Weekend Open Thread: Dodged Bullets
TGIF! Jackson’s babysitter, who usually watches him two mornings a week, took the last ten days off and I was reminded how exhausting it is to not get a break from baby-wrangling, even if I spend that break working. Remember how depressed I was back in February? And I thought I had delayed PPD? And then it turned out I just needed a higher dose of thyroid meds and a nap. And a babysitter. Seriously, if there’s one piece of advice I have for new mothers — and let’s face it, I always have more than one piece of advice — it’s not to be ashamed to ask for help. Even if it’s just hiring a babysitter one morning a week so you can go for a walk or sleep or go to the grocery store without carrying a baby.
Anyhow, I’m grateful to have help now, but I sure did miss it this week and am glad it’s Friday and I’ll have an extra pair of hands to help with J. He’s teething hard core and I’m not sure who’s more ready for the relief of tooth #1 — him or me.
Speaking of relief, let’s talk about dodged bullets. As in, who in your past, romantically-speaking, are you grateful is no longer in your life? Maybe it’s someone who broke your heart and it took you eons to get over, but now that you’re in a better place you can see how wrong he was for you and how miserable you would have made each other. Or maybe it was someone you crushed on for a long time and never had a chance with and now you see him on Facebook and you’re like, “Ew.” I have a few dodged bullets, myself, probably the biggest of which was my first serious boyfriend in college. At first, he wanted to marry me, but I wasn’t anywhere near ready. Then he broke up with me and I was devastated for (what seemed like) a long time. Now, I look back and know that had I stayed with him, my life would be very, very different than it is now. Not bad, necessarily, but certainly not the life I would want for myself. And I’m quite happy with the life I have now and would not trade it for what could have been in a million years (wish I could have had a crystal ball back when, though; it maybe would have saved a few thousand tears).
What about you? Is there anyone you came close to marrying or settling down with for a long time that you’re now glad you lost your chance with?
I think everyone has dodged at least a couple bullets in their lives. Even if you know a person would have been completely wrong for you, it doesn’t mean you don’t miss them. Even years after breaking up with my first love, I still think of him and just wish we could hang out or get a drink, even though trying to build a life with him would have been miserable.
Instead of dodged bullets, I tend to think of paths not taken. Sometimes one decision can alter everything else — the job you take, the school you go to, the state you live in. And life is never the same again.
I always tend to think of those things too. Like “what if I went here for university instead of here”.
I had a long distance boyfriend off and on for several years in college, and the plan was for me to move to Michigan (where he lived) after I finished school. He was a great guy, and I have nothing bad to say about him, but if we hadn’t have broken up, and I’d have moved to Michigan, it would have been horrible. I’m very “East Coast”, and people in Michigan didn’t get me or my sense of humor, and I didn’t get them. It just never clicked for me like I hoped it would. So yeah, I dodged a bullet there, for sure! We’re both married now and both happy with where we are in life, so it worked out well.
I was engaged when I was 18 (which was silly cause we weren’t planning to get married for at least 4-5 years). A couple months before I left for college, I broke up with him, which is one of the hardest things I had to do. I was still in love with him, but it was unhealthy. It took me til the end of our 4 year relationship to figure that out. His mom died while we were dating, and he slowly turned into an alcoholic who wouldn’t get help. I don’t regret my relationship with him at all, because I learned a lot about what I want and need in a healthy relationship. But I know if I didn’t break it off then, I might still be with him because I probably would have chosen the college closer to him. So I’m very thankful I made the right decisions then and didn’t waste any more time.
The last two girls I hung out with casually (courting phase) in the 5 year interim since my last “real” relationship are two of my biggest dodged bullets. One turned out to be a serial cheater and the other got married after knowing a guy 3 months and is now already divorced. haha…I was pretty disappointed when they both dropped me, but I think life was looking out for me in retrospect. I am also much better at recognizing sketchy behavior now so it was a good learning experience.
I like that. “Life was looking out for me.”
I really wish I were able to see my current situation as that, but I’m still unable to. He’s moving out the weekend after May 1st, going to NC with his rich ass parents to live in their new fucking mansion. I’m sorry I’m not rich and can’t afford a mansion, but I provided as good a life as I was able to. I can still see the potential we had for a happy family and I’m pissed that he’s choosing his childhood family over an adult family. What 29 year old does that?
Give me about a year and I guess my perception might change, but for now it’s all I can do to stay strong. Your stories do give my hope that maybe I’ll be able to get over him someday.
You’ll get over him someday, I promise. It might take a LOT of time, but one day, maybe years from now you’ll have this glorious moment where you’ll realize that letting him go and moving on with your life was the best decision you could have ever made.
Stay strong!!
xoxoxo
I bet it’s going to take a lot less time and it’s going to be great soon.
You know though Anna – that is was never your responsibility to provide a good life for him? Building a life is a personal responsibility – you can do it with someone – but as soon as you are an adult, you are responsible for your own life.
My thoughts exactly.
But why would you want to be with a man who is still a child? You are right. No mature 29 year old man moves back in with his parents. No matter how rich they are. Unless he is an entitled spoiled brat! You are dodging a bullet by not marrying a man-child. Try this: Say to yourself over and over “What a disappointment that he wasn’t the strong mature man I thought he was!” Say it until you believe it. And then say it some more.
Anna, one of my “dodged bullets” was a guy who, like your ex, chose his childhood family over his relationship. A few years later, and I’m married, living in a cute apartment (not too far from where you are, actually) with a few cats, and my ex is 29, living with his parents, and just entering his first relationship following our breakup. This is after him begging for me to take him back and me refusing, him threatening to hop on a plane and show up at my door, and then him refusing to speak to me for over a year after I got engaged and then married.
We’re friends now, sort of. He’s not a bad person. I hope this new relationship works out well for him, but I am so, so, so glad I didn’t marry him. If he hadn’t broken our engagement, I would have, and he probably would have convinced me to live in his parents’ house as well.
I really hope you find the peace you need sooner rather than later. I think that once he’s gone, it will be much easier for you to begin fully moving on. Until then, feel how you need to feel (and I hope that turns into anger at some point, because I promise it doesn’t make you bitter; it just makes you human), vent when you need to vent, and take care of yourself.
I agree with Tech that for most people, there are several dodged bullets. I definitely have them! I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there was one guy who I tried to break up with twice and he basically wouldn’t let me (emotional and psychological manipulation, etc). He ruined my life in some ways that are not reversible, so I still get angry at him almost every day. Probably the thing that pissed me off the most is that during the breakup, he spread vicious and untrue rumors about me and treated me like I was a total bitch – but he was the one who destroyed my finances, my health, and my relationship with my family! I really don’t know what I’d do if I saw him on the street… I’d love to try to run him over with my car, honestly, but of course that isn’t an option. Still not over that dodged bullet, to be honest.
Sounds like my abusive ex. He wouldn’t “let” me break up with him either! Oh, he was so awful. I held onto that anger for a long, long time – seriously? I wanted him to die so I could piss on his grave – but I’m over it now so I’m confident that you will be someday soon as well. Indifference is freeing.
Actually, he had an accident and now he’s paralyzed, so at that point I realized that I hadn’t *actually* wanted something bad to happen to him, but yeah, the anger remained for quite some time after that.
That’s another dodged bullet. Imagine we had been together when that happened… I probably would have felt guilty leaving him after that. In any case, breaking up would have been even more complicated than it already was.
I hope that one day I can be indifferent toward him. But he did actually put me in jeopardy of dying – like, my family was told by doctors that I might not make it. He walked away with minimal injuries and virtually no debt… And now I have physical conditions that will never get better, and I’ll be paying off the hospital’s debt the rest of my life. I have a hard time deciding whether or not I can say that I do or do not want something truly horrible, and permanent, to happen to him, since he caused something truly horrible and permanent to happen to me. I pray every day, and every day I ask to be able to not continue to be angry about his trespasses against me. If you can get “beyond” it… Indifference alone would be super nice… then, that gives me hope. Thank you 🙂
And yeah, I can’t imagine what that would have been like for you if you had stayed. I’m glad it didn’t get more complicated for you! It probably would have ended up really screwy.
Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry he did that to you. Your anger is completely justified, but getting past it (and it WILL take time – it took me years) will be a huge weight off your shoulders.
Once, I was desperately in love with this girl who was completely insecure, immature, and unable to cope with the “real world”. Apparently she is still like that, and I’m engaged to this super-awesome person who respects me, takes care of me, and is fiscally responsible and independent. My life is so, so much better than it ever would have been if my relationship with her had continued. Though don’t tell tiny 22-year-old me that; she’s too busy wallowing in sad songs and sobbing.
My college boyfriend. He was emotionally and physically abusive. An alcoholic and a drug addict. But I thought he was the one. We had plans to get married and move and have kids, etc etc etc. Thank goodness he decided to go visit a girl he had cheated on me with for a weekend and not contact me for 3 days straight because sometime during those 3 days my brain kicked in (after 3 years of putting up with him) and I dumped him the day he came back. I have never looked back. He has tried to get back together a few times and I know his abusive ways haven’t changed (due to his GF after me contacting me and asking me questions about our relationship and tell me how he was acting in theirs). I have no doubt if I would have stayed with him his abuse would have only gotten worse and my self esteem would have been completely destroyed.
Even more importantly I wouldn’t have gotten together with my wonderful fiance with out dumping that loser.
This story is amazing. Sometimes abusive people overestimate their power over you and go too far, and it’s like a veil falls suddenly and you see them in their actual size, and their power over you dissipates. It feels great.
Thank you for saying that. I still don’t know where the idea or strength to leave him came from…but I thank my lucky stars I did. I’m a better person for having survived and left that relationship. I always said physical abuse was never going to happen to me…I can’t believe I put up with it for that long.
My ex, whom I dated my freshman year of college and moved in with.
When I say dodged bullet, I don’t mean that I regret what I had with him, after all we always learn from relationships we have had regardless. However, I’m very glad that, looking back, we didn’t stay together any longer. We were prolonging the inevitable (for a multitude of reasons that would be difficult to get into) but I’m glad that we were able to move on. He’s engaged to someone else and seems very happy from what I gather, and I’m in the best relationship I’ve ever been in as well.
One of the best lessons I ever learned (the heard way) was that if his parent’s don’t like you, they never will. And he will almost always choose them over you.
My last boyfriend and I had marriage plans at 18. His parents despised me. No matter what I did, or how hard I tried or didn’t try, there was no winning them over. And my boyfriend never stood up for me.
My mother (who has big issues with her mother-in-law) told me they would never change, and that if she’d known ahead of time how much pain my grandparents would cause her, she may not have married my dad. As much as she loves him, the hurt that comes along with his parents is almost too much.
So I’d say I dodged a bullet by breaking up with him. Getting over the breakup was probably a million times easier than it would have been to live with his overbearing, rude, “when are you going to break up with her?” parents.
Good for you LW! I loooove my future in-laws, and it makes my relationship better.
I’m sorry but once you become married your wife takes priority over the parents—period. Siding with the parents every once in a while (depending on the issue) is one thing, but regularly doing it so not acceptable and very disrespectful.
Thank you Brad for reaffirming my faith in all the great guys that are out there! 🙂
haha, you’re welcome.
DB 1: The first boy I really loved, a good friend for a long time, we finally got together romantically, and it went terribly. I finally wrangled him into a discussion (this took much longer than it should have because I wanted it to work so badly), and he said “I don’t know why, but it’s hard to be nice to you”. Thinking about that moment in time still stings just a bit. But seriously, dodged bullet. Who stays with someone they don’t know how to be nice to? Much less a friend? I was proud that I called things to a head, less proud of the tear drenched months that followed, but whaddayado. Onwards and upwards! And my favorite breakup motto … the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.
The boyfriend I had in undergrad – I never noticed it at the time but, looking back, he tried to be very controlling (telling me what to wear, to not wear make-up, not to talk to other men etc.) I never listened to him or changed my behaviour so it never much impacted my life – I wonder though how long I could have just dismissed his dictates before he did something about it. I broke up with him for other reasons but he tried for years to get back together. The irony is that he apparently married a woman who ended up being very controlling of him – isolated him from all his friends to the point that no one from his side was allowed in their house. His best friend could only visit him in the garage until she stopped that too. I think it is a little sad but he picked her… so I assume that he is happy.
As an aside, I did end up marrying one of the guys he hated me talking to…apparently I’m really not good at being controlled…
So funny that you posted this just now. Just today, a guy I dated in college, a guy I often wished could have been my boyfriend had timing been better, just called me a bitch after I commented on a news article about Hunter Moore’s horrible website finally being shut down. I’m so glad I dodged that bullet – I would never want to be with a boy (because that’s all he is) that reveres creeps like Moore, visits “revenge porn” websites, and resorts to name-calling instead of discussion.
Wow I had no idea it got shut down, but that’s good!
This might sound really tame compared to some of the other stories here, but I think I dodged a bullet by not ending up getting together with my high school super-crush. (I didn’t date in HS at all, was terribly shy, and went to an all girls’ school so mixing with guys was not a frequent occurrence.) But boy, this guy Mike was so amazing. He was like Jordan Catalano to my Angela Chase. He even looked a bit like him, with the brooding, the long-ish hair, he played the drums, oh man. I think I had a crush on him from sophomore year til early senior year, when I finally got to know him better and we had some of the same friends, and my crush eventually faded (turns out he was nice but a bit odd, not to mention an emotional wreck). A couple of years ago one of my friends (who knew him in HS too) taught at the same music store he did. She would tell me how he grew his hair out and how he would randomly stop by her studio and go on and on about philosophy and weird subjects that she didn’t understand or have the energy to discuss with him. Needless to say, despite my 16-year-old selves’ (self?) desire for something to happen between us, I’m really glad nothing ever did.
Haaaaa, I’m similar. I had two guys who I crushed on in high school. One became the first guy I ever asked out…and subsequently became the first guy to reject me. I crushed on him for a good 5 years. Ridiculous, I know, but I kept on hoping something would happen. Now from what I hear he’s kind of a jerk. In February, it just happened that we crossed paths again. His cousin got married and my boyfriend and I were hired on as musicians for the wedding. It was so weird because it felt like two completely different parts of my life collided. I looked back and forth from this guy to my boyfriend and realized I got a better deal now than I could have ever hoped for from the guy who I wanted in high school. 🙂
The other guy I crushed on from afar. A SERIOUSLY hot guy. Tall, dark, and handsome. And he was a runner. He was in cross country and track. And he played basketball. And I was the band geek. So nothing happened there either. He started dating this girl in our class our junior year and they’re still together, 8-ish years later. Le sigh.
I loved high school though, even with my crushes that never went anywhere…
Mmm, yes, my first love. Who dumped me last summer for another girl. I was absolutely crushed for MONTHS. But time healed — and clarified. I finally saw him for what he was: a mean, selfish liar with controlling/manipulative tendencies. When I look back on my “should’ve known” moments, I feel like an idiot because they were EVERYWHERE. Like, when Ex and I were still “just friends” before dating, I should have known that NO guy who becomes ultra jealous when I offer to show an old (male) college buddy around town because he just moved there will be good news. (Seriously. I tried introducing Ex to College Friend, and Ex refused to say hello, got up, and stormed out of my apartment.) Even though I genuinely thought we were going to get married (because in 2+ years, it came up a lot), I think we would have had a miserable, MISERABLE life together — unless we were living the life HE thought was best. Hindsight is 20/20, but he was a mistake I had to make. I only wish our breakup had been cleaner so that I don’t have to remember my first love as the guy who crushed my heart when he decided to break it.
I had an on and off relationship with a guy that started in college and ended when I was 25. I was completely in love with him, of course. He had his good points but he undermined said good points by being so cutting that, looking back on it now, it blows my mind that I put up with it for so long. For example, once he told me that if he’d had children with his ex, they would have been attractive but stupid whereas if he had children with me, they’d be ugly but smart. Our final ‘on’ period ended when he got killed in a car accident. I was devastated. I definitely dodged a bullet but it took me several years to get myself together. First I had to go through the grief and stop idealizing my memories of him. Then I had to get over the massive guilt I felt at the realization that he was a total asshole. It’s hard to learn that “I am so glad he is not in my life
I hate my phone. I did not mean to click ‘submit’. Anyhow, it’s hard to learn that “I am so glad he is not in my life anymore” is not the same thing as “I’m glad he died.” It’s been 5 years since he died and I am now happily married. I’ve learned to appreciate all of the awful experiences I’ve had (there have been plenty) because they lead me to this point.
is this working now?
ahhh i can comment again!!
i havent been able to comment all week!
ok, so my dodged bullet is my high school boyfriend. we dated for like 2 ish years, some of that being while I was in college and he was in his senior year still (he was a year younger then me). it was bad. i wanted to break up, he couldnt live without me or whatever… when that was finally over, he is now in college at a huge party school, joined a frat (not necessarily a bad thing, but not my style at all), and at my last birthday party with my friends all he did was brag about how many chicks try to have sex with him all the time at his super awesome raging frat parties…. yea. totally dodged that one. although i do think, my life would have been so so different- but his would have to! so i always wonder if he is truly happy as well, in his life as it is now and if he wonders about the life we may have had together now if we stayed together….
damn!!! i still cant post on the forums…
The forums never work on my laptop – so if I want to post anything it has to be on my iphone. It sucks. But have you moved yet?!
Have you tried clearing your cashe and browser settings? Or perhaps using a different browser?
brad i dont even know what those words mean… lol. you’ll have to talk me through that one!
sampson, no. not officially. im in a hotel right now. its super fun, lemme tell you! lol. but, i think that i found a condo yesterday that we are going to take. its a little more expensive then we wanted, but its nice and really big! lol so maybe, hopefully, next weekend we will move if it all goes well.
haha it’s OK. By cashe I mean all of your browser history files and cookies. Assuming you’re using internet explorer like sampson is, follow these steps:
1. click on “file” in the top left if using IE version 8 or less (if you don’t see file it probably means you’re using IE version 9+ in which case it’s in the top right and looks like a gear/sprocket)
2. internet options
3. under the general tab (it opens to this by default) you will see in the center of the option mention a section called “Browsing History”
4. click the “delete” button.
5. When the new menu pops up check everything but the passwords box and then hit the “delete” button at the bottom.
–Give it a few moments to complete
6. Now click on the “Content” tab.
7. Click the “Clear SSL state” button in the center left.
8. After it finishes, close all browser windows are restart.
See if that helps it work any better. If not then I would suggest using either Google Chrome or Firefox.
Chrome
http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/
Firefox
i have a mac. i use safari. lol.
Katie, I don’t own or ever use a mac but you can see if these instructions help. If not I’m sure you could youtube some instructions.
I have a Mac and I use Chrome. Firefox was my go-to browser for a good 5 years until I switched to Chrome a few months ago. Both are pretty easy to download from the websites, especially on a Mac. Personally I really don’t like using Safari because I’ve had problems with it in the past.
I’d follow Brad’s advice regarding Firefox or Chrome. Wendy’s site uses WordPress, which is a type of web publishing software. It doesn’t always play well w/ Safari or IE.
They’re also a more secure/safer browser to use in general as well.
Ummm for the first question I don’t know what that means and for the second question do you mean like as in using firefox vs. internet explorer? I use internet explorer. You really have to break it down for me Brad, sometimes I struggle with using a dvd player. Technilogically impaired is an understatement.
Sampson, try what I replied to Katie.
I have a Dell laptop…which one should I use? I’m as embarrassed about asking as you are at the realization that people like me exist.
The problem with internet explorer is that hackers know it’s the most used browser and the one most companies force their employees to use, so it’s the browser that most hackers invest the most time in finding vulnerabilities and writing malicious code for. The newer versions of IE (9+) are getting a lot better at securing the browser but at this point I still prefer Chrome and Firefox.
Google Chrome and Firefox are both good and either/both would serve you well. I use both regularly. I kind of like Chrome a little better and it’s the browser I use for DW, Facebook, YouTube, etc. The home screen of Chrome when you open it has a 4×2 grid of the 8 sites you most frequently visit which is helpful.
I have several addons (things you download) attached to my Firefox browser to really make it secure and nice when viewing annoying websites like streaming movie/TV sites that are heavy in annoying ads/popups (things like ad block and flash block prevent them from opening, which reduces the chances of getting spyware/viruses).
Okay so do I have to download google chrome? Or go to the website?
You have to download it by going to the website.
Brad! It totally worked. I love google chrome. Now I’m going to go back and comment on approximately 86 forum posts I wanted to but was too lazy to do it on my iphone.
haha glad you got it working. Have fun.
I dodged so many bullets it isn’t even funny. I could write my own book about them all so I will leave it at that. Good night!
My dodged bullet would have to be my ex P. P and I dated for only a year but we lived together for 6 months of that. I was 24 at the time, graduated from college with a good job and entirely supporting myself. P was still in school and had just changed majors, which meant he would be in school at least an extra year (or two). P’s parents still paid for a lot of things including half the mortgage on the house P owned (I paid the other half). P’s dad used this as a way to manipulate his son into doing whatever he wanted him too. His dad would show up unannounced and stay with us for an undisclosed period of time (sometimes only a couple days and sometimes as much as a couple weeks). P’s younger brother M also lived with us. M had a drinking problem and had incurred multiple DUIs, which meant he didn’t have a license and had to take Breathalyzer tests twice a day. M and his friends would spend a lot of time at our house because M had to be available for the beathalyzer tests. This made me uncomfortable when P wasn’t home. After several months of this everything came to a head and P and I ended up breaking up. I was very upset about the breakup for a long time (way too long looking back on it) and even after dating several other men I still found myself pining for P. P ended up meeting a girl a few months after our breakup and within 2 years they were married. Looking back, while I loved P, that was not a family I would have ever been able to deal with in the long run. While I hope he and his wife are happy I do not envy her situation. Definitely a bullet dodged.
When I was 18 in college, I started dating my first real boyfriend. He was 15 years older, but smart, attractive, wealthy, and oh-so-charming. While he didn’t treat me all that well, I think I was just in awe of him and that’s why I tended to look the other way when he acted like a jerk. His charm always won me over and made me forget what I was upset with him about. About two months after he broke up with me, while I was still reeling in devastation, I found out that he broke up with me because he had gotten his ex-girlfriend pregnant (with whom he had been cheating on me the entire six months we dated). That little bit of info snapped me right out of my pity party. The whole experience taught me that I deserve so much better and I now demand respect in every relationship I’ve had since.
I honestly don’t feel like I’ve dodged any bullets; they pretty much all shot me….and I tend to think more the opposite, that there were a lot of times where if I would have made a different decision things would have worked out better. And yes, I know that I’m kind of pessimistic by nature, but I’ve dealt with that by accepting that things are what they are; I change what I can and the rest doesn’t matter.
I laughed when I read this, but I think there is a lot of truth in what you say. The most emotionally tumultuous times in my life have come from me either not dodging a bullet, or me shooting myself in the foot.
And I don’t think that you attitude is pessimistic. Your statement – I change what I can and the rest doesn’t matter – is really quite positive.
That’s an extremely positive statement.
My boyfriend in undergrad was always kind of unstable – and being with him made me feel unstable, too – but for some reason I was convinced I loved him and wanted to marry him. I hung on to that relationship for nearly 2 years, and eventually he broke up with me. That definitely turned out to be a bullet dodged. Once I got over the wallowing, my life immediately picked up steam. Everything was better once I wasn’t devoting so much energy to such an unhealthy relationship. I had another brief relationship after that one, but have been single now for nearly four years – and I’m doing so well. I want my next relationship to help lift me up, not drag me down.
My biggest dodged bullet was a guy I was on again-off again with throughout high school and college (during many breaks with then boyfriend. dramaaa. lol) He is a trust fund baby, and was in complete self-destruct mode. He was an alcoholic who didn’t stop drinking until he had a seizure from it, wrecked multiples cars, etc. Looking back now I don’t get what in the world I saw in him, but he was good in bed, really funny, and was generally charismatic, so at 18 I believed everything he said and looked past all the bad. He said his dad “wouldn’t let him have a girlfriend” in college if he was paying for it, and I believed him. After he graduated, he was talking about having children and getting married, and I freaked out and stopped talking to him. I mean a guy who barely has his shit together talking about children at 23? WTH.
I found out later he got married a year later to a girl he knocked up within three months. He’s bald, still drinks to excess, frequents strip clubs on the regular, has his mom pretty much raising his two kids, and his wife makes him spend all his trust fund money on her from the 8-10 plastic surgeries she’s gotten already. I don’t think I dodged a bullet with this, more like a train.
holy shit. That’s one of those sad lives where one or both of the parties are going to cheat on each other and the kids will be screwed up
Yeah, pretty much. What’s terrible is they are not even 30 yet and everything is already so messed up. I can only imagine how it will be in 10-20 years.
Mine is a bit more of a ‘road not taken’– my ex, who is currently one of my closest friends. He’s a great person, but we have very different worldviews and would have driven each other nuts if we had gone through with living together and/or getting married.
My last boyfriend, before Mr. Temperance, was apparently a hardcore conservative Catholic. I had no idea because he would sound sort of liberal on many issues.
He married a woman who is a proud member of Concerned Women for America. We would not have had a happy life together. I am a happy liberal feminist.
Unlike most folks here, I would say my biggest dodged bullet was a career rather than I guy. Out of college I was completely convinced that I wanted a high powered academic research career. I worked my ass off at a lab assistant job in order to get into the prestigious PhD program… and then I didn’t get in. One interviewer told me that I just didn’t seem like a good fit for the research world (in hind-sight how perceptive she was and how gutsy to tell me). I was devastated and crushed for months and pretty much thought I would never be “good enough” for the career I was sure I was meant for. Several months of soul-searching, travelling, and really different kinds of jobs later I found something that fulfilled me in a way that research never had. No, it’s not as prestigious or high-paying, but I love it and it fits who I really *am* and not who I think others think I *should* be. Got into grad school in the “right” field the first round of applications and now I have a job I love. In the end, as much as it crushed my self-esteem at the time, I am SO glad I was rejected from grad school that first time. I can’t even imagine where I would be now if I had gotten in–probably still in school, slowly realizing it wasn’t the right fit, but feeling in too deep to change my mind.
I dated a guy a couple of years ago for about 8 months. About 5 months into the relationship he became what I like to call “comfortable/complacent”, he would regularly be late without telling me and for stupid reasons too (and by late I mean very late not just running behind),constantly texted other people when I was sitting right there, he would always put his friends before me (example that actually happened: “hey muffy want to go to dinner tonight” “hey bf yeah sure” “oh actually Tom asked me in the space of time that it took you to reply so I’m going to go with him”) , I was never invited to hang out with him and his friends (he was a couple of years older), he never wanted to hang out with mine. We basically led these two separate lives that weren’t coming together at all over the months. I talked to him about my concerns twice.
I had told him I loved him a couple of weeks earlier and he said it back and then when I was telling him about my concerns the second time he said to me that he never meant the I love you and he took it back but he still liked me and wanted to date me. And that’s when I realized that I was not important to this person and never would be. And I didn’t care.
I’m thankful he took back the I love you statement. It was like a wake up call. I’d been agonizing about how I wasn’t good enough for him for months. And when he said he didn’t love me I realized that I just didn’t care. And I dumped him. And was completely fine.
Now I know that when a man starts making you his option you step back and treat him the same ( I will never continue to make someone a priority when they treat me like an option)
Good for you, Muffy! I read this and think about how my dodged-bullet of an ex was like this, but I stayed for well over 2 years thinking *I* was the problem. Now I look back and think to myself, “What kind of girl stays with a boyfriend who won’t make weekend plans with her because one of his friends MIGHT be planning something for his group of friends that weekend?” I cringe thinking back on how hard I used to try to make things work when the reality is, he more than likely did NOT care about me the way he said he did. I read your post and thought, “You go girl!” because you had the guts to see and do what I refused to see or do.