[scottyboy31]

Hello everyone, I just joined this forum hoping to find some help seeing as I can't really talk to any of my friends about this problem I am having.

So I have been dating my girlfriend for almost a year now. Things were going great up until a few months ago. It became very apparent that she always talks about herself.

For example:
One time we were on a walk, she asked what I did that day. I replied with something like "Oh, I went to the mall with my mom for awhile". Most people who I have talked to about this said they would reply with something like "Oh cool, did you get anything good?" or "Nice! What mall did you go to?" or something along those lines... Something to keep the conversation going. However, with my girlfriend, there was nothing. She just started talking about how much work sucked or something.

This happens on a daily basis, not just here or there, and I feel totally useless and uninteresting a lot of times that I'm with her. I don't know what to talk about anymore because every time I bring something up, she brings the topic back to herself. I have brought up this issue to her before and told her how I feel and she apologized saying that she didn't realize she was doing it.

That was about a month ago when I brought it up. I don't think I can take much more of her constantly talking about herself anymore and I really need some help. Everything else in our relationship is great and I really love her, it's just I feel uninteresting because she shows literally no interest in my life. I've got tons more examples if you think I'm overreacting.
PS- I do not want to break up with her. I want this to work if it's possible especially considering she has a lot of family issues that she is dealing with right now that I always help her with since she has high anxiety and stress. I would feel terrible leaving her to deal with her issues by herself. (no friends or family would help her to this extent)

I really need some guidance on this. Thank you everyone.

[joypulv]

Ask her if she will accept a code word from you when she is overdoing it. Pick a word that you can use around other people. Like you say Tums! and she agrees to stop and say oh are you out of Tums? That means she has to listen to you for a while.
Since she has family problems, ask her to pick a time of day to vent all of them at once, a time that has an end.
Also let her know very clearly that you don't want to lose the relationship but there is a limit to what you will take.