I am in a live-in relationship with my girlfriend for five years. I am 28, she is 23.
As a typical nature of this arrangement, all our house chores, expenses, and responsibilities are divided between us. But three months ago, she quit her job citing 'work burnout' issues. Since then, I am under the onus to keep the home running. Whenever I try to talk about the issue, she starts playing the victim card. If I were your wife, wouldn't you have done same things for me - is her response of late. Things are getting quite weird between us. I feel kinda stuck, but I am also used to being with her. What is the solution here?

I am in a relationship since nine years, including four years of marriage. Since the day of marriage, I am having regular fights with my wife concerning my mother and sisters. Of late, I am feeling like I have lost the love between the two of us. We have stopped talking and are not even getting a chance to spend some time together. Whenever we do, we end up arguing about past mistakes and all. We never talk about the future. During the second wave of the pandemic, we came to our native place. After spending some good days, she went to her home for some days and now she is not willing to come back. We recently had a fight over phone and stopped talking. Then I started calling her and talking to her but she does not seem to be in a mood to talk. Now, I have stopped talking to her. I am bit worried as I feel like I am left alone. Despite so many efforts towards her and her family , she finds a reason to get pissed about me. I am not sure anymore what to do. If I try to make her understand, then this is again the same situation happening since four years. If I don’t, then I know she won’t be taking any initiative from her side. Please suggest.

Hello, Kanchan. I earlier wrote to you earlier (link: surl.li/ncpnu) regarding my vulnerabilities - my being jobless since more than a year, financial hardships & toxic atmosphere at home, specifically my wife from being nagging to being nasty, never caring about what I go through at times. I do acknowledge and appreciate that she does most of the stuff- cooking, going to work & teaching our kid. But so do I- I play my part as much as I can while dealing with energy issues & depression- but that doesn't mean I don't do anything- I do all kinds of non-economic auxilliary work at homefront which does not go appreciated or acknowledged. I help her carry on with her job like dropping/picking her at work, and at home I do help her with chores, taking care of outdoor work, groceries, listening & empathising how her day at work went, etc. There are many balls we are juggling & I know for sure that we should not be handling one too many as we can't do justice to any of them or at worst we may miss the priorities! But we are helpless since there is no help at hand. I contemplated speaking to her but firstly, I never get enough time to discuss in the issues in pragmatic manner (she loses patience and cool very soon & not a very good critic of herself- something she accuses me of as well), and secondly even if time permits, never get a calm, relaxed atmosphere that would ensure non-judgemental attitude to tackle things head on. Such times it is difficult even to help her- I even mentioned this repeatedly to her that she's becoming like a cactus- that anyone even trying to help her is bound to get hurt & that's the reason people would rather prefer to keep a distance from her. I have been concerned about her BP rising due to her overwhelming insecurity, but all she says such times is the only solution would be when I find a good job, something which I have a very limited control over, given 1) my age factor which hampers learning; 2) gaps in my employable skills & 3) inability to deal with emotions while trying to deal with too many things at a time. I know that retorting back would not serve the purpose hence try to cool/balance things off & try to act calmly with her. If I mention inability due to my mental state, she just gets furious thinking that I am making excuses and doesn't empathise with me at all, even though she herself went through similar phases in recent months, but only difference is that she got an opportunity due to her goodwill easily while I continue to languish, engaged in self-defeating emotions and thoughts. As a result, my efforts are half-hearted, bearing no positive results and day by day, I lose motivation. Hesitate to seek any professional help due to some reasons: 1) it is costly & time consuming. 2) Me alone putting efforts in getting cured won't serve any purpose (it may relapse due to unsupportive environ at home) unless there's attitudinal shift with family members too. I don't know what to do, please help.

Hi, I am a 27-year-old male living in Gurugram, in a 28-month relationship (25 months long distance - she lives in southern India). Lately, we've been fighting a lot, and she recently said she doesn't feel loved, happy, or supported. She's having a tough time at work, where her boss said she might lose her job in 6 months, and is facing family issues. She says I'm not supportive, which causes our fights. I'm trying my best to be there for her, but she thinks I'm not putting in effort, triggering fights and making me react badly. During fights, she gives me the silent treatment for 2-3 days, and everything gets blamed on me. This silent treatment is intolerable and eats me up. I know she loves me, and I love her, but it's becoming very difficult to deal with. Can you please help me as I'm at a breaking point?