Trying to plan a trip. Girlfriend is making it 100X more difficult than necessary.

It’s a good thing she’s perfectly calm, sane, and normal in all other areas of her life. Wait, you’ve only been together 8 months. You either haven’t noticed the other stuff or you still think it’s cute. At best, your girlfriend has an anxiety disorder. I’ll let you figure out the worst. Don’t get married without some counseling.

I think a lot of other replies have mentioned this, but she wants you to take control and make the decisions yourself. Why should you both have to deal with this sh1t? It's a one-person job.

We're going on this trip.

Here are our flights.

Here's where we're staying.

Unless she is extremely high-maintenance (in which case you should bail), she'll be happy with the decisions you make, as long as you make them and she doesn't have to worry about them.

Women prefer a man with purpose and initiative. Hell, it's not even restricted to the male sex. Men like it when a woman does the same thing.

I know you're trying to make sure she's happy with everything, but what would make her happy is you just making some decisions.

If your claims are true that she's intelligent and she can't choose between a $120 direct flight and a $230 layover flight then she's either stupid as sh!t or just wants you to make a decision.

Honestly, that might be a deal-breaker for me. If a woman couldn't choose between those two flights, I would consider dumping her. She's either dumb as a rock, or messing with you intentionally, and I don't play games. There are plenty of fish in the sea.

So, make a decision. Do you want to date a dumb or manipulative woman, or do you want to dump this girl and find someone better? Maybe you should ask her.

Your girlfriend is one of two things:

Either she doesn't want to be with you anymore and that's why traveling somewhere with you like this freaked her out, or she's high maintenance with perhaps a phobia or inability to make decisions. My guess is it's the latter. That kind of person is hard to live with and hard to get married to and raise children with. I would never have children with her if I were you, and for me, I would never marry a person like that. My advice is to run like the wind away from her.

I have to agree. I suffer from anxiety, especially when it comes to flying and making decisions about flight plans. In the past I’ve requested prescription medication from my doctor. With that said, I am capable of planning flights for myself, my employees or when I go on trips with friends. I am able to do this unmedicated and with no short circuit meltdown. I am a woman. I’ve had bf plan trips with or without my input. So, your gf’s behavior sounds a bit off, especially if you insist she’s flown 30 plus times. She prefers an expensive stopover rather than a direct flight? The only rational explanation I can think of for why someone would want to pay more to stop is if they needed some sort of break from confined spaces. Claustrophobia, cigarette/pot break or some kind of incontinence. How old is your girlfriend? 8 consecutive months of being together and this is the only time she’s acted up, I think there’s something going on and you need to sit down and figure out what that is.

asdfasdf wrote:

this thread is USELESS without pics

What the hell is happening to Letsrun??!? It took 2 PAGES for someone to point this out?!? What is wrong with all you hobbyjoggers?

This place is turning into runnersworld.

My guess is that OP is withholding pertinent information about his gf that would better explain her strong reaction. Providing more context would help everyone to give OP more relevant advice. Have you been faithful to your gf all 8 months? Doubt about your fidelity would put any woman on edge before a trip.

Run. There is no long term in this. You will be that miserable guy stuck in that miserable marriage. This can happen to anyone and it happens all the time. Unless she is 10+ smoking hot, you don't want to put up with this. You will eventually lose patience.

OP, your GF may have flown 30 times before, but did she BOOK 30 times before?

Also, disturbing that she couldn't see the logic in a non-stop, even if it cost slightly more.

Relationships always get worse over time; they seldom get better.

I don't see much that shows a "take charge" approach, on either side (you or her).

Throw down all the DEFINITIVE details, i.e., here's what's best, blah blah blah. It's either yes or no. Maybe she's wanting you to do that, yet has not expressed it in so many words.

If she spazzes out...you know what's coming soon (save your money, and....)

I done this myself, and it works out positively. Being organized, proactive, thoughtful, makes a difference. Don't diffuse your organization with a lot of options. Narrow it down to two. Explain why such-and-such is best. I've done 24 hour travel times successfully.

If "gf" has flown 30+ times, my educated guess it that it was work-related, and someone else made the arrangements for her.

YRMV.

8 months is pretty early to be going on such a big trip. You also started planning your trip 2 months ago only 6 months in. Maybe she feels like you’re moving things too fast.

Also... PICS????

All you people telling the OP he needs to plan this trip himself: They’re not married. He’s not paying for her half. He can’t exactly book stuff on his own. She’ll still him.

Some people are just bad at that stuff. My wife and I are happily married for 10 years, with two kids. I have to organise all our vacations or it just wouldn’t happen, or would be a disaster.

For example, I let my wife arrange a trip to Boston so she could run the marathon. She somehow managed to book a hotel that does not exist.

My wife is smart and there are other things in life that she takes charge of.

Bag her. Most likely things will get worse.

Having a girlfriend is way more effort than its worth. You would be way more productive with your life if you didn't have to pay attention to her wants and needs. Dump her and then you can focus on your career goals.

...that she might be on the spectrum for borderline personality disorder?

Fat guy you’ll be sitting next to wrote:

when traveling with the ...boss’s daughter, etc...

???

Ruppolini wrote:

Sounds like she found herself in a situation where she had to make a choice or two and possibly live to see the consequences of those choices.

That's when you get a reaction like this.

You have to do the planning and booking yourself, absolving her of any criticism if the trip should be anything less than perfect.

That's your role. Her role is to tag along and try to have fun, and let you know if things fell short of her expectations.

After having some more time to think about it calmly, this is what happened. She wasn't able to clearly express this at the time, part of why I got so upset, but what happened is she got overwhelmed, felt like there was pressure on her to make the perfect decision, and panicked thinking if she made the wrong one it might ruin the trip. This is her nature. I had already told her on several occasions that there's no pressure with this trip, we're going somewhere I've already been, and that it's just about us spending some time together. It's not a test at all. She does have pretty extreme anxiety at times though, and anxiety is not rational.

As for "it's my job to plan things," yeah, I get that's how it usually works, and that's what I've been doing. I'm taking care of everything. I needed her to okay the flights I was going to purchase though because there were only two times at which we could fly out and two time options for our return flight. Option A flying out was a bit early and required her to miss a few hours of work on a day she wasn't planning to miss work, and option B was a bit later than ideal and had us getting there later than ideal (but not an unreasonable time). The return flights were the same way. I just needed to confirm with her that it was okay to arrive a little later than we were hoping for or if she would prefer to take time off work to leave earlier. That's when she panicked and had a bit of meltdown.

All that being said, I am still feeling kind of perplexed about it and still kind of questioning the relationship some. I make much more than she does, so I'm actually paying for almost everything, I'm planning everything, I'm booking the flights, hotels, car, etc, I'm driving, and I'm planning our day to day schedule. All I asked of her was to say if flight A or flight B worked better for her and it caused her to panic and short-circuit. I don't see how I could ask any less of her, and this is something I view as very simple and easy and something most people would not struggle with at all. As I've said before, she actually is a very intelligent person, but she is very emotional too, and when she gets very emotional (which happens pretty frequently, yes) all logic and ability to make decisions goes out the window. It does sometimes make me feel like I'm in a relationship with someone who is functionally an invalid, as bad as that sounds. :(

I do appreciate the input. Her reaction made so little sense to me I didn't even know how to respond, and I was struggling to make sense of it even two days later. The responses here helped me understand it better, so thank you.

SomeoneWhoKnows wrote:

Your girlfriend is one of two things:

Either she doesn't want to be with you anymore and that's why traveling somewhere with you like this freaked her out, or she's high maintenance with perhaps a phobia or inability to make decisions. My guess is it's the latter. That kind of person is hard to live with and hard to get married to and raise children with. I would never have children with her if I were you, and for me, I would never marry a person like that. My advice is to run like the wind away from her.

I have noticed over the course of our relationship that she is very bad at making decisions and am aware of multiple big decisions she's made in her life that were so idiotic and had such damaging consequences that it's impossible to understand what she was thinking. Yes, this is a concern for me. I am generally extremely good at making decisions and like having the responsibility of making important decisions, so in some ways it doesn't matter, but it does make me feel like I could never trust or rely on her to make any decision of even moderate importance, which in turn makes me feel like it's not really a partnership at all. She does have other things she brings to the table, but her ability to problem solve and make decisions are about a 0 out of 10.

What I am hearing is:

Highly emotional

High anxiety person

These are not good signs. Troubled waters ahead. Buckle up.