Dear jwhy:

You are very welcome.

I will retell your story based on your two posts (it helps me process information better when I do that):

You, at about 31, met this woman, 25 in the office where the two of you worked. For a few months before  she quit her job a year ago, April 2019,  “to work in a remote village in the mountains”, the two of you spent lots of time together, going “for events and walks etc.,” during workdays and on weekends, getting “to  know each other quite well”.

In Jan 2019, you hinted to her that you were interested in her. After April 2019, you continued to communicate with her through calls, texts and letters. In August 2019, you visited her for a few days where she now lives, in a remote village in the mountains, and you told her directly that you are interested in a love relationship with her.

Her reactions to your clearly expressed interest in her: at first she said “she was not sure” because of the distance. Later, when you were back to where you live, you communicated a lot and “got closer”. Next, she told you that “the physical separation was getting to her”, and she asked you to move to the mountains with her.

You wrote about her that she is “kind, resourceful, hard working, tries to live sustainably, and is very beautiful”, and that “any guy who has her in his life is lucky”-

I am ready to give you my input: any guy would be lucky to be with her perhaps, except for one thing: “she usually goes quiet if something is bothering her, and I need to get it out of her… this quiet phase”-

This means that she does not share with you her thoughts and feelings whenever she is troubled. She thinks and feels what she thinks and feels, but keeps it quiet, not voicing it to you. When “she usually goes quiet”, her thoughts are noisy- but you don’t get to know what they are. You are left guessing.

Her most recent positions that she did voice to you were “essentially saying that she tried to make the long distance work, but she’s not been able to. She apologized for putting me in this uncertain situation for the last few months”, and that “she felt that we haven’t spent enough time with each other for her to be sure”- this is what she chose to tell you after contemplation. This information here is a part of the truth that she chose to tell you. You don’t have the whole truth. There are probably reasons and considerations in her mind that you need to know if you were to quit your job and move to a remote location with her!

A healthy relationship requires open and honest communication, especially when either party is troubled. The fact that she goes quiet when she is troubled blocks you from crucial information, leaves you guessing, assuming what may not be true at all and making choices based on wrong assumptions.

Being married to a woman who goes quiet like that, repeatedly, as a pattern of behavior, makes any man who ends up with her, an unlucky man.

My suggestion: I don’t think that you have anything to lose if you ask her for more of what she thinks and feels, for more of the truth of what is going on in her mind and heart. You need her to be open and honest with you. Ask her.

anita