’m putting in more emotional effort. Should I dial down my efforts and give her space, or how do I handle this without making her feel neglected?

My LDR is complicated and I need advice

Hello there! This post may be long, but I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read it & give their thoughts, opinions or advice! :)

My girlfriend and I have been dating for a year and a half now, things have been great between us but at the same time other circumstances have been very difficult to handle making me question our future together or the reality of everything. For context she’s in the US and I am in Canada, we are both 26 years old.

A few months into dating, when she was flying to visit me the first time her mother had asked for my phone number for safety reasons, while my girlfriend was on the flight and had no reception, her mother called me and started interrogating me/ swearing at me trying to scare me away. It continued into texting after she had hung up on me out of anger and in those texts continued to call me rude names. Some of those include, a monkey(cause of my brown skin colour), ugly, parasite, predator, loser etc. She essentially hated me right from the get go because of her racism and how judgemental she is, her biggest issue is that I don’t have a degree because I chose to go the entrepreneur route, and I’m still figuring my life out. Like excuse me? What other 26 year old has things figured out especially in this current economy? Needless to say she did all this without ever giving it a chance to meet me or get to know me at all. I was nothing but respectful towards her the entire time and eventually ended it with saying “I won’t be responding going forward as I won’t tolerate the harassment and I don’t need to keep defending myself to you, take care”. Since then we’ve never spoken and I don’t ever intend to.

My girlfriend and I had a discussion about it and she’s aware how her parents are racist, judgmental and unstable and the conclusion was it’s her own life and she still chooses me and loves me. Over the course of our relationship she has continued to fight with her parents especially everytime she has come to visit.

We had also made the decision early on that she would come to Canada rather than me going there, for a few reasons but mainly it makes financial sense for the both of us. In Canada she stays with me and my family, we are able to cook and are able to freely do things as we please. Whereas because of the conflict with her family not liking me, if I go to the US we have to spend money on hotels and constantly pay for every meal out, that racks up expenses pretty quickly.

Now here are where all the problems come into play. Over the course of the year and a half, with her living at home and her constant fear of her parents having something to say, she’s very secretive about our relationship which from my end makes it feel like highschool and is very childish. She rarely FaceTimes me when she’s at home, the only times she will are; once her parents have gone to sleep or they aren’t home. So our main communication is texting and we only get to FaceTime in the morning for 30 minutes while she drives to work and again 30 minutes on her drive home in the evening which isn’t the right environment for any proper communication, or conversation of depth because she’s obviously driving at the same time and tired by the end of her shift. This already makes things very hard to feel a connection when we are apart cause we don’t get enough time to talk. She doesn’t seem to feel bothered by it cause to her “it is what it is, just go with the flow” but to me I don’t feel like I’m getting my needs met but it gets worse…

Her family goes on vacation a lot, and next month they are going to Mexico for 2 weeks and that entire time we will only be able to text because again the conflict with her family doesn’t allow her to freely talk to me cause a part of her is scared and fears them. This is gonna happen again for a week in December and then again multiple times next year where there’s phases where we can only text. And presumably forever while we are long distance or she can separate herself from them.

Anyways we’ve had a discussion about this a few months ago where this constant feeling of disconnection while we are apart takes a toll on us and isn’t easy but she was committed to making it work and promised changes in her communication and that she was going to try to move out or get a travel contract so she can move elsewhere and be away from her toxic, manipulative family. And at the same time allow me to go visit her in the US too. So she had started looking to buy a house and move out with her sister, yet and behold it never happened because her parents guilt tripped them into staying, weren’t supportive and they both feared upsetting them more. Coming now into the present the family proposed the idea of them buying a house, the parents giving them a downpayment and the parents living with them instead until they move out of the country which the parents plan to do in a few years. So this doesn’t solve any of our problems and just cements this into being the reality for us for the foreseeable future. I’m obviously extremely happy for her since this is a huge accomplishment but at the same time it’s frustrating knowing this is how it’s gonna be for our relationship. Knowing she has a house now, she’ll likely be visiting less as she has more bills to pay and has more responsibilities now. I still won’t ever be able to go visit her and stay in her house because of course the parents live with her and the constant lack of communication making us feel disconnected from each other will continue to put a strain on our relationship. I tried to bring up my concerns about how this affects the future of our relationship and how this decision directly affects us being able to build a life together and practically makes it impossible, but when I tried she didn’t wanna talk about it and said “it is what it is, go with the flow, you’re overthinking too much” so I didn’t end up voicing anything. The worst part is she made the decision to sign and buy this house without discussing it with me on what this means for us going forward.

I’m at the point now where I am struggling to see a viable future together and wondering if all this hardship is worth it when long distance is hard but ours is 10x harder without properly being able to communicate/ connect on a deep level. On top of that, the issue of her parents in the way for the foreseeable future and arguably the rest of our lives, for example problems at the wedding, problems if we decide to have kids, problems at holidays or family get together (where I’d end up staying alone cause I can’t join) etc.

Obviously the pros of our relationship are we get along great, always laugh together and are practically the same person! We share a lot of love for each other and I know she loves me more than anyone she’s ever dated, and same goes for me. She gets along with my family, supports me, believes in me and is basically everything I’d want in a woman.

I’ve got a big decision to make whether this is still worth it to keep going and fighting for our love or if I should end it and move on being the future is very hard to visualize a happy life or one that I’d want to live. Especially while being long distance and unable to talk freely for the next 2-3 years.

Thank you in advance for any input ! :)

I’ve(16F) been talking for this guy(16M) for about 3 months now with plans to meet him in person in december. in the beginning, things were obviously super warm and fun— we’d talk for hours otp unless we had somewhere to be, played games together, flirted, slept otp together. i never really felt interested enough in a guy to be committed as my past experiences were disappointing but he’s really something special.

before i started actually liking him, i always spoke spontaneously without thinking. we’d laugh a lot and talk about anything there was to talk about. he told his mom about me pretty early on, naturally i told my mom as well because i felt this was a connection that could turn serious. ive talked to his closest friends otp, even playing games with them. few of his closer family members know about me. i felt special.
i started to actually like him a lot as the days went by. he wasn’t shy about communicating his feelings and needs, he’d constantly tell me about how beautiful i was, how excited he was to see me, etc.

i feel like the more i leaned into him, the more self concious i got with what i conversed about. i found my head would go blank during regular conversation wondering if i was interesting enough or being too much, id subconsciously change the subject on personal topics then regret not saying anything more later on. sometimes we’d irritate eachother but those moments were something we could easily get past. i feel bad because within the months he’s done most of the facetiming, propping me up while he eats or plays with his animals. i’ve facetimed him twice but after that it’s been mostly my ceiling icl, i usually wear makeup and rarely show my bare face to people so it’s a bit uncomfortable although i know someday its inevitable and it’s better to get it over with

slowly, the silence in our calls were longer, conversations were less than surface level, the compliments stopped, the texts slowed.

recently he brought to my attention how he thinks we should stop talking for a month, and when we reconnect we’ll figure out if we really want to meet. it hurt me, but i understood because i knew i wasn’t myself. he mentioned how although i didn’t do anything truly wrong, he felt there was no chemistry between our personalities, no intellectual intimacy, stale humor, and so on. i accepted, i was kind of defeated, really. i couldn’t combat the way he felt.
then the same night he texted me, asking if i wanted to call while he did homework, i declined (i would’ve said yes if we weren’t in that current situation) saying there was something i wanted to do, we talked about some things we did within our day as if nothing happened, he’d even mentioned how he was thinking about me. when the conversation died i asked him about the whole 1 month thing again since he texted me out of nowhere. he reiterated that he does think it’s best we stop talking, and how texting me was out of habit. i told him that while i was happy to hear from him, he can’t just go back on his word, because it really confused me. we apologized and that was that. we haven’t spoken in days and i’ve been thinking a lot. i wish i asked better questions and wasn’t so scared to be vulnerable with him. i’m at a loss on what to do

i’ve reflected and although i want to reach out to him to talk about it, i can’t help but wonder if he really needs this space and i’d just be digging a deeper grave for myself by texting him. i know id regret not reaching out earlier but i can’t decide what i should do because it really felt like he was no longer romantically interested in me in the first messages.
what do i do? i miss him dearly, even the annoying parts

I don't know how to address to my partner that having alone time is a good thing for both of us yanno? That it's important to spend some time apart to have time to miss each other. And we've had conversations like this before and she said she understood but lately it feels like she's forgotten about those conversations or forgetting how to understand/respect my alone time. Every time I leave the phone call it gets awkward or silent afterwards. She replies to my messages with periods and posts weird subliminals on her Instagram notes. Very passive aggressive. And that makes me feel uncomfortable and like I can't enjoy my alone time. I know that she misses me I do, I miss her too. But lately it's getting harder to because we're on the phone all of the time, we sleep on the phone every night and I don't get any time for myself or to speak to my friends (my other people). And I love her I really do. I think we either have really different definitions of alone time or she's just very anxiously attached and I don't know how many more conversations we can have that'll help heal that. I know healing doesn't happen overnight but just recently she knew that I had to go to bed early because I had to be somewhere in the morning and she was upset because I was "gonna leave and I won't get to talk to you until later." I tell her I'll be back and she still points out the fact that I'm gonna leave. So she stayed sad and cried about it for a bit. All I could do is watch her cry and try to comfort her with "I'll be back love, it's okay. I'll call you when I get home." I don't know what to do because what if I did want to spend some time alone when I got home. Would that be a crime? I'd feel awful for it now. Like is the fact that I'm leaving is an issue for her? Or maybe not an issue but it's triggering something in her? I'm not sure but whatever it is I can't help if she won't acknowledge it, and I also need my time to be respected and accepted. Because if we can't have our own autonomy and personalities in our relationship then idk how much longer it's gonna work. Does anyone have any advice for me? Maybe how to word this better for a conversation? I don't want her to think that I hate her cause I don't, but is this normal and I'm just awful?