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April 11, 2018 at 1:06 pm in reply to: Long-term boyfriend and I not on the same page with settling down #201855
dreaming715ParticipantMark: Thank you for your response and the link! You asked, “Are you willing to walk away if he does not commit to settling down?” The hard answer is yes. After talking to my therapist about this we agreed that I would have an open conversation with my boyfriend about how biologically I’m interested in having kids in the somewhat near future and I would love to share my future with him. I will give us some time to just “be together,” but around January 2019 (start of the new year), I’d like to revisit where we are in our relationship. If for some reason he would definitively say he was not interested in getting married, then that would be my queue to move on.
April 11, 2018 at 1:02 pm in reply to: Long-term boyfriend and I not on the same page with settling down #201853dreaming715ParticipantEliana – I hear you! I’m sorry you experienced some mixed signals. That can be very confusing. I can relate with doing maintenance therapy… I feel like my therapist is a huge guide in my life right now and I don’t know what I’d do without our sessions!
April 11, 2018 at 12:31 pm in reply to: Long-term boyfriend and I not on the same page with settling down #201843dreaming715ParticipantAnita: Thank you for the kind response! This quote from you made me want to shed some (happy) tears! “Your last post is such a sensible, wise essay on commitment and marriage, worthy of being published.”
Eliana: Thank you for sharing your story. I do hope we won’t be one of the couples that moves in together and does not get married.
Eagle: You asked “marrige is a deepest level of commitment to you, but does he see it the same way?” I believe he does. He said he does want to get married, but not “yet.” He said there’s a big financial aspect to getting married (he does work as a Financial Analyst) and he wants to feel comfortable financially before purchasing a ring, wedding expenses, etc. This does kind of make sense since we just moved in to a slightly more expensive apartment and furnished it together.
Mark: You asked, “You have not talked about your life goals like kids. You mentioned about so much of the world to experience and see. What are those things?” I maybe should have been more clear. We do actually have similar life goals. We both want to get married eventually. We both want to move to a warmer climate. And we both want to have 1-2 kids. I’m just a little ready to get started on these things sooner than later, while he’s content with taking time.March 30, 2018 at 12:41 pm in reply to: Long-term boyfriend and I not on the same page with settling down #200151dreaming715ParticipantEagle: Thank you for your response. I’ve done a lot of thinking about some of the things you said, particularly: “I think that you see getting married as a solution to your problems.” On one hand, I think there’s some truth to this, but I think it also goes a little deeper than that. I see marriage as the deepest level of commitment. There have been varying degrees of commitment throughout our whole relationship. First we were merely dating, then we started dating exclusively, then we met each other’s families, and then we committed to moving in together (signed a lease and agreed on who would pay for what). Each level requires a different level of investment in the relationship. I do believe that for my boyfriend and I marriage would be the final level of investment for us, thus the deepest level of commitment, etc… I understand people who get married separate or divorce often and marriage doesn’t guarantee that won’t happen, but I do think making the decision to marry someone is almost like a different state of mind and a different state of valuing your partner. This is just my opinion and what I feel is most accurate for us in our culture.
Does that mean I don’t think he is committed to our relationship and values me right now? No, I think he does, I just think it’s different. He did state that he “wasn’t ready to get married yet,” I think some guys have to emotionally wrap their mind around that level of commitment, particularly the duration of the commitment (I assume most people get married because they would like it to be their last relationship). If you live to be the average age of 78-years-old (I had to google that lol), that’s 46 years with the same person. I think for some people that thought would be understandably daunting. This probably sounds crazy, but for me I think, “that’s it??”
There’s so much I want to accomplish in 40-something years with the person I love. There’s so much of the world to see, so much to experience. I mean it’s really limitless.
Maybe I need to change my perspective. If we theoretically only have 40-something years together, I would rather them all be amazing years than me griping and having a pity party about not being married and pressuring him into all of this stuff.
This quote really sums up how I feel: “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
Anita: Thanks for your response, I should’ve been a little more fair with that statement. My boyfriend does have plans with me for this summer. I was just trying to highlight that he also has plans with his friends (some plans include me and some do not).
Courtney: I agree I should focus more on the present moment with him.
If you’ve read this far, thank you for taking the time to read!
dreaming715ParticipantI’m sorry to hear about your situation and am sending positive thoughts your way. I can only share my personal experience, but I feel like when someone breaks up with you and then later wants to get back together- it seems that the chances of it working out are about as close to winning the lottery. The first person I ever loved would always do the “I can’t be with you” and then suddenly he’d have a change of heart and the cycle just repeated. I didn’t want to believe the “I can’t be with you” part. I only wanted to believe the “I didn’t mean it, I need you in my life after all” part. Well, long story short we got engaged and he ended up calling off our wedding. Needless to say that was the final straw. Amazingly, he came back about 6 months after we’d fully separated saying he made a huge mistake and wanted to be with me.
Not. this. time. I didn’t take him back. My uncle once told me that if someone you love leaves you: don’t walk away, run away. It may be a little black and white for most people, but if someone breaks up with me then we’re over and I’m taking that as my sign to let go and move on.
I wish you the best of luck!
dreaming715ParticipantJake, Anita, and Inky: Thank you all for your insightful responses. I’m going to answer Jake’s questions:
1) Are there any unresolved issues that hasn’t been addressed between you and your family? No. None at all actually.
2) Were you guys really close 10 years ago and they feel like you left them? No, I’ve never felt exceptionally close to any of them. Even when I was growing up. My dad worked a lot and was physically absent and my step-mom was emotionally absent.
3) How communicative were you guys before the 10 yrs? How many siblings do you have? I’ve always felt like our communication was a little “superficial” and lacked consistent emotional words. Like they may tell me they were proud of me if it was the day I graduated from college, but beyond that those words were seemingly kept for special occasions only. And I have 4 younger half siblings (my biological parents re-married and had kids with other individuals).
I think even though I’m an adult, deep down my younger self is still looking for validation, love, and reassurance from them. And I think they view me as a capable adult who doesn’t need those “childhood” things anymore.
dreaming715ParticipantI agree that your father may have invalidated how you’re feeling by saying it was “for your own good.” I experienced a falling out with my biological mother and I haven’t seen her in 2 years (and we haven’t talked in 1.5 years now). I understand this is a difficult time for you and just want you to know you’re not alone.
I’ve looked up many articles on how to let go and forgive someone to alleviate feelings of sadness and anxiety. I can only speak for my personal situation, but my mom wasn’t able to offer me an apology or “comforting words,” so it has made the process more difficult.
This link may be helpful to you: https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201605/rewrite-your-life
The article states: “From writing down your experiences to reframing your perspective, myriad techniques can help you transcend painful setbacks and reshape your own story.” This is something I would like to try.
January 14, 2018 at 7:54 pm in reply to: Afraid I'll get "the call" about my drug addicted brother #186635dreaming715ParticipantHi Rose! Thanks for your comment/questions. Yes, I have told him I need him in my life. I said I want him by my side at my wedding someday and if I have kids in the future I want them to meet him and for him to be in their lives (he’s amazing with little kids- like nieces or nephews, he’s always very patient and loving to them).
January 14, 2018 at 7:45 pm in reply to: Itching for a more emotional and romantic connection. #186631dreaming715ParticipantWhile every relationship is different- I can relate because I’m on the very emotional end of the spectrum and my boyfriend (who is loyal, loving, kind, patient, and many other amazing qualities) is not emotional. He gets uncomfortable and shys away from talking about sensitive/deep/heavy subjects. He’s also not a naturally “gushy” person with words. We’ve been together for 1 year and 7 months though and over time he has opened up a little more, BUT I did have to remind myself that this is who he is and I have to either accept and love him for it, or it may be time to find another partner. I chose accepting and loving him as he is because he possesses so many qualities that I value and make me feel happy and secure in our relationship.
January 5, 2018 at 4:44 pm in reply to: Afraid I'll get "the call" about my drug addicted brother #185287dreaming715ParticipantThank you all so much. <3
dreaming715ParticipantThank you both! Those are great pieces of advice and I’ve actually been putting some of these tips into action. =)
dreaming715ParticipantYou mentioned that he’s “afraid of the ‘L’ word,” he had cheated on you in the past, and you often feel manipulated. Man, I’d feel insecure too! Relationships can be challenging, but in my opinion they should be the “good” kind of challenging. Like “I love you but I’m learning to be more patient because you have a habit of being late that you’re taking active measures to resolve.” You know what I mean? He seems to be challenging you, but they appear to be in disrespectful and destructive ways and I believe you deserve to be treated better than that.
dreaming715ParticipantI’m sorry to read about your circumstances and would like to share a little advice of my own. I was in a relationship for 5 and a half years and the person I considered the love of my life blind-sided me with the news that he didn’t want to be together anymore. As difficult as this loss was, I can say that I came out the other side. My first step was realizing that I couldn’t “make” him feel a certain way about me. I had to practice a lot of “radical acceptance” (google this term- it’s helped me a lot). Also, when I thought about it rationally, I didn’t want to be in a non-reciprocal relationship. So, I let go. I let him have his space and started to make arrangements for myself. I treated myself to new, nice bedding. I found a new place in a neighborhood across from a park that I loved. After roughly 10 months he actually came around and started talking about getting back together.
Sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn’t. In my case, I made the decision that our time had passed and I wanted to continue the process of letting go and moving on. This may sound heartbreaking and sad, but I turned to the forums of Tiny Buddha a lot and the advice people gave me was: let go; every single thing in life changes- and sometimes these changes bring us to a path that is happy and fulfilling in the end.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by
dreaming715.
dreaming715ParticipantI’ve been with my boyfriend for about 1 year and 4 months now and I would consider him to have moments of emotional unavailability. He also has a difficult time talking about “deep or uncomfortable conversations.” To trouble-shoot this we’ve talked about what time of day is best to have a deep conversation (for us it’s not right away in the morning or right before we got to bed). We also try to set a reasonable time limit so the conversation doesn’t snowball into an hour long re-hashing of the same issues. Sometimes it’s not to get it out on the table and then each take a little mental break. These are just some communication ideas that have worked for me that may work for you.
The thing that stuck out to me in your original post was his sarcastic and dismissive comments. That is something I would personally address asap and state that there’s a difference between light-hearted joking and being disrespectful. I would talk to him about how this and hopefully he will be receptive to changing the way he chooses to respond to you.
September 26, 2017 at 8:05 am in reply to: My straight boyfriend's gay best friend- what's going on? #170345dreaming715ParticipantThank you all for the helpful replies and perspectives. To answer a few questions: His best friend is open to everyone that he’s gay and actually has been in a long-term open relationship, but has expressed a lot of sadness around the relationship (like wanting to end it, but never fully doing so). He also doesn’t talk about his boyfriend when he’s not present. So I do think he has some personal relationship issues he’s dealing with and may be wanting a more solid connection with someone (which is probably why he feels his long friendship with my boyfriend is extra special).
We actually attended a wedding this weekend and he was there and it made me feel a little better to recognize that he wasn’t really singling out my boyfriend with attention- he was showing almost EVERY male there attention. His boyfriend was not in attendance for this wedding.
I’ll take all of your advice and not let this get in my head. I’ll try to be more confident in my relationship and suggest doing things together as a friend group to feel more included.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by
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