u/Extension_Rain_1507

I am a 21M college student and I have a 21F student girlfriend. We’ve been together officially for 2 years , but we’ve been dating in total for a little over 2 and a half years. I love my girlfriend very much and am very passionate about her. I try to be the best boyfriend I can and we have a very healthy relationship.

Over the years I’ve learned a lot about my girlfriend: her tendencies , what she does and doesn’t like (I’ve gotten better at paying attention), and her mindset. To set the stage, I am a very passionate, high energy person. My passionate allows me to deeply feel emotions and I talk a lot lol. Things are constantly running through my brain, which can be a positive or a negative thing sometimes. Positive because I bring the energy to the relationship, and not to gas myself up, it also helps my humor which I believe she really enjoys. I make her laugh a lot and I see she enjoys it and I also feel immense satisfaction from seeing her happy. But it can be challenging because my mind is running all the time.

My girlfriend on the other hand is kind of the opposite. She’s very neutral energy and doesn’t want to exercise her brain more than she needs (not a lazy way just more about efficiency). She’s a bio major so her course load is heavy most times. Unlike me, she doesn’t have endless thoughts running through her head. At times it can be a little challenging because I want to have meaningful conversations or just hear her thoughts on different topics, but she says she literally doesn’t have anything come to her brain. Now we have had plenty of meaningful conversations, but I just wanted to note this. Another important note is she is not the most expressive person. We’ve had some conflicts before because sometimes I didn’t feel loved or important. Physical touch is not that natural to her, but I love and appreciate her because she’s gotten better in that area as much as she can. However, she definitely is not a emotionally expressive person. This is something that I’ve had to accept. She gotten better at saying “I love you “ and complimenting me more often but it hasn’t always been like that. However, even though she doesn’t say it, I can tell she tried to spend quality time with me, despite her busy schedule. It can be hard because she always , always busy during the weekends, and sometimes during the week. But I can tell she’s trying to spend time with me and I really appreciate it.

My question for the ladies is how does a person like my girlfriend show that she cares for the person without saying it? Sometimes it can be challenging because it feels like I have to come to these conclusions myself. I know that she loves me because Im self aware and can see certain things that she does. But sometimes I just want to be told how much she cares about me or just make it more obvious you know. I’m accepting of this fact but still recognize I still want it sometimes .

I also want to mention I had a conversation with my uncle and he said that this is probably part of whah initially attracted me to her. What attracted me to her was she was lowkey, but had a nice energy about her. She wasn’t like the other women on campus who are pick mes and want attention. She wasn’t too herself , confident in who she is but also a beautiful woman. Now that I’m writing this , it sounds like this is what comes with being with someone like this.

Overall the relationship is going well. This is someone I want to marry in the future, but I have to make sure that she can meet my needs. Thank you for reading this.

TL;DR:
I’m a high-energy, expressive person dating a more reserved, low-energy girlfriend. She’s busy, not very emotionally or physically expressive, but shows love through actions like making time for me. I know she cares, but sometimes I wish she expressed it more directly. How do people like her show love without saying it, and is it reasonable for me to want more verbal/obvious reassurance?

I am a 21 year old male college student and I have a 21 year old student girlfriend. We’ve been together officially for 2 years , but we’ve been dating in total for a little over 2 and a half years. I love my girlfriend very much and am very passionate about her. I try to be the best boyfriend I can and we have a very healthy relationship.

Over the years I’ve learned a lot about my girlfriend: her tendencies , what she does and doesn’t like (I’ve gotten better at paying attention), and her mindset. To set the stage, I am a very passionate, high energy person. My passionate allows me to deeply feel emotions and I talk a lot lol. Things are constantly running through my brain, which can be a positive or a negative thing sometimes. Positive because I bring the energy to the relationship, and not to gas myself up, it also helps my humor which I believe she really enjoys. I make her laugh a lot and I see she enjoys it and I also feel immense satisfaction from seeing her happy. But it can be challenging because my mind is running all the time.

My girlfriend on the other hand is kind of the opposite. She’s very neutral energy and doesn’t want to exercise her brain more than she needs (not a lazy way just more about efficiency). She’s a bio major so her course load is heavy most times. Unlike me, she doesn’t have endless thoughts running through her head. At times it can be a little challenging because I want to have meaningful conversations or just hear her thoughts on different topics, but she says she literally doesn’t have anything come to her brain. Now we have had plenty of meaningful conversations, but I just wanted to note this. Another important note is she is not the most expressive person. We’ve had some conflicts before because sometimes I didn’t feel loved or important. Physical touch is not that natural to her, but I love and appreciate her because she’s gotten better in that area as much as she can. However, she definitely is not a emotionally expressive person. This is something that I’ve had to accept. She gotten better at saying “I love you “ and complimenting me more often but it hasn’t always been like that. However, even though she doesn’t say it, I can tell she tried to spend quality time with me, despite her busy schedule. It can be hard because she always , always busy during the weekends, and sometimes during the week. But I can tell she’s trying to spend time with me and I really appreciate it.

My question for the ladies is how does a person like my girlfriend show that she cares for the person without saying it? Sometimes it can be challenging because it feels like I have to come to these conclusions myself. I know that she loves me because Im self aware and can see certain things that she does. But sometimes I just want to be told how much she cares about me or just make it more obvious you know. I’m accepting of this fact but still recognize I still want it sometimes .

I also want to mention I had a conversation with my uncle and he said that this is probably part of whah initially attracted me to her. What attracted me to her was she was lowkey, but had a nice energy about her. She wasn’t like the other women on campus who are pick mes and want attention. She wasn’t too herself , confident in who she is but also a beautiful woman. Now that I’m writing this , it sounds like this is what comes with being with someone like this.

Overall the relationship is going well. This is someone I want to marry in the future, but I have to make sure that she can meet my needs. Thank you for reading this.

TL;DR:
I’m a high-energy, expressive person dating a more reserved, low-energy girlfriend. She’s busy, not very emotionally or physically expressive, but shows love through actions like making time for me. I know she cares, but sometimes I wish she expressed it more directly. How do people like her show love without saying it, and is it reasonable for me to want more verbal/obvious reassurance?

This is my first time posting on Reddit and I thought it would be beneficial to hear your guys opinion on the matter. I’m particularly asking people who have been with busy partners.

This is a great opportunity for me to practice explaining my thoughts in the clearest way I can, so I hope you guys understand what I’m trying to say. The post is kind of long so I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read it.

I (21M) have been with my girlfriend (21F) for a little over 2.5 years now. We’re both currently juniors in college, with my girlfriend being a Biology major and myself an Information Systems major. If I were to sum up my college experience so far regarding my relationship and myself , I would say it’s been such a journey of self discovery. I’ve learned so much about myself, our relationship, and my girlfriend as a person. One of the difficult challenges my gf and I faced in our relationship is the differences in who we are. I am a passionate and talkative guy who loved to make my loved one’s life. I try to keep a good attitude in what I do and don’t like to complain about small things. I try to be kind to others and am very in touch with my emotions. I would like to say I have a pretty high EQ. I also am a loverboy. I love my girlfriend so much. She is so beautiful and makes my quality of life so much better. We laugh and have such amazing times together. My girlfriend is kind of the opposite of me. She’s not super talkative and more laid back. She’s only used as much energy as she needs to and is more “simple”. I say simple because I have a lot going through my head throughout the day. This is what allows me to be spontaneous and so full of energy and crack jokes out of thin air. However, it also contributed to my overthinking and mental health problems as well. My girlfriend is calm and centered. She brings the centered energy in the relationship.

This past SPRING semester has been a very tough semester for our relationship. I was struggling with the differences in who we were, which resulted in me sometimes not feeling loved or feeling important to her. See, my girlfriend isn’t naturally a physical touch person or words person, and because I enjoy those things, it didn’t make me feel good that I wasn’t receiving it. At the same time, I started going to counseling because I was having some mental battles that she didn’t know how to support me with . During counseling, I spoke a lot about the relationship. These challenges ended up leading to my girlfriend technically breaking up with me, but not fully going through with it. Through that incident, I learned that she was actually pretty stressed in the relationship.

To help you guys understand this better, I have to explain to you my past. See I’ve always been someone who had something I’m focusing on in my life. In highschool it was working out, in college it was dropshipping and my relationship. I put a lot of time and effort into these things. But I realized that I can’t operate my relationship the same way I operate a side hustle or hobby. So during this semester, because I was so hyper aware of all our problems and thinking of the other relationship all the time, it made her stress which I didn’t know. That incident definitely woke me up.

So why am I writing this? Well my girlfriend and I are in a very healthy relationship and I want to do things the right way. One day I hope to marry her but understand there’s so much that leads up to that. Because my girl is a biology major, she starting to take some tough clsssed like organic chemistry. As a result, she needs to study more and overall had more responsibilities. Along with school, my girls been exploring her life by going out with her girls more, hanging with family, and just doing things she likes.

Regarding myself, I’m slowly learning how to have my own life. Having my own life means not thinking about the relationship 24/7. My girl and I never had any issues with clinginess, however I personally struggle with balance in my life. When I have something important in my life I’m constantly thinking about it, such as the relationship. Currently, I’m learning how to incorporate other things in my life. I’m making progress but sometimes it can be tough. I’m more cognizant of little things I do that pressure my girl and by improving on those, my girl has been making time for me and I overall can see she feels so much better.

However, it can get tough sometimes because I’m honestly kind of scared for the future. I’ve read forums about how a partner is going their masters and they only can talk to their partner once a week or a couple hours a week. I understand that focusing on our careers is important, and that I come second. It’s a hard pill to swallow but I’m growing enough to understand this. This relationship means a lot to me and I truly do love her. That’s why I am working to have my life and being self aware of what’s pressuring her because I don’t want to push her away , like what almost happened. I understand that I was making the relationship seem like the only important thing in life and now I’m doing better.

But putting career and school aside, I genuinely love this girl and I just want to see this relationship through. Thoughts that come to my head can sometimes be about feeling like she doesn’t care about the relationship as much as I do. I hope that you guys understand what I’m saying and I overall just want to hear your guys opinions on when a partners life gets busy. It can be tough .

TL;DR:
I (21M) have been with my girlfriend (21F) for 2.5 years. We’re very different—I’m more expressive and relationship-focused, while she’s more laid-back and independent. Earlier this year, my overthinking and constant focus on the relationship stressed her out and nearly led to a breakup. Since then, I’ve been working on building my own life and giving her space, especially as she’s getting busier with school and personal life. Things are healthier now, but I still sometimes struggle with feeling like she doesn’t care as much and worry about how increasing responsibilities (like harder classes or future career demands) might affect our relationship. I’m looking for advice from people who’ve been with busy partners.