Help me please, i really need some advice!

[MrKanista]

Hi, I`m having a spot of bother in my relationship and I would be grateful for some advice. Background: we`ve been together for nearly 3 yrs. She`s Swiss but we met in London and were together there for 8 months then she had to go back home, so we did a LDR for a yr then I moved out to be with her, but my lack of language skills (German) have hindered my settling a little. My basic language skills are such that I can only talk to people if they address me directly and speak v slowly (I am having lessons but it is a slow process, I am a skilful linguist but German is a very diffcult language to master, especially when you are trying to do it on top of a stressful job). Understandably most natives (especially young people,and lots of my g/f`s friends and family) that I meet can`t be bothered to do this so it can get a bit lonely. Also,I wanted to move to the big city where I work when I arrived, as it`s a more international environment, but she put pressure on me to move to the city where she studies, where there aren´t any expats and it´s much harder to find a nice place to live due to demand from students, "so we can see eachother more often", and then she hardly comes to stay with me anyway so I usually have to go to her and her family at weekends and some weeknights (in a tiny town even further away from the city) and twiddle my thumbs alone while they all go about their normal lives blabbering on in German. So in the last couple of months I`ve declined the opportunity to go out with my girlfriend and her friends as I always end up on my own in the corner not being able to talk to anyone while she goes off and has fun. So now she has the gall to blame me that we don`t go out and have fun together saying "if i can`t have fun with you then I can without you, I feel like an old woman now" blatantly disregarding all the times I`ve sat at her house aching to go out and do sth when she couldn`t be bothered to go out. So i said i miss how things were in London and she said that maybe that was just because we were a new couple and things would be boring together even if we were still there now. Does this sound like the end, or do you thing this can be resolved?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[xaq75]

Well, speaking as someone who has absolutely no experience in these matters :D ...

You seem to be basing your whole lifestyle on this one relationship. No wonder your feeling culturally and socially isolated and even neglected. I think your kinda putting all your eggs into one basket. I don't know what other relationships you have availiable that you can turn to for emotional support.

Spread the eggs around ;)

[Mark]

This does seem like a difficult situation you're in. It is hard to learn a language to fluency, and even then if you do there is a cultural element sometimes that will keep you feeling lonely. It's hard to be in any relationship after a while (because after a while your differences come out), and when you have linguistic differences on top of the regular stuff, it makes it even more difficult. Only you can say when you've had enough, but I do think that you are in a legitimately stressful situation.