Do I end it?

[CoolHandWill]

Hey guys, first time poster here. Any advice on my dilemma will be greatly appreciated. Here's the story:

I am 26, my gf 27. We have just started renting a flat together and been there 3 months now. In total we have been together 2 years.

Basically, we argue....a lot! Never over anything serious, we have both been faithful and have a lot of respect for each other, but the problems always arise about the time we spend together. My gf has a job monday - Friday 9-5 and I generally work weekends on a night. This means that when my gf has a weekend to relax and do what she wants to do, I am sometimes unavailable due to my nature of work. This was an issue I brought up even before we starting getting serious as I knew that her personality would require a lot of attention and I remember asking her if this was something she could deal with and that my job is my job and it's not going to change. However it is not all bad, I have made every effort to free up my life in other ways and generally we will spend Mon-Fri evenings together doing whatever we want and then whatever time on the weekend that I am not working. I can honestly say that I give up every second of my free time to be with her and do nice things with her. To me this has meant giving up things I used to like to do but if it means making her happy then that is what is most important to me.

Recently however contrary to what I've just said, I have started to feel trapped, and resent the fact that I never get anytime to myself to do what I want to do. I am somebody who is very happy in my own company and would personally love more time to practice my piano, see friends and family etc. Yesterday we went out for the day and it was all very nice until when we got back, I had a missed call on my phone and decided to return the call. I can't have been on the phone for more than 10 mins and then she's in a mood with me, saying that a day can never just be about the two of us and stuff. When she gets upset with me she goes really quiet, can't look at me or talk to me and she gets it in head that I just don't care about her feelings. This has started happening every day now, and I live every day stepping on eggshells and just hoping that I don't put a foot wrong somewhere and put her back in one of these moods, cos when it happens the rest of the day is usually a write off. My gf does suffer from depression and she says I will never understand her. I do try and hug her and tell her things will be ok and am constantly apologising for my "actions" but sometimes she will just get stuck in one of these moods.....and to be honest I can't fully understand the depression as I've never suffered from it.

Usually the outcome of these moods is that she cries, we talk about it for an hour or two and then she starts telling me how sorry she is and how she doesn't know how I put up with her and that I'd be happier if she wasn't here, stuff like that. This is not true, I do dearly love her and when she isn't going through one of these bad patches she is one of the most fun, happy go lucky people you could ever wish to be around....you could just never believe she suffers from depression. If I told any of my friends they'd think I was making it up. Now this sounds harsh from my end, but because the depression is used as an "excuse" it's like everytime it happens it's not really her fault or whatever but to be totally honest I am just sick to the back teeth of arguing about absolute nonsense, the tiniest thing will upset her. Like if I sit at my laptop to check my mail when she is on the sofa watching tv, she believes I am choosing to check my e-mails because I'd rather do that than sit next to her and hold her hand or whatever, I dunno, it's just daft. I constantly tell her I love her, I regularly buy her gifts, I take her out for a meal 1 - 2 times a week, I don't want to sound like a nob but I generally think I'm not that bad of a boyfriend at all......but by being the way she is, she makes me feel like I am not doing my job as a boyfriend because surely my number one job is to keep my partner happy?

So last night, it happened again and I had to leave the flat for an hour because I thought I was going to get angry. I came back and we talked about it and sorted it out as per usual and then went to bed. We got intimate and we started making love, make up sex if you will, but half way through I just couldn't do it, I couldn't perform. Now this has happened before, no more than a handful in the 2 years but obviously this only adds to her being upset and it's not very nice at all basically. So why did it happen, I really don't know, my head is a mess.

Now I just don't know what to do, I'm sick of falling out, I'm sick of treading on egg shells and I'm sick of never getting any time to myself on a night or on a weekend.

Please help

Thanks for reading.

[Gigabitch]

Wow. She's the same kind of rotten I am. That's not a nice thing to see in the mirror, I'll tell you.

Anyway, what works for my husband is to be gentle but very, very firm. We've been together for three years and we still have problems if I don't get what I need from him. I've found, through lots of arguing and compromise, that what I really need is quality time, not quantity time. Maybe this could be presented to your girlfriend as a possible solution. She can't have all of your time, but you can focus a small amount of it into laser-intense undivided attention for her. For me, about fifteen minutes a day actually does it. For instance, I won't see my husband until tomorrow because he works really late tonight (it's nine in the morning right now) but it's fine because we spent ten minutes in bed this morning snuggling, listening to the rain and talking about us, what we want to do with our lives, telling some stories about when we were little kids, etc. No talk about work, school or other people. Quality time.

If that's enough for a neurotic bitch like me, it should be enough for her too.

For general bitchiness, she needs to be dealing with that herself. I recommend nutritional supplements. They don't work for everyone, but they work for me. I think she needs to take some PMS herbs. She can buy them at the health food store and she clearly needs to take them every day.

[CoolHandWill]

lol. Thank you very much for your informative and somewhat honest response, it helped a lot. We had another discussion tonight and agreed that we were to go and seek some sort of counselling to talk through the depression and the negative effects it is having on our relationship. i really hope this works as I want nothing more than things to work out with this girl, she is very special to me.

Thanks again.

[Gigabitch]

... somewhat honest response

Um, yeah. How could you tell it was half lies?

You're an odd one, Will.