How to balance being accepting and being honest?

My girlfriend is a very lovely and quiet person. We’ve been dating for almost a year now and we’ve grown very close. There hasn’t been many long term problems (aside from our families being difficult) but occasionally something arises and I don’t know how to handle it.

She went away on a 4 day trip to Boston for a wedding, and she’ll be getting back tonight. It’s not that long but we really haven’t talked much in the past couple of days. We’re seniors in high school. We have a class together and we usually eat lunch together with some friends, but most of our friends straight up stopped going to lunch, with the exception of one who’s only there about half the time. So essentially, it’s turning out to be a pretty lonely year and I only have her to talk to most of the time, which I’m fine with. But it’d still be nice to have more people to bond with. Last week I was completely alone at lunch which was pretty lonely.

Anyway, enough backstory. She’ll be getting back tonight, so I asked her if she wanted to go on a date with me tomorrow night. I talked about all these fun and good things we can do. And she said she needs to ask her family for permission and that her mom (and her sister) might not let her. Essentially this means no, because her family is very concerned with controlling her and essentially keeping her down. They have done hurtful things to her, and she is still scared of them. I try my best to help her with this and make her feel better.

But when she talked about getting permission, i got a bit fed up. I told her it’s just a date between me and her. It’s her decision to make and not her family’s. I told her I won’t judge her if she doesn’t want to go for the sake of not causing trouble with her family, but at the same time, that “control” they have over her isn’t real and it never really was. I told her SHE had the right to decide. Not her family.

She decided no. Which is fine. But then she said it wasn’t because of her family. Rather, it was because she just didn’t feel like it and she’d rather be alone at home to chill without me. This upset me. I remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with this, but at the same time, there’s nothing wrong with me feeling hurt by this. I didn’t want to guilt her into coming, and I tried not to. I ended up convincing her by saying I was surprised she just didn’t want to go out with me or that she didn’t seem to miss me enough to do this. I think she realized this upset me, because she ended up changing her mind. Problem solved?

She told me she might not go to school tomorrow, which was disappointing but fine. Afterwards, however, I found out that tomorrow none of my other friends would be at lunch yet again. I told her about last week and how I felt kinda lonely, and that no one else would be there tomorrow. But she didn’t really seem to care. She just kinda said “that sucks.” I asked her if she could rethink not going to school at least so I could see her. I asked if she could at least come in late. Again, doesn’t seem like she’s planning on it. Then silence over the phone for a while. Then “hey I might have to go soon, we’ll be boarding.” “Okay, goodbyeeeee” “goodbye” “goodbyyyyyee!!!!” Hangs up.

I realized that I can’t expect her to show any sympathy if I’m not honest with her. I tried to be. I told her I really wish she’d come tomorrow. Still get a similar response of her saying she’ll think it over, but it still didn’t seem like it. So now I’m here. I’ve been upset about this for the rest of the day. I’m not at the point where I can let this wash over me. This is pretty hard for me to deal with because it seems like she just doesn’t care and doesn’t miss me. We’ve even been over this kind of thing before. About how sometimes she just doesn’t seem to care.

The most extreme part of me really wants to tell her “hey, I’m fucking upset at you. I don’t like how you’re treating me at all. It’s frustrating and disappointing and makes me feel really bad about myself because I really miss you, yet you’d rather just stay home and fucking play video games than see me after getting back.”

But if I really lay it ALL out on her, I KNOW it’ll hurt her feelings. I’d basically be calling her lazy and uncaring. That’s not entirely loving or helpful. I totally get that she might need to decompress. But dammit I really don’t think I’m asking for much. I can either be completely honest and satisfied and risk ruining everything for tomorrow by making her depressed, or I can just carry it with me and TRY to have a good time regardless, IF she even agrees. I feel like if I try to balance both of these though, neither will really work out.

So how do you think I can handle this? I NEED to be COMPLETELY honest with her but I just don’t know. I’m going to meditate now and I hope that I’ll come back to this with a clear mind, but in the meantime, can any of you tell me about YOUR experience with this kind of thing? It’s not like I have a horrible girlfriend. 95% of the time it’s a perfect relationship, but that 5% is so subtle and delicate yet can really cause a LOT of stress.

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