Q&A: Help! Boyfriend Trouble!
Q: I’m in an extremely confusing situation with more variables than….I don’t know what. I’ll try to make this as short and concise as possible.
Me: 27, mom of 3
Him: 22, no kids, never married.
His sister is my best friend, we met and were friends for about 4 months before we decided to have a relationship. He lives in PA, I live in Michigan. We see each other 1 or 2 times a month. Things got serious fast, neither of us had done too much dating in the last few years, by choice. I was divorced 3 years earlier and had just started meeting new people, he was focused on college and then career, didn’t see himself being in a relationship till he was in his 30’s, but we met, everything seemed to fall into place. Each of us made several references to feeling that the other is ‘the one’. We held off on intimacy for some time and said ‘I love you’ at about 4 months, so we didn’t rush by any means.
Earlier this year, he began dropping what I saw as hints, wanting to call us a family, said he wanted to do whatever it took to take things to the ‘next level’. Consistently told me how much he loved me and how important I was to him. He started telling me he wanted me to lean on him more and he wanted to be able to pay for everything.
Throughout the relationship, we had about a monthly fight (like clockwork, and no, it wasn’t pms) which usually ended in me trying to walk away. I feel that I never truly wanted to, but that things would start to deteriorate as we went without seeing each other (out of sight, out of mind) and after we hashed it out, and each time I’d swear I wouldn’t do it again. It became something he brought up as a point of concern pretty consistently. He also was concerned that most of our communication was through text. I expressed willingness to communicate by phone, even though it is not MY preferred method of communication (I’m just not a phone person).
So those are his two major concerns.
Right before valentines day, he did a 180. Completely changed. Insisted that I pay for some things, became distant, after many hours of discussion/arguing, he now says he doesn’t know if I’m the one, doesn’t feel he is ready to be married (though he wants to do a marriage conference next weekend and wants to do a Preparing for Marriage workbook together), flat out just doesn’t know if I’m the right one for him.
Needless to say, the last few months have been pure hell. We’ve gone through cycles of attempting to communicate, which results in me being an emotional wreck (who wouldn’t be after hearing over and over again that they might not be ‘the one’ after all. He says he doesn’t believe everyone has ‘the one’. He doesn’t want to let go, says we are incredible together and a great match. After a year and almost 2 months of dating, I feel if he doesn’t know, he never will.
We’ve had some great discussions, like one a week ago where he said he felt he wasn’t ready to give up some of his dreams to get married, we discussed what they were and found that we had them in common and I reassured him that he wouldn’t have to give them up, which he said really helped a LOT. I’ve attempted to step away from the relationship to give him time to think but one or the other of us always gives in because we miss each other so much. It seems like we make a ton of progress and suddenly we backslide and are right back where we started and I feel crushd and devastated. Its so hard to feel that way about someone but not have it returned!
Each of us admits that logic says we should call it quits but we are both holding on for dear life. We both honestly want to make it work.
I need a guy’s opinion on what the heck he is doing and what I should do. I don’t know anymore. I love him but feel I should have more self respect than this.
Thanks in advance and sorry for such a long read!
A: First of all, before I give you any relationship advice, let me say that I’m really sorry to hear about your situation. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you.
If you don’t mind me asking… what were you guys consistently fighting about besides the texting thing? Was it the same thing each time? And do you have any idea what prompted his 180?
Without having that much info to go on, here is my take: Anytime someone tells you that you’re “the one” and the takes it back, I see it as a form of emotional abuse. Whether he is doing it on purpose to control you, or he is just expressing how he feels, it’s still incredibly hurtful and extremely difficult to hear from the person you love. I really don’t understand why he would say that and still keep you around unless he is comfortable with the way things are and doesn’t have any intention of taking things further. It’s possible that hidden issues and fears have surfaced that he refused to address during the initial infatuation stage of the relationship. Anyways, you have every right to be angry and hurt by what he said to you.
Many people hold on to what’s left of a relationship, even after seeing these types of signs, because they believe that their partner will change their mind. But in my experience, this rarely happens. Let me ask you… if you could see into the future and discovered that no matter what, this guy will never marry you… would you still stay with him? If the answer is no, I would seriously consider ending the broken relationship now, on your terms.
I agree that having self-respect is extremely important, and sometimes we need to let go of a relationship that is causing us to value ourselves less. And from the looks of it, this is one of those situations.
My personal philosophy is this… no matter how much I love a woman, if she ever hints that she doesn’t want to be with me 100%, I would end the relationship immediately because I love myself enough that I would never want to be with someone that doesn’t want me as much as I want them. It sounds like your guy made it clear that he doesn’t want this to work as much as he says he does, yet he is having trouble letting go completely. However, this reluctance to let go is normal. The distance between you is creating a even bigger emotional see-saw than what you would have if you lived together and the conflicting emotional states are probably making it really difficult for you to make a decision about what you should do next.
I would say, “Look… you made it clear that I’m not the one for you, and if that’s the case than I don’t want you to waste anymore time with me when you should be looking for the person you want to be with. I think it would be best if we ended this. Best of luck to you” If he agrees to this, then you know for sure that he has no intention of making it work and you just saved yourself additional headaches. If he really cares for you, he will protest, at which point you could decide to give him one last chance to prove it and then walk away. You’re worth much more than this. There’s no reason that you won’t find the man you deserve but you need to let go and move on before he will come.
-Jay Cataldo
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