Thank you for your comments Maggie and sorry for the delay. I’ve been thinking about your comments for the last few days and finally have some time to write back.

I started this post over a month ago and nothing has changed. The New Year came and went and our status did not change. The deadline meant nothing, especially since I didn’t move out (nowhere to go and I’m traveling for work.) He told me we’ll probably get engaged in January. And then last night he says probably not because he still isn’t sure. WTH? I asked him to stop playing these mind games with me every single month but he says he’s doing nothing wrong. He isn’t going to propose until he feels it is right. I agree that it SHOULD feel right…I just don’t think it takes 7 months after you buy a ring to figure that out. I’m turning 38 years old in March. I really don’t have time to mess around anymore. It’ll also be a year in March when I first tried to break up with him because this wasn’t going anywhere. A year later, an expensive ring later, and nothing has changed except for I was dumb and moved in with him.

Unfortunately, I cannot be the one to call his bluff and leave. He owns the house. I have been searching and searching for a decent place that I can afford but rent has just skyrocketed lately. Even if I could muster up the strength to walk away from a man I thought I was going to marry, I can’t find anything that isn’t a rat hole to live in. This is the reason I’ve stayed as long as I have. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure I would have gotten a spine, packed up, and said to hell with you, I’m out of here. One thing I DID do though is stop paying him rent. If he can back out of the agreement, so can I. He’s not going to pad his savings account while I go through hell and back.

Withholding sex also won’t work because I wouldn’t say he’s a normal guy in that aspect. I’m the one who always has to ask for it. And I have to ask him to hold my hand, kiss me, hug me, etc. He stopped showing any affection towards me once I moved in because he said he sees me everyday so he doesn’t feel the need to show affection every day. Again, WTH?

I asked him last night to show me one good gesture…tell me one reason why I should stay with him. He couldn’t come up with anything. Even in writing this, I’m aware of how pathetic I am and how, smart as I think I am, I’ve become “that” girl. The girl I swore I would never become. It’s just not a fun feeling being knocked backwards on your a$$ and taking a huge step backwards at my age. Bathrobe, curlers and 8 cats…here I come…(well, once I find a place to live anyway!)

Katie…

Your words are very inspiring, thank you. I need to hear those things sometimes. I do know what I need to do, it’s just an incredibly hard step to knowingly enter back into being single. I haven’t been single for very long stints, but when I have, they were some of the loneliness, saddest times of my life. I love the Dr. Phil saying though…how very true! Wasted time is wasted time, but the sooner I get out, the less time is wasted!

Have an awesome day!

Thank you for your response, Inky. I agree with you. Before moving in, I never left anything at his house either. Nothing. I’d come for the weekend and then go back home with everything I came with. I didn’t want to act like a wife if I wasn’t going to be one. Which is why a ring was ordered before I ever moved in. I trusted that I’d get it…he promised me it would happen sometime last summer. I would never ever have given up my townhome if I suspected I’d never get the ring. I don’t know why anyone would choose to keep a ring hidden in the house and be making large payments on it rather than having it on his girlfriend’s finger. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m girlfriend material only and am not good enough to be a wife.

I have no friends or family nearby that I can crash with. And I was “grandfathered” in at a lower rent at my last place so to move back out, it’ll cost me several hundred dollars more a month to get anything close to where I was. I think this is probably a very large reason I haven’t already left. I just can’t afford much now that I gave up my last place.

I have thought about that…like what would he actually do if I DID start packing up to leave. But I think deep down that’s what he’s hoping I’ll do. He’s extremely passive aggressive…he won’t tell me to get out, he just doesn’t seem like he cares if we were to break up. When asked, he sees nothing wrong with what he’s done (or not done) over the last six months. It’s just so extremely frustrating to want something that is out of your control.

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be able to rewind the clock and make different choices this time. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20.!!!

Hi Lizzie,

Sorry to hear you’re going through this too. It is hard moving into someone else’s space sometimes while still keeping the same independence you had while living alone, isn’t it? At least you have your yoga. I don’t do yoga, but I do have other interests. I used to mountain bike a lot and when I met my BF, he also got into it. So now it isn’t “my” thing anymore. He wants me to wait until he gets home from work to go so that he can go with. Same thing with the gym. He’d rather me wait for him and go later. I am trying to be proactive and call up old friends I haven’t seen in awhile to line things up in order to stay busy, but when I mention that to him, he isn’t happy with me filling my schedule with old/new friends unless he can go too. So, I don’t really have my own life except at work or if I go to bed earlier than him to read. All holidays are spent with his family, not mine. It’s “his” house, not “mine”. And he bought a ring to give me in June and still hasn’t given it to me and recently told me again he doesn’t plan on doing it soon (which as explained in a previous post above, our agreement was that if I moved in, an engagement would happen soon after). So, in a nutshell, although he is a nice guy to everyone he meets, he’s more controlling regarding my life and where it’s going than he thinks he is. In my case, I have determined that the healthy thing to do is not just to find something of my own to keep me busy, but to take back my entire life, end the relationship and move out. I haven’t done this yet, but decided yesterday that I’m going to get a realtor and start looking for my own place. This is a dead-end, unhealthy relationship.I cry more than I’m happy and I don’t like someone controlling where my life is going. I hope you aren’t in a similar situation in that way and you find a happy balance with your BF. It just didn’t work for me.

Good luck Lizzie!

Thanks again, Kelly. Good article!