Over the last month, I have felt as if my girlfriend was distancing herself a little bit from me. Nothing major, we always talk every day, but sometimes she seemed uninterested in talking, or not as willing to do stuff.
She works 2 jobs, one full-time, one part-time. Usually on her days off of the full-time job, is when she's working the part-time one, and sometimes both the same days for 16 hr work days. She's very busy, but still makes time for me, and does nice things for me like cooking me meals to last me through my work week for example (she's a great cook).
We're at our 4th month in dating now, and the first few were super passionate and hot. We were all over each other. We're out of that 'honeymoon' stage now, and it's clear we both still care about each other and like having each other in our lives, but I have now learned how important space is.
I realized I was missing her clues that she needs a little space and time to her self occasionally too. It's no wonder I felt she was distancing herself, it was because that was her clue she needed a little space. I was smothering her.
I picked up on this a few days ago, she was having a bad day (work related) and she was saying she just wanted some alone time to relax. Me being stupid, it made me push to offer her company
more instead. She made it clear she wanted alone time and so I then let her be that night. The following day, I then left her alone entirely to see what would happen. No more than 5 hours into the day, and she already reached out to initiate contact with me, and we ended up having a better talk that day than we had in the last few weeks. It showed me how important space on just that SMALL level was so effective. It made her realize my significance in her life and she reached out to me because she missed hearing from me.
I once read an interesting bit that relationships are like a rubberband. If one side of the band is trying to force itself on the other side, then you just get a mushy clump of band that isn't working. If one side pulls away, it causes the other side to get pulled towards it. It's important to have that space sometimes - in moderation - to keep the desire and want for the other person there.
I'm glad I learned about this before my smothering became completely destructive.