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| Wed, 12-26-2007 - 12:46am |
Well girls, I have to say it again.
After a very difficult week, I had to call it quits for MA. A bunch of yellow flags turned out to be too many red flags for me. I can try to sum it up - I am tired and tired from all of it.
First of all, I feel he is very desperate for a wife and has been way too pushy with the amount of time he wants to spend and with that topic in general. Although he is 45 and never married, he desperately wants to be married. And I feel he has said I love you way too soon. He also gave me gifts he had been saving for a future wife and it just flipped me out. They were not personalized for me at all.
IN addition to this he has some real communication issues. I think he has the dating part down pat. But he is unable to empathize or listen to someone else and interact with them. Plus he does a lot of socially inept things. I don't think he wants to come across as an insensitive jerk but he does. I feel he was also very selfish about wanting me to do favors for him when I am busy and had cooked a lot. It just felt like one big intrusion.
It is sad because we are two quality people who have a high school history. And with this in mind I really tried my very best to communicate with him but felt like the tree in the forest that falls and no one hears her.
DS just left and so I am going to focus on cleaning the house and getting work done and getting better - I have a bit of a cold.

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Just reading this (and obviously I'm not in position to give relationship advice) but reading this really sent me the message that he was pushing you two into a marriage setting and you were still in the dating setting of a relationship. Wonderful monogamous perks, but he was already in the whole "we're married, she's my wife" kinda thing with the whole can you make my mom's potato dish, can you show these guns to your son so I can teach him about them, and like you say, because he seems to want to be married so very badly, he was forcing that into your relationship to satisfy his own needs and ignoring your pleas to slow down and stop forcing the issue. I don't know the history, as I'm still really new to this board, but I have to agree you did the right thing to pull the plug. He wasn't giving you what you needed and he was too busy taking to know you weren't happy. The whole women in thongs on the cube thing would drive me bananas!! If 'T' did that to me, I'd explode, its very disrespectful. Not funny at all to do it after you told him you didn't like them. What's funny about that?! Oh, and the giving you gifts he'd been saving for a wife? that is a huge red flag. He definitely was fitting you into the role of wife whether you wanted it or not. Really, what choice were you left with if not to end it? He wasn't compromising at all.
Come to think of it.... he sounds like a much older version (and male) of my 23 yr old cousin. Ever since she was in highschool she has made it her life's mission to be a housewife. To who? It didn't matter. She bounced from relationship to relationship, scaring guys away with her forwardness of insisting they propose marriage and produce a ring within weeks of dating.
I don't know what else to say other than it really sucks. You deserve more and I really hope you find it.
mom_uk2socal - Mom to DS22, DS19, DD16
Well, at first he didn't because HE views us as the perfect couple with so much potential and the perfect person for me and is madly in love with me - all after just 2 months. I feel this is because he does not know me and is in love with an illusion in his head.
I did break up with him in an email last week. But then now that he is back in town we have the issue of having to return his stuff and he sent me this ridiculous list of things he wants back and wants me to bring it to him to which I said no. The only reason I am trying to keep stuff civil is because he is a HS alumni and we have the same friends. So I agreed to meet him somewhere that is convenient for me next week.
He was upset yesterday but seems better and more accepting today. I really am done. I do not want to be in any more one way street relationships and this one was all over the top and too much for my nerves. It is a shame that he is such a quality person with regards to his family and education and all but he is not for me!
I really want to find a nice guy who is into me who wants to set up some fun dates and take it slow and see what happens - not put me in a sick script.
I thought you would get a kick out of this - it was from yesterday when he was trying to talk me into getting back with him (HECK NO!!). Keep in mind this is after my bringing up the issue a second time of how fast he is going and how uncomfortable he is making me feel by saying I love you so soon and giving me stuff from his imaginary wife hope chest that I do not even like or feel is for me for Xmas. AND his one page poem for Xmas that is all about him instead of a heartfelt note or call. AND my complaints about me doing everything for him and having him make me feel like he is one big intrusion because he insists on coming here too much and calling too much and IMing too much and keeping me up too late.
A sorry I will make it up to you would have helped. But NO - look at this what he writes:
Judy, I recognize that I represent change and that if I were or are ever to be a part of your life and you mine, that would entail change. When everything is going along well in life, the economy, business, etc... change can be hard to embrace, it may even appear threatening. But change, in essence, does not have to be threatening, bad, or interfering. It is simply change and change can be fruitful in many ways.
When I went back to school it demanded an enormous lifestyle change one I've yet to fully recoup. However, the benefits of having gone back to school far outweigh all the changes I endured. Perhaps that's not a good example to give you. I'm just trying to say that I know we, together represent change. I know that prior to my appearance on the scene, your life has been going very well in many arenas and suddenly there's upset....it must be MA, he must be bad, he must go..... Judy, I have no idea if that process went through your mind, I'm merely proposing that as a possibility????
What I do know for certain is that in every relationship, especially new relationships, there comes a time when all is put to the test often by sheer overwhelm of the situation and potential change represented by the relationship itself. If that relationship is to survive, someone will stand up and fight for that relationship and not be willing to just stand by and watch it drift by into a footnote of relationship oblivion.
Edited to add: This is after just 2 months of dating. SURE he wants a change - all about him. NOT! He is dumped in a big splat.
MA,
I am very sorry you feel so upset and so confused. I can assure you I am done and do not want to continue our relationship. It does not work for me - I feel I am on a very different page in life and do not trust you to put my needs and my best interests first - and all of our correspondence drove this home. You cannot change how I think or feel to suit your own feelings. It is what it is - not what we hoped it to be. It does not mean you are a bad person, only that I do not want to be with you anymore.
I would like to walk away thinking that we are two very nice quality people who are in different places in their lives and just want very different things and maybe some day we can be friends. I do not want to make you into some enemy. And I do wish you well in your search. Just as you have criteria for what works for you, so do I - and this is not negotiable for me.
Edited 1/3/2008 4:45 pm ET by cl-west1745
Wow cl-west.
Your reply to him was so nice and general--you react so polite compare to how I would in such a situation.
April
And just that he was so selfish with his wants, dreams, demands and the whole thing. He made my life harder and was an intrusion - that was in my first note to him. But he just gets mad at me making him feel insensitive and tries to say he is not an intrusion.
OMG - it is an endless loop of his warped logic and one way thinking.
But I thought you would all get a kick out of that.
My note was actually in response to another one of his emails but I did not want to put all of it in there because then we would be reading an encyclopedia.
Thank you Mark - I do appreciate your kindness.
My first breakup message, last week, said, I am breaking up with you because I no longer want to continue this relationship - it is not working for me. I cannot communicate with you and I do not like the intensity. I do wish you well in your search.
Believe me, I would love to zing a really mean message - but since we are alumni and have mutual friends I have to treat it differently.
One of our mutual friends has terminal cancer - and I know it is only a matter of weeks or months before we are all going to be at his funeral - and I don't want this in the way of things like that. So I am holding back on my pride and biting the bullet and doing what it takes to get out gracefully - that is why I am going to see him in person to return his things. Although I have a feeling that will have its own story.
I am done. I do not want to be in anything that is not helpful and positive in my life. I am not sure if I would ever get married again - only if it somehow made total sense for both people. I do not desire any children of my own. I only hope that one day I can find someone who will love me and who I can have a positive and healthy relationship that is good for both of us and see where it all goes.
At this age and with the amount of assets we all have plus kids it doesn't always seem to make sense to have the dreamy dream that you can combine everything into one house and all live happily ever after. Sure, it happens and we have seen it here. But it is not the be all end all. I have a lot of things in my life to be happy for and I love myself and my goal of a happy relationship more than any idiot and his dream to have a Stepford wife.
End of soap box for now. It was fun to share it all here.
Regarding MA's philosophy on "Change" and how he tried to blame YOU for not accepting it...
I would have not been able to fight the urge to in return tell him that accepting his form of change would be rather like changing comfy soft underwear for tight, itchy constricting ones. lol
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