Ladies, I need your thoughts....

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2004
Ladies, I need your thoughts....
11
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 7:44pm
Whether you women believe it or not, we men really do try to listen, learn, communicate, and generally try to please our partners. You are a very confusing lot.....

On with my story.....Was involved in a long distance relationship with a woman I thought was "The one"...She lives on the east coast, I live on the west. We saw each other every two to three weeks plus vacations and any other times we could meet in the middle. After the initial 6 months of hi-flying romance and excitement, we started to settle into what I thought was a positive routine (Don't confuse with boring)...we talked about getting married in the future and possibly having a baby. She was in a hurry, I wanted to get to know each other better and make sure we got to be best friends.To develop the kind of trust that I think is imperative to a successful relationship (She had been hurt and trust was an issue with her)...she thought that I was simply in a "Different Place", god I hate that term....I wasn't in a "Different Place" I just wanted to give it some time to make sure we would work. (We had probably been together 40-50 days @ that Point). Anyway, after a year together we broke it off. I tried to save it but she said it was to late. I flew in to see her one last time and she said she loved me, wanted to see me soon, and wanted to "Be Convinced" ...we talked for a week and it seemed as though we were making some progress, then nothing. No answers to phone calls, no return of e-mails, nothing....I realize that when it's over there is nothing you can do about it, but why would someone that supposedly loved you, treat a person with such a lack of respect and equanimity? I never cheated, was never abusive, always told her how much I respected her and loved her, supported her in any way that I could. What gives? Is mutual respect and thoughtfulness, even in tough times, a thing of the past?

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Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 9:13pm
I'm sorry for what you're going through. I simply don't understand why people pull the disappearing act like that...*especially* after a YEAR together! It's just so rude, not to mention hurtful.

Many of us have gone through similar disappearing acts, and it's really awful. I hope that at some point she'll have the decency to let you know what happened, but in the meantime, there's nothing you can do but start moving on.

I'm curious, had the two of you discussed a time frame at all for making a decision about moving forward? Maybe she reached hers, but to not communicate that...that doesn't make sense.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2004
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 10:26pm
Yes, she made it very clear @ the 6-8 month point that a year was her time frame for making this thing work (Almost too clear). And while I admire her for wanting to move forward with a firm plan for the future, I thought relationships were about compromise, trust, sharing. I made it very clear to her that I was in this for the long haul,I wasn't going anywhere, and that she needed to believe and trust in me. While I think a year is plenty of time for two people to make decisions/plan their future, being 3000 miles apart made true intimacy very difficult.It may have been a calendar year, but it was about three months of a non long distance relationship. I think most people would agree that no amount of phone calls can ever take the place of looking @ someone you love face-to-face and being there for them through the good & the bad times. When we were together, it was awesome. After two or three weeks of being apart, it was almost like starting over. 15-20 days apart, 2-3 days together. She said I didn't talk to her enough, or tell her what I was thinking (every mans demon). When I tried, she got angry and said we should have talked sooner. I guess I should have recognized the coming result sooner.....she was done. She told me once that she wished I could read her mind, Who's not communicating now. Thanks for the thoughts....MB
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-17-2004
Mon, 05-31-2004 - 3:23pm
MB, i can understand your predicament because i had a 3 year relationship in which almost 2 of those were apart. It was extremely difficult to maintain a level of intimacy, especially becaue we are both bad communicators anyways. I moved back after 2 years and unfortunately i think we went on as we were in the sense that we still didnt have enough intimacy and didnt work on our problems. We did once and it started working better, but then when the same intimacy issues arose we didn't know how to deal with it.

I brought htings up recently because i wanted us to be more open and communicative and because i wasn't sure where i fit into things. I didn't need a time frame and I wasn't ready to move in or anything of that sort, but wanted to know which doors were open in the future and which ones weren't. I thought is was a fair question. When we got together he said he "wasn't happy" and i told him i wasn't either, or rather that I wasn't satisfied in that our relaitonship was stagnant. He ended it in 20minutes which I thought was rough and never offered me more than that. So now i have no closure and no idea what was really going on and whether it was just that he was scared by the questions I was asking even though I wasn't really asking them!! I never put any pressure on him for marriage (actually not interested) or kids bt I think he just assumed i did.

You guys are confusing too! But regardless i do understand your view that before you can think of anything else, marriage or any large step, you need to REALLY get to know eachother on a deep level and go through the hard and good times. My problem is that sometimes men don't think women want that too. I think my boyfriend interpreted what I was saying as "i want to move in" or "i want to have a baby with you" when I really just wanted to know where he stood on the matters. I know he has been given ultimatums before, but I can't always try to convince him that I am not his exes.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-30-2004
Mon, 05-31-2004 - 4:50pm
Welcome to the board!!
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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-30-2004
Mon, 05-31-2004 - 8:34pm
I am so sorry about your situation. I know many of us forget that men can have their feelings hurt too and also can have their hearts broken. I get the impression that most of us on the board are women. I know what you mean when someone tells you they still love you but can't be with you. (See my post "He broke up with me") Personally, I think it is a cop-out, that someone will tell you that when they aren't man/woman enough to tell you the truth. I hope everything will work out for you. You do not deserve to be treated like this and one day you will find someone who will love you and respect you. I know that this doesn't ease the pain but please believe it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2004
Tue, 06-01-2004 - 12:22pm
Thank you all for your thoughts. I must admit to having felt a bit silly when I first posted this message. If my male friends were to get a whiff of this I would never hear the end of it. We men tend to laugh heartily when discussing how much women love to talk, but at least you have a forum/support group when things get tough. Talk about how you're feeling with a male friend, and all you get is a blank stare, uncomfortable fidgeting, and a quick re-hash of last nights game.

It's ironic, While I am certainly no poster boy for "Quality Relationship Communication", and I have been asked in previous relationships to open up more, the thought that the one woman I really wanted to spend my life with isn't such a great communicator either..(she would say I'm nuts).. well,it's very tough.

Thanks again and don't slap me around too hard if my male naivete comes through to often.

MB
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-30-2004
Tue, 06-01-2004 - 3:25pm
MB

Don't worry about your maleness coming through, we will all be patient with you. Most men I have met are not "world class communicators". HE most certainly wasn't able to communicate with me. He liked to get quiet and just look at me over his glasses. I am a big communicator and belive in being open and honest. He has a huge secret that he kept from me but being that I am intellegent, I figured it out real quick.

You're wise not to tell your friends about this. Men, generally, do not do emotions well. Besides, getting a lady's perspective on another lady is better. If you are willing to give insite into the male mind, I'll help you out with the females!

Lady O.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2004
Tue, 06-01-2004 - 6:15pm
You know, my ex-bf was pretty much the same. I was coming off a divorce, we talked about it being bad timing but he was fully apprised and thought he wanted to try anyway. I told him I needed to take it slow, he was in an all-fired rush. He wanted me to move in practically the first month we were together, pressured me to spend all my free time with him, got sulky and hurt and angry if he felt like we weren't spending enough time together. His neediness was a real drag, and it was something I wasn't going to compromise about, I'd spent half a decade under house arrest, having to account for my every movement while married, and I'd be damned if I'd give up the occasional girl's night or even just reading a book because he "needed" me around. Anyway, he broke up with me because I obviously didn't love him if I didn't feel the need to be with him the way I needed oxygen to breath. I thought he was nuts, but felt guilty, and we both said that we were in love, I just wasn't meeting his "need" for more time together. We did reconcile after a few months (we just broke up again).

Here's the thing - I think there's something just fundamentally off about people who push really hard for a commitment then run off and sulk if you don't give them exactly what they want on their time frame. I think it's manipulative, immature, and selfish. Yours sounds like a poor communicator, which was how I initially diagnosed mine - he couldn't just make plans to spend time together, he'd keep silent and stew if I didn't read his mind and figure out he wanted me to be around Saturday morning, but he'd still tell me he loved me when he saw me, so it really blindsided me, I didn't know it was some sort of relationship-ending problem. Now, though, I think there's more to it than lack of communication. You can't force someone into a relationship at your own frantic pace. If there's love and progress forward, even if slow, what is the big rush? Why can't you respect the other person's pace? Your commitment pace should be just like the physical pace - the person who needs to take it more slowly controls the pace, insisting on pushing someone faster than they want to go isn't acceptable. You don't sound commitmentphobic, so your ex's problem seems like this weird impatience my ex exhibited. This incredible need to rush the relationship along without regard for your partner's need to take it slow (or the best interest of the relationship), that suggests some serious insecurity and immaturity (she wants to lock you in quickly, or she'll just throw you aside and start fresh, which seems counterproductive).

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Wed, 06-02-2004 - 9:59am
I am 33 years old, and broke up with my boyfriend of about five months because he was somewhat ambivalent about me. I was starting to fall in love with him, and it crushed me that he wasn't really feeling much for me. He wanted to keep seeing me to see if he might develop feelings for me. But I left because every time I was with him my feelings were getting stronger, and it was becoming increasingly painful to be with someone who was somewhat unsure of what, if anything, they felt for me.

It opened my eyes to read some of these posts, because I was the person on the other end. I didn't think that I left because I needed him to be in the same place feeling-wise as I was in. I left because I didn't want to continue to develop stronger feelings for him knowing that they may never be returned.

I hope my story helps a little. Maybe she is leaving not so much because he's not in the same place as her, but more so because she is afraid of getting involved too deeply, and knowing (or feeling) that he just isn't really all that emotionally invested in her. My ex-boyfriend never told me that he really liked me. Not once, in five months. He never told me or made me feel like he really enjoyed being around me. Yes, he took me to dinners, he introduced me to family and friends, he did nice things for me. But his actions when we were together - complete ambivalence. Never held my hand, never put his arm around me, never just looked at me and smiled or said that he was so happy that he had met me. Never. It is incredibly difficult to continue dating someone who you really, really like, and not be getting those feelings in return. Is it possible that your girlfriend simply doesn't know what she really means to you?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2004
Wed, 06-02-2004 - 11:36am
God I wish that was the case.....I did everything that I think is humanly possible to try to prove to her how I felt. I flew to the east coast and told her that for the first time in my entire adult life, I had finally found the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, to have childred with, to plan my future with. I told her we could look @ buying a 2nd home so that she could travel to see her family whenever she wanted or when she got home sick........she said it was too late!

I was reading some of the posts from/to Milton yesterday and I realized that what she wanted was what I was looking for as well. Some kind od acknowledgement from my ex that she understands that it takes two to make or break a relationship. Some understanding about why we are no longer together. That she gets it......

You know what.....? It doesn't matter...

I love my ex with all of my being, but what I want doesn't matter if she doesn't want the same things. I will always have a place in my heart for her, but I have accepted the fact that we will never be together. It hurts like hell, but it is reality....

As I said earlier, I don't think we ever had a real chance for the kind of intimacy that is required for a relationship to work for the long haul. To develop the kind of trust that two people need to have to make a lifetime commitment. I never understood how tough a long distance relationship could be...what a nightmare.

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