Hello forum.
I have been doing a long distance relationship now for around 11 months. We were both virgins when we met. She was very inexperienced when it came to men, I was her first bf and she had never really talked to men.
During our relationship I have made countless egregious errors: unmasculine actions, being in bad shape, no real life goal, lazyness. Aside from my personal failures I also had severe lapses in communicating with my gf. She is very shy and doesn't usually say what she wants or feels, but instead wants me to pick up on cues or figure it out, aka notice.
A big problem is me not being able to pick up on her cues on how she is feeling and not giving her emotional support and in her words not caring about her. I do care, but it feels like there is some secret language that other people understand and I do not. For about 7 months I didn't even know how to console her when she was sad and I had to do a lot of research online to figure it out.
Recently we had a huge argument because of a dumb thing I did. This was not some relationship rule mishap, it was a pure person to person disregard of boundaries. This made her very very angry.
Here are some of the things she said to me in the last 24 hours:
"you dont show any care unless i sped the entire day typing paragraphs or argue with you"
"you dont sexually satisfy me"
"you are physically gross and unhygienic"
"you are never there for me"
"you are always stupid"
"you never understand anything"
What I am asking is what to here. How do I fix these things she is venting about. How do I pick up on cues over text, how do I say the right thing? How can I regain her respect, if even possible?
Hey brother. Sorry things are going south for you and her.
You really buried the lede in this post because once I got to the quotes from her at the bottom I realized it's not just a fading relationship. Your girlfriend is toxic and borderline abusive. I wound up typing a lot and am breaking it down in sections. So first:
Remove toxicity from your life.
I know that sounds like I'm making you a "victim" but I'm not - you have every liberty to end this and you probably should. And remember that no amount of words can truly hurt you, but of course they may have already because you're invested in this woman and have feelings, which is normal. So you'll have to separate the two and think clearly. A woman who respects her man would never say sh*t like these things you've pasted above.
You've acknowledged your own faults which is great and you should address those and improve, but I think first thing's first and that's not spending more time with someone so clearly negative and nasty. Believe me, she is saying these things because she's spoiling for a fight where breaking up will be a no-brainer. Women hate being the "bad guy" (though your gf is veering into that territory).
It's not your job to decode anyone.
I know a lot of this forum talks about social cues and subtext which is great for seduction. But the fact is that you don't owe anyone the time and effort of "picking up" on what they want if they won't say it outright, especially your partner.
This very idea is part & parcel of the gynocratic popular culture where it's thought a man should "just get it" or that women are from Venus or whatever. Yes men and women emote and communicate differently but nobody gets a free pass for being bad at verbalizing what is on their mind. I'm so sick and tired of this trope, and it even crept into the RP where guys like Rollo wrote about how alpha guys practically need to be mind readers.
Here's a thought: If a woman can't tell you how she's feeling and why then she's an emotional idiot and not worthy of my time. No hall passes for mind games. Yes there ARE women who are emotionally mature enough to be direct and honest or at least say they don't want to talk about it.
There is no "secret language." I just tell them what women say but often don't practice: that communication is important in a relationship and if they can't do that then it won't work.
Begin your new journey - for yourself.
You're out of shape, you have no goals, you're lazy, and not acting very masculine - according to you. Good news! These are all very fixable. You just need to change your habits. You can do this while in your relationship or out of it, but if it were me I'd hit reset and start on my own.
There's a lot of free info out there about how to change your mindset. Affirmations are key. Tell your brain what it needs to hear about you and block the external noise. There are YT videos, IG accounts, books, blogs, forums like this. Most important there's you and your inner voice and outer voice which are in complete control of your psyche. So get on it.
Find your MISSION. Really think about it. What do you want in life? What will you regret not doing when you're dying? What did you dream of as a kid? Be childish about it. It can be artistic, monetary, scientific. I think everyone has at least one single thing. Sometimes it changes. But get yourself set on a path toward a big goal and reverse-engineer it so you can take the small steps to get there.
Finally, get your a$$ in shape. Gyms and vegetables are cheap and the outdoors are free. No real trick to that other than you can use the concepts above to get to a fitness goal as well.
Hope this helps.