“My Relationship is Like a Rollercoaster”
I’m ready to jump into an engagement, but he’s been backing away. Five months ago he was feeling me out for what I would say if he popped the question and he was not expecting my answer to be that I would say yes and that I was serious about him. When his promotion came along a couple months later, we have been unable to see each other as much (we live 50 minutes away) and his living situation does not allow for me to come visit him (no dogs overnight).
I can say I have never ever loved a man like this. I cannot shake him or dump him despite the fact he has been nonexistent the last few months. He tells me he loves me, tells me he wants me, but says it’s unfair to me that he cannot give me what I need right now and that I deserve the world (I am really REALLY good to him). I have played the games of dumping him and then taking it back; I have given him deadlines of when I think he should figure things out (whether he wants a commitment or not); and I have been understanding about his job and the stress it causes him.
I don’t feel he wants me to end it, but I don’t know how much more of this rollercoaster I can take. My head says break it off, but my heart says that I don’t want to be without him and that love is hard and I need to stick by him. — Deadline Driven
You’re delusional if you think you and your boyfriend are “two fools in love.” You might be a fool, but if so, it’s because you think your boyfriend hasn’t decided what he wants after multiple “deadlines” from you to figure it out. The truth is, he HAS figured it out and he does not want a commitment with you.
He wants things to stay exactly as they are (well, minus the constant marriage talk on your end), which is to say entirely on his terms. He sees you when he wants to see you, which sounds like not very often at all, and he gets a girlfriend who is “REALLY good to him.” He gets the benefits of a relationship without having to put in any work.
This ship has sailed. The window is closed. The sun has set on whatever great day you once had together. It’s done. It’s over. It’s time to move on. This isn’t even a “rollercoaster” you’re on as that would require there to be some ups and it doesn’t sound like you’ve had many of those lately. No, this is just a dead-end road leading to nothing but heartache.
Your relationship began to change at the exact time you made clear you wanted a serious, longterm commitment. Don’t you see the connection there? Your boyfriend knows he isn’t the person to give you what you want to he backed off. And the five months since then have done nothing to bring you closer together again despite your repeated attempts to make your boyfriend commit. Take the hint here and MOA. If this were going to happen, it would have happened by now. The only thing your future holds with this guy is heartache if you continue to stay with him in the land of denial, so do yourself a huge favor and MOA before you get any more lovesick.
If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected].
she got married at 15?
right???
I came up with 17…
she´s 29, 4 years divorced, 8 years married= 12 years ago= she got married at 17. Still way too young though, in my opinion.
Thanks for doing the math . . . because I didn’t want to. I figured she was young, but WOW!
I agree with Wendy. I had this same issue with my last relationship and it’s one of the reasons we broke up. She was looking for something more serious and I just wasn’t ready, since I had just finished college and was very focused on my career at work. I was finally in a position to move up the corporate ladder and I didn’t want anything to distract me along the way. I loved her and she loved me, but I couldn’t give her what she wanted long-term.
She wanted to see me everyday mostly and I wanted to see her 3 or 4 days tops. We met while she was going through a divorce, so she was used to the husband being home everyday and them doing things together. I have never been married and haven’t lived with someone in over 3 years, so I was more interested in her having her space and me having my own.
It’s best for the relationship to calm down some or for you two to reevaluate what each of you can compromise on to make the relationship work. Maybe he needs a couple of months to get his job down and then he can give more focus to the relationship, or maybe he needs more time than that and you aren’t prepared to wait on him. The one thing that needs to happen here is communication. You aren’t happy and he’s happy with the way things are. His focus is clearly on his career, which isn’t a bad thing; however, it’s leaving you feeling less desired.
It’s time to have a talk and see what you two can agree on together, or it may be time for both of you to move on to what makes both of you happy.
“…his living situation does not allow for me to come visit him (no dogs overnight).” This made me laugh.
Sounds to me like it has, in fact, been a roller coaster but entirely of the LW’s making. The boyfriend is being pretty clear that he isn’t the one to give you what you want. Yes, he says he has feelings for you, but for whatever reason, that’s not enough. He is unwilling or unable to give you the kind of commitment you’re looking for.
You can either try backing off and see if he comes around on his own, in his own time (this is really difficult once you’ve gotten marriage on the brain). Or you can back all the way out of the relationship (my recommendation). There’s really no going forward here.
“I am really REALLY good to him.”
This made me shudder. What does that even mean?! Why are you being so good to someone that sounds like they are basically phasing you out? People should have to earn your respect, trust, and attention. Based on the limited picture of the relationship that we’ve been given, I have to say that my gut agrees with Wendy here. I’m sorry LW. But you should BOTH be “REALLY good” to each other. You can’t have a great relationship with one person doing all the work, all the fretting, and setting numerous deadlines and ultimatums. If he really wanted the same commitment from you that you seem to want with him, he’d be showing it through his actions. He’d be doing whatever he could to not let you get away.
I’m confused by this . . . “Five months ago he was feeling me out for what I would say if he popped the question and he was not expecting my answer to be that I would say yes and that I was serious about him.”
I don’t understand why someone would inquire about long-term commitments then back off. Strange.
At any rate, I agree with Wendy and Will. Oh, and ulimatums never work in the long run. You might get what you want in the short term (or the opposite of what you want), but very rarely will it work out for the better. Stop doing that.
You know how many ultimatums I have heard that I didn’t comply to? Too damn many! I learned my lesson many years ago to not offer ultimatums, because I noticed it scared the other party more than making them want to step their game up. I’m to the point that the other person will put in the effort to work things out with me and we will grow together, or we can both go our separate ways. There’s really no need for either party to have to constantly coach the other person. If the planets align again in the future, the two of you can try again when both people are more where they need to be to work.
I will tell you this, if he’s that focused on his career that is very admirable. You know how many people out their gave up their dreams and career in order to make a relationship work, and 6 months later the relationship was over? Then that person spends years being resentful, because they missed out on an opportunity to greatly improve their lives? I’m ok with a relationship going through a rough patch for a career, because it means the other person not only wants to do better for themselves, but for me too. Or, if not me, someone else they meet down the road. I’m in the same seat as the LW’s boyfriend and no one will step in the way of me and my career aspirations. She can either go along for the ride with me or find someone who is better suited to meet her needs. I would expect the same if I was pursuing someone who was deeply focused in her career.
Oh, girlfriend. Run. 50 minutes away and you can’t ever see each other?! Come on. That’s less than an hour. People commute farther than that every day.
Also, everyone always thinks that they’ve “never ever loved anyone like this.” Sometimes it is true. In this case, I think you are throwing yourself further and further into this relationship, trying to save it, and it’s just too late. He’s pulling away…do yourself a favor and break it off before he does it for you.
I think the fact that she gave this guy (did I count 5?!) ultimatums after he fantasy played around with the idea of marriage with the LW played a huge part in this guy backing off. I think this is a completely different situation than the other letter. I know this sounds harsh and I apologize if I misread your letter, but LW, you played mind games for 5 months with this guy and you expect him to still feel the same about you? He is probably wishing he never brought it up.
Your only hope is to back off of the marriage talk and ultimatums and bring it up later (not 3 weeks later) or let him bring it up. A lot of other people will have better advice for what happens after that than myself.
As many others have said previously, you should listen when a partner tells you what he/she wants and is willing to give. In this case your boyfriend’s words “it’s unfair to me that he cannot give me what I need right now and that I deserve the world” is code for “I’m enjoying the ride, but I’m not willing to commit to a serious relationship, let alone an engagement!” MOA and find someone who will give you the world.
LW – put a fork in it because this relationship is done. I don’t mean to be cruel, but it sounds like your BF began the breakup 5 months ago and you are being intentionally too obtuse to follow. My guess is that your BF made some casual comment about engagement at the year mark and you ran with it to the point that it freaked him out. Now you are throwing yourself further and further into the relationship in the hopes that he will see how devoted you are to him, and he is pulling further away because you are coming across as a manipulative desperate woman that wants to be married THIS MINUTE. I would break it off with him (and do NOT do it to manipulate a commitment out of him) and try to figure out what went wrong with this relationship in the hopes that you can learn from past mistakes.
Look, I don’t want to be mean or anything, but adults do not play games in relationships with people they love. You say that you dumped him , then took him back, then dumped him again, etc… I think that means that you probably don’t love him as much as you say you do, because every time you broke up, you were taking a chance that he might not want to be back. And you did this several times. And he doesn’t love you as much as you think he does, for the same reason – he is willing to risk losing you, for the reasons that are not exactly urgent. So do both of you a favour, stop messing with each other’s heads and hearts and move on.
The LW seems to think this desperate “I’m SO in love with him!” feeling that often accompanies one partner pulling away signifies the validity/’realness’ of this love. Those obsessive, desperate feelings aren’t true love LW, and they aren’t indicative that you are meant to be with this man. I agree with the other commentators who said this is a roller coaster with one seat. 50 minutes is not that far, if he wanted to see you, he would.
Why, after having endured a divorce, are you so eager to jump into an engagement that your significant other is clearly not on board with? Furthermore, why, after a year and a half of dating, and dealing with your boyfriend’s pressing career concerns and distance, is getting engaged such a priority? Dating a year and a half and not seeing each other very frequently hasn’t given you enough time to be *sure* of marriage. Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I just don’t understand why people move so quickly.
Your boyfriend has clearly told you he can’t give you what you need right now. Listen to him.
His actions have clearly shown that his career is more important than you. Pay attention to that.
Maybe you’ve never loved any one the way you love him. I once loved a man like that, too. But what I came to learn, after a roller coaster much like yours, is that being in love should not mean being in pain.
Always listen to someone’s actions not their words: he’s telling you he wants to be with you etc.. but he’s showing you he’s not interested. Try not to give more than you get in a relationship. You’re clearly the one totally invested here – I don’t see him begging you to stay – in fact he lets the “deadlines” fly by and then you bring up another one. You really think that by ultimatum number 6 he’s going to finally get it?
Whenever anyone says “I really want to be with you BUT..” that means they don’t want to be with you. Take them at their word and don’t try and convince them – anyone that wants you is not telling you “BUT”. And a year and a half is plenty of time to decide if you want to marry someone so dont try and convine yourself he just needs more “time”. He doesn’t. Your time is up. So dump him and meet someone new
Square peg, round hole. I’m exhausted just reading your post because of all the emotional acrobatics you are going through to get this guy where you want him. I’m sorry to say that he is exactly where he wants to be and if you can’t accept that, then you need to move on. No amount of game playing can remedy this situation.
LW, you need to take a long, hard look at what you want out of life outside of having a relationship. You need to work on your relationship with yourself. Once you are stronger and know what you want, the rest will fall into place.
I actually disagree. It sounds like they both were married the first time WAY TOO YOUNG. Why the rush to marry again? Why not just enjoy the relationship as it is and let things develop? I just do not get the women who are all about the ring and the wedding and not so about the relationship. Relationships have their ebbs and flows. Sometimes close, and in a secure relationship, sometimes more space while one or both develop themselves career wise, etc. If you persist with the ultimatums the relationship will end, that I can guarantee. If you ease it up a bit, you may have eventually what you want. But I do not get the rush to the altar. That is also a recipe for divorce.
I was once having an open, casual relationship with a guy who lived about 50 minutes away from me and we saw each other every weekend. About 3/4 of the time I went to him and 1/4 of the time he came to me. And let me reiterate – this was an OPEN, CASUAL relationship. If you’re in a real relationship, 50 minutes is no reason to not see each other.
My husband lives two hours away and even when we were just dating we saw each other every weekend. I’m working my butt off in college to finish my degree, and he’s working twelve hour days of training and duty but we see each other because that is our priority. Also, I have two massive dogs that I have a friend house sit for in exchange I give her a lunchdate. The point is: if its there and both parties thunk its worth it you MAKE IT WORK.
You give a lot of excuses and make it clear that you make very immature and poor decisions. MOA and grow up. He’s made it clear what he can offer, and obviously that’s not enough for you. Move on for both your sakes.
Look, I’m not actually trying to be as sarcastic as I sound when I say this, but have you ever hear anyone say, “I’ve loved several people precisely the way I love this person?” No one says that. So please strike that phrase from your lexicon because…I do not think it means what you think it means.
I hate to be cruel, but why do you want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with you? Usually when any of my friends are hanging on to a guy this hard when he’s so obviously not feeling it like she is – or me, I’m COMPLETELY guilty of this in my relationship prior to Painted Dude – it’s because of some other issue, whether it’s the only good thing you’ve got going, you feel like you’re running out of time, or you’re avoiding taking the reins on the rest of your life. Figure out what it is, and then figure out what you need to do to let yourself move on. The Vegan and I were all wrong for each other, but I clung to that relationship because my job sucked, the job I really wanted was impossible to live off of, I was constantly broke, hated my apartment, and was so depressed some days I didn’t leave my bed for three or four hours after I woke up. Whatever it is that’s got you convinced this guy’s it, get control of it so you don’t need him so badly.
If you have to “play games” at 29 yrs old & in a 1.5 year relationship…that’s pretty much a sign that you need to move on to the next one…
The only person you can give ultimatums to is yourself. If you want something to change by a certain time, give yourself the ultimatum (e.x.:’if he doesn’t propose in 6 months I’m moving on’), don’t tell anyone else, and then follow through with it. The only person you have control over is yourself.
Look at it from his point of view, his girl friend who he had feelings for went psycho a few months ago, demanding to get married and breaks up with him all the time.
Would you want to spend more time with this GF?