TL;DR: My (24F) girlfriend (25F) rarely initiates conversations, usually doesn‘t ask questions to keep the conversation going, and often stays silent after I tell her about something I‘m going through. For specific questions, see below.
The title says most of it. But in a bit more detail:
We‘ve been together for 5 years now (I‘m 24F). Honestly from the beginning there‘s been the issue of her not being good at holding a conversation. In general, she‘s very quiet, rarely talks about her day, her thoughts, or feelings. Even if I ask her directly about something, she usually doesn‘t say much. If there‘s a specific topic/object/… which triggers the conversation, it‘s usually fine. But still, she only very rarely asks questions in conversations which is a bit odd to me because from my experience, conversations have 2 components; questions and responses/statements…
So, there‘s two things that bother me:
1. That she only rarely initiates a conversation, be it by asking something or by telling me about something of her choice
2. That she usually doesn‘t keep the conversation going (Don‘t get me wrong, I don‘t think it‘s only her job to do that, I just think it should be in the interest of both to keep a convo going, at least in most of the cases)
Now, there‘s a 3rd thing that causes issues in the relationship: When I tell her about something that I‘m struggling with, maybe a negative thought that‘s been on my mind or a difficult emotion or situation, so very often she just stays quiet. I mean, not entirely, she usually says something along the lines of „Oh yeah, that‘s not easy“ which I appreciate. But then she usually just doesn‘t say anything anymore, even if I go on talking she then usually just says ‚mhm‘ and that‘s it. To me, that is very frustrating and it makes me feel more alone with my pain than before I told her. It happens often that, because of that, I feel worse after telling her about something that‘s difficult for me than I felt before. For information, I also talk to other people about things I‘m going through and most people are able to at least ask some additional questions or stay in the conversation in another way…
- Has anyone else experienced something similar? How did you deal with it? Did you stay in the relationship?
- Or maybe you‘re more like my girlfriend? I‘d really like to hear your perspective!
- What are possible reasons for my girlfriend‘s behaviour? What came to mind is personality, avoidance, disinterest, lack of skills, fear…
Comments
Have you talked to your gf about this and asked for more engagement? How do those conversations go, and have they produced any change? This will only change if your gf decides she wants to make a change and then puts in effort on a regular basis to be more talkative.
If communicating your needs to her doesn’t get anywhere, then I don’t think this is the right relationship for you. Your partner is the person who you are going to talk to more than anybody else in the world over the course of your life. You should make sure it’s somebody you enjoy the dynamics with.