Baffled By a Woman I Am Dating...Any Tips?

Okay, so I will do my best to lay this out in correct order from beginning to present as I am curious what everyone on this forum has to say about the issue.

Back in June I started talking to a woman who frequented my job. Very pretty, very nice but at the time separated from her husband of four years. At the time we started talking she had asked him to move out about eight months prior and was dead set in her mind on getting divorced only she hadn't yet really begun the legal process for making it happen.

Before I go any further it is essential that I describe her. She's about 5'5, blond hair, blue eyes and of Irish descent. Really a VERY pretty girl. She is also a mild hypochondriac, a compulsive worrier and a business owner. She exhibits some OCD tendencies but nothing that is of yet unmanageable from my perspective. Oh, and she can have a temper.

Anyway, I digress. We started hanging out very often very quickly. In the beginning she was reluctant to put a label on our relationship because of the technical existence of her marriage but in reality we became a couple very quickly. We were sleeping together within a week and from the day we started hanging out we spent virtually every evening together for the following three months. We certainly had fun and it wasn't just the sex. I got her interested in playing golf, she loaned me Guitar Hero for the xbox and we both found a mutual interest in chess and other board games and some television shows as well. She became more comfortable with labeling the relationship and regarding herself as my girlfriend. I introduced her to my family and she very quickly fit right in with everyone and declared a while ago that she felt more at ease and part of the family with mine than she ever had with her soon to be ex-husband's.

However, to this day I have yet to meet one single living member of her family. She took me to see her father's grave which for her was apparently a big step but so far I've not met any family or friends. Her reasons for this were always very up front and seemingly logical. She was very worried that she would be judged for starting to date before finalizing her divorce. There was also the matter of certain immediate family members chastising her for a teenage habit of falling in and out of love fast. I have been fine with this so far.

Everything was absolutely fine with us until about a month ago when something terrible happened. Not as terrible as it could have been but terrible enough. While crossing the main street of the town her business is in an old lady ran a red light and hit her with her car. She was banged up pretty good but suffered no broken bones or otherwise serious injury and was never off her feet, just in a lot of pain ever since. She's been doing physical therapy and is recovering but ever since she has been hopelessly preoccupied with what happened to the point that is has begun to make her depressed and has changed her behavior.

To add fuel to the fire, right before getting hit by the car was when she finally went to the lawyer and began the process of getting officially divorced. So in the weeks following her accident she was meeting with the lawyer, signing papers, getting her ex served and watching him take stuff out of the apartment they once shared. Which made her more depressed and changed her behavior further. All throughout our relationship she told me she believed the ending of the marriage was her fault, that she failed as a wife and that she gave up or didn't try hard enough. Without giving every last detail, just by going what she told me this is not the case. The guy was an absolutely classless, white trash degenerate who was never going to amount to anything in life and didn't know the first thing about emotionally supporting her or any woman for that matter. But her being her, she blames herself.

To further add even more fuel to that fire as all this was going on the busy season of her business kicked off. She owns a gift shop and Christmas is her biggest time of year. Tons of work needs to be done in her store that in years past she was able to physically handle. Unfortunately not now. So, there's the mental stress of being hit by a car, the physical pain of being hit by a car, the mental anguish of watching her divorce become official and the stress of running a store all by herself that overnight went from making a few hundred dollars a day to thousands of dollars a day. Roll all this together and she has changed a lot.

Now I'm not asking if I should break up with her. I'm not asking if she's crazy because she's not crazy, she's just very stressed out and becoming depressed as a result of it. She feels like her life is spinning out of control and she doesn't know how to handle it. She was always a bit of a crier but now with all this on her mind she's finding herself breaking out in hysterical fits of tears multiple times a day for either small reasons or no reasons at all. And as I have come to find my presence as a full time boyfriend was not helping and only making it worse. She asked that the relationship be "low intensity" because she was not sure if she could really handle being a full time girlfriend right now.

With all that said she still loves me and wants to be with me as I do with her. Just more so on her own terms than before. What I have come here to ask is this: how do I honor and follow her request of "low intensity"? How do I keep her in my life without overstepping any boundaries? I am as supportive as I know how to be and she recognizes this and appreciates it but at the same time I don't want to do too much and push her away. So I'm being cautious, letting her have her space and constantly encouraging her. However after all this I would love to hear what all you good folks have to say.

Maybe I just came here to ramble. I'm not really sure :-P

I am going through something similar. Just with a girl who seems to get stressed out after the smallest things happen to her. Coming from me (who never really gets stressed), I find it rediculous but I am trying to work on it and be supportive. To be honest the best advice I can give you is...Time heals all wounds. Give her time to be alone and to need you. When/if she needs you she will be coming back. Just my two cents...

Yea, it makes sense. It's just difficult adjusting. It is also difficult being so careful not to exacerbate her situation by thinking or acting like everything is okay. In reality I don't entirely understand why she is stressing out quite so much. Feeling depressed or having some form of negative latent feelings related to her divorce is natural and I understand that. What I don't get is why she has to work herself up into a crazed frenzy over everything else. It's called life. Life throws you curve balls. You either dig your heels in and hang on or let it throw you to the ground and she has already shown me that she has the ability to hang on and not get thrown down. She's 27 and owns a business that she bought all on her own. She pays rent on a very nice apartment and has all the amenities of middle class life that anyone could want. She CAN hang in there. For whatever reason, either consciously or not, she's choosing not to. She's choosing to let all these stressors get the best of her.

All she really needs is time, I guess.

Yep, this is where it's good to go static.

I'm not sure that I would agree that she's "letting" it get to her: everyone has a different tolerance for stressors. Clearly hers is lower than some, but it doesn't seem a stretch to me that all of this would cause her anxiety.

I wouldn't be overly worried that you haven't met her friends, unless there is something to suggest that she is hiding something from you. She may just have some insecurities that you weren't (or still aren't aware of). Regardless, it doesn't sound like you are wound up over that, which is good.

I think you've got it when you say that she just needs time. She needs to prove to herself that she can hang in there, and then she will be all set =)

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Oh, and she can have a temper.

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lol. That's the Irish part.

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However, to this day I have yet to meet one single living member of her family. She took me to see her father's grave which for her was apparently a big step but so far I've not met any family or friends.

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Um, she's still technically married. No surprise there.

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She is also a mild hypochondriac, a compulsive worrier and a business owner. She exhibits some OCD tendencies but nothing that is of yet unmanageable from my perspective.
...she has been hopelessly preoccupied with what happened to the point that is has begun to make her depressed and has changed her behavior.

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She sounds very emotional. Almost TOO emotional, like she lacks control.

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All throughout our relationship she told me she believed the ending of the marriage was her fault, that she failed as a wife and that she gave up or didn't try hard enough.

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Is this an accurate perception? Or is it her worrying too much? It's critical to find out exactly what happened and why she thinks she was at fault. Because this issue will also affect you two as a couple. Was it a sexless marriage for them?

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I'm not asking if she's crazy because she's not crazy, she's just very stressed out and becoming depressed as a result of it.

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That sounds accurate.

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She feels like her life is spinning out of control and she doesn't know how to handle it. She was always a bit of a crier but now with all this on her mind she's finding herself breaking out in hysterical fits of tears multiple times a day for either small reasons or no reasons at all.

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She sounds like a very emotional person normally, now she's under a lot of stress. This all sounds expected for the stress level she's had.

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how do I honor and follow her request of "low intensity"?

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Ask her exactly what she means by "low intensity". How many times a week does she want to see you? Stuff like that.

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How do I keep her in my life without overstepping any boundaries?

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Ask her for very specific examples of what is ok and what is not ok. Just be supportive without asking for too much.

Ok, I'm not an emotional person. I've been through a lot of stress in my life so I've learned how to deal with it. I don't think she's learned how to deal with stress herself, as well as she could. Not that you can change her, because you can't. So I did find it hard to deal with women who were overly emotional, who appeared to be absolutely helpless, and were overwhelmed by small everyday stressors. But your gf is going through a major life change, so some crying and outbursts are expected.

Ask her how she wants you to help her. And do it. Simple, right?

EDIT: It sounds like you really understand what's going on, and you just needed some validation. You are doing a good job being perceptive and supportive. Keep going. Now go buy her favorite tea/drink, and her favorite snack/chocolate, and surprise her. If she likes to eat dried moose buttholes for her acne, go get her some.

LOL, dried moose buttholes are delicious, Bulrush.

To answer some of your questions, yes it was a sexless marriage for the last two years. She wanted it and her ex husband did not. For the last 3 months or so he even voluntarily slept on the couch and for those last two years she described it as feeling like she lived with a roommate, not a husband. It should be noted that he cheated on her with his ex-fiance early into their time dating, quit his job of 15 years two weeks before the wedding and never had steady work afterward and would very often go out without her, sometimes not even coming home at night. Oh and he would constantly spend her money on things he wanted like electronics, a car, etc. Roll all this together and it sounds to me like he was cheating on her, but I could be wrong.

Her and I have talked at length about the low intensity stuff but to be honest her answers haven't been all that helpful. She has told me she wants space but not 100% space. She wants to be with me but doesn't want to hurt me. She constantly fears that what happened to her marriage could happen again (which is a risk one has to take if they ever hope to be happy in a relationship because you can't just never date again for fear of the relationship going bad). The best interpretation I can come up with for low intensity is that she doesn't want to feel what she feels for me too strongly right now because it will get in the way with the rest of the feelings she's having about everything else. But then the last few times we hung out she talked about sex and made numerous erotic gestures but then didn't want to go back to my place and do anything even after offering and then reneging on the offer. I'm chalking that up to her being confused and stressed out because prior to all this happening she had never been quite so confounding.

Been keeping it as light as possible without putting too much emotional stress on her. Her birthday is coming up so I plan on having a dozen of her favorite flower sent to her store with a nice little card. Other than that I just have to not put pressure.

She needs time. Being her support will keep her in your life without overstepping boundaries. She's going through a lot and her reaction to her experiences is only natural. Only time and the loving support of those around her will change things around for her. I'm sure she appreciates you more than ever right now but just may not be in that psychological state to be able to show it. When an emotional girl goes through very difficult experiences, she may start going into "shut down" mode but this doesn't mean she doesn't care about you. If you are doing too much or making her uncomfortable in any way I'm sure she will let you know. Give her time and be patient and kind with her (and yourself) and eventually she will be herself again.

I would like to thank everyone for their advice. I really love this woman and I'll do whatever it takes to see us together and happy for a very long time. She's truly one of a kind and someone I'd be stupid to let go of.

Im happy for you brotha. I know this is a tough part of her life. My fiancee went through it,..... divorce and all.... so I can totally appreciate your situation.
Give her what she wants, and support her with love. I think even though she wants some breathing room to straighten out her life, she still needs to know
that you are always going to be there for her. The last thing she needs now is to wonder whether or not she would lose you.....

She's always been constantly worried that she has done something to make me no longer like her. Often silly things that wouldn't change the mind of any normal guy like not shaving her legs often enough (virtually unnoticeable upon feeling), getting mad at me about something then apologizing later or blowing up the bathroom in my apartment for the first time (no holding back there, we all do it).

As we've gotten back into the habit of seeing each other though I find that she seems to want to have sex but is holding back. Yesterday we talked about it and I already knew what it was, which she agreed to when I presented it to her. She's become worried that all I want out of her is sex so she's holding out on having it to determine if I'm there for her and not just the physical gratification. This worry of hers is made all the more possible as a reality by the fact sometimes we have nothing to talk about which in my opinion is a normal occurrence in any relationship. Typically when this happens we end up talking about sex and then the conversation is normal and flows freely but we've always talked about other things, not just sex. Just the last week or so we've had some awkward silent moments which were broken by sex talk which now has her worried.

So I pose a new question to everyone: how do I prove to her I'm there for her and not just the sex? Is all I can do is be patient and not seek it out?