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Surviving graduation

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    Surviving graduation

    BF and I recently graduated. Having trouble finding work and all. I moved back home and he stayed to wait for his work authorization to come in, as he is an international student.
    Both of us became depressed (but not clinically) due to disappointments around our successes post college and not having each other around as a support network.

    We're starting to hit the major roadblocks of an adult relationship that we knew were coming but still don't know how to deal with. Things like when we'll move back together. Where we will live. Long term who will sacrifice their family to be with SO. We're both afraid to approach the topic and due to a lack of employment we're pretty helpless in our ability to move forward in our lives.

    It's only been three months and I feel like we've grown really distant. He feels like he has to put up with my complaining, and I feel like I'm walking on eggshells trying to decide what I'm allowed to say.
    I don't feel like I can be as open with him as I used to since he sees my troubles as a burden. When I try to cheer him up, he counters me with excuses. I don't feel like I can tell him the little good news I have since it might make him feel worse about his situation being so unpleasant and I can't tell him bad news since it makes him feel like a punching bag.
    His self esteem is so fragile these days. We're both artists and his skill isn't as high as our peers. When he shows me his work, I try to sit back and support him, but then he says I don't help him enough. When I try to help, he says I criticize too much and that's he's a shit artist.
    Neither of us have any control over where we're going to be this next year. We're too broke to visit each other. Long term my goals are set but his are not.
    I don't know where we're going or how we're going to survive this LDR.
    Please help me. I want to stay with this guy, but the post gradation stress is changing us.

    I'm worried about where we'll be in the long run as well. I'm pretty dead set on what I want from life. The career I'm hoping to launch into is a demanding one that often requires relocation every couple of years. Many of my professors became professors due to a longing for some stability. My bf's goals started similar to mine, but have become much more nebulous as we've gone through schooling. I'm afraid he'll leave me to go back to Thailand for a master's degree and never come back.

    If he doesn't and he stays here in America, then I feel like I might have shackled him to me and limited his possibilities. He says he wants to stay, but he's also homesick frequently and hasn't seen enough of the US yet to feel like it could be a home.

    I haven't told him yet, but I have no desire to move to his country. He knows english and graduated here, so settling here would be easy for him, but I don't know a lick of thai. Relocating to a new country that has no market for my career, leaving my family, learning a new language, and trying to pay back my student loans with a currency worth a third of what a dollar is...that's too much to ask of me.
    I don't want either of us to resent the other for making them sacrifice their life. I'm really worried about how our relationship is going to last.
    Last edited by Koukun; December 5, 2016, 08:06 PM.
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