Hurting a lttle less each day
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| Mon, 03-06-2006 - 8:37am |
I have never been one to give my heart away. Matter of fact I have gotten through the first 26 years of my life without doing it. Don't get me wrong I have dated plenty and had plenty of boyfriends, but I have never felt that connection I thought I would feel when I found the one I wanted to give my heart to. But then it happened.
I met this great guy and everything just clicked. We became entrenched in each other's lives from our second date and spent every weekend together, talked ever day and we made tons of plans for the future. Now mind you we only dated for 4 months, but I just knew one night while we were laying on the couch and he was looking into my eyes it just hit me that this is the guy I actually loved.
But then we had our first tiff, we talked about it a couple days later and we both agreed that we would put it behind us, but his mood definitely changed after that. So after a week of continuing to talk every day and him being weird I asked him what was going on and he said he needed to talk about it in person. So we go to dinner last Tuesday, where he proceeds to tell me that he is starting to believe in love at first sight and he does not have that with me. Ummm hello it has been four months, you didn't figure that out aftr the first time we met?
The thing that gets me is I am such a guarded person and I let down my guard because all of the signs were there. Up until we had our first fight he called me in the morning on his way to work to say have a good day, we just assumed our time was going to be spent together and he was even referring to us as an "US" when talking about buying a house and renovating it. So my question is how does someone do all of these things and then say they were pretending to be in the relationship because they hoped the feelings would come?
He has had a rocky past, which the night we broke up his best friend and sister (who are actually married) called to see how I was doing and his bf told me that my guy has some issues he needs to deal with and he has been asking him for 2 years to go talk to someone.
My guy still wanted to be friends and he still wanted to do all of the trips and things we had talked about before we broke up, because he really likes me as a person and wants to continue to be friends, but in my mind is this not him just being selfish? You know I love you and you don't feel that way towards me so instead of giving me a free break you want to continue to hang out with my friends and me and have me around your family?
I guess the question that keeps resounding in my mind is did he get spooked and run or can someone actually pretend so well that they are in a relationship that I actually fell in love under false pretenses?

Sounds like classic commitment phobia to me. If you read up on commitment phobics, they tend to start out every relationship strong, move WAY too fast, then freak out when they realize how deeply involved they've become. That's why he has a rocky past. Commitment phobics are usually really good at beginning new relationships; they just can't get past the beginning. Yes, fear is a big part of it, and it probably was brought on by you having your first fight but it would have happened eventually anyway. Counseling might help him work through his issues but you haven't really dated him long. I'm not sure I'd want to tie myself up in all that for someone I'm not really seriously involved with. It sounds like he wants to keep you as an option by dragging you along on all his family outings but you deserve better than to just be someone's option. I read something once that said Commitment-phobics not only have a hard time committing to 'yes,' but they have a hard time committing to 'no' as well. So he can't COMMIT to dropping you out of his life for good. He probably initially believed he was falling in love with you until things got too close. It's possible that he felt himself becoming vulnerable to you and for whatever reason that freaked him out. Whatever the case, you can't fix him -- he has to do that himself and he probably isn't willing to admit he's broken in the first place. But if you decide you want to continue to keep him in your life, keep him around as an OPTION. Don't put your life on hold for him. Just be warned that if he seems like he's changing his mind about you and wants you back, it's probably only temporary and he's gonna get spooked again...
Steph