Dear Scott:

Thank you, I rested well enough. As I read your most recent post, and since we are now communicating about your girlfriend’s attitude and behavior, I was thinking how very intelligent  you are for any age, but especially a 20 year old.  I was wondering about the gap there probably is in the level of thinking and understanding between you and her, and then I got to your sentence: “it’s obvious I’m more intelligent than her”- and it instantly clicked with me. The level of awareness that you have must exceed hers by a lot. Maybe this is what you meant about being a parent figure.

If I was focused last night as I read your previous post, I would have asked:

1. How does she take advantage of your kind heart? (“I feel like she… uses this ‘annoyed’ state to take advantage of my kind heart”)/ How is she using your reaching out to her against you (“I… reached out to her… but I feel it’s being used against me”)

2. What is the nature of the “push/push (or did you mean push/pull?) between us and our needs”?

My thoughts at this point:

You wrote: “I probe too much for information or ask her to open up… I have to start the conversations and send long enough messages or questions to elaborate on… when I ask all she says is ‘I don’t know, I just get annoyed’. She doesn’t really offer any helpful input, which is frustrating for me”-

To be annoyed is to be a little bit angry. It could very well be that she is, as you suggested,  a little bit angry about working when she prefers not to, about not being engaged in entertaining activities, going out… could be about the temperature, too hot in the summer… maybe she is hungry, or tired.. could be so many things. And so, she may not have an answer because there are multiple factors involved and it is difficult or impossible, for anyone, to be aware of them all and what factor contributes what percentage to her dissatisfaction and annoyance. She may not feel like thinking about her annoyance because that itself is annoying, or distressing to her.

It makes sense to me that you are will be overly sensitive, because of your anxiety, to her moods (any girlfriend’s moods no matter how inconsequential and unpreventable). She may be… reasonably moody and annoyed and yet this is too much for you because the threat is big, in your mind: the ending of the relationship.

You will have to practice tolerating, enduring her moods and annoyance IF they are not extreme , very prolonged and if she is not using her moods and annoyance against you (question #1).

anita