1a1a

Neither of those, he’s got savings a day job and friends who offer to let him stay in their house rent free (has to share a bedroom though) and he would rather go to canada and got the wheels in motion for that while the Australian borders were closed (because one thing is for certain he wants to leave India).

Jibralta; He left a job in the field he spent $90 000 studying to gain entry to (international student uni fees) that he loved, where they loved him and kept giving him more responsibilities and his family and his dog to uproot his life and move half way around the world to give our relationship a chance. I don’t actually know how frequently he imagined seeing me when he got here because he’s never told me but I said twice a week felt like a good frequency and that was definitely less than he was expecting but he respected it. He said he thought we could move in together in a few months, about a month after he’d arrived. I was incredulous. I didn’t want to move in but if he went back to India he wouldn’t be able to return on this visa and he still thought we had hope so he rented a very over priced room in a share house. I think the housing insecurity really drew out that sense of I have sacrificed so much to come here and this relationship isn’t progressing. I think he was already maxed out on what he could give just by coming here. The question is a good one though. I wonder what would be in his answer if you asked him because it doesn’t sound like a long list. But I guess these are big things to him. Batya; what do people mean when they say date casually? Because two years ago if you’d asked I would have said I am absolutely not interested in casual dating, when he asked me I would have said that. I meant it, I want to find the person I can settle down with. This is serious for me but my serious doesn’t look like his I guess? Or it would but I’m too slow. (And it would serve me well to work out what serious dating actually looks like for me). No letter because the relationship progression timeline is actually the hugest deal and even if the warm love feeling had been there from the start for me all that would have done is hidden the fact that we’re too far apart on this? I still think I can narrow the gap. Kwothe; I tried to bring compromise to the table but he rejected it. I don’t think he believes me. Maybe you can’t compromise on kids.

I do this every single time, I hold on. He said he’s done and I’m not accepting that and adapting to the new reality and taking the steps that will heal me, because I can’t believe it. I don’t think we’ve given this it’s proper chance. He does. He’s been bending over backwards to make it work. He didn’t wait for reciprocity and he over extended himself long past the time when it bothered him. Now I know and want to act and it’s taken me until now to feel the feeling I’d need to feel to reciprocate what he’s giving me. But no chance to demonstrate it now. And making a plan. This is a totally new thought for me. When he first asked about it the pressure to do so freaked me out but I don’t really want to keep drifting through life. I guess objectively this relationship is the catalyst for a number of changes, there’s my silver lining, but I’m still hoping that I’ll write him a letter in a week, one last time, laying out what I feel and what I want on the table. I thought first 3 days but no, more time should be allowed to pass I think. Plus the durability of these feelings should be tested. And then once I’ve handed that in, and he is unswayed. Then I have to accept and move on. This week of sitting and thinking and grieving and hoping there’s stress and anger in the mix and given space some of that will fade and his absolute feeling will fade with it and he’ll want to meet me in the middle, on this, most seriously important and non negotiable of things (He’s afraid I’m going to get 2 years in and still not want it, like his sisters husband, said in a few years, in a few years, and the other side of a few years he still isn’t ready. I think he’s afraid that will be me but he will be 2 years more invested in me and breaking up then will be much much much worse for him) is going to be torture.

We spoke. He doesn't want to move in straight away. He said a few months. He wanted to plan for that, I didn’t. We're not compatible. He wants to date like an adult, I want to date like I’m in my 20s, we’re not compatible. I said I wanted to plan to have kids in two years (I do want it, the settle down and have a family. I just hadn’t done any thinking about it all and I need to). He still wants a kid in 1, he’s firm on this, we’re not compatible. He won't meet in the middle on this, he feels like the whole time he's been passing the middle and meeting where Lisa is. Where is he in this? Where are his thoughts and feelings and dreams? Why do we always do what 1a1a wants? We're not compatible. He absolutely doesn't want to push me into having a kid, that want should come from me, we don't want the same things, we're not compatible. He feels like I'm family, I'm not there yet, that's a fundamental difference, we're not compatible. I tried to get closer to him on all of it, moving in, planning a family but he doesn't trust me and says I'm a roller coaster ride. He's done. He does not want to date anymore. He feels like a fool sitting in this empty room in this expensive house. He just wants to eat food and sleep. I didn’t know what I wanted and I didn’t take any steps to work it out when I could have been and now I’ve lost him too and I hate myself for it.

I am thinking if I really felt like we’d only been dating for 7 weeks this would feel very different.

My mum said she thought we’d move in together when he returned too, and that we do need to start thinking about it soon if we want kids. He wants to see the relationship progressing and there’s this huge gap between where he is and where I am and even with that gap, I could compromise and offer to move in with him now. Do I tell him that and offer that we try living together now? Or is this me over functioning? Do I really want to give this relationship a way to live or is it because he’s rejected me and just a knee jerk reaction. How am I suppose to trust my feelings at all?

I feel more crushed by this than I could have imagined

I woke up to a message from him along the lines of ‘I think maybe we want a different life. I wish I could give you what you desire but I want a different life. Miss your face xoxoxo’ I think, this started with my riding then breaks and refusing to plan anything. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe he always pictured come back to Australia, still have chemistry in person? Check, move in? Check, have a kid? By the time I’m 36? This is really important to me, if I could do it sooner I would have? Check. If it’s the time pressure to have kids I have to let him go. If it’s because of how cautious I’ve been since he returned I regret everything so much. I wish I’d known I only had 7 weeks, there’s so much I wanted to do and held back because it felt too soon for me. Even with holding back this still hurts so much, so lose lose. *** I wish he had been clear about his kid timeline so much earlier on, like at the start, when we started doing the long distance. Like maybe only do long distance of you know at the other end the person wants, to the planned detail, what you want.

Jibralta, it is, it is, every other relationship that’s lasted any amount of time has done so because I over functioned and propped it up. But it is fair to say I haven’t really made any romantic gestures for this guy since he got back because I came in super cautious and slow and he has made many many many efforts and gestures (long not posted about because I tend not to in good times). So I can see how he got to feeling like he’s bent over backwards for no good result. More than a little bit hoping he can see from my side more when he’s had some time though. I mean I’m attempting to see and acknowledge and make changes based on his perception. Batya this is on point. Both the do you want to do the thing enough to actually plan it, and try planning it and see how it feels. I’m not really sure how to do that for the baby question but now I’m down the rabbit hole of other people who’ve faced the same indecision. (I still feel like this is early in the dating timeline to be wondering these wonders but it doesn’t hurt to seek more information). What has coalesced for me is I really want to do some travel before adding a baby to the mix. And a month ago, this guy of mine was saying he might be moving to canada very soon and would I come with him. He’s flipped from travel to deal breaker baby in the space of 4 weeks. Anyway, with or without him, turning that into a real plan Is a comfortable thought (where planning to move in and start a family this early are not). Edit to add: I came to lament that this is a break and I want to contact him but I want to leave him his space more and I’m hoping he’ll get in touch but he’s not and I just have to sit in that discomfort. And in coming here to post I got distracted by your replies and my thoughts in response to them in a very constructive way. Lament feeling has retreated at least for now.

Wild pump, your perspective emboldens me to push just a little against his break with something meaningful (but not a lot, still want to let him have space when he needs it). Jibralta, we met some time in 2020, after covid hit, but while everyone in aus was still sheltering in place. Like we probably met face to face July 2020. Had three dates after which I offered friendship because the stakes felt too high, he gave me a $700 camera on the second date. I felt the imbalance in investment then. We continued to catch up as friends until he went back to India and the friend catch ups were more enjoyable (lower stakes I think). Even though I’d friendzoned him it wasn’t for lack of curiosity and I thought I didn’t want to let him skip the country and my life without at least trying kissing. The one night we spent together and what we learned of each other through subsequent staying in touch felt so right we sustained a long distance relationship for almost a year and a half and he booked his flight the day the borders opened to give it a proper go. He Is exaggerating the timeline a bit though. He’s freaking out because he feels like we’ve been getting to know each other for more than 2 years and we’re still stuck in the early days of dating. (When really come April we might have known each other 2 years, not date, know. Even if you count dating from the first night we spent together, that will be 2 years in august). I have way too much time to think today and I kept thinking of nice things I’d like to do to make him feel wanted and how I don’t actually know if there will be an opportunity to try doing that, or, if I should disrespect his request for space and make a gesture or two before disappearing into the shadows. I could feel anxiety about it building up inside my chest and reading your post completely took the edge off it. Still I agree I rode the brakes hard and it’s discouraged him and I regret/want to remedy that. But do I want a partner who’ll be push pushing me to climb that life/relationship escalator quicker? I guess, I don’t think he’ll come back if he’s not wanting what I’m wanting (and if he does, it’ll be a bad time for us both.) He says I’m dating now like he approached dating when he was 24. Too relaxed. Tonight I wish I was walking a fire trail in the hills with him by my side. I’d like to share that thought with him. Before space I would have. But now there is requested space and I don’t know where his head will be at on the other side. Ugh, uncertainty!

So we met, and covered (re covered), almost exactly what some of you have said, that the commitment avoidance is mine to wrestle with. He feels like he’s been putting in 100% to make me feel chosen and it’s not working. Ok, I acknowledge that, and want to move forward more mindful of it. Also, that he feels like this last 7 weeks have been all about 1a1a wants, how 1a1a is feeling. I asked him how we can make space for his thoughts and feelings and he couldn’t really answer that. He said he tried on Saturday and I got really upset (it’s true, is there space where you can broach these uncomfortable topics and I can feel how I feel about it and then work through it? Like the fall out from Saturday has not been all bad, it’s galvanised my feelings in some respects, both that I do want to keep choosing him and that I am waaaaay not comfortable having a kid in one years time). That’s the other kicker, his timeline for having a kid is very concrete in his head, in a year. That’s not a we’ve been dating long enough thing. That’s a he wants to have his kids young and not have to work past 50. I feel like probably I’ll never feel ‘ready’ to have a kid but I can tell you now that by 40 I’ll feel like I need to act if I’m going to and by 40 I will probably make a leap of faith. The having of a kid, and the experience of living overseas, they’re both things I want to do in abstract but haven’t in practice because hard and involves leaving comfort zone, but that doesn’t flat out mean I want to miss those experiences. And heck if we’re going steady in 5 years time I think that will feel like a very different landscape for me to anything I can imagine now. He said he won’t date again me, he’s done for now, focus on building his career. So, if I don’t commit to a kid in a year, he’s not going to find one elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean he should settle and date me sans children. It’s a sticky wicket. I told him in hindsite it would have been good for him to mention he wants to have a kid by 36 when he was still in India. He said it had felt too soon and like a conversation that should happen face to face. God no! You put that kind of stuff on the dating profile, right up the front! So we part ways now to think. I did suggest if he compromises on the kid timeline I need to compromise on something big too, there’s nothing as big as having kids so, the next biggest thing after that! He doesn’t know what yet. Maybe it will come to him with space. Maybe there is nothing. Ahh, and whatever the two things to change were, he never said, when asked he said ‘doesn’t matter, I’m taking that to my grave’. Maybe the best answer. And obviously I have room for improvement if I can see it unprompted out of this experience.

He called me bang on 10am. I told him about the choosing fear instead of commitment and that I don’t want to do that going forward, nor take a break, but I also don’t want to be pushy. He said he also didn’t want to take a break but he doesn’t know what else to do. I keep going for the bad faith answer and it’s taking it’s toll on him. What If he has a small problem with me, how can he broach it when he’s mentioned two and it’s caused such a reaction (what about all the things I love about you?!) I suggested he might inadvertently be bumping up against things I don’t much like about myself (lax hygiene, the clutter) and that I have the power to change that. And that if he prefaced the small problems with ‘this isn’t a deal breaker but’ that would be self explanatory. I flagged that it concerns me that he turns away when it’s tough too. But I also get that some people get better access to their own thoughts and feelings when they’re alone for a while. He suggested a wild idea, you might not like it, we don’t have to do it. What if we each suggest one or two things about the other person to try and change (from a you become more entrenched in your habits in your 30s perspective). This will be a face to face conversation, we’ll have that brunch. There’s a possibility this will be I love you, you’re beautiful, now change. But If he suggests two things I want to change about myself anyway i’m going to change them regardless of how we work out. I haven’t forgotten how last night panned out though. I guess yep, communication is pretty poor. Maybe we can level that up. (Both, me too).

Choosing fear instead of choosing him hit me like a ton of bricks! I want to call him and tell him I choose him. I can’t do that can I, after he’s asked for space 😞

I thought if we could actually date I’d gain clarity. How I felt when he left my country was the very unambiguous yes of a strong oxytocin hit and it faded into neutrality with the absence of touch. I wanted to date and give it space to come back and I feel like that opportunity has been denied. And there was the super strange experience of feeling a strong emotional intimacy with him born of almost a year and a half of talking, but like the physical intimacy was at date 1. And that has grown for me over that last 7 weeks but I’m not at ‘I want to marry you’ yet. 7 weeks doesn’t seem like a long time to me but when it’s paired with the long distance part (which never ever felt like dating to me and I said this multiple times, that it was an extended predating time and I was holding space because I really wanted to see what we could be) now I’m the one who’s moving too slow and everyone thinks I’m not into it.

Woke up after 4 hours and can’t get back to sleep. Any time in the next 5 hours he might call (after that he starts work and if he hasn’t called by then, he did not want to). I hope he does, I’m afraid that he won’t, I’m afraid we’re incompatible, I’m afraid we could have been great but i’m still too broken from the last heart break (it has been 7 years and I thought I’d done the work) I’m afraid we stay together but last night reveals he pulls away when the going gets tough and this will not be the last time he pulls the rug out from under me. I’m afraid of holding on to him if we’re a bad match. And I’m frustrated because saying let’s meet up twice a week when he first got back doesn’t mean I want to limit it to that forever, now we’re 7 weeks in I do want to see him more. From the conversation the other day where it became apparent me putting the brakes on is really crushing him I realise I haven’t made him feel that (although I have extended my fair share on invitations to do things. Invitations that recently have been turned down because he’s busy, see how this is mixed messaging?! I don’t know, if doing this consistently going forward would have made him feel like I was reciprocating because I haven’t been given time to do it in. Tense conversation was Saturday. He gave up on Monday and the thing that triggered him giving up was me saying I felt a divide between us). If we get to talk about this again maybe some of the points raised here can help us reach clarity. He has heaps of friends here. Until Sunday he was living with some rent free at their insistence. (But he was sharing a room with one of them). When he moved in he had a machine learning job with a company in India which he loves, but didn’t think it would be possible to keep if he moved to Australia so the whole time he’s been applying for local work, and also shoring up the company’s dependence on him. He got his housemates internships there and put the best one on an important project, near guaranteeing that that housemate would be offered a paid position. For a few weeks they were all working on the same schedule so they’d take a break and eat dinner together. Now he’s secured a data analysis job here (but that’s not really what he wants, he wants to do machine learning), and moved out in preparation for working Australian 9 to 5 hours. The first day out of the house he felt super lonely and I realise how I feel about him and how he thinks I feel about him are shockingly different things.

It’s more as he was leaving he asked if he could leave them at mine for the night because he had nothing to put them in. Which cued an unsuccessful search for a nice vase and the decline of my glass jar offer which meant he couldn’t take the roses and I guess that felt quite unappreciated. You’re not wrong that whole interaction went south but your understanding of the cause and effect is off. (He got chocolates as well and those made it home with him). And it’s not at all like that (Although maybe he interprets it the same way you have?) When you first start dating someone it’s good to pace yourself right? You might want to see them every day but you go slower than that while you’re getting to know them. We’ve been able to date face to face only since the end of Dec. Of course I’d like to see him more but in the past I’ve always gone zero to 100 and I’m trying not to do that again. And yep. I worry about how that is going to work, me naturally being things he doesn’t like, a whole lot. Enough to send that text tonight. Maybe he didn’t mean break up either but he definitely used the word break. Yep, Valentine’s Day catch up went pretty bad. The dating had been going good and then last weekend he brought up a big serious conversation about commitment and living together soon and how my going slow is leaving him insecure and I came away from that worried that maybe we have some fundamental incompatibilities because he was looking for big things that aren’t in my nature, like planning. He wants a plan. I’m a little plan averse. I’m open to trying to improve that but who knows if we can meet in the middle. And planning to move in together in 6 months is one thing but planning a kid? This is early stages of dating for me, I don’t know, I can’t know that now I need to actually have the opportunity to date you (he feels like we got to know each other over the phone and this is true, but it’s not the same).

Long distance 1 year, 4 months, 18 days. Finally back face to face late December We started to have conflict around this issue, he feels like we’ve been dating for almost 2 years and it should be getting more serious by now, I feel like we’ve been dating 1 month, too early to move in in a few months, too early to be asking me if I’m ready to have kids. He’s been letting me set the pace but finally last week he cracked, this is too slow, he’s taken a big financial risk coming here, I don’t know what I want, what If I realise down the track this isn’t for me, he’ll be so emotionally invested it shatters him. On the one hand this has had the effect of making me realise I want to step up and see him more. On the other it has changed my expectations of him, when he says he’s busy I wonder why he doesn’t want to prioritise us spending time together. You were the one that said 2 days wasn’t enough. Today we each bought each other something for Valentine’s Day and although his day has been long and tiring (so has mine), we stayed up and caught up when he finished work. While he was here he commented that I smelt quite strongly of sweat, which was strange because I just got out the bath. (It was a really hot bath and he arrived before I finished). Then I thought he was going to leave his roses behind because he had nothing to put them in. I thought I had a vase, couldn’t find it, tried to offer the jar I’d had them in but he didn’t want that object in his house. I was hurt and took the roses back. After he left I should have felt elated but I just felt melancholy. Like I smell bad to him and he rarely stays over the night. (Maybe because my house is untamed chaos from moving and not very comfortable). I sent a text about this divide feeling. Around the time he got home I called, he prefers phone calls anyway. Well, that went really badly. If I hadn’t said anything at all, he would have gotten home and invited me out to brunch tomorrow and I can tell you that melancholy feeling I got when he left would have evaporated like dew in the morning sunlight. Instead he felt like I was throwing his valentine efforts in his face and said he wanted to go on break because he’s done everything he can think of to do to make me feel special and still I think negatively (no, I feel insecure since our conversation where you said I was going too slow and listed a whole bunch of big things that might be fundamental incompatibilities). By the end of the phone conversation he was saying we would go for brunch tomorrow (what? You just said we’re on break. Maybe he means brunch as two people on break. I can’t say I’m really into that proposition). And then what? Brunch cannot close the divide if it’s there. Is it there? I don’t know. But I know two things, reaching a point where you need to call for a break is going to rock the foundations of my trust in this thing we’re trying to build, maybe irreparably. I mean, we might try and persevere but I don’t know of any times anyone has come back from that. And thing number two, thing number two is frankly way more worrying. If I say anything negative or insecure, like today, I literally said ‘despite your best efforts I feel melancholy after you leave, it feels like there’s a divide between us’. If I say anything like that, he hears 1a1a isn’t invested in this relationship. 1a1a is pulling away. I’ve tried everything and it’s not working and now I don’t know what to do’. My vulnerability is flipped on it’s head and masterfully converted into something I need to back pedal on. ***, that’s concerning. And new. We had a good year and a half of him being able to field the occasional insecurity from me calmly and reassuringly. Since he closed the distance and came back to my country not so much. Im not really into valentines. This is the first year I tried to mark the occasion, because I know my guy is a gifts kind of guy. And it ended with me being dumped. *HOWL* Edit to add; there’s a third thing, the problem is me! Why am I so quick to insecurity? Obviously if I wasn’t things would still be going. I didn’t think he was insecure but maybe he is now since moving back to my country and our insecurities are pinging off of each other like some nightmare monster.

The thing I’m picking up is that you feel there is a disparity of effort and if you want to test and see if she’s the kind of partner that will work through problems with you it’s time to broach that topic with her. you could say something like ‘I don’t really know how to broach this so I’m just going to have a go. increasingly I’ve been feeling like I try and do small and big thoughtful things to make you feel special and loved and you don’t really do anything like that for me. I was telling myself that’s not in your nature but then your friend’s birthday came around and the things you want to do for him, I wish you would do them for me. And when you prioritised spending time with him on Valentine’s Day instead of me that made me feel extra kind of second fiddle to him. Are you feelings for me fading perhaps? And if they remain as strong as they have ever been are you speaking a love language I can’t hear? And would you want to try and speak mine going forward? I’d love it if you did *concrete, tangible examples of things your partner can do that will make you feel loved here*? And if I’m feeling like you’ve lost interest a little because we speak different love languages are you also feeling like that? What things make you feel loved and special?’ It could be she loves you as much as ever and your self doubt is creating wild narratives. And it could be she’s lost interest and doesn’t realise it. I think your best bet is to actually have a conversation with her and see what she says, and what does she choose to do going forward?

Joining the chorus of dump this mfa

Not argumentative at all, just teasing out different lines of thinking 🙂 I’ve got to admit, if I was on the cusp of a big work tour thing with a partner who was starting to turn mean, I would try and see through the work thing too. I wonder if there are common tells for people who turn out to (not necessarily have but at least act like they) have a personality disorder? A question for google as that’s beyond my data set. Like they’re charming all your friends but in private they do x, y, z seemingly mundane things that belie the innately selfish character. Www.chumplady.com archives would probably be a treasure trove of learned wisdom.

Let me put that another way, we want to become faster at identifying red flags and dropping the person who’s presenting them. Suze doesn’t know going in that this promising new person is going to turn out to be a source of misery. But once the misery starts happening, does she stay or does she go? I bet you wouldn’t stay with someone like your ex for as long next time. Even now, current ex is being pretty unreasonable and instead of just bowing to her wishes you’re posting here and getting outside perspective. I think you’re leveling up.

Sounds like you’ve been trapped in a pattern of dating the same wrong person for a long time. And being single is waaaay better than repeating that mistake, I could not agree more! Still, there are rad people out there who could compliment your life but don’t catch your eye at the moment and will never if you can’t work out why you stay with the painful ones. There’s a book called ‘He’s Scared She’s Scared’ by Steven Carter and Julia Sokol, 11 out of 10 good read, I do recommend it (speaking as a person who has also despaired)

What I got from the original post is ‘this person is exhausting’. Do you want exhausting? And from skim reading the comments, no, you shouldn’t assume the worst of everyone. You will shoot in the face the romantic feeling of any and all who cross your path in the future. (Don’t be that person, work on your heartbreak now so you can actually show up to another relationship!) You absolutely should assume the worst of your ex though. Assume she’s going to be exhausting, assume reasonable left the building when this side of her unfolded. Assume if you keep engaging with her you’re going to keep being disappointed by it. Then stop doing that. (Which is of course much easier to say than to do). Good luck.

I wouldn’t want to be in a live partnership with someone that asked me to give up my companion animals. And I wouldn’t think very highly of someone who abandoned their animals to be with me. This would make me incompatible with someone who thought getting rid of the pet was even an option in the first place. Let alone any other variable in the relationship. Maybe she will turn out to be closer to your values than mine but I would not hold your breath.

Ok, I tried shaking it, that thing is as solid as a rock!