Jump to content

He's not ready for a relationship - should I go NC or be his friend?


thebluest

Recommended Posts

ENA has helped me a lot over the years, and this is something I really hope I can get help on because my feelings are pulling me in opposite directions.

 

The rest is going to be a really long post, but in a nutshell, it's about a guy who is 1 year out of a 6 year relationship and he's not ready to be in a relationship with me. And I don't know whether:

  1. I should stop communicating with him (because he's just not that into me, he's very clear about not wanting to be in a relationship with me, and I'd just be deluding myself by sticking around and waiting until he could be ready); or
  2. Whether what he was saying was that he just needed a friend now and can't give anything to a relationship yet but may in the future (in which case I care about him enough and want to be a friend to him in hard times, and show him that I can be around for him when he needs me).

 

I'd really appreciate your advice! I'm a bit of a mess right now.

 

The details

A few weeks ago I met a 30 year old guy (I'm 24) and he has a sad relationship history - last May he and his girlfriend of 6 years broke up in a really devastating way. He had packed up his life here and moved overseas intending to spend his life with her, and she broke it off with him (in part because he had cheated on her while they were long distance, which hurt them both, and their relationship was never the same after that, in his words). It's been a year since, and he tells me he feels like he's just getting his life back on track. He's just getting used to being single.

 

When we met, I learned about his ex-girlfriend really early in casual conversation, and I knew that he might not be ready. But he seemed to be open to an idea of a relationship - he said he told his friends he met me, and he told his parents about me etc and he knew that I was a girlfriend kind of girl. He even invited me to a birthday dinner with his dad next week, and to meet his friends. He thought he was ready for a relationship, and I believe that he thought he could do it. I got the impression that he might be reserved because he's had his heart broken in the past after investing a lot into it, but he was being so genuine and direct to me about it that perhaps he had accepted it and was ready to move on.

 

After we made things official over the Easter weekend, he didn't text or phone me as much and I needed to see him more so I could learn more about him. We haven't had sex, I'm actually a virgin (long story), but we did get pretty cosy on the couch twice. On the phone one night, I decided to ask him 'so what do you want in a relationship?' I needed to know where he stood, because he wasn't communicating with me enough. He reacted badly to the question saying 'I don't really want to talk about that now, my ideas of relationships are based on what I know from my previous relationships...' and soon after he said he needed to go because he needed to make some work calls. Today, he tells me that when I asked him this question, it just hit home for him that he really wasn't ready for a relationship.

 

It wasn't unexpected, because I know you don't come out from a traumatic breakup all healed in a year and ready to open up to someone new. I just hoped that the indications where there that he was ready. It might have been my question that spooked him, but he was already backing out, talking less and not making plans to see me right after we made it official, so my question wasn't the sole catalyst. I wanted to blame myself for asking him that question but in the end, if he was ready, that shouldn't have scared him so much and he would have been able to logically reason through it right? I knew it was still a silly question, but it was one I had to ask to take his temperature on what was going through his head.

 

He communicated on and off, and I went to see him after work briefly twice this week, it was all my effort, and I know that this early in the relationship, I deserve someone who can put more time and effort into starting something with me.

 

The next long paragraphs involve the conversation we had today on the phone.

 

Today, I rang him and we had a long talk. His 30th birthday is this Thursday and he had plans that didn't involve me at all, but he said he had Sunday free and we could do something... I figured he was saying it pretty loud and clear that it was too much for him.

 

So I initiated the conversation by saying that would he like to slow things down. Basically, he said that he wasn't ready for a relationship. He wanted to tell me the last time we met, but we were in public and he didn't want to get into a deep and meaningful conversation with people around.

 

I asked him if he just wanted to go back to seeing me rather than dating, and he said he just can't do it, he wasn't ready to give me what I deserved, like phone calls and texts and make plans that include me in his life. I know he likes me, he thinks I'm smart and attractive and 'gorgeous inside and out', but it's a matter of timing for him.

 

I asked if that meant he wanted to be friends then, and he said yes. I have a strong 'friend zone' rule, where I don't date people I'm close friends with, so I thought I'd disclose that to him. He said maybe I shouldn't make up strict rules for things, and I said that I needed to because friendship means a lot to me and I can't date a person who has become a close friend because dating sometimes doesn't work out and then you lose that person as a friend. I'm a loyal friend and I can't hurt my friends that way. And he said that maybe we can be acquaintances then. Does this mean he still wanted to be open to the opportunity to date at some point?

 

I said to him 'so happy birthday for Thursday' and he said that 'oh well, we'd talk before Thursday' like it was an obvious thing, and I said 'really?' because I was incredulous. He said it wasn't all or nothing, that we'd still see each other and talk on the phone. He just wanted to deal with things alone. He put everything into his last relationship and he just can't give me anything right now. I asked him if he was sure about this, and he said he was.

 

I guess I felt really saddened by the fact that it was timing, and there wasn't anything I could do or say to change that for him. I was upset because I was back to a good place and ready for this after my last breakup over a year ago (I was ready about 8 months after actually), and at heart, I really wished he could be too. But people work at different paces, and we heal from different wounds differently. So in my slightly frustrated state, I said to him that I wouldn't ignore his call if he called me, but I hope he understands that I won't be calling or texting him, that's just for me. And I told him that for the record, even if it may sound incredibly obnoxious and condescending, that I know he'd probably miss me and that he's making a mistake, because I feel that he doesn't need to deal with things alone.

 

Reflecting on the conversation, I appreciate his directness because I could have been languishing in this 'does he like me? is he ready for this?' phase for a long time. He really is a good guy, and he knew I deserved more than he could give right now. And maybe he does have to deal with this alone, and it's better for me that he does? What do you think?

 

What I really want to know is - do you advise going NC?

 

Or should I make some attempt to be his friend? I'm not 100% sure I can do this, I'm generally a very warm, affectionate person, but I can try to put romantic feelings aside if what he wants is a friend who cares. I know he doesn't have many friends in this city. But will this just lead to disaster for me? Will he start thinking of me as just a friend, even when he becomes ready to date?

 

Or if I cut myself off from him, will he think that I'm just a heartless person? 'Just because I'm not ready for a relationship, she doesn't want to be friends either' type of thinking?

 

And as for his 30th birthday, should I still mention that I'd like to hang out as friends on Sunday if he wants to leave that free? Maybe we could go to lunch or something?

 

I really really need your help ENA people! Thank you so much if you've read through this very long post. I really just wanted to provide context to the conversation. I would appreciate your personal opinion and advice on what I should do.

Link to comment

I guess I would tell him next time you talk to him that you had grown quite fond of him, and because of that you can't just put your feelings aside so quickly. That you respect that he needs to deal with this on his own, and although you aren't saying that you're turning your back on him, but you just can't be friends with him right now and that you hope he understands.

Link to comment

Thanks WildChild - I think you sum up how I feel right now. I do understand that he's going through so much, and I wish I could be a bigger person and be his friend. And I think I may be able to - but I'm not 100% sure that I won't have unexpected feelings and put myself into a terrible position. So I guess letting him know that I'm not turning my back on him, just that I need some time myself to be sure...

Link to comment

Here are my thoughts. The answer to this question depends on your goals.

 

Here are a couple of likely scenarios based on my experience in similar situations:

 

1) doing NC would allow you to heal and detatch from someone you feel is unattainable. He doesn't want a relationship and you do - perhaps it's best to start healing. Going NC will likely result in you ending something that, who knows, may have taken off later. You will likely miss him and be sad but at the same time you'll ideally start moving on.

 

2) going NC may entice him to consider a relationship if he truly likes you. Personally I don't reccomend going NC with this as your main goal, but it is definitely a possibility if he has feelings for you. Why? He may wake up and think "I can't let a good thing slip away." However, him NOT suddenly chasing you may have the opposite effect of making you realize maybe he didn't think of you as much as you'd like, and could therefore actually hurt even a bit more.

 

3) going NC may be premature. Perhaps if you stuck around longer, he would see that he IS ready for a arelationship and that his "sad" history up to now was all prepartion for an awesome relationship with you. This is kinda the opposite possibility to point "2" that I gave.

 

The only problem is there is sadly no way to know which is going to happen until you make a move. Whatever you decide, just know it doesn't have to be permanent. If you go NC, you could contact him again later on if you want to see how things are with him him. On the same token, if you try to hold out longer, you can always decide to re-assess in a few months.

 

What would I do? I'd go NC. When I fall, I fall hard - he made it clear that he isn't ready for a relationship. For my own personality, it would be very difficult for me to stick around with him and not fall more...which would only make things harder. However, I would be willing to open myself up to the idea of him again if he contacted me later on and seemed more open to relationships.

 

I don't know if this was helpful at all - was trying to address some points in your post that hadn't been talked about yet.

Link to comment

He wants to leave his options open... he doesn't want the pressure of dating, but just in case he changes his mind, he wants a friend. But you have to decide whether friends works for you or not, because that is all he is offering.

 

I would be more hopeful if he was somehow working on his situation, i.e., if he is wounded by a relationship, and realized he is still messed up from that, and decided to get counseling to adress that and get over it, it might be worth sticking around. But if he just gives you 'not ready for a relationship' with no concrete idea of what he is doing to get ready for one, then you're really investing in someone who hasn't given you any kind of indication when/if/how he'll be ready, and so you are getting more involved with him as a person while he may just be drifting along and waiting for a thunderbolt to hit him when he sees some new woman.

 

I would step back, and tell him that you both need to just go along with your lives and normal friends, and if he changes his mind, to call you and you'll start dating if you're still free. But i wouldn't just hang around while he contemplates his navel... you have no clue what is holding him back, and he seems to have no plan on how he's going to get himself together either. Not a good position for you to be in, spending time with him and getting attached to him, when he's basically given you no indication that there will ever really be a chance with him or that he is remedying his current fear/depression/whatever feelings towards relationships.

 

People don't always give you the real reasons either... his 'not ready yet' may be 'like you well enough, but not enough to take myself off the market and get really involved with you romantically'.

Link to comment
Here are my thoughts. The answer to this question depends on your goals.

 

My goal is to do the best thing for the both of us. Because on one hand, I like him and I want to date him, but on the other hand, I don't want to date a guy who may not be emotionally available yet or may return to this emotionally unready thing at some stage in the future. I wish I could be his friend without developing any more feelings for him, and if he becomes ready, I could assess whether to make that leap again, or if he's never going to change his mind about me or starts to date someone else, I'd want to feel indifferent about it. Unfortunately, the problem with friendship for me is that I can't freeze my feelings, and I can't predict more than friendly feelings arising which scares me greatly.

 

Setting out the options like that really shows me that there's no real best or right response to this, it's a gamble either way. I guess it's up to me to place my bets on whether I want to go NC and risk that he just needed my time and patience, or try to be his friend and risk entangling myself in a complicated scenario where I might fall for someone who has already expressed their inability to commit with me. So much to gain or lose either way.

 

I'm glad that you mentioned that the move doesn't have to be permanent though - thank you, really. I really got all clouded and didn't factor this in. I guess going NC doesn't have to be permanent maybe - just until I can be more certain that I can talk to him as a friend without getting too involved. Or if I chose to be his friend and it gets too much for me, I could disengage and try NC (though it'd probably be harder if I fall for him more).

 

Thank you, you were definitely very helpful. I appreciate your reasoning because I'm so messed up right now that I can't seem to process things properly. I guess I'd say I'm someone who considers a person from a lot of perspectives until something clicks for me on a intuitive, or less rational level, and I fall very very hard. I'm scared that if I hang around him any more I'll have one of these moments again and then it'd be by my own design.

Link to comment
He wants to leave his options open... he doesn't want the pressure of dating, but just in case he changes his mind, he wants a friend. But you have to decide whether friends works for you or not, because that is all he is offering.

 

I would be more hopeful if he was somehow working on his situation, i.e., if he is wounded by a relationship, and realized he is still messed up from that, and decided to get counseling to adress that and get over it, it might be worth sticking around.

 

Thanks for bringing this up, because I hadn't considered this. I guess he wants to work on it alone. He's just getting back on his feet, and he has multiple stresses in his life still with work and family. I think he has far too much going on that he wants to sort out - but I guess if he has concrete plans to do this that I'm not privy to them.

 

You're also right when you say that I have no clue what's holding him back either. He could be thinking that I'm not right for him, or he wants to enjoy single life, dating around a bit more and I'm not remarkable enough for him to want to get back into a committed relatioinship with again. I could be weaving a web if dreams thinking that 'if I give him enough time and space, he'll be ready for me' when the truth is that I don't know a) that the real reason he wants space is something different than he's not ready for a relationship, or something in addition to it, b) he might not be working towards ever being ready, and thus never may be ready, and c) if he is ready one day, it may not strike him that he wants me to be the one he wants to be ready with. So many unknowns... I feel a bit of a crippling fear making a decision on this.

Link to comment
My goal is to do the best thing for the both of us.

 

I would advise against this mindset - you need to do what is best for you. You aren't in a relationship with him so there is no 'us' to look out for. Isn't what he is doing looking out for himself? I agree it's not so cut and dry in this case since it would hurt you for him to pretend he was ready for a relationship when he's not, but he's told you that he is going to do what he needs to do. It's time to figure out what you need and prioritize that.

 

I lean toward what Lavender Dove said. He's not been specific enough with you about what it is that is lacking here, and I'm not even sure that he knows for sure. That's not very reassuring for you.

 

What I think you should focus on is that you are ready for a relationship. Hanging around as his friend gives him the best of both worlds while it will only hurt you. I don't know about you, but I find it nearly impossible to transition from romantic feelings to platonic ones, so I'm of the opinion that I couldn't be a true friend anyway because I'd always be wanting more. I know who I want to be like as a friend, so I really dislike that it is considered the peak of maturity to be someone's "friend" after a breakup and that if you don't want to do it you are being childish. Being "friends" would also only guarantee pain for myself whereas he could start taking my presence for granted. In general, hanging around and settling for less than what you want will demonstrate that you don't value yourself and that's not something that people tend to be attracted to.

 

If I were you I would wish him well and explain that although you care for him, you are ready for a relationship so you need to concentrate on looking for someone who is also ready for a relationship. You can do this with kindness and you can also tell him that if he is ready at some point to give you a call.

 

I'm sorry for what must be a very confusing situation for you. I've been there and it is really hard to make a decision. I'd urge you to take the advice of people who aren't emotionally tangled up in this guy. Don't be afraid to let him go if he's not giving you what you want, because your priority is now is you.

Link to comment

Urgh, I'm probably not the best person to be giving advice about this because I went through a very similar situation last fall: he had been in a very serious long-term, live-in relationship with someone until less than a year before we met. We dated for about a month, then I pressured him into getting into a formal relationship, and he completely backed off. After a lot of back and forth (including contact dwindling), he told me that he didn't want to be in a relationship, couldn't commit to including me in his life, etc. We decided to try "just dating" for awhile, and that didn't work, either.

 

One of the last times I saw him I asked him what his thoughts were on us, and he said he loved talking to me and would like to stay friends, but he didn't want to do anything that would hurt me. I told him we could try to stay friends, and we kind of did - we talked once every few weeks with a few e-mails or texts back and forth, but never saw each other.

 

It really didn't take long for me to get over him. My point of view was, like Lavender Dove said, that I was completely ready for a relationship and I was going to continue to look for what I wanted if this guy couldn't give it to me. It didn't hurt me when we spoke as friends, because I was starting to see him for what he was and realize that even if he were ready for a relationship, his behavior in our first "relationship" really turned me off. I hated that he was too chicken to even tell me that he didn't want a relationship until after he ignored me for weeks. That said, I never kept up a friendship with him because I wanted him back, or because I thought it would eventually lead to us being together. I did it because, for the most part, I did enjoy talking to him, and I had lost a lot of my romantic feelings for him. So my recommendation would be that if you think you can handle staying in touch with him without expectations, then you can keep talking. Otherwise (and this is most women, most of the time, in my experience), you should walk away.

 

Now here's the crazy epilogue: a few weeks ago, I started getting regular texts from this same guy that would kind of flirty and sweet. I played them off but did agree to meet him for a drink a few nights ago, and he told me that he was now interested in being involved with romantically again and that I had completely forced him into a relationship before when he wasn't ready, but now he is. So I guess the distance did something.. the question is, do I want to take him u on his offer now?

Link to comment

He is saying whatever needs to be said to extract himself from the situation. If you want to be friends, sure, be friends, but not if you think it will lead to dating, because it really sounds like he has made up his mind on that.

 

I also think that while it's great to be compassionate, you are way too immersed in this idea of his "sad" relationship history. Keep in mind that you are only getting his side of the story, and even that side isn't so hot- he cheated on his gf. Yes, breakups are very difficult, but I feel that he is playing on your sympathy a little so that he could have a ready-made excuse if he didn't want to be in a relationship with you.

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...