Dear Wayne and Wanda,
My girlfriend and I have been together a year. We don’t live together yet, but we’re talking about it and planning on it, and we share a lot of evenings at each other’s houses, and I’m definitely in love. But there’s one thing about her that makes me crazy: her nonstop goal-setting. I know this sounds dumb but let me explain.
One week, it might be she’s decided she doesn’t want to eat out for a month. Or maybe she decides she’s going to do an hour of yoga a day for two weeks. She made a goal to be in bed with a book by 8 p.m. every night — that lasted a few weeks. Or another example was when she wanted to try going without using a car to lessen her environmental impact.
I know I sound crazy — she’s trying to be healthy and save the planet and I’m annoyed. But the thing is, she launches on these extreme endeavors without a heads up. How can we take the road trip I planned if she doesn’t want to ride in a vehicle? How can we go out to that special dinner I booked if she’s suddenly not eating out?
It isn’t so much that she makes these goals, but that she doesn’t run them by me first, so I’m blindsided and left trying to figure out whether to go along with it so I’m not just hanging out/eating out/driving around by myself, or if I should try to talk her out of such extremes. We’re a duo now, a team, but I feel like she’s still making plans on her own. Am I being weird about this or do I have a point?
Wanda says:
I imagine that your girlfriend’s overachieving commitment to self-improvement is something that attracted you to her initially. She sounds like a go-getter and a doer, someone who puts action behind her intentions. That’s awesome! However the goals you’ve described are also the sort that dramatically change and frame the course of one’s day, and I can understand the frustration.
A committed relationship is all about sharing two lives, and ergo sharing lifestyles. As she’s constantly charging down her own high-performing path of self-transformation and enlightenment, you’re left at the trailhead with a late look at the map, wondering whether to follow along or linger behind — or whether she’ll be disappointed in you if you hop in your car, meet her at the end, and maybe stop for a burger along the way.
Clearly, it’s not essential to her that you participate in these quests, or she’d approach you beforehand and get you on board. The question is, do you want to be on board and join her in these big goals, or do you just want advance warning of her intentions so you can meal plan for the week and try to sync up bedtimes? Either way, figure it out, and then explain to her why it’s important to you she communicates better.
Wayne says:
Wow. I’m inspired and tired! What an exhaustingly positive presence to have in your life, and what a unique relationship problem created by your overextended overachiever and your reaction to her actions: you don’t want to throw water on that internal flame that powers her search for self-improvement … but you also don’t want to get continually burned by the wildfires of her whims that rage and change with the wind.
The fact that she isn’t pushing her goals onto you isn’t exactly making things easier, either. Since you aren’t being held to her standards or even engaged in her planning, you can take a road trip to Seward, have a juicy bacon cheeseburger with fries and a beer, and take a glacier and wildlife cruise in Kenai Fjords National Park anytime you want. But depending on the current target(s) of her laser focus, your girlfriend may not participate in one, many, or any of those things with you ... for now. Kind of takes some of the shared experience fun out of being in a partnership.
I’d love to say that some communication and compromise will get you both to a space where she dials back her amorphous ambitiousness, includes you in planning, and invites you to join her before she is off and running, all helping you feel less annoyed and neglected. But I can’t say that. This is the way she is hardwired and I doubt a heart-to-heart will help her recognize that the endless goal-chasing is negatively impacting the relationship. And quite simply, if you’re focused on changing your partner, especially a trait that she likely thinks is among her greatest, you’re headed for real trouble. In fact, she’ll probably feel that your feelings are the problem preventing her from being the best version of herself. So either buckle up for a wild ride and hope that someday something gives her peace or perspective, or jump off now before things get too serious.