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upstatemedic

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  1. Well, it sounds like you really want to do this, but you're right to have some reservations... Yes, I'm saying that sex before marraige tends to be a bad thing. You've got a funtamental incompatibility - you're doing a "big thing" that implies lifetime commitment, but you haven't secured that lifetime commitment yet! When that happens, regret usually results. Consider what will happen if you have sex with your current partner or partners. You have a pretty good time now, and physically it's a lot of fun. Then lets say in 5 or 10 years, you meet someone who you really truly fall in love with. How are you going to explain your sleeping around to that person? How will their view of you change? Or, consider it reversed. If you met the "love of your life" tomorrow, and it turns out she'd slept with 10 or 12 people before you, would you really feel like what you two do in bed is special - a "big thing" - with that knowledge? Good luck, upstatemedic
  2. Coincidence, my dear, is when God works a mircale and chooses to remain anonymous
  3. Well, just make sure that you and he don't get different ideas as to where the relationship is going. If he's going to be non-committal, then you need to put the brakes on getting more serious with him. Sure, grow together, but if he won't respond to gentle prodding, don't push hard! Good luck!
  4. Hey Cheeky- I think you might be pulling a little classic feminine overanalysis. Calm down and relax a bit, and you might find that there are fun parts of this new relationship that you were previously too buy overanalyzing to notice. Some suggestions: 1) Do some stuff with your new BF that you did with your old BF. This will re-assign the positive feelings that came with those things to the new guy, booting the old guy out of the picture. If you and your old BF had a favorite restaurant, go there a few times. That kinda stuff. 2) Do some stuff with your new BF that you NEVER did with your old one. This will inject some adventure into your relationship and start creating some associations with this new guy that are unique to your new relationship. Instead of going to the supermarket, do the week's shopping at the local farmers' market. Take karate lessons, or swing dancing. 3) Get at least *something* on a set schedule that you do together. If you're frusterated with his clubs and other activites, look at what they have in common: they're probably almost all scheduled at a regular time every week or every month. So naturally a relationship that can fit in between will do just that. So make a particular night each week "your night" to eat out, or to cook for each other, or to go watch a movie. That way he can schedule around it, and you can feel just as important (or more so) than all that other stuff... Good luck!
  5. He might be worried about your perception of the relationship. If he thinks that you might think less of him because he was involved with this druggie, then maybe he's trying to separate himself from her in your eyes by talking about her. Of course, this assumes that he's saying bad things about her!! If he's saying good stuff about her, then you might want to watch for trends - is the frequency of his bringing her up in conversation increasing or decreasing? If it's decreasing, then it might just be his way of getting over her by making sure you're fully OK about it. Maybe you could just tell him, matter-of-factly, that talking about her makes you uncomfortable! Not that you don't like it, not that it pisses you off, not that you wish you didn't hear it - just that it makes you uncomfortable. Go easy, it sounds like he's had a rough time of it.
  6. Before you get any more serious with him, why try to find out how serious he is about you? If he really wants to make a relationship work with you, then maybe he'd be willing to go through with a formal divorce from his wife and make more formal living arrangments. That might be a good litmus test for the relationship, to see if you're both on the same page about where it's going.
  7. Hi Everybody- It's been a looong time since I've posted here - probably upwards of a year - but in that year lots has happened and I'm in need of some more advice... I posted originally because my then-fiancee and I were fighting a lot - not constantly, but consistantly and cyclically. Our fights were pretty bad, and we had intimacy problems on top of that, and so the relationship was giving me a lot of grief. Well, we took care of the fighting thing. An issue, which is not important to my current problem, nearly tore us apart. We came extremely close to parting ways, because she couldn't deal with a very big part of my life. In the end, she changed her mind - she decided to embrace me as a whole, that she loved me enough that she would love all of me and not only the parts that didn't make her uncomfortable. So the fighting has gotten much better - we've both taken an attitude of asking ourselves "how will this help our relationship?" before we respond to something or bring up an issue (at the advice of our counselor). The intimacy, as well, is no longer an issue - it just took caring. So here we are. We get engaged in June 2003, and we break it off in June 2004. We decide that the spectre of getting married is just too much - that we're in over our heads - and we need to spend more time working on our relationship before we take it any further. We've hit bottom and started to bounce back, so to speak, but I'm having a lot of trouble. My problem is that, during the year of our engagement, all the fighting and unhappiness really turned me off to her, and to our relationship. I lost my attractedness to her, sometimes to the point that I couldn't even kiss her because it felt so wrong. Those feelings have bounced around the zero-axis, and while they never dive into the negative realm of being forcible unattracted to her (read: disgusted) they never seem to bounce back up into the levels we had before I proposed. For the last few weeks, I've been going through hell over this. She knows something is wrong, but I can't put my finger on how to correct it. I feel like we used to be very much in love - like she was the one I wanted to be with, and I can remember so many happy times that we spent together. But now I feel...well...nothing. I'm trying to determine whether I'm still putting in an effort because I really want this to work out, or if it's just because I'm avoiding the spectre of breaking up. We are great friends - we're comfortable around each other, we do all sorts of crazy stuff, and we can talk about damn near anything. Our views compliment each other very well, and she's taken fairly well to some aspects of me/my life that might be hard to accept for someone else. So I guess I'm afraid of losing all that too, and not finding it in someone else. I'm NOT looking for outright advice - dump her, stay with her, whatever - I know I need to own this decision myself and I don't want anybody to make it for me. I'm looking for interpretations of the situation. THANK YOU!!! It's good to be back...
  8. It's possible that you've got yourself in a catch .22 here. First, you ask your guy to marry you. He says no, because he doesn't want his proposal to seem like it's in response to your request. He wants it to be genuine, not prompted. Next, he waits, hoping that the issue will die down and that he'll re-gain his spontenaity. You, in the mean time, get itchy again. You ask him again. His clock gets reset to zero, and any semblance of spontenaity he had is gone. No guy wants to look in on his relationship from outside (which most guys do constantly) and see a guy that proposed to his girlfriend because she was nagging him to do it. He wants to look in from the outside and see a guy who was confident in what he wanted, and who showed that confidence through his well-planned but surprise proposal. It does sound like living with him is confusing you, however. You might be well to get your own place and see each other from that perspective for a while. If you do it right, it won't point the relationship in a bad direction - it'll point it in a healthy one.
  9. Like it or not, sex is a big thing, and has been throughout recorded history. When it's casual, it's just devaluing that big thing, turning it into something that's done for fun. If you're into doing weighty things for fun, great. But keep in mind that you might not always feel the same way about sex and relationships that you do now. You've got to "think fourth dimensionally" on this one, as Christopher Lloyd used to say. In 10 or 20 years, IF you ever settle down with someone, do you really want to have *that* past to work through? And trust me, unless you find someone who has been as promiscuous as you're talking about being, there *will* be something to "get past".
  10. Hi kauaiangirl83, I think you've got a pretty common problem on your hands, but you're looking for oversimplified advice. I've been in a relationship with my girlfriend for nearly 4 years, and we have our tough times - in fact, we're in one right now. And as a result, I'm learning that no relationship problem is ever superficial or simple. I think Princess is on the right track, but I also think she's being unnecessarily harsh on the guys. It's true, men and women have different ways of dealing with problems. Women want to talk about the problems they're experiencing, and talking about problems is the way they deal with them. Men deal with problems by retreating into their "cave" and fixing them themselves. They don't just "forget" about their problems - they back away from them, size them up, and make repairs - alone. The difference becomes really apparent when you consider who is bringing a particular problem. When the guy has a problem with something, and he goes into his cave to fix it, the woman immediately assumes he's hiding something from her. But really, it's just his natural way of dealing with problems. When a woman has a problem, the man immediately puts on his Mr. Fix-It hat and tries to fix it - when really the woman wants to talk about the problem, not be told the solution by the man. Now what happens when we try to deal with problems using the opposite sex's methods? Well, if a woman tries to push a guy into talking about a problem that he really needs to work through on his own, he'll sulk further into his cave and push a big rock into the door way until he's got it figured out. If a man tries to offer a woman a male-type solution to a problem she needs to talk through, she'll get frusterated with him and push him away. Throw your relationship into this formula. You've both got a problem. Your problem is that you don't like how he hangs up on you. His problem is that he's insecure about you possibly cheating on him. You handle your problem by trying to talk to him about it, but he percieves it as a threat and hangs up on you. He handles his problem by distancing himself from you so that he can work through it, and you percieve that as a re-hashing of your original problem again! So how do you break out of it? Like Pricess advised. FORCE yourself to let him handle his problem on his own. Don't bring it up, and if he brings it up, just tell him you're willing to give him as much time as he needs to work through it. Only talk about it - and TALK about it, not argue - if he insists on bringing it to light. In a man's mind, he'll be open to advice if he's seeking it, but not if it's unsolicited. On the other hand, you've got to supress your urge to "fix" his problem with hanging up the phone by talking about it. That is the female way of handling the problem, and it will only make him want to hang up even more. Believe it or not, this advice is straight out of the much-teased book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" - it's a fantastic book. Read it. Or find it on books-on-tape. That's what I did, and while it didn't eliminate all the problems in my relationship, it sure did help us a lot. Good luck!
  11. I have to agree - I can see how a big wedding could really wear on you. I've heard from several people that it's not a day for the couple getting married... it's a day for their families. As much as I disagree, I know what my fiancee and her parents want and I know that it's their day and I'm pretty much just there because it couldn't really happen without me there. Nonetheless, I'm okay with it - as incompatible as I am with being the center of attention, I'm not going to complain because if my mom (and her mom) were still alive, they'd insist on a giant Italian wedding with 300 guests... "we're gonna invite everyone we've ever met!" I guess I just figure that the ceremony belongs to my fiancee and I, and the rest of it will go how it may, but I'm not going to let that bug me. Just enjoy it, and when it's all over I'll remember the good parts... Incidentally, my fiancee REALLY liked the idea of a video link between the chapel and the reception hall. Looks like I'll even get to play engineer on my wedding day, for a little bit! UM
  12. Oooer...that's a cool idea. The reception hall is a few miles away from the chapel, but I'm ever the radio geek, so I could probably whip up a little video uplink in notime. I'll have to run that one by my fiancee... Thanks!! UM
  13. A good thought - the hillside is pretty dense woods - in fact, the only reason you can see the lake is because the hill is so steep! Might be able to work it out. Problem is if the weather is yucky, you've put all your eggs in one basket. Something to think about though! Thank you! UM
  14. Hi all... As some of you know, I'm engaged and have been having some problems. Thankfully, with your help and plenty of communication and love, they have proved conquerable. My fiancee and I are beginning to dip our toes into planning our wedding, and it's all very exciting. I'm stuck on a particular point, though. The chapel where we want to be married is a tiny little church that's built on the side of a hill overlooking a picturesque lake. The downside to this gorgeous place is that it only holds 65 people, and we have at least 100 to 120 people that we want to invite. So far, the theory has been that we invite family and close friends to the ceremony itself, then invite everyone to the reception. Worked great until it came time to start deciding who's going to attend what! I feel bad sending some people an invitation that says "yeah we're gettin hitched on [date] but you can't come to the ceremony, so come party with us afterwards." Do you think people will be offended if we send them an invitation explaining (a little more nicely than above) that the church only seats a few people and as such we'd love to have them for the reception but unfortunately can't invite them along for the actual wedding ceremony? Or maybe just have a family-only wedding? And very close friends in the wedding party itself? Never realized there are so many permutations of ways to plan a wedding!! Curious to hear what y'all think... Best, Upstatemedic
  15. Why not try a little acid test? Go out and make another female friend, no intention of dating her or anything... Then see how your best friend reacts. Hell, doesn't even have to be a real person, but keep in mind that you may have to own up to lying to her at some point in the future. If she starts to show signs of jealousy, that should be an indicator to you. If she seems really happy for you, maybe she's been hoping you'd meet someone all this time... Best, UM
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