My girlfriend (18F, almost 19F) and I (20M) have been together for about 2.5 years, since high school. I was a senior when we started dating and she was a junior. During my first year at college, things still felt really strong between us even though I was attending a university about 30 minutes away. We’d go on dates, spend time with mutual friends, and she would come hang out with me on campus.
The issues really started after she graduated and came to the same university last fall. I completely understand that she’s under a lot of pressure as a civil engineering major while balancing work and her sport, but over time I’ve started feeling emotionally neglected and unappreciated.
I’m almost always the one checking in first, saying good morning/goodnight, asking about her day, and trying to make plans. I’ve learned her class and work schedule so I can work around it, but she often forgets things I tell her or doesn’t seem to pay attention when I talk about my own plans or interests.
One example that really bothered me was when I told her something private about my roommate and specifically asked her not to mention it right before we walked into the dorm. She immediately joked about it to him and later said she forgot our conversation from a minute earlier. Situations like that make me feel ignored or unimportant.
I’ve also made a huge effort to support her interests. She spends a lot of time at her horse barn, and for a long time I would go there often to help out and spend time with her. Recently I got fired from my job and had to work more to keep paying bills, gas, dates, etc., so I wasn’t able to go as often for a while. I’ve recently been making more effort to start going again, but now it doesn’t even feel appreciated when I do.
Another issue is intimacy. Around halfway through last semester, she told me she hasn’t really been enjoying sex much anymore. I understand sex isn’t the only thing that determines love or affection, and I know stress can affect libido, so I’ve tried to respect that. But what’s been difficult for me is that it feels like she doesn’t even want to try to reconnect physically or get herself in the mood anymore. We can go weeks without intimacy and she seems perfectly okay with it, while I end up feeling unwanted and undesirable.
She also complains a lot about not having friends at college, but at the same time she doesn’t really try to meet people or get to know my friends because she says she wants her “own” friends. We’ve both acknowledged that she can be pretty judgmental of people quickly, which probably makes it harder for her socially.
What frustrates me is that she’ll complain constantly about not having enough time for schoolwork, not having friends, or being stressed, but then spend huge amounts of time on her phone watching reels or movies. It’s honestly becoming exhausting because she complains about these problems while continuing habits that make them worse, and lately it feels like a huge percentage of our conversations are just references to random TikToks/reels or “brain rot” content.
I’m also heavily involved in a campus club that has become a really important part of my life. I’m completely okay with her not personally enjoying it, but she visibly looks annoyed whenever I talk about it. I invited her on a trip with the club because I wanted to include her in something meaningful to me, and she looked miserable the entire weekend. Between her comments and facial expressions, it felt obvious how much she hated being there, and honestly it ruined a lot of the trip for me.
At this point, I feel like I put a huge amount of emotional effort into the relationship while getting very little back. I can’t tell if she’s just overwhelmed and stressed from school/life, or if she’s emotionally checked out of the relationship and staying because it’s comfortable.
How do I figure out whether this relationship is going through a stressful phase versus genuinely becoming one-sided, and what kinds of conversations or boundaries would be healthy to bring up without it turning into blame or resentment?