I'm at a loss. I fear for my relationship.

[Pride]

This story is gonna be pretty long, sorry about that, but I need a place to express my feelings at the moment, and hopefully get some responses aswell.

I have been in a LDR with my girlfriend that I met online since March of this year. Up until now, we met only once. However, we used to talk hours and hours a day before that, and I realized I fell in love with her. And according to her, she felt exactly the same.

A few months have passed now, and things changed. In mid June, we met up for the first time. Everything was great. She was just how I expected her to be, and we realized we wanted to continue this LDR, no matter how long it takes, to live together eventually.

After we met up and went back home (June 23rd), she got herself a new job, and became really busy with her work. Things started to change slowly after this. At first, she still started conversations on MSN, we had funny chats, and nothing seemed to be wrong. However, the sweet talk was gone. Eventhough conversations were still funny, it lacked the expressing of love emotions towards me. It's like I could have been talking to a good friend. At first, I didn't think much about this. We met up now, so I figured it was normal we kinda "passed" that stage (it's also coincidentally the "3 month mark").

However, more things changed. She stopped calling me and texting me. I used to receive daily texts with stuff like "I can't wait to talk to you tonight" and "I'm at work and I can't stop thinking of you", and a really nice one "I'm lying in my bed, but I feel empty. A part of me is missing. You." Now, I get nothing of this. I got no texts at all. Not even if I text first. (Yes, she has credits)

Of course, this made me feel bad and worried, so I addressed this to her in the beginning of July (I think). She said she's been really busy with work, and she's stressed, but her feelings for me are still the same. This made me feel at ease at that time, and I decided to give her some space and be less demanding.

However, it's only gotten worse. For the passed week, I feel absolutely ignored and neglected by her. She doesn't start conversations on MSN, she has her status set to Appear offline to avoid talking to me/other people (I asked her about this, and she said she didn't want to be bothered by anyone - but she does this every day now for the past week), she logs off without saying bye to me, and when I call her, she doesn't answer her phone. Oh, and another thing, she didn't want to tell her parents about me until we met. Well, we met up now, and her parents still don't know about me. When I address this to her, she said she didn't have the time to tell her parents yet.

She hasn't shown any affection towards me since we met up. She says she loves me, and that her feelings didn't change, but she's not showing it. No more texts, no more phone calls, no more sweet talk, no more webcam, no more Skype, no more playing online games together, nothing. Why? Is she too busy? Or is she not happy about me after finally meeting me, and is now trying to back out of it? When we talk on msn now, it's for about 30 minutes a day. It used to be hours and hours. If I don't say anything, high chance the conversation dies.

Yesterday, after a week of feeling ignored and neglected, I had a talk with her. I said we couldn't continue like this, because I don't want to be in a relationship where I don't receive any love from my partner.

Here's a small summary of the conversation. I asked her what the whole deal was. She said she's been extremely busy with work, and she notices that she's changed, but she wants to find a solution. I told her I felt neglected by her, and that I need to feel loved aswell. It's give and take in a relationship, and I didn't receive anything lately. I told her we do nothing together anymore (no cam, no skype, no online games, no phone calls), and she said "you are right, it's normal to ask for this, and the only problem now is that I don't have time". I said that maybe I'm asking too much of her, but then she said "the problem is not you, it's me, I just have too much going on in my life atm, and I'm on the edge of going into a depression." Then she said "I promise you I will think about us, and see what we can do about this. I want this situation to end aswell."

I felt better after that talk. Up until now. She hasn't been online the whole day. I texted her once, just with something random "Hey honey, bla blah", and I called her twice. No response to either (she didn't answer her phone). I just talked to her on MSN for 15 minutes before she was "tired" and wanted to go to bed. She said she wanted to text me back but got interrupted every time (300th time I heard that excuse + she didn't realize I called her). On MSN, she didn't end with the "I love you" like she used to, even when I said it first. It's these small things that make me feel insecure.

I feel as if she has lost all interest. I keep seeking for answers, but I can't find any. I feel extremely down about this, and I want nothing more than to know how she really feels. Is this normal? Am I asking too much? Am I paranoid? Is she like this because of work/stress (eventhough she still has plenty of free time)? Is she losing interest? Am I simply awaiting a break up? She tells me she loves me, that she wants to be with me, but all these words feel soooo empty lately. It's killing me inside.

I feel like I'm waiting to be dumped.

[LadyMarchHare]

That's certainly a tough situation.

She mentions work as being the excuse, have you ever asked what at work wears her out/makes her unhappy? It might help a bit if you take more interest in what's got her down than accepting the broad, vague answer and just saying you're sorry or whatever you may say to it. I always feel better when I get to vent/talk about my day or whatever's bothering me at the moment at some length with my SO and when he has bad days, which are often with his own job getting to him, I ask him questions so he talks even if he doesn't seem to want to say anything or brushes it off as no big deal. The fact of the matter being you'd be showing her in another way that you care about her beyond texting her and talking to her whenever she initiates contact.

That might be the distance problem as well, though I don't know how to explain the being invisible all the time thing. My SO does it, but he's always done that on AIM and MSN because he likes to choose which friends he talks to and it's easy if one of them has made him upset. It's annoying as crap, but there's a site I use sometimes when I suspect he may be online and hasn't IM'd me yet or is just checking his email before going to bed. It's called www.amiblocked.com. You put the username in, tell it if they appear online or off and it tells you if they really are offline. It's not wholly accurate if you want to check actually being blocked, but for that it's useful. There are other sites like it if you google them just in case. It may sound like stalking but I use it just to make sure. I've never sprung an IM on him if it tells me he's there.

I'm gonna emphasize the getting more involved in her daily life thing for now, especially with these problems. If she feels she's on the verge of depression, offer your ear and proverbial shoulder. Let her know that, no matter the distance, you're there for her. And this may not help, but when my SO started to slip into depression when his job began eating literally all his time, I told him something you could probably tell her: Whenever you're angry, upset, or feel like you're slipping I want you to close your eyes. When you do, imagine something encircling your waist and a weight leaning against you. That's me. When you open your eyes, don't be sad I'm not there, be glad I was able to bridge our distance just to hug you.

I doubt she's looking to dump you. It's very hard to express a positive emotion such as love when you're under a lot of stress. As for the parent thing, she's probably scared. A lot of families are not supportive of LDRs and if she's living with them they may have sway over her ability to contact you at all. If not, the negativity regarding the relationship would be enough to add more stress. I told my mom, who I live with, a week after I began dating my SO in February and I STILL catch negative comments about it. Don't pressure her into it, them knowing is not a priority right now. Her happiness and, ultimately, yours are.

[Pride]

Yes, I know what makes her feel bad at work. She runs a therapy center, and she's constantly around people that feel bad or depressed. She even explicitly said "all this negativity just drains my energy". Plus, she just has a lot of stuff to take care of for the center, even off the clock. I took a lot of interest in her situation aswell. I made my post sound very selfish, because I kept talking about how I felt in our relationship.

The thing is, after we met, she started working. Before that, she didn't. She had a lot of free time, and thus no stress or whatsoever. For me, things didn't change. I worked when we met, so there's nothing that influences my daily life in a different way, compared to with her.

I constantly make her realize that I love her. I show her my affection. She has nothing to worry about, and she knows it. If we don't talk for a day, it doesn't make her feel worse, because she realizes I love her very much, and after a day, I will miss her, which she knows. However, when we don't talk for a day, I constantly look for the bad in things, wondering WHY we didn't talk. Is she avoiding me? Did she lose interest and therefore not want to talk? Did I do something wrong?

After I made this post, I've been trying to put all my negative thoughts aside, and focus on the positive. I've also been browsing the internet to search for articles about insecurity. One thing that came to mind is... let's say she really lost interest, would we still be together at this point? Would she honestly say she still loves me to toy with my feelings? Would she, if she PRETENDED to love me, not try a little bit harder to show me her affection?

The problem is my insecurity, I guess. I need to find ways to fight this, deal with this, before it completely devours me and ruins the relationship.

When I asked her about her feelings once, she said "I don't know what I do wrong!", which kinda indicates that she's TRYING to express her love to me, but apparently, I don't pick up on it for some reason.

Reading what you said, Lady, made me feel good. Plus, the articles about insecurity made me feel good aswell. I'm not a person that thinks too low of himself to be with a girl. That's not the insecurity I'm dealing with. I think it's the lack of control in this relationship because it's long distance, and because things just suddenly changed so drastically.

She also once said "You pick up on 1 little negative thing, that blinds you from seeing the 10 other good things." I think she has a point here. I put this negative thought in my head, and I'm like fixated on it, and it's blocking my view on all the good things. What I just said, about her coming online for 15 minutes, to go to bed quickly afterwards. It made me feel bad at first, because it was only 15 minutes and because it was so late, we had little time to talk. But the good part of this is, she came online for me, to at least have a little talk before we both head to bed, and to say goodnight to me. That's a very sweet thing!

[LadyMarchHare]

It's understandable that you talked about how you felt, we all do it because it's OUR problem and in distress we sometimes can't see past our blinders, especially with things like depression, clinical or no.

The insecurity will not ruin your relationship so long as you can catch yourself when you feel it. Think the thoughts for only so long, but bite your tongue literally or proverbially when you go to express it in questions like "do you really love me?" or "Are you avoiding me?" etc. I suffer from it and with other conditions, if I go x amount of days without even getting a text reply from my SO, I think he's mad at me for something I may or may not have said or he's pulled away because of his own issues, etc. It's a spiral, but it's one thing to think them and another to express them. If you can stop expressing it first you can work on the thoughts on your own so you can remain strong for her.

I'm sorry she's in such an awful environment, I can relate. It's why just a bit of positive reinforcement from you can go a long way even if you aren't saying directly "Everything will be OK, I love you, keep your chin up." Make the most of your time by being cheery or letting her unwind, whatever you know makes her feel a little bit better, and if she lets you know she's signing off, wish her sweet dreams or whatever other positive last word you can get in. Looking up quotes of encouragement/love/general positive attitude to text her every day might be good too and help you both. Neither of you have to suffer alone.