My (M29) girlfriend (31) is tired of me bringing up the “little things” to her and ends up being dismissive about how I feel.

We have been together for a little over two years, and when things are good they are great, and when they aren't they are pretty bad. We live in a studio apartment and fight a lot. Yesterday it was about the laundry because when she washes sheets she will sometimes put too many in at once and the weight won't be distributed properly and the machine will start shaking and making loud noises. In the past I have brought this stuff up in a mean way, but I have learned to try and approach it more tactfully. She thinks the stuff I bring up is stupid and doesn't matter where as in the case of the washing machine I feel it's bad for the machine and frustrating as we live in a studio and when it's shaking and loud basically ends up upending whatever is going on at the moment. She won't even acknowledge this part though until we have literally fought for over a half an hour, because she gets very worked up and takes thing extremely saying things like 'I'm not stupid' and telling me to find other things to focus on instead of all the little stuff. But for me all the little stuff is so distracting I can't. A different example is that today she brought up an article she read about pillows, and I responded with an anecdote and how I agreed with the article, during which she gets distracted by the dog and starts making lovey sounds to him and completely doesn't seem to be listening or caring to what I am responding to her original comment with. When I brought it up she went back to the same I'm so tired of this and 'you don't know me' because I said she was rude to have done that. She has done the same thing many times before and still continues to even though I have brought it up multiple times before, and these days has started being mean and insulting me because she is "so tired of talking about these things." And then I end up just getting ignored for the next couple hours. These are just a couple examples but they are all over the place, and I definitely know that I am being somewhat perfectionist in some other cases and can be controlling with stuff because I like it to be done in a certain way, but I also just wish she knew how to do some things the right way, but in her mind it's just 'the way you would do them and it has to be that way,' which in some cases is true and others not. I do wish that she would do some things because I like it that way though, whereas I mostly get grief and even patronized at times about it. In the case of the laundry though I only see there being two ways to do it: one that makes it shake and one that doesn't, and in the case of her seemingly ignoring what I'm saying I just feel that is sort of rude. But she will respond with things like "you are a leo and so you need all the attention" and I'm just left scratching my head. Then she'll go lie down to basically just run away from what I'm saying and I'll be like "hey, can we talk about this?" and she will spit back "I'm asleep be quiet" or "just shut up." It's gonna sound strange after all that, but my parents and friends like her and she honestly is the girl I have seen myself marrying, but I just can't seem to get over all the constant little things and she feels the same but from a perspective of leave me alone and don't bring this stuff up and still being back in the place where I used to bring it up in an angry and patronizing way. I feel I have tried bringing things up in all sorts of different ways at this point but they all end up with her being defensive/dismissive/angry. Any help is appreciated. I am basically at the point where I feel like I may have to end the relationship, but also am scared that I am being too oversensitive about all these little things and will throw away something that is meaningful to me. The fighting is just too much though. Thanks again.

Ps I will also add that there are the factors such as that we live together, moved across the country to a big city together, and other things that keep us together when the fighting gets really bad. We also both believe in working through stuff and not just giving up on each other. I also really do love her but at the same time have this uneasy feeling revolving around the constant fighting and the little things that are frustrating.

tl;dr my girlfriend is tired of me bringing up the 'little things' to her and ends up being dismissive about how I feel, but these things are important to me and it makes it worse that she doesn't seem to care about them.

Submitted September 15, 2019 at 11:07PM

We have been together for a little over two years, and when things are good they are great, and when they aren't they are pretty bad. We live in a studio apartment and fight a lot. Yesterday it was about the laundry because when she washes sheets she will sometimes put too many in at once and the weight won't be distributed properly and the machine will start shaking and making loud noises. In the past I have brought this stuff up in a mean way, but I have learned to try and approach it more tactfully. She thinks the stuff I bring up is stupid and doesn't matter where as in the case of the washing machine I feel it's bad for the machine and frustrating as we live in a studio and when it's shaking and loud basically ends up upending whatever is going on at the moment. She won't even acknowledge this part though until we have literally fought for over a half an hour, because she gets very worked up and takes thing extremely saying things like 'I'm not stupid' and telling me to find other things to focus on instead of all the little stuff. But for me all the little stuff is so distracting I can't. A different example is that today she brought up an article she read about pillows, and I responded with an anecdote and how I agreed with the article, during which she gets distracted by the dog and starts making lovey sounds to him and completely doesn't seem to be listening or caring to what I am responding to her original comment with. When I brought it up she went back to the same I'm so tired of this and 'you don't know me' because I said she was rude to have done that. She has done the same thing many times before and still continues to even though I have brought it up multiple times before, and these days has started being mean and insulting me because she is "so tired of talking about these things." And then I end up just getting ignored for the next couple hours. These are just a couple examples but they are all over the place, and I definitely know that I am being somewhat perfectionist in some other cases and can be controlling with stuff because I like it to be done in a certain way, but I also just wish she knew how to do some things the right way, but in her mind it's just 'the way you would do them and it has to be that way,' which in some cases is true and others not. I do wish that she would do some things because I like it that way though, whereas I mostly get grief and even patronized at times about it. In the case of the laundry though I only see there being two ways to do it: one that makes it shake and one that doesn't, and in the case of her seemingly ignoring what I'm saying I just feel that is sort of rude. But she will respond with things like "you are a leo and so you need all the attention" and I'm just left scratching my head. Then she'll go lie down to basically just run away from what I'm saying and I'll be like "hey, can we talk about this?" and she will spit back "I'm asleep be quiet" or "just shut up." It's gonna sound strange after all that, but my parents and friends like her and she honestly is the girl I have seen myself marrying, but I just can't seem to get over all the constant little things and she feels the same but from a perspective of leave me alone and don't bring this stuff up and still being back in the place where I used to bring it up in an angry and patronizing way. I feel I have tried bringing things up in all sorts of different ways at this point but they all end up with her being defensive/dismissive/angry. Any help is appreciated. I am basically at the point where I feel like I may have to end the relationship, but also am scared that I am being too oversensitive about all these little things and will throw away something that is meaningful to me. The fighting is just too much though. Thanks again.Ps I will also add that there are the factors such as that we live together, moved across the country to a big city together, and other things that keep us together when the fighting gets really bad. We also both believe in working through stuff and not just giving up on each other. I also really do love her but at the same time have this uneasy feeling revolving around the constant fighting and the little things that are frustrating.tl;dr my girlfriend is tired of me bringing up the 'little things' to her and ends up being dismissive about how I feel, but these things are important to me and it makes it worse that she doesn't seem to care about them.