Dear Mind Over Miles,
Recently my SO has been dealing with her mother leaving for another country to live. She was really sad about it as she was close to her mother, she also had her university studies, new job and taking care of the house on her plate now and was pretty overwhelmed by it. Since all this happened, she has been pretty sad and I have been supporting her unconditionally.
During these periods we didn’t Skype or text much, recently we just planned a Skype date once again on Saturday and I could sense that she was getting better. However her mother decided to come back on Friday to surprise her. My SO texted me about it and I could see that she was really happy. But she got sad again after because she didn’t want her mother to leave for London.
After that incident, we missed our Skype call. So till now, I haven’t heard from her and I’m pretty worried about her. All this silence is really killing me. I don’t want to pressure her with more messages. I also feel neglected because shouldn’t a boyfriend be there to support his SO when such things happen? But she doesn’t tell me much of all the troubles she is facing.
What should I do? Should I just wait till she contacts me? Any advice would be really appreciated!
Dear InsideOut,
It’s great that you want to be there for your girlfriend. She is fortunate to have someone who loves her as much as you do.And with her being under so much stress, it’s understandable that you would be worried about her. You also sound like you really miss her since you haven’t been able to talk to her for a while.
You mentioned that you didn’t want to bombard her with messages. So I’m assuming that she hasn’t responded to your messages. If this is the case, it’s possible that she may just need some space. A little time to be sad alone until she is ready to talk about it.Now what can you do in the meantime? Tell her that when is she ready to talk about it, you will be ready to listen. Then just leave it at that. By doing this you will give her space without making her feel alone.
Sometimes the best thing that we can do for our long distance significant other is to be there for them. As long as they know that we support them no matter what, we are doing our job as a partner. Just being willing to listen makes a huge difference in a relationship. Even if she’s not ready to talk yet, she’ll feel better knowing that she has someone who is ready to listen to her. And this will make her feel closer to you.
Wish you the best,
