Essie
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My best advice to you is to take a breath and slow down. I think you’re getting way ahead of yourself, emotionally.
I know that new relationships can feel very intense, and you can feel very emotionally intimate, like you’ve known him forever, you’re in love, he’s the best guy for you.
The reality is, you barely know this guy. It’s only been 3 months. You’ve been together for 12 weeks. Not even 100 days. You’re still getting to know him in some very basic ways.
You’re trying to guess at how your sexual relationship will work out, which is like trying to predict the future by reading tea leaves or chicken entrails at this point. Just live it. See how it goes. You’ll get all the answers you need, with time. You’ll see if he’s going to make a real effort to explore sexual options with you. You’ll see if he relaxes and is more comfortable with you in intimate situations, given some time.
And maybe he just needs more time…to use a cliche, you probably have stuff in your fridge that’s older than this relationship. He may be feeling a little awkward about discussing such intimate things with someone he’s known for such a short time. Some people need time to really get comfortable in bed with a new partner.
I mean, we’d all like a window into the future, to know if a relationship will work or not. But some things you just have to live through.
I’m sorry, LW, you’re completely out of line on this one.
A gift is supposed to be something the recipient wants. That’s the whole purpose of gift-giving. That you celebrate the person by giving them something that they will like, something personal that reflects their taste. Not what you like, not what you think they should like, and very definitely not TWENTY PIECES of your husband’s art. You’re making every gifting occasion about you and your husband, when it’s supposed to be about her.
Giving her one piece of your husbands’s work would have been thoughtful. And it should have stopped there. If she had a burning desire to have more, she would have gladly told you. “Hey, mom and dad, if you’re ever stuck on a gift idea for me, I would just love to have another painting of dad’s.”
Since this is your first long-term relationship, you don’t know what it’s like to be with a guy who truly loves you. I can tell you, it doesn’t look like the relationship you’re in now.
Not every relationship lasts forever. Not every one is supposed to. Most don’t. And it’s not your fault, or his fault. It’s just that you have different goals and priorities. You’re not on the same page with how or where you want to live your lives.
That does NOT mean you’re not good enough. It means you and he aren’t a good match. That’s all.
I’m sorry, but he wants to be in his hometown, with his parents, more than he wants to be with you.
That’s what this boils down to.
If he wanted you more, he’d move. It’s really that simple.
Being in love with each other doesn’t have anything to do with relationship compatibility. Yes, you need love to have a successful relationship, but it’s not the only thing you need. You guys may be madly in love, but you’re not the right people for each other. Just pull the bandaid off and end it, so you can both find the right person.
I’m still thinking there’s a lot more to this story, because I haven’t read anything that explains why you’re so incredibly angry with this man (and his daughter). Honestly, it sounds like you loathe them both.
But that doesn’t really matter. You can’t stand him, you can’t stand his daughter. There’s nothing here to salvage. Break up, and date someone who doesn’t make you angry. Life is too short to be this unhappy in a relationship.
This….seems like a massive overreaction to me. Massive. He said “oh, God,” when you told him you were crying and now you’re dreading Valentine’s Day and assuming it’s going to be awful and he’s not even going to get you a card and anything he does is going to be fake? I’m not trying to invalidate your feelings. You feel what you feel. But the two don’t seem connected. It’s like saying “He didn’t laugh when I told a joke and now I’m afraid he’s going to push me down the stairs.”
Unless he has a history of mocking or belittling you when you show emotion, and/or a history of ignoring you on Valentine’s Day after you go all out and spend hundreds of dollars, I’m really confused.
Personally, I think he felt awkward and was trying to be funny, or trying to make you laugh when he said “oh, God.” Or else he thought something really bad had happened, because he’s only seen you cry when really bad stuff was going on.
Talk to him about it. Calmly. Just say “You kind of caught me off guard when you said that when I was crying. What did you mean?”
I feel like I’ve been watching a commercial that’s doing a super high-pressure sell. It’s GREAT! Everything’s GREAT! He’s AWESOME! I’m AMAZING! We’re AWESOME and AMAZING together! We ROCKED that conversation!
I’m exhausted.
I’m with Dinoceros. I think you need to explain a little better exactly what’s upsetting you.
Is it that she wasn’t a virgin?
You feel she was promiscuous?
You think she’s comparing you to those other men?
You feel cheated out of being with other women?
You weren’t her first?
Something else?I’m just not able to think of how to advise you without knowing what the problem is. Even as far as whether or when you should tell her. It really depends on what your reasons are.
You keep talking about the ring as if it’s yours. You want it to stay in the family, etc.
It’s not your ring. It belongs to your still living, still married mother.
It doesn’t matter if your mother has said you’ll inherit it when she dies. I would assume that means that she intends to keep it until she dies. And maybe she’ll change her mind. Maybe she’ll want to bury it with your father when he passes. Maybe she’ll want it buried with her when she passes. It’s a symbol of their marriage, their story. Their story isn’t over yet.
Why can’t you find a ring that has meaning to you and your boyfriend? Why do you have to have that particular ring?
Hm. For myself, personally, I don’t think I could ask. It’s not like an heirloom ring, where one or both of the parties are dead. Your parents are both very much alive and married, and just because the ring isn’t on her hand doesn’t mean it doesn’t have great meaning to her. I mean, my mom doesn’t wear her ring anymore because she’s 83 and it doesn’t fit her arthritic hands, but I would never in a million years ask her to give it up.
An engagement ring doesn’t have to be a diamond solitaire, if you’re not feeling that, and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Widen the search a little, and I’ll bet you can find something that suits you.
Your boyfriend sounds to me like a man who knows exactly how he wants to live his life, and has arranged his life accordingly. He knows what he wants, and if there were something unsatisfying about his life, he would change it. He’s not a drifting twenty-something. He’s living a very specific lifestyle.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t talk to him about where you see the relationship going – I think you should, and soon. But I think you should be prepared to hear “I like things the way they are.”
The telltale thing, for me, is that he invites you along, and then when you can’t go, he goes anyway. That says to me that the travel is the main, driving motivation in his life. You’re a good, pleasing part of his life, but if the driving force were the relationship with you, he’d choose staying home and spending time with you over the travel. Most of the time, anyway. But he’s very content traveling the world, and having a girlfriend in port.
That would work fine for some couples. And not at all for others. What you need to do is figure out which one of those you are. You’re feeling around for a way to tell him that you want him to change his restless nature, to be more like you, without really saying it, because you understand that it’s not a fair thing to ask of him.
Like many other people, you’ve got Mr. Almost-Right.
If you’ve known him for 20 years, then you know that the footloose life is very much part of who he is. What made you think he would change? That would be a heck of a big personality change, going from being a monthly traveler to exotic places, to a guy who stays home and hangs out with his girlfriend.
Unfortunately, I think this is the relationship where you learn that a “rock-solid foundation” isn’t enough. Your lives need to fit together in a way that works day-to-day, too, and this is such a major lifestyle incompatibility. Big age differences can work, but you two are in very different phases of your lives.
