Relationship Crossroads

I feel kind of weird about sharing this much information here, especially with it being my first post here, but hopefully some of you will take the time to read through the thoughts I am having about my relationship in order to help me gain a less subjective viewpoint of my situation. I apologize for how long this is, but I really want to try to fully explain the situation. Please, no immature comments, if it's too much to read or whatever, then just move on to another thread.

First, for the background. I have been seeing the person I am with for over 2 years (27 months to be exact). I started seeing her when I was starting my Master's program and she was starting undergrad. There is a 5 1/2 year difference in age between us, as I am almost 26 and she turned 20 a few months ago. We met by her playing on a sports team that I was captaining and once we started hanging out, we quickly hit it off with how many things we had in common. We were dating soon after. Neither one of us has ever been the typical college student, for example neither one of us has ever been in to parties or getting drunk or any of that kind of thing. Also, both of us are kind of jaded towards getting involved in churches or religious organizations because of some past experiences we both had growing up in the Bible Belt.

I have never felt something as special as what I have had with her in this relationship. Knowing how mutual the feelings were and how many things we had in common felt like a fairy tale, and it continued to feel like that for months. But, some issues started to pop up, as is to be expected I suppose. For example, I had a bunch of notes written back and forth between people I had dated in high school and early college that I had always kept in a dresser without really ever thinking about them. One of those deals where I would amusingly look through some of the stuff that was said like once in a blue moon. Well, she decided to read through those and then got insecure about it and it sparked what would be over a year's worth of issues regarding my past (which had nothing to do with sex or anything, just about the fact that I seemed to care for the girls that I dated while I was with them).

That was fueled by the fact that I had remained friends with a girl that I had dated for 2 years in high school for a long time and that there was often times where we thought about getting back together but never actually did. By the time I met the girl I am with now, the ex and I had completely moved on, but it really bothered her, she just never told me how much until we'd been dating about 9 months. After she expressed that to me, I completely cut off contact with the ex and haven't spoken to her sense nor had any desire to. Nevertheless, any time any kind of small argument would come up, she would bring up my past and try to act like an over-exaggerated version of one of my ex's and saying stuff like "Ooh, look I'm <Insert Ex's Name Here>, wouldn't you like me to act like her more often?" and other similar things. She eventually even admitted to doing that because it was the only way she knew to set me off because she couldn't handle being the only one upset, so she would rather start a fight as opposed to just feeling insecure. It finally got to the point this last summer that I had resorted to leaving my place or hers, depending on where we were, whenever the fight would get bad enough as a way to try to give us time apart to cool off. Then, after I made an ultimatum that the fights about my past had to stop or else I could not stay with her, she finally found a way to stop.

It's been about 5 or 6 months now since we've had any fights about my past or ex's, and I figured that it would be the main hurdle that we would need to get over in our relationship because that was pretty much the only problem we ever had and I have never been one to create arguments or causes for arguments in relationships. Additionally, through all of that, I always knew that she still wanted to spend as much time with me as she could and did things to show me that she loved me and vice versa for me towards her. So, I obviously felt pretty optimistic. But, for some reason, over the last few months, it has felt like someone has completely taken the air out of the relationship.

At this point, I feel like a little more background is needed. My apartment is pretty crappy, but they allow pets, and we have two dogs, one is mine and one is hers. I had to move to the apartment because the dog that she got while I was living in a condo was the hardest dog I have ever seen to potty train and made a mess out of the carpet in some areas which the owner of the place saw before we could get my girlfriend's dad to help us install new carpet. The owner of the condo decided to have me move out. She ended up getting a much nicer apartment with a roommate after living by herself in an apartment like mine for a year or so. We live about 10 minutes apart.

Additionally, I spent the entire summer searching for a job under the threat that I would have to move back with my parents if I couldn't find something by the end August. Luckily, I found a job a week before I would have had to move out. So, I am fresh to the "real world" of working 40 hrs a week and knowing there's no school around the corner. She, on the other hand, got accepted in to the major she was wanting and is now seemingly always neck deep in clinics and homework and such.

Lastly regarding background, some of those things that we seemed to have in common before are starting to change. For example, she is starting to show a little interest in drinking (which is fine with me, but a little tough to swallow since I don't and it makes it awkward for me when I'm the only one not doing it, but I understand that is part of it), and she now cares more about what other people think about how she looks and dresses. Both of those are normal things, but those are both also things that we used to talk about how cool it was that neither one of us did them. We still can play video games together, which is pretty rare, and share similar (although less so) taste in music, among other things, so it's not like a complete change, but it certainly does not feel like we have as much in common as we used to, which is discouraging.

Anyway, back to the main story. I told you all that to help you have a better idea about where we each are in the relationship. Over the last few months, she has suddenly stopped being as intimate towards me, as well as not making much effort to do anything special or to even come visit her dog often. (We agreed when she moved to her nicer apartment that when we spent time together at one of our places, that it should be more often at my place than hers since the pets are at my place.) On top of that, she didn't do anything special for our 2 year anniversary, and dates have always been important to her for me to remember.

It just feels really strange to me. I love her, but I am really starting to think that we may not be right for each other. I have tried expressing all of this to her, among other things, but she always just gets mad about it because she says she's not doing anything to me. She's admitted to me that she's acting differently and that she's been less intimate but claims that there is no reason at all. She's also agreed that if I had not done something special for our 2 year anniversary, that she would have been really upset, but that she was too busy to do anything and that she didn't see the point in making up for it.

She's also become very competitive when we do hang out. Most of the time when we hang out with friends, we play games (board, card, video, etc.). I probably win more than anyone else that we play with, but not every time and I don't talk about winning or anything with her because I know that she is competitive. But, now anytime we go and play games and I'm winning or doing well, she starts getting visibly upset and a lot of times will even say stuff like "You always get so lucky" or "I hate playing games with you because you always win". It makes hanging out with other people almost no fun for me because I know she is going to make a scene of some kind.

Anyway, it just feels like lately that the amount of time we spend happy with each other and being together just keeps getting less and less. I've suggested taking a break to figure out what it is about each other that makes us want to stay together so badly, but she feels that people "taking breaks" are stupid and that they are just kidding themselves because they shouldn't have to take breaks if they are supposed to be together. I have tried getting her to go to couples counseling with me, but she doesn't like the idea of telling people her problems and she thinks that they would just tell her she's wrong. I have tried relationship books to read through with her, which she likes the idea and we have started a couple, but after we start I can't seem to get her to make time to keep going through them with me. I've tried suggesting reverse role play to help understand where we are coming from but she doesn't want to do that. I've even tried having us look through stuff online to try and see if we could find any good advice from people online but she thinks the idea of looking for advice from people online is silly and that the idea of online dating in general is pathetic (which I bring up just because I met a girl on an online site once that I dated for like 3 months and she gave me hell about it).

I feel like the signs point to me needing to end it with her, but I really do love her and for so long I have felt like she was a perfect match for me. It's only over the last few months that all these issues have really started to surface. When it was just dealing with her hang-ups over my ex's, at least I could blame myself to a degree. But now, I don't feel like there's anything else I can really do to help the situation. I want her to be herself and find herself, because I know that's a part of being 20/21/etc. and I know I discovered a lot about myself during that time. But, I'm not sure that she can fully do that with me. I also have to consider that there's a good chance she would be a pain to deal with if I did break up with her. I don't know if she would get weird and stalkerish or if she would get mad and try to start acting completely different as a way to rub it in my face or something. I dunno, but I just have a bad feeling that she would make my life miserable if I did end it.

Anyway, I'm coming to you all for some help. I mean, I really do want to make this work and I feel like any of my friends would be subjective. I am kind of on my last leg and running out of ways to save the relationship, so I figured, why not try seeing what people online might have to say, right? What do you think I should do or can do?

Yes most women would feel insecure to find that their man had kept love letters from past girlfriends. Big difference between keeping a sweater that an ex gave you and a letter. A letter is intimate, remembering and hanging onto the past. A sweater is something useful. So did you get rid of them? Did you tell her that you got rid of them? Or did you try to turn the tables on her and yell at her for snooping? Her snooping was bad, but you keeping a whole drawer of momentos? Did you show her the drawer of her momentos? Did you apologize or did you tell her she is being irrational? And you havn't had a fight about this for 6 months, yet you made it a huge part of your post? It is no longer an issue dude. Right now you are just trying to paint her as the culprit.

And don't be bringing a dog (the childless person's pseudo child) into the argument. This dog sounds like it was really a dog that the 2 of you picked out together, and you were the caretaker/potty trainer, and now she moved out the sole owner.

To put it bluntly. That 'break' you suggested, and she turned down, is already occurring. And it looks to me, that now she doesn't live with you 24/7 she is discovering new opportunities that she never got to experience before (you two have been together since she was 20 and she never really dated anyone before right?) She and her new roommate are going out, drinking a little, and living it up. She is in a new program in school that you say takes up a lot of her time (time not spent on you), and she is probably meeting new friends. She doesn't hang out with you as much, and lots of little things about you are getting on her nerves. And now YOU are the insecure one. And you have the right to be. She is starting to move on.

And by the way, her not wanting to have you win/dominate her in all games may not be just competitiveness. From your post it makes it sound like this is a new occurrance. Ever occur to you that when she loses she is losing control to you, being dominated? She doesn't want that any more from you. She is moving on.

The solution is not you getting another apartment and having her move in again, where you can be her 24/7 shadow. Or picking out another dog together. Or purchasing another self help book (I can't believe you admitted to doing that). The solution is to have a talk about where you two want to be in the future, what isn't working now (and if you bring up that 6 month ago fight about ex's again, I would suggest she should leave you, its a dead topic) and decide if you want to break up or not. Simple as that. And save your money, those self help books are typically crap.

Sorry, I didn't go further in to the ex thing because I didn't feel it was an issue anymore. I just wanted to provide background as to the major problem that we had in the past. As far as how I got rid of the letters, she got rid of a bunch of them when she snooped in the first place. I didn't even think about them being there, since I hadn't looked at them at all since I had moved the dresser from my parent's house. But, the ones that were left, as well as any pictures that I had of my ex, I either burned or tore up while she watched so that she could tell I had no attachment to them.

I also apologize if I came off sounding like I was being smothering or something. That's really not what I'm trying to get at and I'm not trying to paint blame really, I mean, she's even told me she knows that it's her. The thing is, she absolutely doesn't want to move on and if there's any chance of it working out, neither do I. Any time the conversation about whether we should be together has come up at all, she has always expressed that she would never think about breaking up with me. And she's the one that wants to move in with me, not vice versa. I want her to have time to find herself and develop, and I want her to be independent. As for the drinking and other stuff, I really really don't care. She's not going out with her roommate or anything like that anyway. I was just saying that it was one of the things that we both used to talk about being cool that we didn't do because it is pretty rare to find college kids that don't drink/party/etc. I was only using it as an example of her changing. It's an overall theme of change which is fine and not something I am afraid of, but just concerning for me when it's coupled with a complete shift in attitude towards me from how she used to interact with me.

I don't really feel like it's fair to criticize me for trying a self help book. I mean, shouldn't you try anything within reason if there is a problem that you want to fix? It's the only thing that she agreed to try with me, so why not? I'm not ashamed to admit that, it doesn't show weakness or anything to try to address the issues that are going on that we both want to make better.

Also, we didn't pick the dog out together. She picked it out and is completely monetarily responsible for the dog. She was also responsible for potty training the dog and for any problems that would arise from said training, so she was over a lot during that time. Now, I am taking care of her dog (even though she still pays for her) and my dog, which is something we've worked out. I'm not trying to make that a major part of the argument, it's just a part of the relationship and tension that happened when I had to move out of the previous place so I felt like it needed to be included. I won't go in to that any further.