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

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

We've been talking about this particular trip for about two months and loosely talked about the dates, flight times, where we'd stay, etc. Everything seemed to be going well, and we seemed to be on the same page. Then, when it came time to actually book plane tickets, I showed the options to my gf to make sure they worked for her, and looking at the different options caused her to panic and her brain to short-circuit and go into this catastrophizing rant that made no sense and included her contradicting herself in multiple ways mere sentences apart. It actually caused us to have a big fight, and after having two days to calm down and reflect, we tried to book tickets again, and while it was successful this time, I'm realizing my gf cannot plan or make sense of what's in front of her when she's looking at flights. If there is not a flight that fits her preconceived ideal precisely, even if her ideal doesn't even match with what is possible in reality, she starts panicking and says none of them work and can't think clearly about really any of it at all. She couldn't even decide on her own that a 4 hour direct flight for $120 made more sense than one with a layover costing $230 with a 9.5 hour travel time.

This is our first trip together involving flying. It is already making me question whether I want to do it again. What's strange to me is that my gf is NOT stupid, and she has flown probably 30+ times before, so it's not like any of this should be new. I am trying to be understanding, but it is very difficult for me.

How does traveling planning go with you and your SO?

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

We've been talking about this particular trip for about two months and loosely talked about the dates, flight times, where we'd stay, etc. Everything seemed to be going well, and we seemed to be on the same page. Then, when it came time to actually book plane tickets, I showed the options to my gf to make sure they worked for her, and looking at the different options caused her to panic and her brain to short-circuit and go into this catastrophizing rant that made no sense and included her contradicting herself in multiple ways mere sentences apart. It actually caused us to have a big fight, and after having two days to calm down and reflect, we tried to book tickets again, and while it was successful this time, I'm realizing my gf cannot plan or make sense of what's in front of her when she's looking at flights. If there is not a flight that fits her preconceived ideal precisely, even if her ideal doesn't even match with what is possible in reality, she starts panicking and says none of them work and can't think clearly about really any of it at all. She couldn't even decide on her own that a 4 hour direct flight for $120 made more sense than one with a layover costing $230 with a 9.5 hour travel time.

This is our first trip together involving flying. It is already making me question whether I want to do it again. What's strange to me is that my gf is NOT stupid, and she has flown probably 30+ times before, so it's not like any of this should be new. I am trying to be understanding, but it is very difficult for me.

How does traveling planning go with you and your SO?

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

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.

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

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.

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

We've been talking about this particular trip for about two months and loosely talked about the dates, flight times, where we'd stay, etc. Everything seemed to be going well, and we seemed to be on the same page. Then, when it came time to actually book plane tickets, I showed the options to my gf to make sure they worked for her, and looking at the different options caused her to panic and her brain to short-circuit and go into this catastrophizing rant that made no sense and included her contradicting herself in multiple ways mere sentences apart. It actually caused us to have a big fight, and after having two days to calm down and reflect, we tried to book tickets again, and while it was successful this time, I'm realizing my gf cannot plan or make sense of what's in front of her when she's looking at flights. If there is not a flight that fits her preconceived ideal precisely, even if her ideal doesn't even match with what is possible in reality, she starts panicking and says none of them work and can't think clearly about really any of it at all. She couldn't even decide on her own that a 4 hour direct flight for $120 made more sense than one with a layover costing $230 with a 9.5 hour travel time.

This is our first trip together involving flying. It is already making me question whether I want to do it again. What's strange to me is that my gf is NOT stupid, and she has flown probably 30+ times before, so it's not like any of this should be new. I am trying to be understanding, but it is very difficult for me.

How does traveling planning go with you and your SO?

Martian Cool, Venusian Cruel wrote:

(married 19 yrs; 2 yr dating before that)

I found out, through trial-and-error with a few minor bumps, regarding trip planning with my wife (a white-collar professional):

she prefers me to do most of the planning; she might just throw out a destination, type of trip, or date range

my asking broadly, and first-round planning, what she wants/how do you want it to go does not work. I need to present it in a more paint-by-numbers, do you want option A-B-C-D? format for her to participate/buy in. Had to learn her likes/non-starters/negotiables over years, but can now tune in pretty closely. No major blowups/crises early on, thank goodness.

OP-- not sure how much more of your trip is already planned, but talk about what exactly is worrying her, what she wants from the trip, how does she want to be involved in the planning. As some have hinted, your travel styles (and other things) might not be compatible, but it might just be communication and feedback to iron things out.

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

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.

askpd knrg r ;f wrote:

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

We've been talking about this particular trip for about two months and loosely talked about the dates, flight times, where we'd stay, etc. Everything seemed to be going well, and we seemed to be on the same page. Then, when it came time to actually book plane tickets, I showed the options to my gf to make sure they worked for her, and looking at the different options caused her to panic and her brain to short-circuit and go into this catastrophizing rant that made no sense and included her contradicting herself in multiple ways mere sentences apart. It actually caused us to have a big fight, and after having two days to calm down and reflect, we tried to book tickets again, and while it was successful this time, I'm realizing my gf cannot plan or make sense of what's in front of her when she's looking at flights. If there is not a flight that fits her preconceived ideal precisely, even if her ideal doesn't even match with what is possible in reality, she starts panicking and says none of them work and can't think clearly about really any of it at all. She couldn't even decide on her own that a 4 hour direct flight for $120 made more sense than one with a layover costing $230 with a 9.5 hour travel time.

This is our first trip together involving flying. It is already making me question whether I want to do it again. What's strange to me is that my gf is NOT stupid, and she has flown probably 30+ times before, so it's not like any of this should be new. I am trying to be understanding, but it is very difficult for me.

How does traveling planning go with you and your SO?

haha, lol i went through something similar once. Ex had never been to Europe, asked me to plan the trip since I'd been there many times. So I get started, she had to shadow everything and then insisted on taking over. Made a mess of things, I had to rescue things on the other end. She got overly emotional about it and when emotions are high, intelligence is low. Good luck.

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

We've been talking about this particular trip for about two months and loosely talked about the dates, flight times, where we'd stay, etc. Everything seemed to be going well, and we seemed to be on the same page. Then, when it came time to actually book plane tickets, I showed the options to my gf to make sure they worked for her, and looking at the different options caused her to panic and her brain to short-circuit and go into this catastrophizing rant that made no sense and included her contradicting herself in multiple ways mere sentences apart. It actually caused us to have a big fight, and after having two days to calm down and reflect, we tried to book tickets again, and while it was successful this time, I'm realizing my gf cannot plan or make sense of what's in front of her when she's looking at flights. If there is not a flight that fits her preconceived ideal precisely, even if her ideal doesn't even match with what is possible in reality, she starts panicking and says none of them work and can't think clearly about really any of it at all. She couldn't even decide on her own that a 4 hour direct flight for $120 made more sense than one with a layover costing $230 with a 9.5 hour travel time.

This is our first trip together involving flying. It is already making me question whether I want to do it again. What's strange to me is that my gf is NOT stupid, and she has flown probably 30+ times before, so it's not like any of this should be new. I am trying to be understanding, but it is very difficult for me.

How does traveling planning go with you and your SO?

the counter wrote:

Pretty Straightforward wrote:

We've been talking about this particular trip for about two months and loosely talked about the dates, flight times, where we'd stay, etc. Everything seemed to be going well, and we seemed to be on the same page. Then, when it came time to actually book plane tickets, I showed the options to my gf to make sure they worked for her, and looking at the different options caused her to panic and her brain to short-circuit and go into this catastrophizing rant that made no sense and included her contradicting herself in multiple ways mere sentences apart. It actually caused us to have a big fight, and after having two days to calm down and reflect, we tried to book tickets again, and while it was successful this time, I'm realizing my gf cannot plan or make sense of what's in front of her when she's looking at flights. If there is not a flight that fits her preconceived ideal precisely, even if her ideal doesn't even match with what is possible in reality, she starts panicking and says none of them work and can't think clearly about really any of it at all. She couldn't even decide on her own that a 4 hour direct flight for $120 made more sense than one with a layover costing $230 with a 9.5 hour travel time.

This is our first trip together involving flying. It is already making me question whether I want to do it again. What's strange to me is that my gf is NOT stupid, and she has flown probably 30+ times before, so it's not like any of this should be new. I am trying to be understanding, but it is very difficult for me.

How does traveling planning go with you and your SO?

What I'm reading here: You and your girlfriend have planned your first big trip. You're finalizing plans. You showed her options and she freaked so you guys had a fight and couldn't book flight. Now, you've sucessfully booked flight and...

What's the problem here, exactly? Your girlfriend could have a million reasons to be nervous about this. Going abroad or someplace new for first time? Taking relationship to new level? Claustrophobia? Fear of flying? General anxiety?

Or...just a thought...as you said: you often make the decisions. But now...on a fairly big decision about travel...you ask her. Good thought, don't get me wrong, but maybe she's freaked b/c it looked like you're unsure about big decision. IDK...

You haven't even gone on trip yet, right? And yet you're on this board whining about a fight. You say you're trying to be understanding and yet you say ...'she cant even', 'she panicked', 'she catastrophized'...now, you dont know if you want to go

Wait until you've been on trip. At least find out if this minor minor minor drama was worth it. Put it behind you, take the trip, and You'll both have a great time.

Make decisions like you claim you do and decide you're going to be happy and rock this vacation. Next time, make decision and just tell her. Next time she freaks, you're not gonna let it bug you. Stay calm and handle sh*t.

If she keeps freaking about things in general, stay calm, be understanding, and talk to her - not LetsRun - about it. If you care about her, try to get her help if she can't fix stuff on her own. If you try and things don't get better, break it off.

You got this.