Submitted by ThrowRAthoughtz t3_zra1ns in relationship_advice
My gf(20) and I(19) have been dating for 6 months and have known each other for a year now. We had a rocky start which lead to us cutting it off for 2 months but got back together. There have been a few rough patches but we have gotten past most of them besides a few.
This incident happened early on in our relationship and I sort of swept it under the rug to try and convince myself that I was not thinking rationally and in the hopes that I’d forget about it, but I remember it every so often and today I’ve decided to get some advice.
For some context, I went over to her place to see her after we both had been at classes for the day and I had been to football training. During the course of the day my mother had told me that my grandmother was not doing well and that my mother had little hopes that she would make it through.
I was not really close to my grandparents when I was younger, but as I’ve matured, I’ve grown to enjoy their company and cherish these moments that I have with them. I also study on the other side of the country so I barely get to see them during the year. I’d become really close to my grandmother as she was the only person in our family that drove a manual car and thus taught me how to drive.
Carrying on, I arrived at my girlfriend’s place and tried my best to not let this affect the time that I was going to spend with her, but I didn’t succeed. She asked me if everything was alright, to which I replied “yea, I’m all good.” We carried on catching up but as the night went on I just couldn’t hold it in anymore.
I started tearing up whilst laying next to her and I remember what felt like the most awkward silence that had ever happened between us. She then asked again if I’m alright and then I just started crying. I’ve never really shown emotion in terms of sadness and being heartsore to her because I’ve always wanted her to feel like she can ask me for help when she is feeling down or anything, I just wanted to be her safe space.
After about a minute or two, I wiped some tears away to find that she had left the room. I was confused as there was just a lot running through my mind, and eventually she returned. She sat on the other side of the head of the bed whilst I was sitting on the foot of the bed, and it felt like there was a barrier between us. After a couple of minutes of pure silence, I asked whether she was alright. She was hesitant to respond but she then said “yea, what’s going on with you?” I then told her the situation and how I was feeling and it then became silent again.
Towards the beginning of our relationship, she has told me to open up my emotions and express them to her, and I’ll be honest, my whole life I had just bottled them up. Also for some context, my grandfather had passed away this previous December whilst I was on holiday and I had handled it pretty well, but have always felt like there were some neglected feelings of mine. I always thought that I handled people passing away and the possibility of people passing away pretty well, but I decided that that day I would open up how I felt.
After the silence, she told me that she didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to intrude. I don’t know what I was expecting but I’m pretty sure that just a hug would have made me feel better. I was a bit disappointed and didn’t want to exert that behavior towards her, so I decide that I would leave and go home. We still haven’t spoken about that situation and I haven’t brought it up because I’m afraid that she is just not interested or won’t see me as the same man that I am.
Any thoughts or opinions on this matter will be greatly appreciated.