I am so confused....

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
I am so confused....
1
Tue, 01-06-2004 - 12:55pm
I don't really know where to start but I need some insight...I was dating a guy last year who I love dearly to this day. We only dated for four months but we knew we loved each other and were headed toward marriage or at least thinking of it. He is divorced from a woman who treated him really badly and I think he has a lot of emotional baggage from that although he has been divorced for three and a half years. Anyway, he liked me a long time, almost a year before he ever got up the courage to ask me out and from day one together we could not get enough of each other. I am the first person he has sought out since the ex wife, he dated a girl that some people set him up with but he didn't really like her(even though they dated almost a year). We talked on the phone everyday for hours and went to church together (we met at church). Nothing could be better. We talked about his past with the terrible ex wife and I assured him that I loved him and would never leave him. However, he dumped me one day at a church get together after a misunderstanding between us. Just to be short, I was supposed to eat at his house with his family for our birthdays and I had had strep throat the week before and we didn't get to go out and I decided not to stay at his house that Sunday cause his sister in law is pregnant and his little brother was taking chemo for Hodgekin's disease and I didnt want to get them sick. I left church to drive him home and I got mad at him cause he would not talk to me in the car and I dropped him off and left even though he was motioning me to stay. I later went to church without him that night and didnt sit with him. I called him when I got home and he was really mad and did not want to talk to me but when I asked if he loved me he asked me what kinda question is that. He really was not plain in his explanation of why we were breaking up he just said that if we started out like this it would always be like this, I had no clue what he was talking about but it sounded like something from his past. I do know that his wife left him and said that his mom could take care of him now...so I guess he thought maybe I was leaving him too.

It has been six months since we broke up and I have went through hell. I love this guy with all my heart and I do think he is the one I am meant to be with. I support him through all of his past and he knows that. We still see each other every single church service and that makes all of this harder. I have been sending him notes and telling him how much I love him but I haven't really gotten a response from him. He talks to me briefly every once in a while and he still says little things that makes me think he still cares. I wrote him a note two weeks ago and he actually came up to me after church and shook my hand and said that he wanted to talk to me about the letter and I asked if it was bad and he said no. Well I let a week go by and I asked him one night after church if he was ever going to talk to me and he said about what? He acted like he didnt know what I was talking about and I could tell he did and then he switched to saying that he enjoyed seeing me at church and hoped I enjoyed seeing him. Now that sounds to me like he still likes me.

I don't know what to do or what to think. I still believes that he loves me cause I wrote him a letter and told him that if he didnt still feel the same that he needed to tell me and he never said anything. I don't want to give up on him and I want to wait while he is getting his life in order cause I believe that he is just scared because of what happened with the ex wife. I mean he saw a future with me and even discussed marrying me with his parents. Although when we discussed marriage previously he said he needed a better job, and now he has one and bought a old house to fix up and he said I needed a job-which I am desperately trying for. I hope that he is just scared and will come back one day but I don't know. Does anyone have any opinion on this or viewpoint or advice or anything to help me????? Is there hope for getting back together?


iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2003
Tue, 01-06-2004 - 1:16pm
I'm sorry you had to experience all this. However, please, please stop trying to contact him. You are chasing him and he's unwilling to be caught. I'd be if you didn't talk to him, didn't write him, then just maybe he'd approach you. But as long as you do the pursuing, you aren't going to get what you want.

If he's got the leftover baggage from a divorce, isn't dealing with it and has only dated you and one other woman since the divorce (the first one for a year and he didn't really like her, I don't believe it, because my experience is that most people do what they want to do because they want to do it). Four months with you, sorry and I know you won't want to hear this, four months barely scratches the surface when getting to know a person.

When you meet someone, you don't know much about them, you notice certain things, feel an attraction, but you can't see the emotional baggage they carry with them. You want to get to know the person better. Where do you start? Do you try to get to know them on different levels - mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically?

In my opinion, takes about a month to develop each and the longer you wait for the physical the better, because everyone can hide their true personality for awhile, usually 3-4 months. Then things change because they aren't just trying to 'get you' or trying to be nice or impress you.

a) Mentally - do you have enough stimulating conversation about a variety of things (not just about when the next time you are going to hook up together) Do you have common interests, like doing the same things, share an activity (not sex) or a hobby. Any uncomfortable pauses in the communication. How about long term goals, career objectives, plans for the future?

b) Emotionally, do you connect? How does the other person feel about family, friends, kids, small animals? Are they compassionate? Empathetic? When you have a bad day do they listen to you or blow you off? Do they really listen or are they distracted at the same time, looking away, wishing they were somewhere else, cut you short? Does the person try to isolate you from your friends and family? Huge red flag.

c) Spiritually - do you have the same belief system on some level or do they think your beliefs are 'out there.' How important is your faith? How important is their faith? Enough to share it?

There is so much that goes into a relationship. It's easy to get attached right away if you jump right into in bed. It makes it harder to let go if you slept with the person right away, only to find out that your life goals are so different and/or that there are major compatibility issues, yet because of the physical relationship people will try to hold on to a bad relationship longer than just reading the signs of incompatibility.

And after 4 months when they (you or the other person) finds things aren't exactly how they want them to be, it's hard for them to just come out and say "I think we are mismatched as a couple and it's time to go our separate ways." More times, people make lame excuses or push the other one away (starting a fight) and then the issue at the time of the fight becomes the reason.

Please, please work on your self-esteem to help you with you healing.

Reading material to consider:

Learning to Love Yourself: Finding Your Self-Worth, by Sharon Wegscheider Cruse

How to Succeed at Being Yourself: Finding the Confidence to Fulfill Your Destiny, by Joyce Meyer

How to Raise Your Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Brandon

The Aladdin Factor, Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen

The Magic of Thinking Big, David J. Schwartz

Self Matters, Phil McGraw

My best to you.


Carrie