Confused and angry and sad - what to do?
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| Tue, 05-22-2007 - 11:31am |
I don't usually cry or complain in public, but I am now in a state where I can't get a handle on things, and there seems to be no clear course of action.
In detail, I have been in a relationship for almost three years. It started with dating, moved to sleepovers and finally, about a year into the relationship we moved in together. We got a cat and discussed children and marriage as future options. Afterwards I went through a rough patch, changing jobs and ending up in an untenable position in my new job, where I wasn't paid in full or in time, was humiliated daily by the boss etc. I had been headhunted for that job, and was reluctant to leave it without finding a new one, since such a short stay would look bad in my CV, and the few suitable opportunities that arose didn't work out. I was in a funk, and rather edgier than usual, but tried to make up for it nevertheless and though bumpy, things proceeded fairly OK, the only hitch being the inordinate amount of time he wanted us to spend with his family (6-8 hours every weekend) which, given our limited personal and together time, outside of weekends, I found abnormal.
We moved out of our rental apartment into our first joint home in early January, but instead of proceeding or getting better, things started to get worse, even though the financial burden was less than previously, and around March I finally moved from my nightmare of a job to a decent one. I really felt better, had more time and energy to devote to the relationship and the home, which I did. But while I was investing more and more, he was investing less and less. He started being grumpy, staying out late with his private students' parents (he teaches music to kids and teens) returning while I was asleep, and waking up after I left, and generally making all sorts of little nasty remarks. I'd say: could you put the salad back in the fridge? and he'd say, already did, did you think I was you? or complain every time I reminded him of something. On Valentine's he didn't book a table, and we ended up scouring the town for a place to eat. We didn't find one, and he proceeded to quarrel with me over my disappointment (which was only a brief scowl and a tear, and no reproaches) and so on.
Last Tuesday I finally confronted him, asked him if he still loved me and wanted to be together. He admitted he was confused, that he felt we were estranged (and felt guilty about doing nothing about it) and said he was in a funk. On Wednesday we discussed this again, whereupon he proceeded to cry and say he loves me, and he cannot imagine life without me, but that our relationship is currently in crisis and he doesn't know what to do. He said he does not know whether we need space, or just to work harder at it, and that he's terribly afraid of losing me. I, being suspicious, asked him if there was another woman involved, and he promptly said no. I said I'd give him time to figure out what he wants, that I am confident I want this relationship, and am willing to try harder and bring us closer again. A few days went by. Saturday he went out for the day with a friend, not even asking me if I wanted to join. I put a positive spin on it thinking that since he knew I hated barbecues, he probably felt I wasn't going to come anyway. he then stayed at his friend's to watch the game, and after the game, said he'd stay some more to discuss music with the gang (I am not a musician, and dislike classical music (I love opera)). Next morning at 8, he wasn't home, wasn't answering his phone and had sent no notice (sms, voice mail) of his whereabouts. I was frantic till he called around 12.30, saying he'd gone to bed at his friend's early in the morning. Given the situation, I said nothing except that I'd been worried and he should have called or sms-ed to let me know. Fast forward to today, when, still suspicious, I checked his cell phone and found a syrupy message from a girl. His call records showed multiple calls from and to her in the past days.
I confronted him. He first tried to say that the girl pursues him, but eventually broke down and admitted that she had been interested for a long time, and kept coming on to him, but that a few weeks back he sort of responded. He said that they kissed once, and that he spent the aforementioned night at his friend's with her, talking through the night. I almost trust him on that. He still says he loves me, but finds the relationship as it is impossible to deal with, but does not want to give me up, and does not know what to do. I told him that this third person no longer makes the crisis about him and me, it transforms it into cheating, or at the very least betrayal.
That being said, I still don't know what to do. Needless to say I love him very much, and have invested a lot into "US" after a series of bad relationships. We're both 30, and therefore should be more mature about our feelings, and i like t thing we're both sensitive and intelligent and should be capable of working things out.
Any advice?
Is this relationship worth saving, and if yes, how do I go about it?
Edited 5/22/2007 11:43 am ET by carinichka

Welcome to the board carinichka,
You are the only one that knows whether or not the relationship is worth saving. If you do decide that you want to work on the relationship you have to make sure he is as willing as you are to make the changes that need to be made. I would tell him that you have to go to counseling together.
I suggest you make
glitter-graphics.com
First of all, he lied to you and he betrayed your trust and yeah - he cheated. You don't spend the night with another woman while your in a relationship with someone else. Generally speaking this kind of stuff doesn't resolve itself without outside help and absolute commitement to resolving the problem and being accountable for the behavior. The biggest mistake couples make in trying to resolve things on their own is thinking there is a timetable as to when you can feel safe in the relationships and trust him and when he has to stop answering for the betrayal. It takes a great deal of time and communication, love and understanding, patience and commitment. All things not previously occuring in the relationship. You may love one another but it's not showing up in how you treat each other.
If you are both willing to fully commit to making it work then get the help you need otherwise you'll be wasting your energy. What his behavior has told you is that you can't trust him when he's feeling challenged by life - not an easy task recovering that trust.
Thank you for the insight. I wasn't able to pinpoint what, outside the obvious 'making out with another woman" was so bothering me about the situation. I focused on this other woman (who knew he was involved and, I think, exploited his vulnerability) but the truth is, it's all in how he handles life's challenges. And I think he fails abismally, which is why things have deteriorated to this point.
An update on the situation is that he came home late last night while I was of course grieving: crying, and bemoaning my situation (I tend to be very loud when in pain) as is of course natural in the first stages of a major loss and he proceeded to scold me on being so loud that the neighbors will hear. (there are paper thin walls). There was a lot of sometimes sarcastic (though not insulting) "conversation" and I cried throughout, and occasionally so did he. He persists that he loves me beyond anything (he even recently told his mother that I was everything he wanted in a woman and I mean the world to him) but that he cannot be in a relationship with me anymore. This is rather stronger than last week's "I can't be in this relationship as it is". I also found out that he opened up to the other woman about his emotional state, something he never did to me, whether the state involved me or not, which feels like another betrayal. Bottom point was that at this moment in time he felt it had to end. I cried, and cried, and when I would not settle he came and held me for about two hours, and we ended up making love, something that has been rather scarce in the past two months. It was very honest, and powerful, and wonderful, almost like in the beginning of our relationship. He then cried a little and then fell asleep and I came to work... I don't know what to make of it. Is it just breakup sex, and he now feels guilty about raising my hopes again, or is there something deeper? Up to now we were both fairly strict about only making love when we felt love, and not to please the other when we didn't feel like it or make up for some quarrel or mistake. It wasn't a stated principle, but we pretty much did so throughout the relationship. is it different now?
Part of the reason I am confused is that I believe that when two people love each other and have made a commitment (which we both did and acknowledged) they make every effort to stay together, because love doesn't admit of losing the loved one.
I am terribly distraught. It's now three days since I slept properly, if at all, my eyes are so sore I can't put my contacts on, I've been late for work every day and perform poorly. I really don't know what to do, what to say, how to handle the situation. To me, it is obvious he wants to leave, and I don't want him to. My biggest fear is that once he leaves, he will never come back, even if he realizes he made a mistake by breaking up instead of working things out, with outside help, of course. I know him, and he is too proud to acknowledge a mistake.
I can't beg and be clingy, it won't help, even though he might stay because my pain hurts him. I can't stop the pain either. All my dreams and plans for the future were vested in this relationship, and I see them collapse without knowing what to do, or even if there is something I can do.
So any further insight or advice is appreciated. What you have said has already helped clear some things up. I will probably seek counseling in the future to deal with the aftermath, but for now thanks for helping and please continue to do so.
Edited 5/23/2007 4:45 am ET by carinichka
Your fear of losing him is causing you to blur your boundaries. Your pain is causing you to seek comfort from the source of that pain. But all that is transpiring between you does not deal with the actual problem. All relationships are not meant to last forever - most of them don't. We learn and grow through the experience, we fine tune what we want and need and hopefully honor ourselves more as we go along. The honeymoon phase - the "in love" phase lasts 1-3 years at which point what you have is what it is and what it will more than likely continue to be. If you haven't grown together, you've grown apart and you are hanging your hopes, dreams and desires on what used to be rather than seeing it for what it is.
This is what I see based on your post. Your BF is a selfish little boy who not only doesn't deal well with his own feelings he is incapable of respecting yours. It's never okay for someone to censor your pain and shame you for feeling hurt and needing to express it. Of course you're grieving. All of his professions of love do not change the fact that you don't FEEL loved. Your needs in this relationship go unacknowledged and disrespected.
Instead of spending your energy trying to figure out how to fix it because I can already tell by what you've posted, fixing it is going to be compromising your feelings, wants and needs to appease him - DON'T make this easier for him. You only enable him to continue to be unaccountable for his behavior. Invest your energy into what you need to LEARN through this experience. Face it, this doesn't feel good and it hasn't for awhile. Let go of your pictures how things should be and be open to creating something better for yourself. When we do the internal work necessary to resolve the pain in our lives suddenly all that love and attraction you feel for someone who is not good for you dissolves and you are free to move on.
"Love doesn't admit of losing the loved one" actually, it does. Self love admits when it's time to move on and will release the other person to live their life and continue their journey. Love does not cling out of fear - it lets go.
Many moons ago in high school I came across this saying about love...
If you love something - set it free
If it comes back it's yours
If it doesn't - it never was
Even if he left and came back that doesn't mean the two of you can make it work. He's already chosen to emtionally and physically invest himself in another woman. Love yourself enough to say you deserve better!
Good luck!
Thank you, sjmystic, for both your messages and advice. Your perceptions of the situation are a definite help. However, the trouble is my heart won't listen to reason, especially since up to now this has been a good relationship, with shared laughter, and mutual support, and whenever there were problems there was also dialog, and understanding, and there always was a lot of love.
He'd watch me in the morning as I was leaving for work and sign to me that he loved me, he'd make sure that I had all the things I liked in the fridge, and he'd make me pancakes, making sure to buy my favorite kind of raspberry jam, and all sorts of little sweet things that proved I was on his mind and in his heart constantly. Even the cat is a birthday present for me: I love cats and he hated them with a passion, but loved me enough to try and share his life and home with a cat (he loves cats now :-)). I like to think that I was equally loving and sweet. Both families approved of the relationship, and were in contact as much as distance allowed. I mean even his only niece was named after me ... I just don't know where it all went, and my heart is terribly unwilling to let this fade without a fight to keep it, save it, reignite it...
Last night he told me he is in two conflicting states: deeply aware of all that we have, and loving me profoundly, but "in love" with this other woman, whom he allegedly only spend time with twice but who, he feels, has the same type of sensitivity that he does. He says there was a mutual spark and that he is tempted to explore this relationship because he wants to be in a relationship where he can take more than he can give, which is, according to him, the case in ours. At the same time, he thinks he'd be incomplete in this relationship because he'd be missing me and our love, but if he chooses not to engage with this woman, he'd be tormented by the "what if" of the road not taken. I am at my wits end.
My reading is rather different than his. I think we are now at the stage where our "in love" is giving way to a deeper, more mature connection, and that he misses the excitement of blooming passion. I reminded him that we too had that instant mutual spark, that we knew right off the bat we'd stay together, and that whatever spark it is and with whomever, it will not burn so bright forever, that's just the nature of relationships. He never was the type to chase after "sparks' he always wanted an enduring couple, committed, a long-term relationship, but somehow ours is the longest relationship he's been in since the first in his teens. I believe that he never got to experience this stage of maturing love, and that's why he has doubts. However, I don't know whether I am reading this right or just creating an image that would give me the illusions that the couple could continue and things evolve.
Future advice from all of you is greatly appreciated. This board is truly helping me cope with a very difficult situation.
I was in the book store the other day and I read a book about "soul mate" relationships and I'm sorry I don't know the author and title but there is a picture of a woman on the front and it's something about finding or keeping "the one" she talks extensively about how attraction is normal but when you are experiencing it for someone else while in a committed relationship it is a call for self-examination and an opportunity to look at your relationship in order to enrich it(or end it). Your BF is going for the immediate gratification he gets from his interactions with this woman rather than focusing his attention on what he should be learning. There is no way in hell he is "in love" with a woman he has only spent time with twice. She is a stranger and he knows nothing about how she functions in real life or how she handles problems. He's infatuated or attracted to her and is too stupid to know the difference. Harsh I know, but there it is. I'm sorry he's putting you through this. You are obviously an intelligent, devoted partenr and you deserve better than someone who so easily allows a stranger to move into your territory.
Make no mistake he is cheating on you and don't get sucked into his pathetic, selfish melodrama or confusion. He's actually going about this in a way that has you wanting to support him in his journay of discovery hoping it will be you in the end. Send him packing and until he figures out what he wants stop holding his hand and enabling him. In cases of cheating the other woman HAS TO GO but he's already told you he will live in "what if" if that happens.
Your life is what is going on in the present moment and you could waste a lifetime trying to recapture what was with a man who is looking elsewhere to create something new. One thing is for certain, if you continue to let him hurt you and betray you you can count on more of the same in the future.
He should have come to you if he had problems in the relationship not turned to her. Your desire to "fight to keep it", "save it" and "reignite it" are not shared by a man who is tormented by the thought of missing an opportunity to be with another woman. Best advice - kick him to the curb and make him earn back your trust. That's how you fight for it. You set a boundary that says this relationship means everything to me but I will not compromise it for anything. And you are seriously compromising what you need right now. If he needs time to figure it out - give it to him but don't be the loving, devoted girlfriend while he spins fantasies and illusions about another woman.
He's not in love with this woman, he just hasn't been fighting with her for all this however much time you two have been arguing, sniping, getting disappointed in each other, etc. Funny, i never thought that's how love looked ;)
Do yourself a favor and set some boundaries if he's goign to "explore" this "relationship" with this other person.
At the same time, go get yourself a book: Relationship Rescue by Dr. Phillip C. McGraw and then email me offline if you want another (what I consider) really good idea.
Best,
~~.: Sandra :.~~
Thank you, Sandra, for your opinion, which is very pertinent. For the past two weeks this has been the thought plaguing me, that we betrayed our love not by seeking other people, but by allowing the little things inherent in living together and managing a joint household to cloud, and even erode what was essentially a "great love". In the past four days, as my obvious grief prevented him from making a decisive move, we have spent time together and, I believe, recaptured some of the elation and closeness of our first two years together. That isn't stopping him from moving out tonight, "to be alone and feel no pressure from anywhere" he says, and although I am heartbroken, I now have some hope that after he thinks things through he will realize that, as you say Sandra,, he is not "in love" with this other woman, and that what we have is really powerful and valuable, and capable of overcoming the distance that our bickering and quarreling have created.
I do however keep on second guessing myself. A couple of our close friends got divorced after a similar scenario (a woman he met twice and obsessed about even when on a month long holiday with his wife, pursuing their mutual passion for dance) and the man in question is now heavily involved with the other woman. I am afraid the story may influence my... I don't even know what to call him anymore.
I do believe him when he says he loves me. Am I foolish to do so? Am I foolish to believe he will realize that we can be together again, and be happy like we used to? Do men really come back, or is this relationship gone forever?
Thanks to everyone on this board for their opinions and support and please keep them coming. They are really helpful.