[condyl54]

My girlfriend and I have a logistically complicated relationship. We are both in the final stages of ending our marriages. We live about 1800 miles apart and work for the same company. We see each other 1x every 3 to 4 weeks and have decided we want to move in together and then get married about 6 months from that point. My girlfriend is terrible at staying in touch with people. I on the other hand am a worrier. There are several things that I have legitimate worries about: 1) She has a diagnosed heart/blood clotting issue making her prone for strokes, 2) Her soon to be ex is a bad man who has threatened her before, and 3) Her job forces her to drive 350 miles through dark icy terrain – often late at night – alone. I ask that she keep in touch with me throughout the day and night, just to let me know she’s ok. She is usually always late with her check-ins, skips them altogether, or forgets because she felt it would be rude or inconveinient to do so. Meanwhile, I’m a basket case wondering if she is ok. This weekend I was supposed fly and visit her. We both see therapists due to our difficult marriages and she asked me to talk to mine about how I could worrt less. I did and my therapist view was that while I was worrying too much, she was alos not making any effort to meet me in the middle. I shared what my therapist said. We hung up and about 90 minutes later I got a text from her saying we should postpone our visit. She then said she didn’t want to talk to me until after she saw her therapist on Friday afternoon. She did and she called me She emphasized that she still loved me and wants to spend the rest of her lif with me, but added that she was in a bad place and needed to work thing out in her head. She said she feels like no matter what she does it’s not good enough for me. She asked for the weekend to think about things. I love her madly, she is literally the most important thing in my world. This reaction scares me to death. What should I do?

[Ask April Masini]

In answer to your question about what should you do now, my advice is that you should give her the space she’s asking for.

Your therapist only knows one side of your relationship with your girlfriend — yours. So when he told you your girlfriend wasn’t meeting you halfway, that may have been correct, but your girlfriend is under no obligation to meet you anywhere, including halfway. She doesn’t owe you a halfway meeting. When you told her what your therapist said, you ganged up on her, so to speak, by telling her that your therapist thought she was wrong. It’s no wonder she backed off.

What would have been a better way to handle the situation was to leave the therapist’s advice out of your conversation with her, and ASK her if she’d be willing to meet you halfway to help you with this worrying problem you have. When you start sounding demanding, judgmental and putting her in the wrong and on the defense, you’ve backed her into a corner with only two options — acquiesce or flee. She chose the latter.

My suggestion is that you find some understanding of who your girlfriend is, and really figure out if you can live with her if she doesn’t change — because it’s [i]a lot[/i] easier to get yourself to change, then it is someone else.

Your 3 concerns about her that cause you worry, are probably not going to go away, and you know about them now — before you’re engaged or married, so NOW is the time you need to decide if you can honestly live with her for the rest of your life, given these 3 “worries” you have about her.

My instinct is that you’re rushing things because you’re anxious you’re going to lose her without marriage. Your first marriage is not even over yet, and while I’m not sure how long you’ve been dating your girlfriend, seeing her once a month isn’t enough to suddenly jump to living together.

Why don’t you consider rather than moving in together, moving closer to each other, and dating normally (several times a week) before considering marriage?

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

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