relationships and the menstrual cycle.

haha. "good"

my solution is to stay far far away when that time rolls around.

me too

You do need to have some sort of talk (when she's not dealing with cycle issues). If you're getting increasingly resentful, she'll sense this and possibly be increasingly insecure or bitchy or whatever. I would think it would be totally understandable to want to keep to yourself more when she's going through the emotional stuff. I know when I'm going through PMS I avoid people (or put on an act) because a)I don't want to embarrass myself and b)I don't want to subject others to my crazy hormonally-induced moodiness.

You don't want one time of the month to cause tension that can carry over to the rest of the time...

Have you ever dated a woman?

i am worried about your gf's hormones more than anything, i reckon she should see a doctor. as kel said, 10 days to 2 weeks of PMT is a REALLY long time.

This is the first month for me in a long time when my PMS didn't include a severely depressed, suicidal day. I'd just be sobbing and imagining ways to off myself and feeling totally out of control emotionally. And then I'd see my calendar and realize that I just had to hang in there for the day. Without fail, I'd feel like myself the next day, and start my period. I've been getting acupuncture lately and that whole freaked-out-suicidal-day thing is gone, which I'm very very glad of. My point--hormones do some really fucking powerful things to your neurotransmitters.

It's not necessarily a scapegoat, but there could certainly be better ways of handling this whole thing.

yes, 10-14 days regularly is the sort of thing you should see a doctor about. at the very least, there are ways to treat it. in some cases, it can be serious: endometriosis is nothing you want to leave untreated.

also, prompting her to see a doctor is also a way to push the relationship forward beyond isolated incidents of squabbling; it's because you're concerned; if she's simply comfortable scapegoating her moodiness on PMS, you'll probably be able to tell. being told to go see a doctor can be terrifying, so be sympathetic to that, though.

But I'm with JaXon on this: you will eventually learn to live with this, or she will eventually get better, or you'll eventually break up. But I don't know that there's anything much you can do about it, unfortunately.

Pinkpanther, she does apologise. However, the matter is more complicated, as I am cold, evil, repressed and heartless - and proud of the fact, which is of course infuriating to everyone, not just her.

Equally, men sometimes use pms as a excuse not to take womens' concerns seriously (like maybe there is something else wrong in your relationship). I think we all make a contract that we're going to act like people and none of us use hormones as an excuse.

I would suggest that cannabis and contraceptive pills are not necessarily the answer - the latter can make pmt irrationality as well as cramps worse, and if your lady's hormone levels deviate from whatever the medical profession defined as 'normal' that week, it could make things a whole lot worse [f'rinstance i went from not even noticing pmt to a solid week of crying, depression and picking fights after a month of the wee bastards]. even the medical profession can be dicks about this, and even the ones who don't tell you it's in your head and something you need to get over [cramps so bad you're throwing up? try going for a jog!], or blithely offer to write a script for generic anti-depressant X, can take a lot of trial and error to find a managable solution.

so, lots of naysaying, not much practical advice...get some space when things are bad, to do your own thing away from the girlfriend. if you see a fight coming, take a deep breath and try to walk away from it. and try, if you can, not to take the fights and the princess-behaviour personally. It can be very tempting in that irrational, irritable, cramped-to-all-buggery state, to see periods as a cruel cosmic joke [which it kind of is, nature's reminder to breed or taste its almighty wrath] and inflict just a little suffering on those who don't suffer from a fortnight of bloaty, teary, achey terror. Which is you.