Dear Addy,

you’re welcome.

“He wouldn’t stop sticking to his old thought and values. so why waste that energy?”
I’ve said that for a reason. like he’s old and grew up in different environment much different than my girlfriends. That’s why I said sticking to old thought and values. and as his kid I can’t tell him how to be improve himself. That’s not in our culture.

I can understand that, and in fact, I don’t think you should try to change your father, because some people don’t want to change (my mother is one of them).

Girlfriends are also friends. and I’m very caring person. so as same age and advising them to improve when they complain about like “uugh I feel so tired I should’ve slept on time last night” is fixing?

It depends on your attitude, i.e. how attached you are to them changing and becoming a “better” person. It seems you are quite attached because you yourself said you’re putting a pressure on her, and she too sees it as you being hard on her. You say you’re “trying to be patient”, but this includes having an expectation that she should change, sooner or later. And since there is not just an expectation, but also pressure that you put on her, that’s not really kind and caring. I think it’s closer to controlling.

Whatever I suggest she be like it’s easy to tell, hard to do.

Maybe she is a complaining type, but doesn’t want to do anything to help herself? Maybe you don’t like her complaining and would like to help her, but in doing that, it seems you take on the role of a strict parent who tells her what to do and how she should improve. You may think you want the best for her, but that’s a slippery slope. I mean, your father also wanted the best for you, at least in theory, but the way he went about it was wrong.

I am not saying you’re like your father – far from that – because you have more patience and seem much more considerate in the way you treat your girlfriend. But even so, I think the urge to change her (instead of changing your attitude towards her, and either accept her as she is or leave her) is still what’s driving you.