At my wits end with AV/OCPD girlfriend.

[IWasNeverReallyHere]

My girlfriend and I organised a little holiday back in March for her to travel a couple of hours to where I live and spend a couple of nights in a cabin with her young boy this weekend. We were on the phone to each other while she booked it in. I was going to contribute to the accommodation costs once I was a little more financial. I've been looking forward to the getaway, to spend some time with her and her child who I love.

A couple of weekends ago we saw each other and spent a few hours hanging out. It was mostly pleasant and enjoyable until it turned sour and there was a sudden shift in her behavior. I won't go into detail but it ended up with her dropping me off in the middle of the road by my car. She clearly wanted to get rid of me. She could've parked but she didn't. I had belongings in her car that I had to collect in a hurry. I couldn't say goodbye to her kid properly, nor to her but she clearly wasn't interested in exchanging those pleasantries.

I was angry and humiliated by the way in which she left me. It wasn't nice. I expressed this to her later on and said if that's how you are going to behave when you come down to stay, then I can't say I'm overly looking forward to it.

She defended herself, saying it wasn't her intention to humiliate me, that she was upset by the argument we'd had earlier in the car.

Yesterday, I ask her if I should make a reservation somewhere for dinner the Friday night. She calls me and after a bit of small talk about other things, she tells me that it's awkward having to tell me but she'd made other arrangements for her weekend trip. Here I was thinking she'd cancelled it, only to tell me her best friend was going to join her instead.

Apparently, because she interpreted it that I no longer wanted to. I'm dumbfounded by it. I asked when she had decided this and why didn't she clarify with me first or at least tell me. That I'd been having a bad couple of weeks and she tended to take anything I said as sincere was her reasoning. Not once did I say I wouldn't be joining her. My intentions were to drive over to the park where she was staying. It is what it is, she called it... Well, it's certainly not what it is in my view. She doesn't even seem to see that I'm upset by it...

It's nothing against her friend coming along with her. I don't know the guy that well. (he's gay and not the father of her child) It's that she went behind my back without considering me or speaking with me first and invited someone to replace me I guess you could call it. A visit that she'd intended on spending time with me. Now it's as if I've been pushed to the back seat. Or even pushed out altogether. I'm really upset by it. Even if she wishes to see me while she's here, I'm likely to not make myself available. I'm really stunned by her behavior. I think it may change things for me.

[Goldielocks]

Hello, something upset her greatly in the car that last weekend didn't it?  Then you told her that you were not looking forward to the weekend break in the cabin due to her behaviour.

That's why she invited her friend instead. She did this quietly and behind your back because it meant less friction.

If you make yourself "unavailable" to her, should she ask, then the problem between you will drag on for much longer.

[1footouttadefog]

It seems like a two way street of not reading each other's feelings.

She was not over what happened in the car. You told her you would hold it against her if she was not over it, and that you would not want to spend the time at the cabin if she was not over it.

Perhaps you should have gotten together to work it out before the big weekend.  Perhaps that would have happened on the Friday night. 

She had already decided a weekend alone with you was not going to happen.

It might be that you are no longer in a relationship with this person.  Are you prepared for the possibility she may not call you when nearby?

[IWasNeverReallyHere]

All I said to her in the car was that I didn't understand her sometimes out of frustration because she didn't want to get her boy out of the car again to go for a walk. There seemed to me no logical reason why she couldn't get him out. She didn't want him to go on the playground either, as there were too many kids apparently. My comment set her off, she said she didn't get me either, there was tense silence and she dropped me back at my car and left.

Later on she accuses me of cracking it because of her unwillingness to get her boy out of the car again and doing what I had in mind, which was walking along an esplanade. I hardly would've called it cracking it. It was an expression of frustration as I knew I wasn't going to get her to change her mind. It was a dead end. She was upset by my frustration or getting all shitty as she called it and said that ends up making her feel like a terrible mother.

I can't for the life of me see how that would make her feel that way. In her head, I can, but in mine, that's an extreme thing to say, that I make her feel like a terrible mother. If that is major guilt she's trying to place on me and she chooses to self loathe because of that, then that's her choice, I'm not going to reciprocate in an attempt to make her feel otherwise by saying, well you are not a terrible mother for starters..

I said to her, enjoy your little holiday down here, out of spite because of her behaviour leaving me by my car without a word. Perhaps not a great choice in comment, but I can't change that now. I was angry with her. She took that as, I no longer wished to stay with her when she was to visit. I may have conveyed that kind of hostile tone in my message because I was angry, but I certainly didn't mean it. I intended to stay with her during her visit. We all say things we don't mean sometimes right? I was sure she wouldn't have believed me. As if I was going to pass up an opportunity to spend time with her and her boy... It turned out that I was wrong.

So, that was that. She invited her best friend to go along with her instead without consulting with me. She hasn't called. There's a part of me that would like to meet her, but there's a part of me that just wants to forget that she's 10 minutes down the road and that she's here at all.

I don't know what to make of it, I think it's very destructive of her. It feels hopeless. She knows how much her boy loves to see me and how much I love to play with him. I had fallen in love with her boy. I don't have kids of my own.

I know that I love her. She loves me too. We've known each other a long time. At the end of the day, I know that this is a person with a mental illness. Something is not right and I've known this for quite a few years. But, I will never get her to admit this herself let alone accept it. It would be a fruitless endeavor even if I tried.

It's been something I've struggled with and felt alone with for some time, but how do I make her understand that? I feel a great deal of compassion for her boy as the father is not involved and it must be very challenging for her. But I know that it would always be like this between she and I. Not a healthy relationship.

[1footouttadefog]

If she is mentally ill and seems to have been for the years you have known her, and if you cannot have a healthy romantic relationship, perhaps you can be in each others friend zone and find a healthy level of interaction with new parameters.

[IWasNeverReallyHere]

All I know is that the best thing for me to do now is to begin letting go. Letting go of her and her son. She and I only reconnected six months ago after four years of NC. So, it's better to try to let go now, rather than later down the track.

The thing is, during that four years, I had well and truly gotten over her and moved on. I had buried her. I swore to myself that I wouldn't have any contact with her ever again.

Unfortunately, I went through a lot of trauma with my mother and family and didn't have many friends to turn to. I guess I was desperate for a true friend in every sense of the word and she came through. I had hoped she had changed because she was a mother now. She hasn't changed, she's just older and has a different role now. So now I may have to go through that process of LC to NC again. Perhaps it will be easier this time.

[1footouttadefog]

These situations always hurt.  I have had to let some unhealthy relationships go along the way.

You can still love and care and remember the best parts of it all, even if from afar.

The negative stuff, as lessons learned can, be carried forward into life with positive effects coming from them.

Trust that your positive input into their lives will yield fruit as well.