What do I do? Help please!
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What do I do? Help please!
| Tue, 08-09-2005 - 3:32pm |
I need help understanding my guy. We started talking back in March and have been hanging out every since. He has had a recent string of bad relationships starting with an ended engagement about a year ago and continuing to right before we met. As a result he has told me that he does not want a serious relationship right now, which I said I am fine with. From my point of view things have gotten more serious lately, we are spending lots and lots of time together and the other day he even mentioned us getting a place to live together. But at the same time he is still not willing to call us a couple. I don't know how to handle him any more. Also, on top of that I am starting to have some serious feelings for him to the point that I think I am falling in love, but i'm afraid to tell him that because he has said he does not want a serious relationship. I'm confused because he is sending all of the signals that he wants us to be more serious but at the same time he says he doesn't, which is it? And what do i do? Do i tell him i'm falling for him or do I leave it alone? Any adivce would be appreciated.

You need to take the bull by the horns and ask him, point blank, whether he has changed his mind about not wanting a serious r'ship, because to YOU, living together is *serious* (understandably so!).
Sheri
Welcome to the board, Karaanna ~
I think you have some serious thinking to do, and I think it's really important that you do a lot more rational thinking than emotional thinking right now, because if you go with your emotions, you're apt to put yourself in a position to be very hurt; whereas if you keep your head and think about your standards, what you expect from a relationship and put that above what you'd like to think this relationship is or could be you'll be sure to keep your standards and morals, be true to yourself. Not only will you feel better about yourself, but you'll have reminded yourself that your wants and needs matter and are very important - and they are. A good saying to keep in mind is "when you settle for less than you want, you find out you settled for much less than you'd expected".
Your guy made it very clear in the beginning that he was not interested in a serious relationship, and it's great that he was upfront and honest with you. Now he's asking you to move in with him. I think you first have to ask yourself if living together with someone who's not serious about you is acceptable to you. If it is, great, no problem, but if you want to save living together to be with someone who is serious about you and your relationship, I would expect you'd need to clarify whether his feelings had changed or not.
Personally, I think if you two aren't close enough to tell each other you love them you're not close enough or serious enough to live together yet. You might be in the future, but you're not there yet. Four months isn't very long to be in a relationship, it's still in the stage where things can change and end pretty quickly, you both have lots more to learn about each other before you really know each other, and until you really know each other you're not able to judge whether you're right for each other or not. It just takes time and there's no substitution for it. I would also put a lot of thought into whether I was willing to put myself on the line to move in with someone at this early stage of the relationship. It always hurts when relationships end, but when ending also means finding a new place to live, first, last and deposit, the pain and trauma of moving your stuff out, the stark difference of living alone after having shared the space with someone you cared about is pretty difficult and traumatic. You might think about whether you're willing to risk putting yourself in that position at this stage of the relationship. You might want to look at it this way: If the relationship is right, waiting to move in together will still be right later on and you can move in together with better knowledge and understanding of each other, and be more sure of the relationship. If the relationship isn't right, living together will only cause more difficulty and pain; and you'll wish you hadn't move in with him.
If he's still in the "no serious relationship" mode, I'd work very hard to curb your love feelings. Letting yourself become completely attached to a guy who's not attached to you will only hurt you and get you stuck on a guy with no hope or future of a relationship that's more than it is right now. If he's still in the "no serious relationship" mode, I'd give some serious thought into what that means about his suggestion to live together. It would mean he wants you to live with him without the deep kind of feelings you'd have for a partner, it would mean he lives with people casually and easily, it's not a big deal or a big decision for him. If he can move in that easily, he can move out that easily too. If you want more of a commitment, more of a solid, serious relationship and he's still not wanting a serious relationship, moving in with him would be a very big mistake. Moving into a situation like that hoping that in time he'll become serious doesn't work. The feelings are either there or they're not. Don't move in with him unless they're there -- and even if they are, consider waiting at least several more months to make sure the relationship continues in a positive, healthy way before making that kind of commitment.
~ cl-2nd_life"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."
~ Author unknown

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