Relationship trouble

[Levi808]

I am in a 12 year relationship with two small children. My girlfriend is very upset with me. Full of resentment. She is upset about the division of labor, my personality defects and a feeling of domination. She is feeling like she is done with our relationship, I feel very differently and am still I madly in love with her. I'm looking for advise on how to repair our relationship. If any one has any advise or experience saving a marriage please let me know. Thank you for reading this and taking time to reply.

[Coreforcruxes]

I am really sorry to hear this, especially with young children involved. I am in no way a relationship expert but while reading your posts some questions jumped out at me that I Imagine might facilitate anyone trying to help.

 

could you please go into more detail about the division of labor and her feelings about it?what are your personality defects that she is upset about?

 

why does she feel dominated?

 

do you agree with her assessment?

 

if you don't know the answer to these questions, why not?

[Pepin]

Have you considered going to therapy? Has she?

[waywardvariable]

I'm looking for advise on how to repair our relationship. If any one has any advise or experience saving a marriage please let me know. Thank you for reading this and taking time to reply.

The best thing in my experience is to LISTEN to her grievances and make every effort to understand where she is coming from, that doesn't mean to simply HEAR her out and offer up platitudes, it means you must actually empathize and understand her point of view and be able to discuss it with her. This is harder for most men than it sounds but it's what women are looking for, don't rationalize , empathize.

 

Hope that helps , it's worked for me for going on 30 years of a very happy marriage.

[Wesley]

I would very much recommend Stef's book Real-Time Relationships.

[LovePrevails]

Hey I am so sorry to hear of your troubles, I can't imagine how heartbreaking it must be to be in your present predicament

 

I am a communication and relationship coach with hundreds of hours experience learning about and teaching relationship and communication skills. I can't promise to mend things for you, but If you think it would help I would gladly offer you some free consultations.

If you think that sounds like a good idea you can visit my website (www.enrichyourlife.co)

 

then email me at [email protected]

 

best wishes to you and your family

[ThatAtheistPlace]

I too am so sorry to hear you and your significant other are having troubles!

 

I have an observation, that I hope may be helpful.

 

My thoughts when reading your post were that things were surmised so very neatly.  It was like, "I'm having problems A, B and C and I'm looking for solutions accordingly."  Not that you can extrapolate an initial impression across an entire relationship, but as a very logic-minded person I tend to approach my issues in that same 1, 2, 3 manner.  BUT, as a woman, I also appreciate when my problems and emotions can just be my problems and emotions.

 

To clarify, I don't think that it's so "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", where guys want to solve things and women just want you to listen.  I've come to understand from listening to FDR that it's more about allowing your loved one the space to experience their emotions without also having to manage yours.  For instance, hypothetically, if I'm upset that I feel I am always cleaning up after you, and I try to express that to you, it may be that you immediately interject your own anxieties about my unhappiness into the mix.  You may become very apologetic, or angry that this is a minor issue to you, or if the presentation of your problem is any indication, you might start trying to come up with a schedule for when you both clean and a chart for which responsibilities are whom's.

 

The reality is that your girlfriend might have difficulty understanding just why your attempt to alleviate her anxieties causes her more anxiety, but it's probably due to the fact that even when you are trying to be helpful, that's just you trying to manage your own anxieties and not fully allowing her to investigate her own.  Instead of reacting to problems that she presents, really try to encourage her to flesh out the problems herself.  Ask her questions.  Really try to understand where the differences are between what you feel is a common sense solution and what it is that she's actually experiencing.

 

I hope I'm not sounding too confusing, but man...  once I got this stuff, my whole relationship has changed and I hope that it can do the same for you. Even in the scenario of cleaning, if you allow her to really investigate her own emotions, you may find that her father made her clean by doling out orders without asking wether she wanted to do dishes or not, and your very attempts to try and mandate solutions, bring back those same feelings of inferiority and helplessness....  I don't know.  But you never know until you get your own feelings out of the way so that she's not busy making you feel better or right or helpful, and let her dig.

 

Oddly enough...  I'm doing the same thing to you, that you may be doing to her.  That hasn't escaped me, I promise.  If none of this is fitting for you, please let me know so I can ask more questions, as well.  This just sounds like a pretty urgent situation, so I'm hoping this gives you some immediate "ammo", if you will.

 

I'm about to pick up the Real Time Relationships book, because what I'm telling you are just things I've gathered from the podcasts about RTR that I've actually tried, so I can't wait to dig deeper into that.  I just listened to podcast 951 (click here) which hit this nail squarely on the head.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on it and I do hope that it offers you some insight and assistance through this matter!

[Mike Fleming]

Also, how did you get here?  Do you have a libertarian or anarchist view of the world?  If you believe in the ideas of voluntarism and non-aggression and self-ownership and responsibility do you/have you applied them in your family life also?