Can someone help me understand this behavior from my girlfriend?

[Trentthatrout]

Most of the time she is very loving, supportive, fun and so many other things. But then there’s the other 10-15% of the time where she is pushing me away like she has these walls up, she’ll go back to her apartment and ignore my texts/calls. Next thing I know she will tell me she is considering taking a break. I don’t believe she is cheating on me. I know her roommate and am good friends with her as well and will reach out to her to check on my girlfriend during these situations. But I just don’t understand why she will pull me in and then suddenly push me away? Am I doing something? We have an open (to an extent) relationship. We are allowed to bring other people into the bedroom, but the other must be present and approve of said person. It is very rare we actually do that anymore, it was more of a thing early on in the relationship. To give perspective we have been together for 3 years now.

[Ozanne]

You won't really know unless you sit down and ask her, and not let her brush things off. Tell her you really deserve to know why she behaves this way because there are two of you in this relationship and this affects you too.

Possible reasons are:

1. She's having commitment issues and feels as though she's getting too close, and needs to pull away and have time to herself.

2. She needs personal alone time for harmless, private reasons, such as to maladaptive daydream, or just to disconnect entirely to do what she wants alone.

3. She has some sort of personality disorder that she doesn't want you exposed to, such as bipolar, where she hides out at home to ruminate.

4. She might feel guilty that she doesn't deserve happiness, or not feeling worthy to be with you. Again, some sort of issues she needs to work through.

Whatever the case may be, she's developed a pattern of skulking off to be alone, but is leaving you out of the loop, and she is unaware of how it's making you feel. She can assure you that nothing is wrong, or it's not you, but then why say she wants to break up? Obviously the relationship is causing some kind of toll on her to make her want to be alone, and you deserve to know, being the other person in this relationship.

If you are okay with one of those reasons, and potentially learning that this is something you will need to always do (that is, give her some private space for a period of time), then let her know that you are willing to give her these times as long as you know why it is because it's simply not fair for you to not know.

I hope she clears this up for you soon! Good luck!

[Little_Bumblebee]

I would advise you to talk about it with your girlfriend to figure out what it is.

I would sometimes need time for myself and get a little distant.

But talk about it with her.

[Trentthatrout]

I try to talk to her about it but she just ignores me or when it finally blows over she just brushes it off and goes right back to normal like nothing happened. I can’t seem to get her to actually talk to me about it.

[Little_Bumblebee]

So there must be something going on for her then. Maybe it's struggles she has a problem talking about.
But only she can tell you.

[artgorgeous]

No one knows because you already are a very strange couple. I would stop dating such a girl because to me this would be a sign that she does not respect me. I would talk to her.

[Avicenna]

It may be other underlying issues in her life, but having a so-called open relationship is bound to cause a lack of trust and confusion after a while.

[MzAsh]

This type of behavior is seen a lot in bipolar or bpd.

[Trentthatrout]

I don’t know anything about either of those but I will look into them. Anything you suggest I do or say?

[MzAsh]

Look into it but I would highly recommend not saying anything about that specifically. The best you can do here is communicate your frustrations about the inconsistency and listen more than anything

[katiesmuff]

Possibly it's during her period time and women react differently during that time. Some it bothers really bad and others go through it and you wouldn't know it was their time of the month.

[ShesRad80]

you have to talk to her about what's going on.

[Trentthatrout]

I have tried. During the episode she will ignore me. When she finally does talk to me she will just brush it off and go back to like it never happened. I don’t understand and don’t know how to get her to talk about it. I worry if I push it, it will just make her pull away all over again.

[ShesRad80]

so you can either chose to live like you are or to risk her pushing you away.

[shades777]

means she's your girlfriend