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How can I reconcile growing problems between my long-distance girlfriend and I?

Asked by Ebecker (30points) July 2nd, 2016

As mentioned my girlfriend (almost 23 F, southern Ohio) and I (25 M, northern Virginia) live in a long-distance relationship, and have been dating for almost 7 months. During this time, several problems have arisen that we discuss/argue about, but never seem to resolve, as these arguments repeat themselves to the point that we have at least one, sometimes two, a week.

These “concerns” of ours are, but not necessarily limited to (due to my poor memory):
—Distance and travel. We only seem to be able to travel to each other once or twice a month. Furthermore, her car is leaking/burning oil (and a fix is worth more than her car), and I recently got in an accident, so traveling long-distance by car is not ideal for either of us.
—Jobs. She wants me to get one in Ohio so I can move in with her since she has a long-term one starting in August. This is great, except she’s in rural Ohio, where someone of my skills and situation isn’t in demand (geology/education background, without a teaching license, and unable to afford an Ohio substitute teacher license). I can’t move out there, from one of the largest economies in the country (Wash. DC metro area) for a location that I can’t find employment to match my qualifications. Temporary stress came from one job that she just finished prevented her from going to my favourite cousin’s wedding with my family and I.
—Making time for each other. She feels that I’m often neglecting her. However, I’ve been kept busy over the my last semester of college (we started dating in December, just before this semester), which kept me unpleasantly busy, and hard-pressed to incorporate her via the hours-long phone calls that we had grown used to early in the semester. Since graduation, I haven’t made much progress: I’ve been kept busy at home and job searching, and just started a stressful and demanding, but temporary, job. If we don’t talk on the phone or skype on a near-daily basis, she starts feeling unwanted, lonely, unloved, a burden, feeling like just a “convenience” girlfriend, etc., so it becomes a juggling act between what’s important for me: my girlfriend, my job, or my parents (both have strong physical ailments and struggle at basic chores)—pick one. She knows this, as I’ve told her many times, but her emotions haven’t changed despite a logical understanding that I have other time and person commitments besides her. She doesn’t like it when I call for the reason that she’s upset, either. This must be why she wants me to move in with her.
—Her health. After I left to go back home from visiting her almost a month ago, she’s been feeling nauseous, which she (somewhat excitedly) interpreted as pregnancy. I was doubtful since we do use contraception. When I pressed her to take a pregnancy test, she felt stressed by the entire process of buying and using it alone (I was at distance), and by my reaction, which was happy that she wasn’t pregnant. Read what I’ve written and you know that we’re not ready for children. Furthermore, she still feels nauseous, to the point that she sometimes can barely eat, and won’t do anything about it. This has been frustrating for me, especially since a medical professional relative of mine has urged her to see a doctor. Part of our arguments is me insisting her to see a medical professional.
—Money. We don’t have much.

TL;DR:
—We can’t drive to visit each other anymore.
—Where she lives there isn’t much of a job market for me compared to where I’m from, and she already has a job where she is. We also can’t afford much.
—I don’t have the time to call her as often or as long as she wants, making her feel unwanted, unloved, a burden, just a “convenience” girlfriend, etc. She also doesn’t like it when I call for the reason that she’s upset.
—She feels really nauseous and won’t do anything to change this, and wants to have children now more than I do, and more than we should.

Thank you for reading this and for any recommendations that you can give.

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