I have been romantically involved with a girl since last January, and I have been friends with her since the previous July. We met during a visit of mine to California (I live in Wisconsin), and during my first visit we developed crushes on each other, but didn't tell each other. She had a boyfriend at the time, however. Over the next six months, we talked on the internet constantly (but I didn't go back there during this time), and unbeknownst to me, nurtured her crush this whole time (while I did the same with her but didn't let her know). During my visit during Christmas break, she had a messy break-up with her boyfriend and got together with me, and we've been together ever since.
The long distance thing initially was not an issue for us. Neither of us had to make any lifestyle adjustments to talk on the computer for a few hours a day, and since we had nurtured our crushes long distance it was no problem to maintain them. We'd alternate visits every month or so, and stay with each other for a few days up to a week, and we always had an absolutely wonderful time. Since I graduate college in March, we were planning on my moving in with her in her apartment in California (she lives with some other girls and is also a college student). Things went fine for more than six months, until August when I got very depressed (it was absolutely, completely unrelated to her - it was from reading the famous lifeaftertheoilcrash website and its friends). After a few weeks of this, she started getting fed up with me and began having second thoughts about our relationship. She let me know this, which of course scared me considerably and led me to start acting overly cautious around her and trying to kick myself out of it. My depression was cured in October (not via meds, via getting a better outlook on things), but our relationship didn't really improve. We continued having rather stilted conversation and we had talks now and then about feeling disconnected from the other (but at least these felt like they were making progress, whether they actually did or not I can't be sure). To add to this, there was also a long break starting in August in which we didn't see each other for 3 months.
I think that we both assumed our problems would go away as soon as we had another visit. I visited just this weekend (November). Things went well about 50% of the time, but some of the problems from online communication carried over into real life (I continued feeling somewhat anxious about whether I was getting back to my old position in her eyes and thus took lots of things she did as a sign she didn't like me anymore). She, however, had some apparently fairly severe problems with me this time.
We had a talk today stemming from a talk about moving in in which she said she was still not sure about it. She said that she felt like our moving in would essentially be locking her to me, and that she wouldn't feel like she could break up with me if she ever wanted to. I agreed with this, and I feel the same way to some degree, but since I am very optimistic about wanting to remain with her I would definitely do it if she wanted to. She then said that she guessed she also was feeling sort of "" (yes, she phrased it using a sad face) about our relationship since my last visit was not as good as she was expecting. She said that it was actually very good at some points, but that overall it was not so great.
Then, she said that some things about me annoyed her this time that never had before. When I asked her what, I had to kind of pry them out of her cause "she didn't want to hurt my feelings," but then she sort of launched into a tirade about a couple of my kissing and sexual habits and got rather nasty in the process. I was quite insulted by this, but basically just defended myself and said that I would keep this stuff in mind in the future so as not to annoy her (I did make her tell me, after all). She got very uncommunicative during all this, though, and didn't talk to me much the rest of the night (even though we changed subjects entirely). I was quite taken aback by this since she even admitted that none of these things had ever bugged her before and she didn't really know what this meant but it probably couldn't be good. As a sidenote, she was also much more demanding from me this time, and got rather insolent when I didn't do what she wanted, which had never happened before (and she admits that, saying that it isn't her fault she got annoyed this time with not being satisfied when it didn't bug her before!).
As a side note, I sort of questioned this annoyance thing. I mean, there are things about her kissing and her sexual habits that have annoyed me since the beginning of our relationship, but I never really let it get to me and never told her about them, either. Is it possible she was just idealizing me too much before and that her annoyance with certain things now is actually healthy and how relationships always are (not perfect)? Or is it just a sign that her patience with me is wearing thin?
Anyway, one of our mutual friends was talking to her about me tonight (and the last few days) as well. He says that she was sad when I left (about my leaving), which makes sense cause possibly the best time we were having was at the airport when stalling my departure. After I told him about our conversation tonight, though, he talked to her about me a bit, and extracted a bit of information that was quite troubling to me. Here are the important parts of their conversation that he sent to me, with the screennames removed of course:
(01:01:19) Her: but it wasn't really and I got annoyed by a lot of things and we didn't really have as good a time as usual :-(
(01:01:32) Him: did you still have a good time at all?
(01:01:37) Her: part of the time yes
(01:02:14) Him: I was kinda hoping it'd make everything better too but I didn't really expect it, that's kind of a big jump
(01:02:37) Her: yeah I know, but I just wonder if things will ever get any better if we keep up like this, or maybe we need a break or something I dunno
(01:03:14) Him: like a break from talking or a break from being boyfriend/girlfriend or what?
(01:03:42) Her: well the second one probably, if we just stopped talking it wouldn't really be like we were going out [Editor's note: I don't really understand this particular quote]
(01:03:43) Her: haha
(01:03:53) Her: but plz dont tell him this
(01:04:13) Her: I am really afraid he'll be like OMFG and flip out if he heard this and I don't want him to be upset and have hurt feelings and stuff
[MISSING CHUNK]
(01:11:09) Her: I feel like he's clinging or forcing it or something, I don't know!
So yeah. I can't really tell what her feelings are on the matter exactly, and I'm pretty sure she can't either. She agreed with him, though, that it would be stupid to break up over one substandard visit, and I have another in December that's 9 days (as opposed to the 3 of this one), and before tonight I was very, very confident that everything would be straightened out then. Now I'm only somewhat confident...I feel like she will might have a self-fulfilling prophecy in which she doesn't let it get better.
Basically our relationship is interesting in that if I DON'T move in with her, it's quite possibly the same as breaking up and never seeing each other again. Being a poor college student (well, graduating in March or June at the latest) from the Midwest, I can't very well afford to move to California (where the cost of living is quite a bit higher) and have my own apartment. I don't know anyone else within about 50 miles of her town (and anyone else out there I'd move in with lives literally 200-300 miles south of her), and don't have a car, so moving in with other friends in California doesn't really help either. She was incredibly excited about my moving in before I hit the depressed patch, but after having had a period of doubt I don't really expect her to be entirely comfortable with it again anytime in the near future even if she becomes 100% happy with me again (and I think that is fine, we are too young to have to commit long term even if we are pretty darn sure we want to).
Our mutual friend tells me that he thinks what I should do is spend less time on the internet and convince her again that I have a life outside of her (I haven't really had much of one at college this year cause all my friends either graduated or are overseas this year). He thinks that this would solve her feeling of my being "clingy," which I agree with to a point, but part of her anxiety about "clinginess" relates to the fact that my move to California basically hinges on her. While she doesn't want to break the relationship up, she doesn't want to feel like my future is dependent on my remaining with her.
I am incredibly unsure of how to proceed on this, as it really is pretty much true that in order for our relationship to continue I'll have to move in with her (unless I win the lottery or find some incredibly cheap single housing, which is pretty much non-existant in a large college town). I also think that even if I did manage to find housing that wasn't with her and get a job she might feel like my staying there was dependent on her since I don't currently have any other real connection to the area. I don't want to smother her, especially if it jeopardizes the relationship, but it really seems that my only options are to smother her to at least a small extent or break up with her for good.
[CONTINUED in reply, I really wrote a lot, sorry guys!]