Need a little advice please!

Hello,

Firstly thank you for taking the time to read this (it's long!) and hopefully give me some good advice..... I really need it!
I have been with my GF for 3 years now. To give the intro facts and figures; We are both 23, we were 20 when we met and we met through my sister as she is one of my sisters best friends.
We hit it off straight away when we met as most people that "click" do. Everything came so easily and naturally; conversation, fun and genuine happiness. Within a year we had really settled down into a mature happy relationship with solid foundations. We went through a few different stages of finding our "balance" but we seemed to find it. At first we spent a lot of time together but still also had our time alone and with our friends. We then went through a stage where she became very homely, ready to settle down and move in together (we didn't though) as I felt it was too soon. Then we both got to a stage where we were there and ready to settle down (unfortunately with this came a rut or routine to our daily lives) and then everything flipped with me being ready and her not.

The latter has only come on very recently (in the last month). And I will try and explain as best as I can to how we got here.......

We became very structured in our daily lives.... We share a car together and work in the same area so we stay at either of our houses, get up together, go to work together, perhaps meet at lunch time for a 2 min kiss and catch up, go home together, cook dinner, get into bed and watch a film. At weekends we tend to relax although we still go out and do stuff. We still have our time apart with our friends but not as much as we did in the beginning. When we do have our time apart we tend to come back together very quickly afterwards, i.e what used to be a girls night out would be her back at home by 12PM still fairly sober.
We have been in this for about the past year, and to be honest I was at a stage where I was happy with it, I know it's not healthy to have someone be your entire life but at the same time it felt right to me. However, around 3 weeks ago she went on holiday with work as an award that she won. She went on a 5 day Safari in South Africa with a group of 20 she didn't really know. We didn't really talk while she was away, for my own arrogant and selfish reasons I was angry she went (and I know how much of an idiot I am for that). We did speak briefly, a few texts here and there, but she made more of an effort than I made back to say the least. When she got back things were not right with her. She was there and saying, doing all the normal things, but they felt distant and manufactured rather than heart felt and genuine. When we talked about this the first time she said that being away and seeing the fun side of her had made her realise how much of a rut we were in. She wanted more time with her friends to go out, she wanted more time to see her Mum, she just wanted to find more of a balance. As hard as it was to grasp especially as it had taken so long for me to get to a stage where I was ready to settle down, I accepted and agreed to this.
Now we fast forward a few days........ Our agreed night apart for her to see her Mum and have some time to herself. She tells me that she is now actually going to meet one of the girls she went to South Africa with. That's fair enough, her time is her own. However that night (the night before) she was being very secretive with her phone, going to the toilet with it. On top of that she was making an extra effort to get up early and do her hair, she wanted to wear a dress to work that was slightly inappropriate and had never done before. And it all kind of "clicked" into place with me that something wasn't right. So I called her on it and she was going on a date with one of the blokes from her trip. She was truly devastated when I found out, she begged me to stay with her, she said she didn't understand why she did it. It was just because he showed her attention that she had been lacking from me in our "routine". I was angry, not at her but at me for putting her in a place where she felt unloved. I knew this wasn't like her, she is truly not that sort of person and I genuinely believe it was nothing more than friendship and a sense of loneliness. I forgave her for this and we moved on, things were awkward but we moved on...... for a few days at least.
I caught her out again texting this bloke, she had saved his name in her phone as a girls name and tried to hide it but I knew. She assured me they were just friends and there was nothing going on but I told her to end it, cut him out or I go. And she did.....
Since then over the last week things have gone from bad to worse..... She is not herself, she is not happy with herself inside. The sparkle I once saw in her eyes is gone. I was worried at first it was depression. She has been through a lot recently, the trip away I think really burnt her out and confused her, she’s lost a lot of weight and become obsessive with it, she recently had a cancer scare, a few family problems and I believed it had all built up on top of her.
The weekend just gone was her birthday and her friends I tried to make it the best birthday ever, we made a fuss of her bent over backwards and tried to get her to have fun and forget about things. Superficially it worked but under it all it made it worse I think.
We had a talk last night and she had the biggest breakdown I have seen so far, and it scared me. I told her I think she is depressed, she says she isn't she just doesn't know what iss wrong with her. She kept saying to me "all I want to do at the moment it be alone, completely alone, no friends, family or you" she wants to lock herself away and bury her head. She also hates herself because I am everything she wants and knows she will ever need, she says she knows she loves me and she can't bear the thought of losing me. She said she feels an unbelievable amount of guilt that she can't let go of, both for what she had done in the past with the other bloke and also for putting me through this and hurting me. I have tried to drill it into her that she should not feel guild, this is not her fault - something is broken inside her that needs to be fixed, but she won't let go of the guilt and she says she can't. I have tried to tell her to take me out of the equation and focus on herself and her happiness because at the end of the day "she" is more important to me than "us".
She can't decide what she wants, if she wants to be with me and work through this, or do this alone and loose me. She genuinely can't decide and doesn't know where to turn. After around 5 hours of her crying, and going round in circles we got nowhere, she couldn't decide, all she could say is that she's a mess and she's sorry for putting me through this. In the end I took the plunge and decided we would stay together and take this step by step - I told her she has to brutally honest with me though and not smile and put on a happy face like she has been doing, if we don't communicate everything breaks down around it. We are supposed to be going on holiday on Friday, I have given her the option twice to go away without me and just have 2 weeks to clear her head and get back to "her" if she needs it. She won't though - she said it's my holiday too and she wants me there (I think she thinks the holiday is going to make everything better in her head). That's a lot of pressure to put on a holiday!!
I spoke to her Mum this morning, her Mum is always honest with me and she said she feels like she is being smothered by myself and her friends, and she also feels very untrusted. I don't want to be that person that smothers and pushes someone away. And I don't know how to drill it into her that I trust her......

Please help me!!! What do I do from here?? I don't care how hard it is for me, as long as I get to see her smile again. If it's with me, without me, If I need to take initiative and walk away or give her space, do I carry on doing what I am doing, go on holiday with her and try to have some fun??... What do I do??



Thanks,


Adam

Hi Adam,

First of all give yourself credit for even writing that much lol and for admitted you were wrong when you were. Ok *breathe* first of all i think your gf is just having a bit of a hardtime/breakdown (it may not necessarily be depression but can still be similar) and i believe she simply doesnt know what she wants. It's good that she told you that i think you both deserve credit for chatting it out.
Secondly, as much as she doesnt know what she wants, i think you should continue to get her friends involved and yourself without being too full on. She will need time to herself like everyone does but you should stay close just incase she needs you. As for the holiday, personally, i think you should go together, getting away from home (similar to the africa scenario, however you're involved) seems to cheer her up a little and, as she said, it made her realise theres something missing from her life, which i believe is a little spark of excitement and fun every now and again. Like you said you are both in a pretty firm routine and, whilst this may not be the problem, it does mean you need to break away from it every once in a while. This is why i think the holiday will help you. Whilst you're away, you may want to spark up the romance a little too, without pressuring her to get involved (if it doesnt work, atleast you tried) but when couples are in such a strong routine this usually helps (speaking from experience here :) ) Small, loving gestures whilst also continuing the support your giving out, will be good to start off with then maybe try and expand on the fun, different but needed things.
As for the other guy, i think that really was due to confusion. She has apologised for it and i genuinely think she wants and needs you in her life. Eventhough she feels guilty keep reasurring her that (if you have anyway?) you have forgiven her for it and know she was just confused.
You sound like a very strong and potentially great couple that seriously need each other. If she gets through this, and i genuinely hope she does :), then she'll have you to thank and the best part; you'll be there to see her get through and can move on from it a stronger and better couple.
Seriously hope this helps, feel free to shoot it down in flames and tell me where to go lol. Good luck and like i said, i wish you both well. x Allyson x.