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Loving attention from LDR girlfriend has halted
August 28, 2008
I’m in a long distance relationship and sometimes I just feel like I should give up on it. There are a few reasons for this. We just hit that dreaded 3 month mark and she seems to have changed a lot all the sudden. I’m not sure if she is falling out of love with me or she’s just bored… or both! I still love this girl more than anything. She really is my world. In past relationships, I was always looking for the next best thing. Even when I was “in love” with some girls I still had my eye out. I was always that guy that said he was never going to settle down and just wanted to keep doing his own thing for the rest of his life. This girl is different and in turn has made me different. It’s all about her. I don’t even care about other girls or what they are about. It’s my girl and that’s it. Everything I do pretty much revolves around her. I do my own thing but I make sure to be around when she’s getting up so I can say good morning, same thing at night to say good night. Then I try to be around during the day when I know she’s available. I send her cards when I’m bored and have nothing to do. I call her when I can, email and IM when I can as well… I put in the effort. Maybe I’m making myself too available and that’s part of the problem.
Things seem to be getting a little weird between us lately. She says she loves me a lot but are they just empty words? Stuff she used to always do for me she doesn’t want to do anymore, she seems bored with me on certain days. It’s really weird. Some days are just great but that is usual followed by several “off” days. I don’t know if I’m over-thinking things or what. I know about the dreaded 3 month mark. The first few months nothing can go wrong. You love everything about the other person. The real meat of the relationship doesn’t start until 3 months. That’s when I normally jump ship anyways. Even to this day we don’t fight. We will argue a bit back and forth over some things but we have yet to have that big fight.
Anyways, all this started a few weeks ago… She had family in town (sister & niece) living with her for a while and when they first got there everything was good. However, towards the end she seemed to always choose them over me. I understood that her family was about to leave so I didn’t make a big deal out of it. But the last week or so they were there it’s like she didn’t pay me no mind. Even when I talked to her while she was at work she would still act like she rather be doing something else. I know she’s at work but we would always talk at work before that and it was good. She’s not the type to BS me on anything. She will tell me stuff I don’t want to hear and that’s one of the things I love about her. So I think if she was bored with me or didn’t want to be with me anymore she would just tell me. She has to be hanging around for some reason I would think.
Anyways, as I said email has gotten really really stale with her. We can barely talk on email sometimes it seems. We talk on YahooIM as well but that will get stale every once in a while as well. The only thing that seems to go well is when we talk on the phone. I can’t always talk on the phone for hours at a time though. Once her family left, things seemed to be getting back to normal so I thought it was just that. The past few days haven’t been that great. Things that we used to do to keep us entertained (some of which we couldn’t do why her family was there) are coming to a screeching halt as well. We used to send pictures back and forth a lot (with some xxx ones for good measure). She still sends me pictures but she told me today she wont send xxx ones anymore. Ever. Just out of nowhere she has no desire to send them to me anymore. Before it was no problem at all. She used to say how she enjoyed doing it for me and liked it. Now she could care less and doesn’t want to do it. I can’t even get to her to mess around on web cam, which we also used to do a lot. The other day I got the dreaded “I got a headache” excuse.
To me when someone all the sudden doesn’t want to be intimate with you anymore it’s because they are getting it elsewhere. I don’t want to throw around accusations cause she’s never done anything close to make me not trust her but that bothers me and I cant help it, unfair or not. I shouldn’t feel guilty for trying to be intimate with my girlfriend. It’s hard to be intimate like you would like to be, or how you would normally be in a long distance relationship so there is only so much you can do. She doesn’t want to do any of it lately. It’s not even just that. Every once in a while she used to make these little post cards out of random images she would find online and edit them on MSPaint… adding a “I love you” or a cute little message. They were really nice and I loved getting them. Those just stopped as well. I’m not going to be able to see her for about 4 more months and with the way things are going lately, I’m not sure I can make it that far. I hate the fact that I can never see or touch her. That I just cant go down the road a bit and see her. I’m starting to think that I’m not built for this. I might be overreacting a bit but with us being forced to be long distance for the unforeseeable future, I’m not sure how long I can keep doing this. I love her a lot and I feel I might be missing out on something great. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to make it to the end when we will be close again. Especially with the way things have been going lately with us. Any and all help is appreciated.
Jason
Michelle says…
You are right about the “3-month mark” thing Jason. At about that time in a relationship things definitely change from feeling blissful and terrific to less blissful and terrific… You just enter a phase that is more settled, and you feel less of an emotional “high” in the relationship . People usually stop trying so hard to reel the other person in at this point, because if they are still with their boyfriend/girlfriend at that point, they pretty much know they “got ’em.” And admittedly, in a long distance relationship, it can become draining to continually shower someone with loving words and affection. And that is just because it’s harder to express feelings of affection over distance. It’s just easier to hug someone sometimes. That doesn’t mean that doing things for each other loses its importance. It’s nice to feel loved, and to think you can stop showing love just because you’ve been with someone for a lengthy period of time, is wrong.
It’s important to note that your girlfriend may not realize the change that has taken place in your relationship, or that you’re hurt by her actions… or inactions. Or if it is the case that you never did sweet things regularly for her as she did for you (the personalized ecards for example) she may have felt that she wasn’t getting anything much in return and felt that she could stop putting in so much effort.
It’s important to consider what may affect her actions, other than assuming that she is no longer feeling the same way about you anymore. Has she been under a lot of stress lately? Does she live far away from her family and friends? Was having her sister and niece leave sad for her? Maybe she was trying to spend as much time as she could with them before they had to leave, especially if they weren’t going to be able to see her for a long time. Or maybe she was stressed since she went from living alone to having two people in her house that she may have had to clean up after or even care for (if her niece was especially young). She may not have been stressed, but extra busy since she had to give attention to them since they were living in her home.
Also, since her sister was around her a lot at the time your girlfriend stopped showing you as much affection, I am curious as to whether her sister is supportive of her relationship to you. If this is the case, she may have felt held back from calling you when her sister was there. These are all just possibilities. Your girlfriend has her own reasons for her behavior. I strongly suggest asking her about it. Ask her why she hasn’t been able to call as much, or why has she stopped emailing or doing things for you.
You’ve made it to the 3 month mark. At this point you should be pretty comfortable talking to her about any subject. Don’t be afraid to tell her what’s on your mind or ask her questions. You have to be open and be able to talk about anything if you expect your relationship to be successful.
Another thing that you should consider trying, instead of expecting her to go back to her old self and showering you with affection, why not try doing sweet things for her? Shower her with affection. There are a few ideas of things you can do on the Things For LDR Couples To Do list. If you’re in another country, send her something unique from that country. Make it as simple as sending her a heartfelt email telling her how important she is to you and how much you love her. I am sure that if she receives loving attention from you, it would give both her and your relationship a boost, and she may very well start returning your affection. I know that if I reached a lull in my relationship with Frank and he went out of his way to show his affection, it would make me feel more than elated, and I’d be motivated to do the same for him.
Michelle
Frank says…
So, I understand that you feel you are putting a lot of effort into the relationship and getting little in return. And now you are concerned that you are making so much of an effort, that your girlfriend might feel that she doesn’t need to do anything in return to get this affection from you. Well, as Michelle said, you should be at a point where you can have serious conversations with your girlfriend. And I know that it will probably not be fun, but you really need to talk to her about this. I am pretty positive that she will not change her ways if you send her more love and affection than you already do. And by you putting in this extra effort, you will feel worse.
So, start off the talk with her (preferably by phone/skype/yahoo voice, whatever) with “I want you to be as honest as possible. Please do not try to spare my feelings with your responses.” Because, from what you have told me Jason, I think your girl is not having the same feelings you do. Granted, it is everyone’s right to not send XXX pictures, but for no reason? And she has not just stopped sending them, she has stopped talking to you as much. I get the sense that when you talk to her, you might feel as if you were just talking to a stranger on the bus. Getting indifferent responses, because they are just passing the time waiting to get off the next stop. So, man, I think she might be ready to end the relationship.
Maybe she wants to and doesn’t know how long distance. You know, she might feel you have to do it face to face, and you are not able to, so she is just biding her time. Maybe she is hoping that she will feel better about you soon. I do not know, but it is up to you to talk to her and get some type of true emotion response out of her.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying your relationship has to end. In fact, after your talk, you might learn what she is missing and you can have an awesome relationship again. But what you are doing now isn’t working. Something needs to change, and the best way is to have a heart to heart with her.
Good luck, Jason.
Frank
Comments 2
Hey I kind of feel like my LDR has cooled off me in the past month, all was going well until a week after her birthday then all of a sudden all affection from her has ceased. It’s like she is distant or like she is just starting off talking to me like we just met all over again for the first time. She says she has a lot on her mind but when I asked her to talk to me about it so I could understand and offer support better she has put up a wall. We have been together for a year and a half and now it’s like we are strangers. I sometimes get one word replies or even a question I asked is ignored. I love this woman a lot but something is off and I wish I knew what was going on. When she is online she says she is talking to family but sometimes I’m not sure? I mean it’s been a long time that we have been together and it wouldn’t make sense for her to string me along this ammount of time. But I guess with ldr’s it’s easier for some people to switch off and not worry about the other person
Ok so I understand what Jason is saying because I have the same prob with my bf.
He got married in the US to get his stay nd I hate the idea . I love him and I don't knw what to do