Hi everyone,
I wanted to post here because I feel like other options online weren’t very helpful.
I’ve been dating my GF for over a year at this point, we met at university just last year. I love her tremendously and would do anything to see her happy, but she has this habit whenever we want to bring up a problem with the relationship: She blames herself for everything and even offers to break up.
Honestly it’s mad hurtful because oftentimes the problems brought up aren’t even that bad. For example, just last night I brought up something that was on my mind. I won’t get into detail, but basically I felt excluded from an outing with mutual friends. There’s a lot of context behind this that I won’t get into because it’s not that important. Anyway, I mentioned to her that I felt upset to be surrounded by people who make plans without inviting me. I brought these feelings up to her and she immediately goes to self-blaming. Profusely apologizing, calling herself a shit person, calling herself a burden to everyone around her. She told me she wouldn’t go because she doesn’t want to hurt me. She even mentioned that we could break up if it would make me feel better.
From my perspective, it was just an honest mistake and there’s a lot I’m responsible for too. I knew she hadn’t done it on purpose, it would be stupid for me to blame her. I communicated to her that I just wanted someone to listen and receive some reassurance, I didn’t want her to not go or have these ideas.
Now I’m in a situation where I’m comforting her, even though I was the one wanting comfort in the first place. I’m honestly feeling like there’s not a point to be emotionally honest, because I would hate to make her feel bad about herself.
i know this isn’t healthy, and both of us should be able to openly communicate how we’re feeling, but this catastrophizing is making it really hard.
How can I openly communicate with her without hurting her? How do I reassure her? I’m really stuck.
