I feel like seeing dead birds was very rare before but it feels quite common this year. Maybe I'm just driving more in a different area this year and the rate was surprisingly low last year, but I really feel like I'm constantly seeing dead birds over the last few weeks.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

I'm using the phrase 'internet discussion site' pretty informally, so I hope my meaning will become clearer as you continue reading.

I got rid of Snapchat around 4 years ago now. At some point in 2023 I noticed a sharp downtick in discussion quality on Twitter, and got rid of it as well. About two years ago, frustrated with the lack of human interaction and the vying for attention, I deleted Instagram. Near the end of 2025, I stopped using Discord. The final nail in the coffin has now arrived, since I'm unfortunately coming to the conclusion that Reddit is no longer worth visiting, leaving me almost entirely cordoned off from internet communication at a time when more humans are using it than ever before.
I won't bother repeating my personal reasons for this exodus since I feel confident that most people on this website have feelings on the matter that at least approximate my own.
Realistically this is a sign that it's time to prioritize interaction in the real world, and that's certainly a worthwhile thing to pursue. But bluntly society has restructured around the internet in a pretty substantial way, and I don't think it's an unreasonable ask to find various forms of forums on which more meaningful discussions can take place.
Here is my personal survey of the current landscape:

• tildes.net: Basically good. I really enjoy this website and I think in a lot of ways the 'bar/pub/cafe' model for a forum, where you can peer through the window but require permission to gain admission, is the only viable model for future online discussion places as the internet becomes ever more saturated with bots and bad actors.
• lobste.rs: Also basically good, for the same reasons as tildes. In some aspects, limited by the fact that it has a particular focus. In other ways, that's a really good thing. Maybe in a perfect world there would be a lobste.rs equivalent for every hobby, and we would return to an early internet forum world.
• Hacker News: Also basically good but perhaps a bit less so than the above two. I think most of the things posted on there are interesting, but a lot of the discussion has lately felt less insightful than it used to. I think a different tildes post noted this as well, but it's very caught up in the AI news cycle, often to an unfortunate degree.
• Rateyourmusic: The core site is enjoyable, and the forums are usually fun to check in on every now and then. Certainly a worthwhile place to visit if you enjoy music.
• Stackexchange networks: This is cheating since this is obviously many sites. I'm a mathematics student and I've found MSE and MathOverflow to be really wonderful places to learn and converse, albeit with some very arcane and strict rules for posting. The philosophy SE seems also generally of a high quality, and there are many other SE sites that I occasionally stumble into and am pleasantly surprised by. Unfortunately I expect its time is finite, since the UX has slowly but surely been degrading and the site traffic dropping.
• Fediverse networks: These sites clearly have potential, but for whatever reason it's still just not there. I drop into lemmy and Mastodon occasionally, but the posts are rarely of high quality. In many ways they just feel like "Reddit/Twitter but with a different name".

Surely these can't be all, right? It's a little soul-crushing to think how many people are online at any given time and how hard it is to find a place not drowning in noise. Maybe this is just my lament.

Submit your response here!

• Direct link: https://survey.tildes.community/-/what-is-your-favorite-video-game-8/
• This survey closes on June 14, 2026 at 10:00 UTC
• The results will be published on June 14 shortly after the survey has closed. I'll edit this topic and post a comment about it!

The current plans for questions that will be asked in the coming weeks are as follows:

I was initially thinking of doing something like kfwyre suggested where you could submit a top 5 or so, but then I thought it would be more fun if I made you decide on a definitive answer. Like how with the pineapple pizza survey there was only Yes and No as answers, you have to make a choice!

So that's what I've decided to do! Pick your ultimate favorite video game. And feel free to discuss your honorable mentions in the comments, of course. ;)

Please submit your ideas for questions here! Even if they've been submitted already by someone else. All input is valuable! You can view all submitted questions on this dashboard.

Thank you all for participating!

There's something small that you've been meaning to do but, for whatever reason, you haven't done it. Rather than just forgetting about it, however, your brain has decided to make it take up a minor amount of space in your awareness -- not enough to make it an immediate concern or something you plan to act on, but still just enough to be annoying.

Well, this is your call to address the issue head on! Pull that mental splinter out and get rid of it for good!

Maybe you need to...

• change an air filter
• tighten your showerhead
• go through that stack of mail
• box up a return
• put more air in your bike tires
• rearrange a bookshelf
• throw out some expired cans
• vacuum behind the couch
• clean the dust out of your computer fan
• etc.

Whatever it is, this topic is your call to GO DO THE THING.

And then, come back here and tell us what you did.

One minor annoyance solved for only one person? Not a big deal.

LOTS of minor annoyances solved for LOTS of different people? GIGANTIC DEAL!

This topic is our space to communally revel in the glorious shared feeling of being slightly more annoyance-free, together.

IMPORTANT: Clearing up multiple annoyances is explicitly allowed!

Greetings everyone. I'm currently in the process of getting a Computer Science degree for two primary reasons. 1.) Because I want to get a stable development job where I'm currently employed, but most importantly to me 2) Because I want to make video games and have the educational credentials to confidently do so.

I know I know, you don't need a computer science degree to create video games, and my program doesn't even teach game development. So I have a long journey ahead learning game dev alongside my program in my own time. Also I have no intentions of working at an actual game company.

So my question today is,

What is a game that you are dying to play, that nobody has made yet?

I'm trying to get some inspiration. It's hard to think about something that truly doesn't exist, because there's so many amazing games already. I'm genuinely curious.

If you're struggling like I am, feel free to list a game that's been made exactly once but no ones been able to reproduce it's genius.

I'll start,

I am DYING to play a factory builder game, but with ARPG gameplay. So Factorio / Dyson Sphere Program meets Diablo 4 & Path Of Exile. I just think this would create such a dopamine addicting game that would be impossible to pull away from if done right. My idea would be to have the factory be the loot crafting mechanic for progressively better armos, while the ARPG is what you use to get the materials needed to craft truly insane gear. Idk, if done right I think this could have legs.

Hi all. I'm interested on hearing about recipes you've come up with yourself, whether completely from scratch or variation on an existing one. Maybe you were lacking an ingredient one day, and subbed one that changed the recipe in a good way. Maybe you tried a dish at a restaurant that you love and attempted to recreate it at home. Maybe you had a bunch of leftover ingredients you didn't know what to do with, so decided to throw them all together and pray for the best. Or maybe inspiration struck suddenly one day for a perfect dish, and you gave it a shot. Would love to hear the backstory of the recipe if you have it. I'll start.

Cincinnati style daal. The family chili recipe growing up was cincinatti/skyline style chili. I've thus always preferred my chili without beans, and I love the depth of flavor cincinnati style chili has. My family even likes to use ground turkey meat because we think it absorbs the flavors of the spices better than beef does. When I moved to the UK, I suddenly had access to excellent Indian food, daals now being one of my favorites. One thing that immediately struck me about daals was the depth of flavor in them. The lentils serve to add texture and some creaminess, but the spices in it are the highlight of the dish. In fact, this kinda reminded me of my family chili. I began wondering, could I make a daal but with the spices from my family chili? This would be pretty nice, as turkey is kinda hard to find outside of christmas time here and lentils are a good low-cost protein. Well, it turns out the cooking process for daal and my family's chili are pretty similar, so I took a black daal recipe from dishoom and tried subbing the cincinatti chili spices for the spices in the daal. Many of the other ingredients between the two recipes are similar. And it's come out pretty good! I'm still refining it, it lacks some umami without the meat, but I think the next batch will be great. Serving it with naan and cilantro, instead of spaghetti. Always with shredded cheese and chopped onions of course.

Filipino Dip. One of my favorite recipes to make is chicken adobo, so easy to make and it's delicious. I usually have some chicken and sauce left after making a batch, and one day it occurred to me that there was enough sauce left I could dip a sandwich in it. Huh, that's kinda similar to a french dip. So I shredded up the remaining chicken, toasted a baguette, and sauteed a bunch of onions to add to the sandwich. It was absolutely delicious, and what I will be doing with my leftover chicken adobo from now on.

St Patrick's Day Ramen. So, this year I decided to make my family's St Patrick's Day meal. Kinda hard to do in the UK, as corned beef is really not a big thing. (Yes, I know they have the tinned version, no, it's nothing like the real deal). But I corned my own beef, and then braised it in red wine, and invited friends over to share. Afterwards, with all the corned beef gone, a friend and I were looking at the braising liquid. There was a ton of it left, and it tasted frankly delicious. My friend pointed out that it reminded him of a ramen broth, and so an idea was born. I bought some thinly sliced beef from the local asian grocery store, and assembled the ramen with it, the noodles, cabbage, thinly sliced green apples (I know it seems weird, but it's used in the family cabbage recipe), and pickled garlic/cucumbers made from the leftover corned beef brine. It came out delicious, and will definitely be doing it next year.

Oven roasted brussel sprouts and carrots. This came from a restaurant near me that unfortunately closed. They would make the most amazing, crispy, roast brussel sprouts and carrots served with a tangy, smokey dressing. After it closed, I would dream of these brussel sprouts, and I tried googling recipes to find something similar with no luck. I knew only a couple of things: that the head chef was Peruvian and said on the menu it had inspired this dish; there was mezcal in the dressing, likely providing the smokey component. So after researching Peruvian recipes, I've come up with a vinaigrette that's as close as I can remember: bragg's cider vinegar, juice from one lime, olive oil, salt and black pepper, and a splash of mezcal. If available, add a touch of aji amarillo paste. May need to add a little sugar for a hint of sweetness. It took some time to figure out a crispy brussel sprout too, as home ovens can't get as hot as a commercial kitchen, but also finally found an oven roasting recipe I was happy with.

Looking forward to hearing everyone elses recipes!

By sandwich, I am excluding "the Shaggy", where you just pile every good thing you can think of on.

I mean what is your favorite traditional sandwich, such that you could say the name to a stranger and have a reasonable chance of them knowing what fillings you are thinking of.

You may include candidates which are not not universally be considered a sandwich, such as hot dogs, quesadillas, burgers, etc. So long as you genuinely beleive it to be superior to all other sandwich forms.

My current shortlist of candidates, as examples:

1. Grilled Cheese - Simple, easy, accessible to the masses

2. Bahn Mi - A Vietnamese sandwich of a split baguette with kewpie mayo spread, stuffed with marinated grilled pork, cucumber, carrot, and sliced green pepper.

3. Italian Combo - An informal sub combination typically consisting of salami, capicolla, and some form of cheese, mozzarella being used as a default .

You can choose your own metric for what makes for a superior sandwich and may consider any standard toppings for the sandwich like mustard/mayo to be included.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Much to my chagrin, the company I work for has done a lot in terms of steering/ pushing all software development be done through AI for some time now.

And what gives me much grin, GitHub changed their pricing structure for copilot. I'll skip the details the key fact is what used to be about $30/month per person + maybe few bucks in overages is now resulting in us hitting our usage cap on the 2nd day of the month. Overage costs this month will be hundreds of dollars per developer. I know this is an unexpected expense as I mentioned it casually to our CTO who had no idea.

I'm curious if this is going to force them to rethink the AI strategy. The incessant pushing to use more and more AI maybe will finally bite them on the ass so much they have to ask us to stop or pull back? Or maybe they'll just plunder our salaries, who knows.

I'm curious if anyone else is in the same situation.

Ok so this is our wheelchair van, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to take it to the shop but I am hoping for an idea of what is going on.

We have a 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan with less than 45k miles that's been fully modified for wheelchair use. (This shouldn't impact much but it does mean the electric is a bit more complex). It has separate front and rear controls and separate driver passenger front controls for the HVAC. The rear works fine, but the front passenger stopped switching off of the heat maybe a year ago. I forgot about it because we don't drive the car often and since we don't have a front passenger seat in the vehicle, no one is right in front of those vents. The driver side and rear kept working fine.

In the past month, the front vents no longer have any air movement with the very small exception that occasionally when I switch the AC on there's a bit of a very short, light cold breeze. Even more rarely sometimes at highway speeds this breeze will continue longer.

No setting change this afaict, there's no defrost, no switching to a different temp or set of vents that makes the blower work.

I did check the fuses under the hood and they look fine, I haven't gone behind the glove box, in part because I suspect this is going to be out of my skill set.

Suggestions for what could be the cause? Again I know I'll need to get it to a mechanic just hoping to have knowledge going in.

Basically, the title question.

I'm rethinking my entire data backup routine, considering using Git to start tracking much/most (all?) of my assorted projects' histories. In most cases, it makes sense; but with my Calibre library, I'm not sure.

Has anyone tried this?

More particularly, if I do it ... what-all should be included in the .ignore file? Should I try to maintain a version history of the metadata.db file (an SQLite db file)? What about the ".calnotes" and ".caltrash" folders?

Thanks.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

If any therapists are reading this, feel free to skip this post or at least know that I do not intend to offend you or your profession.

I happened upon that phrase while scrolling somewhere. I thought that it is a harsh thing to say and while it is not something I entirely agree with, I also do not entirely disagree with it. It was real provocative too, so it really got me thinking.

As someone that has done hundreds of hours of therapy with little to show for it, I feel like it is an understandable thing to say because on a deep fundamental level, I truly get it.

If you are talking to a friend or loved one (who is not being paid to talk to you) about mental health, if you bring up some personal issue, raise a life problem, anything deeper than surface level interpersonal stuff, there is a high likelihood that the conversation will steer towards a version of this question: have you tried therapy?

That is - probably unintentionally and unbeknownst to them - the signal to me that the conversation is now over. They do not have the mental capacity to talk about it at the moment, maybe they feel they are out of their depth with such a heavy subject matter, or perhaps they do not have the life experience to relate to it. Maybe all of the above. It is all fair enough. So they bring up their best bet for a solution that in their mind might help. It gets very old but I remind myself to appreciate their good faith and good intentions.

The answer to that question is that yes I have indeed tried therapy. I have tried so much therapy, in fact, that whole teams of therapists have concluded that therapy cannot help me. I would be remiss if I was not open about that bias, and it is probably the reason I have found the incentive to spend so many hours writing this post in the first place.

The way we behave and interact with each other is unrecognizable compared to just one or two centuries ago before industrialization. It used to be that whatever troubles you were dealing with, you probably had a community around you. Even if you did not talk about what troubled you directly, the people were there to make you feel safe. You didn't have to talk about diagnostic criteria and therapeutic methods and psychiatric theories and mindfulness and self-help resources... you had people to talk to. The simple fact that people were around you all day every day meant that you got on with it and coped with things. You had a neighborhood or village or whatever in which friends and family lived and worked closely together every day. People to talk to all day. That is therapeutic in itself.

Nowadays, work-life balance is such an enforced thing that connections seem to be in rigid boxes. Not that people are not friends with their coworkers, but it is my impression that it is kind of rare to truly befriend a coworker. So you have a box that is called work, and you have a box that is called life. And you do not much mix them together - you certainly do not talk about heavy life things at work. Big no-no, even though it is the former that takes up a majority of most people's time awake during the week. Not to go on a tangent about capitalism, but the way our entire system is built up around individualism is not something that can be ignored here either. Through urbanization, we seem to have lost our sense of one another. I of course cannot speak to other societies than my own, but I do see these sentiments from people that live in other countries of the western world too.

I do not think that it is controversial to conclude that individualism can be extremely harmful. The we-society of the past pretty quickly transformed into our current me-society. So much so that "self-help" is a huge industry. A lot of people are getting by just fine of course, but for those of us who are not fitting into boxes, this societal obsession with individualism only worsens our states of mind. Off to school, off to university, off to work, start a family, get married, build a house, mow the lawn, rinse and repeat for the next generation. That is what the majority is doing and they have little to no problems doing it. Some of them think it is so normal and easy, even, that it becomes repetitive so they find themselves calling it the hamster wheel and start writing articles about how boring it is to be married and have children and own property.

But if you do not fit into those boxes, are not capable of these things, do not have a supportive environment, well good luck to you, there will be no networking, no meaningful connections, there will be major hardship ahead if you have not somehow managed to figure it all out on your own. Due to being even slightly socially inept, behind your peers in any way, or if you chose a different path in life, chances are that you are sooner or later going to run into this so-called platonic prostitution of the therapeutic industry.

On your own, family might be there but they are not truly supportive, might have a friend or two but they are not really close friends that can be relied upon for important stuff. Try to talk to them about things and they end up distancing themselves because it is either not that kind of relationship or they do not actually care or you are simply too much to handle for them. Therapy becomes the answer when you bring up the tough subjects and the things that happened as a child, be it bullying or emotional neglect or some kind of violence against you that the adults should have been there to protect you from or at least have seen the signs afterwards but never did. You are far enough outside of what is considered the normal problems, or you are already far enough into a long spiral of mental health issues, or far enough into the depths of psychiatric diagnoses that in order for someone to talk to you, to help you, they have to be paid to do it. How humiliating. But you are told therapy is the only way to help you.

Unfortunately all you can get is one session every two weeks. And the therapist does not even have time for all your problems despite being paid a hefty hourly rate by you or by the system. Come back next time and hope they remember their notes because otherwise you will spend half of their precious scheduled time reiterating your issues and reminding your therapist of your history. But you tell yourself that it is fair enough that they forgot some minor details like the death of your loved one. They are paid to be there, but they are only human after all, you tell yourself it is not fair to expect them to perfectly remember everything. Never mind all the other problems that arose in the time since the previous meeting, but there is not enough time to talk about that. But this is therapy, this will help and things will get better now!

I would usually spend the rest of the day after a therapy session thinking about what I forgot to bring up. The next day I would try to write a few things down, but once the next session comes around, those things are already out-dated and they do not seem to be relevant anymore. It does not matter anyway because there might have been a new cut on my arm because of things brought up in therapy that there was not enough time to process, and I did not care to hide it, and so now the entire new session is spent treating this tiny symptom of illness instead of the years of trauma that is the reason for it. That is how it has to be because the therapist has rules to follow, a system designed in such a way that something like self-harm must immediately be brought front and center. Forget your traumas for now. Forget your life circumstances. Let us do some breathing exercises! Let us do some grounding techniques! We should engage in some mindfulness!

Anyone would probably become mentally unwell and fulfill diagnostic criteria for something or other if their living situation became bad enough. Top of your class, job interviews, get romantically involved and move in to a great apartment together, get accepted to university, probably not going to be a whole lot of symptoms there when things are going great and breezing by. Lose it all though and you are suddenly a textbook example of multiple mental illnesses. Have you tried therapy?

But it will not cure loneliness, unemployment, financial ruin, bad environments, abusive homes. Probably not a lot of therapists would claim that it does, but those unfamiliar certainly do tout it as the cure-all, because they simply do not know better, because individualism is taught as the way of life from the moment you exit the womb. And it is so harmful. The things that therapy claims to solve is to stand on your own two feet and be self-sufficient, self-reliant, stable, need minimal help from the outside. It has even gone so far that a concept of co-dependency has been invented to be a criteria for diagnoses because god forbid you are actually a human being who relies on others like the pack animals we are. Even if you do not rely on others, if you truly desire to do it all on your own, it takes months and months and years and years to get there because of the time between each appointment you can get. It is not even in any way a holistic approach. It is one piece in a huge puzzle, the rest of which you probably cannot even find professional help with.

Let us say that the solutions to all sorts of problems in life are contained in a big toolbox. All those tools will be needed in one way or another, at one point in time or another, throughout life. Therapists are, for some reason, said to know the entire toolbox. Again, they do not claim this themselves. It is society that vaguely thinks so. But the therapist really only knows how to use a small set of the tools needed to repair you. Hopefully the therapist you find is competent, but you might get unlucky and not even know it before it is too late and damage has been done by the wrong treatment being used. They specialize in specific methods but end up applying the wrong one to you. Laymen put them on a pedestal as a mythical force that can solve all manner of serious and complex issues with just a few words of wisdom here and there, or they have hidden gems of mind blowing advice.

But as I have come to see it, the cure to most things that therapists try to solve is simply the formation of a bond. Yet when they undergo their training, it is specifically instilled in them that they should not ever form a bond with their clients because they should not get emotionally invested in them on account of it would cause burn-out to take on so much suffering from people every day. So they create a wall between themselves and the client, a distance they proclaim to be healthy for themselves but what most people would think was worryingly cold if it were any other meetings between two humans. But because one part is paying the other, it is fine, and it is also not a real bond with another person anyway because money was exchanged and services provided. It is robotic.

A bond and a community is what would solve the problems a lot of people who are in therapy have. But we are on average way too individualistic for that. Therapy would not exist to the extent it does if it wasn't so difficult to find solid friends and relationships in modern society. If we all had a tight knit circle that we could lean on, there would not be anywhere near the current demand for therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers and mentors and advisors and teachers and whatever other mental health professionals I could list.

The key is that the client-therapist relationship is inherently transactional. And so it can never be the nurturing environment that it needs to be to get better and to improve and to become a functioning individual. Even terms like emotional labour have been invented only to become a commodity through which an entire industry is built. People selling their time to help the less fortunate because they sure as hell will not do it to such an extent for free. Maybe some of them also volunteer their services, but I have a hunch that they are few and far between. They are good people for trying to help, but at the same time, they really are only even talking to me because they are getting paid to. That simple fact ruins any and all feeling of sincerity right away.

Why is a therapy-like session not something the average person simply just does for their next of kin? A favour to be returned when the time comes. Some people require more, some people require less, and that ought to be fine. But instead we have this whole industry of people that can sell themselves as the solution to oftentimes unsolvable problems. And those that never even tried it will also help sell it because their social media regurgitates fancy terms that sound smart on their feed, making it sound like a miracle.

But because of our individualistic way of life, or because what we struggle with is outside the norm, or because we did not grow up in a supportive environment, or we experienced things when we were very young, or we do not fit into exact boxes... Whatever it is. It is now entirely socially acceptable for everyone and anyone to say that they cannot deal with this, it is too much, you should get professional help. You do not need a friend, you need therapy.

Hi tilderinos! We all love a good relationship drama thread, so I wanted to add my own. I'm posting from my main account because all this dirty laundry is already open and out between both my partner and all my friends and family. Thank you for any advice or support you can offer <3

The current problem

My partner and I are going through a very difficult point in our relationship, and I would really appreciate some outside perspectives.

The short version is: my partner of nearly four years recently told me that our relationship has always felt suffocating to her. She said she has tried to look for positives from the last few years and cannot find any. At the same time, she cried heavily while saying this, has booked herself into therapy, and says she does want a partner eventually. She just does not know whether that partner is me, or whether she can be in this relationship as it currently exists.

I love her deeply, but I also feel ignored, pushed away, and emotionally starved. I am trying to decide whether I should stay and give her space, leave, or take a formal break by moving out for a few months.

Background / how we got here

For context, I have had three serious long-term relationships before this one, and I think I have become much more emotionally mature through them, though I’m sure I still have plenty to learn. This is my partner’s first serious relationship. She has not dated much before, and in my opinion, she has also not had many deep, emotionally close friendships. She is also strongly suspected to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, though she has never been officially diagnosed.

We met online and were extremely into each other. When we met in person, the chemistry was great, and afterwards we missed each other constantly. After almost a year, I started asking how we could make the relationship work long-term. She said it felt like a big jump, but we talked about it a lot and she eventually seemed fine with the idea.

Not long after, I moved in with her, which also meant moving country. To her credit, she was extremely helpful and considerate during that process.

Just before I moved in, she broke her leg badly and spent over a week in hospital. I helped as much as I could, but it was a very stressful start. I was moving country, taking on more chores, and trying to care for her at the same time. I did it because I love her, and I knew she would physically recover eventually.

What we did not expect was how much the recovery would affect her mentally. She became quite depressed, which is understandable, and it really took the wind out of the first year and a half of us living together. She had very little energy for me or the relationship, and intimacy was limited. I was not getting my needs met either, but we talked a lot and I felt like I understood what she was going through.

Around a year ago, things started to improve. Her mood was better more often, she seemed more present, and when we were intimate, she seemed to put in more effort. I was still the one initiating anything physical, which bothered me, but I hoped that would improve over time. Dates, time together, and our general friendship also seemed to be getting better. I felt like she was slowly trusting me more and letting me in.

Our living situation probably has not helped. I work from home all day, every day, in a room next to the living room. It is a very public space, and I think neither of us has really felt alone. Sometimes I would also play video games after work in that same area, which meant I was still in her space.

Her emotional difficulties

One of the hardest parts is that my partner has extreme difficulty understanding her own emotions. She talks openly about this. She often says she bottles everything up and does not really understand what she feels or why. She has also said she used to feel a lot more when she was younger, but at some point her difficult relationship with her parents caused her to start repressing things.

She often cannot answer direct questions about what she wants. Most of the time, her answer is “I don’t know.”

Sometimes, if we sit down and talk through it slowly, I can help her get to a clearer answer. But it takes a long time, and it is obviously hard work for her. I am also worried that this dynamic can become almost like therapy, where I am trying to guide her into understanding herself. I do not think that is healthy for either of us.

Another thing that scares me is that she seems unable to hold onto positive emotional experiences. We have had romantic dates and close moments where I know she felt something. I could see love, warmth, energy, and joy in her. But if I ask her about those moments a day, week, or month later, it is like the feeling is gone. She will just say, “It was fine.”

That makes the situation very confusing. When she lets her guard down, the relationship can feel genuinely loving and connected. That is part of why I am struggling to walk away. But she often makes an effort to avoid these moments.

I also have a strong suspicion that I might be the first supportive relationship with anyone she's had in her life before. Her family and her close friends (the same friends all the way from high school) do not offer any kind of emotional support or affection. They are the kind of people who don't say "well done!" but "...You could have done this better." There's been lots of instances during the relationship where she's reacted with confusion or surprise at what I would consider basic levels of kindness and support. 

The recent breaking point

This past winter, her mood dropped again. She became increasingly cold and shut me out. We went a long time with no physical contact, not even cuddling. She did not seem interested in anything I had to say, whether it was important or not, and she had very little to share with me either.

After a few weeks, I sat her down and asked what was going on.

That is when she told me the relationship was too much for her, and that it always had been. She said it felt suffocating and that she did not know how to “come up for air.” She said she had tried to find positive things in the relationship but could not find any, not even one, from the last three years.

At the same time, she was looking me in the eyes and crying extremely hard. We talked for hours, and I think she got a lot of catharsis from finally saying it.

After that conversation, she immediately booked herself into therapy because she said she needed someone to help her understand herself. I think that is a good step. But it also feels very much like an “I need help now” decision, rather than her having any clear long-term idea of what she wants.

She has admitted, through tears, that she thinks she would be lonely and unhappy alone. She does want a partner. She just does not know if that partner is me, or if she can be with me in the version of the relationship we have had so far. Honestly, I agree that the relationship as it has been is not sustainable.

What has changed since

Since that conversation, we have drifted apart. I am sad about it and I miss my girlfriend, but right now it feels like we are two separate people living in the same building.

The first practical thing I did was move my office outside the house, because I thought that would give us both more breathing room. I think that was a good step, but it has not fixed the deeper issue.

She has also become completely glued to her phone in a way I have never seen before. She still uses her usual apps, but she also downloaded a random stranger-chat app, similar to Omegle, where she talks to people about their lives. She seems fascinated by it, almost like it is a real-life sitcom.

I was obviously concerned by that. I challenged her on whether it was appropriate to be using an app like that while our relationship was in such a bad place, especially when those apps can easily become sexual. She said she deletes anyone who gets sexual and that she just wants to talk to people, but does not know how to do that any other way.

She offered me her phone, and from what I saw, the conversations were shallow and non-sexual. I do not think she is cheating on me. What it looks like to me is that she is seeking low-pressure connection with strangers while avoiding the pressure and emotional weight of our actual relationship.

She does not seem able to tell me what she wants from me or the relationship. When I ask whether she wants to stay together, move apart, take a break, reduce contact, stop physical affection completely, or work on things, the answer is usually “I don’t know.”

For my part, I want to support her, but she is not really accepting support from me. In fact, I think my care may sometimes make her feel more pressured, upset, or resentful. I have stopped being romantic and I am not initiating physical touch. I am trying to give her as much space as possible. But even small thoughtful gestures, like making her a cup of tea, can be met with coldness or irritation. I understand why she might feel overwhelmed, but it still hurts.

What I am considering

The practical side is not a major barrier. I have a good financial buffer, my job is secure and remote, and I could rent an apartment or potentially move in with someone we know. I have options, and moving out would be reasonably low-risk for me.

So I think my options are:

1. Stay, give her space, and support her when she asks for it.

   This might give therapy a chance to help. But it could also leave me waiting indefinitely for someone who may never be ready, or who may eventually decide I am not her person.

2. Leave.

   This would hurt both of us, and she would lose a major source of support. But it might also be the cleanest option if she genuinely cannot be in the relationship and I am only prolonging the pain.

3. Take a formal break by moving out for a few months.

   This feels like a possible middle ground. It would give her space to understand herself without the daily pressure of living with me, and it would give me some emotional distance too. The idea would be to check in after a set period and keep only light contact in the meantime.

What I need advice on

What would you do in my position?

More specifically:

• How much space is reasonable to give someone who says the relationship feels suffocating but cannot say whether they want to leave?
• At what point does being patient and supportive become abandoning my own needs?
• Is it appropriate to push her, even gently, when I feel like I know how to help?
• Is there a better option I am not seeing?

I love her, and when things are good between us, the connection feels rare and real. But those moments are not happening enough, and I am struggling with how cold and uncertain things have become.