Let me start of by saying I've never had another girlfriend. I lack experience, and thus lack perspective. Thus I really appreciate your perspective if you are able to sit through the lengthy description that follows.
My girlfriend is a daughter of Iranian immigrants and suffers from OCD. I am a white American with ADD. We connect on the 'important' issues, but the trivial daily relationship friction that results from our cultural and mental disorder differences is really bad. There are of course many areas where our relationship is unique and amazing, which is why I have stayed a part of this relationship for so long. But, still, her frustrations with me have pushed our 5-year relationship to verge of failure.
Her family life was strict and lifeless. She grew up in the suburbs. Her mom hates her Dad because she has always earned more than him. This anger from her mother was a constant cloud above her childhood. As a kid, her parents never encouraged her to take on any hobbies or sports. Her whole childhood was literally: school, home, TV, homework, bed, repeat. Her upbringing produced a host of destructive mental disorders:
1) Vaginismus – she is literally incapable of penetrative sex. Her mom taught her sex was bad. She has never used a tampon, never had a gynological exam, and we have never had penetrative sex. When I raise the issue with her, she shuts down.
2) Asexuality – I don’t get the impression that she is bothered by the fact that she can’t have sex, aside from the fact that it makes her not normal. She has never watched porn in her life, she does not masturbate, and she never initiates physical contact with me. On the rare occasion that she gives in to me physical initiations, she likes to grind, reach a surface orgasm, and then rolls on her side. If I ask for a handjob after, she will roll her eyes and give me what amounts to an unenjoyed (on either part), unenthusiastic handjob. She is also grossed about by semen and prefers to cover my penis with a napkin.
3) Germophobia -- anytime we are out, she asks me not to touch things like counter tops, walls, railings, and so on. Upon returning home, shoes must always be taken off, clothes must be changed into ‘house clothes’, and hands must be washed. Not doing any of these things results in extreme anger on her part.
4) Controlling – she wants everything done in a particular way. The cabinets should not make a noise when they are closed. Everything in the refrigerator has an exact location. Meals must be cooked using the fewest number utensils possible, fewest number ingredients possible, and without any spills.
5) Indecisiveness – She will spends weeks deliberating ‘big purchases’. All new clothes go into the closet for 1 – 3 months before being worn or ultimately returned (2/3 clothing items get returned). All receipts must be saved and verified with her checking account. She is obsessed with yelp. All restaurants must be vetted on yelp. Picking a new restaurant to eat at will literally take a minimum of an hour and routinely 2 hours. She must read all the reviews, view the menu, look at photos of the food, and already have her meal selected before we can leave. As a result, there are only 5 restaurants she will eat at (when SHE is going of her own choosing and not for work for example). She must pick the meal (it’s always the same meal at each restaurant) and we must split it. Asking to consider a different restaurant or meal on the menu or simply getting different meals, even when I’m paying is met with extreme anger.
6) Her life is about efficiency rather than pleasure. For example, last weekend I proposed the idea of cooking a meal together. She rejected all of my meal ideas as being too complicated, even though I was willing to make the meal on my own. All I wanted to do was handmake pasta on the countertop, make some pasta sauce, and make an apple/walnut/lemon-dressing salad. However, the thought of flour being on the countertop was too messy.
My family is well educated and successful like hers, but we are fundamentally laid back—even compared to other western white families. We don’t lock the front door, the house is cluttered, my mom is late everywhere she goes, and so on. Although I suffer from ADD, I am actually acutely aware of it and thus go through great lengths to combat it. However, I still struggle on a daily basis. Consequences of my ADD include: leaving the keys in the front door, leaving drinks out, forgetting to turn lights off, leaving the AC / heater running, and failure to form new habits quickly. As you can imagine, my upbringing resulted in my ‘natural order of operation’ being completely at odds with hers. Despite this, I am open-minded and am willing to change the way I do everything, because I fundamentally see the logic of her peculiarities (aside from our sexual differences). However, my ADD oversights bother her to no end. Things have gotten so bad that she literally wants to break up.
Over Christmas, she and her sister got into a fight. Her sister revealed that their family had gone out to dinner the day after we returned to our town. They agreed that she treats me terribly, I am too nice to her, and that if we were ever to break up that she would never find anybody who would tolerate her. These are fucked up things to say, but the thing is, I literally agree. I can’t imagine that anybody would be able to tolerate. Moreover, the thought that she now wants to break up with ME seems literally insane given all of her issues.
Submitted February 12, 2017 at 12:50PM by tempjar http://ift.tt/2kGrUCP relationship_advice
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