Never snoop unless you are prepared for
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Never snoop unless you are prepared for
| Wed, 01-24-2007 - 1:11pm |
what you may find.
I could kick myself. It was a momentary lapse in ... well, everything I want to be! (honest, adult, not sneaky) ... & when Carlos was in the shower this morning at my house, I looked at his text messages. Pure & simple, I snooped. & I didnt like what I found.


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Point well taken.
My definition of a "good relationship" is when both people think that they are on to a good thing. In your case, it is obvious that you and Carlos both feel you are on to a good thing. It follows that both of you are afraid of losing it.
You have obviously felt the need to keep dating as "insurance" against the moment when he might pull away. And it may be that he feels similarly--whether it is because he will feel the need to pull away or because he fears you will find someone else.
My own brother is a commitment-phobe, differing from Carlos only in that my brother is far less successful professionally and that is part of his fear (that he won't be able to support a woman and family the way he "should"). But the insight I've derived from watching my brother is that often he seeks women who he thinks are unavailable to him. This way, it isn't always he who is not interested in commitment. A lot of times, he tells himself he wants commitment, but the woman isn't "ready."
Your Carlos may find your self-sufficiency and lack-of-urgency regarding commitment both an encouragement (it allows him to avoid commitment) and a challenge. On some level, he wants you to want a LTR. On another level, he is terrified that you do. Deep down he is afraid of himself and his own weaknesses. Commitment frightens him because it means he will risk failure in the most important relationship in his life. Yet he has begun to realize that this failure to commit is a failure in itself.
I think you are handling this wisely (except for the momentary lapse of good sense that led to your snooping). Just keep in mind that both of you are complex people, bringing baggage that may not always fit neatly in the overhead compartment.
Elsa
>>>But in MY opinion ;) the bad way outweighs the good. Now HE just has to believe that as well!<<<
Hmmmm..... did I read that wrong..... or is that a Freudian Slip??? :)
Man... I think too many women leads to lousy advice. Mark didn't have much to say, so here's some guy advice.
First, don't tell him about the snooping. You snooping is not the problem. The problem is that you want to be exclusive with the guy, but right now you're still kidding yourself and pretending you don't.
Why? It's not a bad thing; you're into him, he's obviously into you. Take a whack at it!
When he said he thinks he can't meet your expectations, he's obviously cluing in to something that you're feeling.
The way to resolve this is NOT to ask him "what expectations do you think I have?" That's passive-aggressive style thinking; you're not putting YOURSELF out there in that case, you're making it about what's going on in HIS mind. Weak.
Here's what you need to do. No talk about the snooping. NWW's emphasis on being truthful is good, but there are some truths that you don't necessarily need to expose, and this is one of them. It won't lead anywhere.
No talk about what HE thinks the expectations are.
Instead, you need to get it right in YOUR head, and then tell him what YOU think and want and desire. And then you need to give him some time to figure out what HE wants and thinks and desires.
It might be that this is going to lead to a broken heart, because it might be that he's right and he can't meet your expectations (if you want a committed, exclusive relationship, which it certainly sounds like you do, but if he doesn't then you're out of luck.) If so, well, too bad- it'll happen inevitably anyway, so you might as well get it over with now so you can MOVE ON sooner to the next guy that you CAN be LTR-serious with.
And it might be that he realizes that you ARE the super-special woman in his life, and he's more ready for the LTR than you think he might be, and he CAN meet and exceed your expectations, and it'll all turn out AWESOME.
Your problem, I think, is that you really don't have a problem! You're just used to having one, so you're creating a fake one.
Step back for a minute and look at the reality of the situation.
1. You've had a great, fun time with a pretty nice, attractive man who you like and who likes you. And he treats you well!
2. You've gotten to know/like/want him to the point where even though you and he are both kind of semi-dating other people from time to time, you're really not happy that HE is doing it- and if you're honest with yourself, your dates probably aren't going anywhere either because he's on your mind instead.
3. It seems like you and he have reasonably open lines of communication.
So where is the problem? Have the cotton-picking talk and get it over with! Because as semi-crazy as you feel right now... if you stick with this thing, and keep avoiding the elephant in the room, it's only going to GET WORSE.
The feelings have gotten to the point where you're going one of two ways- either LTR/committed/exclusive, or breaking up. You're at a point where you don't want him texting anyone else, you're snooping on his phone, you found a note from a woman and that bugs you- plainly you care about him in a way that a casual deal doesn't work for you anymore.
Time to poop or get off the pot. Have the talk, and don't have a wishy-washy BS talk like "what do you think I expect from you", either- just tell him where YOU are at and listen to him when he tells you where HE is at.
That's what a guy says. :)
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