Sort of a "Relationship"- I Need Input
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Sort of a "Relationship"- I Need Input
| Fri, 12-07-2007 - 7:03pm |
Hi,
In September, I met a much younger man on a dating site more geared towards "hooking up," because I was not ready for a relationship after breaking up with my boyfriend last June.

I think that above all, you need to be honest with him.
Hi,
Thanks for your response.
Have you asked him?
"(to me, exclusive means you're not going out on dates with anyone else; monogamous means you're not having sex with anyone else)"
This is interesting because I had always felt that exclusive meant monogamous.
Oh, yeah, I learned that the hard way!
Hi,
I am willing to give this a chance.
I think part of why there are so many relationship problems in our society is because you have people who after the first week of knowing each other they have found the love of their lives. Then on the other end of the spectrum, you have the people who have been together for years and are engaged, but think it is okay to still play the field until they are actually married, and those people are just as bad. The problem in both cases is that people have an all or nothing view to relationships. Relationships aren't just black and white though. There ARE different levels to relationships. Being with your first boyfriend or girlfriend in high school for one week is very different from being married to somebody for 30 years.
You are acting as though by agreeing to stop seeing other people you are committing your life to him. Just saying you won't sleep around is nothing NEARLY that serious though. It's agreeing you'll stop seeing other people for NOW. Any time you want to change your mind, all you'd have to do is tell him and you'd be completely free the next night.
It's true that you don't want to jump into a serious relationship with somebody before you trust them. But you also can't trust them without having any type of commitment from them. Why would he feel comfortably opening up your feelings to you and trusting you knowing that you are sleeping with other people and that you might be telling other guys something completely different while you are in bed with them. Also, why SHOULD he trust you when you have just admitted to lying him? Do you really think you are going to be able to build any level of trust while being dishonest with each other? If you still think he may be player after all this time, then I would say to forget about him. But if you believe he is serious and are truly interested in pursuing it, then I would say at the bare minimum you should agree to stop seeing other people. That is not asking for much at all. If you can't even agree to that, then I don't see how the trust between the two of you is ever going to grow any further.
You need to be honest and not make any sort of commitment due to feeling pressured.