My gf just called me a bit buzzed and said she wants to break up because "she has nothing to offer" (economically).
>she's 24
>just graduated from civil engineering
>basically lives from the scholarship because she doesn't want her parents to give her money
Long story short... She wants to do a major, and needs to work her ass off, so she'll work in a cruise line for 4 months, fast and easy money, or so I've been told. Then do the major and live on scholarship while at that. She's uncomfortable because she has no job, no income (just the scholarship money) also basically told her old folks to stop giving her money, because she wants to be independent.
>I'm 25, mechanical electrical engineer
>Currently employed/developing a biogas project for a pig farm
>Also building up my craft beer brewery from scratch.
>Want to do a master, but job and my brewery won't allow me, at least not for a while.
>Basically love this girl like I've never loved anyone before, I really don't mind at all the money side, could live in a tent eating soup, she makes me happy.
She said she felt really bad, that she hates her situation and that she wants to put on hold our relationship for 6 months to a year until she gets to a economic/professional state in which she's comfortable in, also tried to encourage me to "find a girl that's worth it", to use tinder or to just hang out until I meet someone (WTF).
Opinions, advice, what the hell just happened.
She wants to party and sleep around during the cruise and is too much of a coward to break up with you for real.
>>16595800
Really doubt it man, because the cruise thing is not even for sure, is just one option. Besides, she'll be working, so the party hard on the cruise sounds a bit unrealistic.
Also, nice dubs!
>>16595773
>so she'll work in a cruise line for 4 months
Are you really surprised that she wants to break up given this? Think it through a second.
>>16595809
Well, 4 months is not that much. I've been on business trips for a month and we had no issues.
Maybe I'm being naive about this, you are saying that she wants to break up to fully enjoy her "freedom"?
>>16595829
>Maybe I'm being naive about this, you are saying that she wants to break up to fully enjoy her "freedom"?
Seems like that way to me. Either she's extremely retarded or she's too much of a coward to end the relationship, and I can't find a third option.
>>16595867
She does make weird/dumb decisions based on her "I want to be independent" mantra.
She also said "uh I love you, I want to be with you, but not right now, I want to be with you until I have something to offer, so we can both put something and I don't feel like you are the one doing everything"
Sounds like bullshit.
Believe it if you wish, OP. It sounds half-assed.
>>16595873
>She also said "uh I love you, I want to be with you, but not right now"
Translation:
"I want to go and have fun while on my cruise, but if nothing happens serious from it, I want to have you on the backburner for when I get back"
You want proper advice? Tell her never to enjoy her cruise, and to come and collect her stuff. And never to contact you again.
You do this for two reasons.
1. If she's trying to set you up as a backburner, you basically let her know to piss off
2. It puts you in control of how things ended. Which will leave you less sour when you reflect back on your relationship.
Forget what you knew about this girl, because you've just seen a completely cunty side of her that is willing to stomp all over you for her own needs. If you let her, she'll try manipulate you into being a backburner so she can go off and have sex/flings without feeling guilty about it, and still have you as an option when she's settled down. She'll use wordplay to do this. Don't give her the chance. Call her on her bullshit, and send her packing.
>>16595773
why a cruise job, why not an engineering job?
also how is the pig fart farm going?
>>16595919
Will do man, been in this situation before, not cool. Anyhow, kind of get some of her points, but we'll see what happens, we are going to have a serious talk tomorrow.
>>16595968
Because she graduated like 2 weeks ago. She has some experience, but a low level engineering job will get her a low income and she needs/wants more cash in order to pay for the master degree and have enough in the bank for the expenses next summer. Apparently the cruise work will get her a shitload of cash because is basically well payed slavery (compared to a regular engineering job). I personally think it's quite stupid and had said it before to her, the fast way is not necessarily the better.
The pig farm project is going awesome! My family owns 45% of the farm btw. We are on the "get the money" part to buy the stuff needed and start the construction of the digesters. We have 24,000 pigs capacity which yields around 145 tons of shit per day, that could power up a 360 kw biogas generator and yield around 407,421 usd per year on electricity sales. I also suggested to sale the processed slurry as fertilizer and we might be able to get between 1.455075 and 2.91015 million usd per year on fertilizer sales. So, things are working out quite well, If we get the money on, lets say january, we could start selling electricity around september 2016.
>>16595773
So she either is breaking up with you, or she is so mind-numbingly insecure that the what she is saying is actually true. If the second is truth (very possible, don't discount it) then her telling you to find other girls could be one of two things:
1. She is testing you, and hoping you'll say "why I'd never!"
2. She is so insecure that she actually believes she has to do this.
Ultimately your only reasonable option is to sit her down and tell her exactly now you feel, and extract the truth from her. Don't let her give you the run around by asking in passing, say "we need to talk" and figure it out.
Also the above is presupposing negative things. Perhaps she really needs to focus in school and work for a couple months, and it would be difficult to nalance a relationship. However, the things that made me suppose said negative things were the tinder thing, and also that she is dumping this on you without having a plan in place.
>>16596060
I forgot to add that if she is breaking up with you, the backburner scenario posted above is completely accurate, but don't jump to conclusions.
Take my advice with a grain of salt since I had a long time friend like this (and she drove me up the wall).
>>16595873
>She does make weird/dumb decisions based on her "I want to be independent" mantra.
Sounds like she is insecure and has low self-worth, not independent.
>I want to be with you until I have something to offer
Spoiler: she's never going to feel like she has something to offer. She'll always feel two steps behind because she doesn't know how to value herself.
>>16596008
>we are going to have a serious talk tomorrow.
Good. (If you can/want to, post an update with the same OP pic.)
>but a low level engineering job will get her a low income and she needs/wants more cash in order to pay for the master degree
Why isn't she at least TRYING to target a company that will pay for her masters while she works with them? She won't be swimming in money with a low level engineering job, but I think she is discounting how much experience counts in the job market. Also, why is she racing towards a masters degree? In many cases having a masters degree without complementary experience will look worse on a resume than a bachelors with some work experience. Please tell me she has lots of internships under her belt. Otherwise she's not going to get the result she expects after working her ass off for a masters that she's going to pay for herself.
Also, why isn't she 'letting' her parents pay for any of this?
And I'm just going to throw out there the possibility that she wants to break up with you but likes you as a person and doesn't know how to go about it (and also wants you as a backup just in case).
>>16596060
Yeah, actually she's quite insecure, her last bf was an asshole with her, like, really really mean dude. Anyway, she kept saying that she had nothing to offer, that she's poor, has no job, has no plans for life other than the master degree and that she wants to be a researcher and compares with me saying that I have a job, a plan and I'm starting my own business, that I have things kind of figured out and she's nothing compared to that. She feels like she has to give something in order to feel ok, not being able to invite me for dinner (for example) is a annoying feeling for her, because she wants to, but she can't afford it atm.
So... I do sort of know she's not an asshole or at least not asshole enough to dump me because she wants to get laid with strangers on a cruise (she might have low chances to achieve that because she'll be working as a slave anyway). But still I find it quite annoying, I've never asked anything from her, and I do understand the "I'm a student and I'm poor" status, I was there 7 months ago.
>>16596008
>biogas
Are you doing fast pyrolysis, methane capture, or what?
>>16596106
>I've never asked anything from her
Have you ever explicitly told her that you're okay with her not bringing anything to the table financially, at least for now?
Sometimes people make a big deal out of things, and if you don't think it's a big deal you can calm them down by minimizing it. She's making a big deal out of her financial situation. If you don't really care that much, let her know and she might calm down about it a bit.
>>16596102
On the first, touché,
On the second, touché
>I do believe her last boyfriend really made a mess out of her, they dated for 2 or 3 years and ended badly. She's not crazy, or at least, not as crazy as some girls I've met before, so that's good.
On the third, will do!
On the fourth, That was what I told her, but well, I think she hasn't really given the time to check all the options and she's just rushing there because she wants to get the degree and do a second masters or phd as fast as she can to be professionally happy around her 28s (sort of). She does have some experience, has worked for (as far as I know) 4 or 5 companies, but Idk how is it in the civil engineering area, but building houses, bridges and streets doesn't sound like too much of a deal to me (professionally speaking, like, for the masters and research areas), but experience is experience right? And that's quite a lot for todays standards in my opinion.
I'll try to talk her down to chill her horses down, because, as you said she could get a company to pay for the masters. The other issue is that she wants to apply for the erasmus programme but as far as I've noticed she has no fucking clue about how it works. She made her thesis at a research campus for around a year and a half and got an offer from Texas A&M to do the masters there, all paid, she would just have to pay for her flat and food or something like that.
I have no idea, I think she thinks of herself as a "strong independent woman", anyhow, rejecting help is idiotic in my personal way of thinking.
>>16596112
Fast pyrolysis (i guess, not a chemist) but we do heat the slurry to increase methane yields. Yeah methane capture, then processing and burning in a CAT biogas engine. Some rankine cycles just to upgrade efficiency and that's about it. Issue is we ran out of money building up the pig farm, so we are looking for investors for the biogas project. Everything looks quite good on paper thought
>>16596115
Yeah, a couple of times before, casually when she got weird because I paid the dinner hahahaha. And now when we were talking I was very punctual about it, i couldn't care less about it, I know she's going to do great, and if I can, I'd gladly help her out (dunno, I did propose her to share a flat, we never talked about rent and expenses thought). I have no issues if she can't put much or anything at all for rent and stuff, I can cover those expenses, later in life, when she's doing well on her researcher job she can give anything she wants, it's not really necesary right now, I mean, I'm 25 years old, and just graduated too, I'm also kind of living day by day, but I told her that we can team up and help each other out at least saying each morning "hey buddy, go and kick ass today, you fucking rock!". As I said, I do like this girl on a pretty serious way, and she (before this weird talk) has given me signs that the feelings are shared.
Actually, we were dating and she was the one that said we should formalize our relationship.
>>Basically love this girl like I've never loved anyone before, I really don't mind at all the money side, could live in a tent eating soup, she makes me happy.
DONT LET HER GO, dude. Just tell her the same thing you told some unknown autist in your OP. She makes you happy and thats the only important thing. If she wants to be independet you can encourage her, but make it clear that you want to stay together. She doesnt sound like she wants to leave you, but she seems to have some Problems with her self worth. Maybe talk about that.
>>16596296
By "dont let her go" i mean breaking up not the cruise. I think the Problem is not you but the before mentioned self worth.
Most people here are following the line of thought "she's lying"; I'll follow another - she's insecure as fuck and she feels humiliated by herself by not standing on her two own legs, but instead dragging other people down.
If this is true, first and foremost: reassure her you need her and she's in no way a burden for you. Then (since you said she's a little "dumb" with decisions), help her to plan her professional future.
Tell her she's being fucking crazy. There's no reason to dump a nigga because you feel inadequate. If a nigga is sticking around (like you,) fucking milk that nigga for all he's worth.
>slut wants to go on a cruise and get plowed six ways to Sunday by exotic men
Dump that bitch, son
>>16596296
I won't! We'll keep talking about that, I hope I can make her value herself better, things are working out quite nice, a bit fast in my opinion, but super good.
>>16596322
Yeah, I noticed that, also everyone thinks she's going on a cruise for vacation or something. It wasn't that long to tl:dr. Anyhow, yeah, I noticed that after our first talks, also she kind of gave me the heads up that she was insecure. I will reassure that to her and also guide her a bit, she kind of rushes a lot because she's worried about time and getting too old to do what she wants hahahaha.
>>16596396
Mah nigga!
>>16596401
But she's going to work at the cruise, not enjoy the sun! It is still a possibility to get plowed by coworkers thought.
---UPDATE----
I talked to her this morning (sorry, it was like 3 am when I left this post) and we are all fine now, she apologized for what she said because she was drunk, actually we did talk a bit at night and she started to apologize then. So, narrowing it down, she doesn't want to break up and she said that she won't ever say any kind of thing like yesterdays, also that if she ever does, that I should just ignore her because she'll probably be drunk, to which I responded that I will ignore her and give her a spank. Also said that if we ever "have to talk" we'll do it in person and not on the phone.
So I'm quite happy with this morning talk, I was mad at her obviously, but she did apologize in a propper and acceptable way. Thanks for your advice guys!
