Is Our Problem My Problem or His?
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| Sun, 05-21-2006 - 3:44pm |
I've been with my wonderful boyfriend for three and a half years. We're best friends and wonderful confidants. He treats me right, brings me flowers and never yells. Everything is peachy. . . except. . . I WANT MORE.
I fall in love with him more each and every day. I want to marry him and spend the rest of my life with him. I don't know how he can really have a commitment problem when we've been together as long as we have. I have told him I need to know what his intentions are. He says he's just not ready. I wish this were ok with me. I have gotten crazier and more obsessed with that finish line over the last year. I feel like I need to know what's going to happen. If I need to walk away without him I need to do it really quickly because I already know I love him too much and leaving and not having him in my life would be horrid. The real problem is is that my obsession with knowing what's going to happen is ruining our relationship. I call him on the carpet about it all the time~! I feel like I have less and less control over my actions. I am all over the place. I cry all the time. I feel unloved because he's not ready to say it's forever. Which is really dumb because I know he loves me. I've tried to break up with him but he tells me all the time he thinks that would be the worst thing in the world.
We are both virgins. I just always thought it would be really nice to save that for the person I marry. . .I don't know if just having sex might make me feel more connected with him, maybe that's what I need. Maybe I'm just a ball of crying mess because I'm so sexually frustrated I can't think straight. He never pressures me but I know that he would love to have sex with me.
I never thought I would be one of those girls who needs to get married and I hate myself for being such a drama queen. He is still living at home so he cannot ever spend the night with me at my place. He's a very independent person, but he hasn't ever moved out of his parent's house. He says this way he can save money to buy a house instead of renting one. I think it's crazy to live with your parents at our age. I've been living alone or with roommates for six years and I think it's a very important part of my growing up, but it's not like I have any savings:) So maybe he's right on that front. I just don't know what to do at this point. We've broken up before but always end up back together because damnit we really love each other. I could really use a bit of perspective on this one. Thanks.

I'm curious as to how old you are because that would vary my answer
Ok, first. I want you to stop saying you have no control. You are in complete control. But, you're allowing yourself to lose it. Take back the control and start working on not acting in the way you don't like.
Tell me something... what's really freaking you out about this all? That he'll leave? That it will turn bad? Hon, that may happen even when you are married and with each other for 30 years. That's the scary part of relationships--there are no guaranties.
I'd like you to start focusing on each day with him. When you're with him. focus on making it a happy time. Focus on all the good he's doing and how he's SHOWING you he loves you.
I'm sure you've been told this and I don't want to say it and have you think "boy, here we go again..." but you are young. There's plenty of time. This guy hasn't even spread his wings yet. Nor have you. Focus on learning more about you, on having a life outside of this relationship. Focus on learning the things you want to, on building other friends. Focus on things that take your worries away from whether or not you'll get a commitment from him. I'm thinking you're placing way too much emphasis on him... would I be right?
You're not dumb. You're human. We all are. And we all make mistakes. The important thing is that you correct it before it's too late.
Keep posting if you need help, vent here... Try to not let it effect your relationship.
Kerry
Edited 5/21/2006 4:59 pm ET by cl-bklynchik
Hi,
If he's 25, that's really understandable. As the other poster said, I think you should stop nagging him and just enjoy the relationship for now. I can't say for sure when he'll feel ready, but if you truly think (or know) that he's a great man, it's worth it to give it some more time.
I can't say I know much about men, but I can give you my own example with my ex-boyfriend (I broke up with him for a completely different reason - nothing to do with his personality - just some incompatibilities between us). He was a good-hearted man and at one point (about 2 years after we started dating), I felt so ready to get married to him. I was extremely frustrated at the fact that I "knew" he loved me deeply and yet we weren't taking the next step. I brought up the topic several times the following year (not too often to drive him crazy but more often than necessary). I knew my nagging didn't help at all; I just did it since I was like you, more or less. Well, a year later, while on a business trip with his best friend, they had a talk and he decided to take the next step (proposing). He was 28 at that time. So I can definitely see how your bf doesn't feel ready for that step yet. He's still young, in my opinion, and getting married to someone IS a pretty important decision, so it's actually a good thing that he's careful on whom he wants to spend the rest of his life with. So give him some more time and it will come (let's say 2 more years???). I think it's worth it in your case (again, if you truly think he's a great person and not committmentphobic). Even if it doesn't come in 2-3 years (past your deadline), I don't think there's much more you can do at this point. Pushing him is not going to do it.
Good luck, hun!
icuryy
Although the other posters have good points, I'm not so quick to agree with them. You've given us your ages but I would like a little bit more information, having been stuck in a very similar situation in the past. It is nice that your man plans elaborate dates, but what concerns me is this standard, "not ready" excuse.
You say this man is saving to buy a house. How much money has he saved? Does he have a good job or is he content with minimum wage? Is he looking at real estate options in the area or just paying you lip service. Does he have a time frame for this purchase?
When people live with their parents they usually are doing it for one of two reasons. 1) They are on a budget for whatever reason ....or 2)Their laundry is done for them, their room gets clean and there is always food in the fridge.
Rather than arguing with your boyfriend about his intentions, find out what is really going on. If he isn't saving money and he has no wish to leave his parents house and his career is going nowhere, then I agree wholeheartedly, he's not ready and may never be ready.
If you are ready to get married and he isn't, it might be time to move on. Breaking up can be painful but there is no reason to hang around a man that isn't taking you where you want to go. You can waste years of your life waiting for something that is never ever going to happen, and if it does you might not want it at that point.
Hi everyone your comments have really helped. In new developments. . . I've got some nice long ramblings for you.
We had a huge fight over the phone on Friday night, it was really awful. We don't usually fight but I guess he was just totally fed up with me. He was watching a movie and told me to just leave him alone, which I really should have listened to him on, but I pushed and cried and rambled. Anyway, I decided to give myself my own personal detox and for the last four days I haven't answered or returned his phone calls. I haven't been playing games, I just haven't had anything to say. We're bad on the phone and he's busy with work. I just needed some time to think about things. I ended up starting a list. I realized when we fight it's about the same things, and I ramble when I try to explain to him in the middle of crying. I decided to list the things that make it hard to be in a relationship with him. Then I started thinking of the lovely things about being with him and decided it was only fair to list those things too. So I have a list of about sixty things that needs to be narrowed down, a lot of the things are repeats just jotted down in a different way. Sixty bad things, hundreds of perfect things, I'm going to narrow that down to match the number of bad things. I was planning on giving him the lists. He's a list kind of guy. I think it might help. Then at least the next time we have a fight it's not hitting him out of the blue. I'm going to ask him to do the same for me. We've been together long enough for it to be a pretty good tell all. Also, I would rather have my feelings hurt and solve the problem then continue on this way. I thought the lists might help me regain some sanity.
So I've been fine, but missing him like crazy. He called incessantly the first few days and left messages on my machine asking to please call him back. They were varied from sounding depressed to fine to mad at being ignored. In the last 3 and a half years I doubt we've gone anymore than a day without talking. I just didn't want to answer the phone too early and blow it with my crazy anger, I wanted to know what the next step for me was. He didn't call today. I thought he had given up. Then tonight he imed me. I wrestled with breaking my silence over IM. When i finally typed "hi" back he responded with "are we ever going to talk?"
AIM IS THE DEVIL. How can you type without sounding mad when your not, sad when you're happy, or rude when you're just gun shy? Any way as you can probably guess it turned out crappy. He said that he'd been trying to call and had i tried to call back? I told him I hadn't. He asked If I was okay and I told him I was the best I'd been in a long time, which is true. He wanted to know why I hadn't been answering his calls and I told him he could call now if he wanted. He typed back, could I call tomorrow instead? GEE, we go days without talking and I finally say go-ahead and call and he's tentative? That sucked. He said he just doesn't have privacy at his house. I told him that I'm not going to just be here when he wants to talk, that it was fine if he didn't want to call tonight but I didn't want to talk on the phone tomorrow. He never said, why don't I just come over. Maybe that's fine, that might be a guy thing, thinking I need space when i need less. Judging me the way they judge themselves. If they were in a fight the last thing they'd want is there girlfriends around, but part of me just wanted him to show up. Of course I didn't tell him that. He wanted to know how my weekend was and what I did yesterday, and what I did today. I just didn't want to finally have our first talk in days over IM and I was kind of upset that he did.
So damn me and my super fast 90 wpm typing skills, before I know it I'd pressed enter. I had typed "We're not going to IM. I'm sorry if you don't have privacy that's not my fault. We're not going to have an IM and phone relationship. I'm sick of it." It was about two seconds later that he logged off. Of course it's midnight, but I called for the first time since Friday and left a message saying I'm sorry that my IM sounded meaner than I wanted it to, THAT's WhY I don't want to IM and we're bad on the phone. I'm busy tomorrow in the daytime but if you want to hangout tomorrow afternoon that would be fine." I hate that after all this time of silence, which I was hoping to break in a nice way it has to be like this, all crappy. I just don't know if we can even fix this. I've been trying not to be needy. That was in part what this time of not talking was, to see if I could do it. It's hard. I want to give him space, but I don't want him to want space. I don't know why he doesn't just come over to chill out. It may have something to do with my total psychoness. . . darn
I hate AIM.