the_tiger_striped_cat

HA HA! No it's not me. Thank God!

For those that never argue: Actually better Idea: Let me play devils advocate here. The reason's many couples don't argue is because one part of the couple is subordante, or doesn't really have many strong well-formed opinions, or isn't passionate about anything. But prove me wrong. Maybe you have found a good method of conflict resolution. Name something you disagree about passionately, and tell me how you deal with that passionate dissagreement.

I have to agree with some of the others. You don't "realize" that you've been raped, unless you don't understand your own desires or don't know what sex is. Sounds like your friends had to convince you of something. Rape is a VERY SERIOUS matter, and the fact that you're so blase about it, seems to say that you were not in fact raped. But maybe I'm wrong. If you want to take legal action against him (which is what women do if they've been raped) you shouldn't this post here. If a laywer got a hold of this you would have a HARD time proving that you thought it was rape at the time. Rape is when you have unconcentual sex, you either want to or not. If you didn't want to then you would of known then, if you did want to then he didn't rape you, if you didn't know what you wanted then that's still not rape by default. But I'm hoping it's not as bad as your friends think it was.

1) - Is downloading music stealing - Whether her friend is being lazy by taking the summer off after college. - Whether going into debt for things like travel is good or bad. - How to deal with my "boss". 2) Argued about once a month when wasn't going great. 3) Lasted 4.5 months but it that wasn't what broke us up. 4) LEARN TO LISTEN TO THE OTHER PRESON! Don't just wait for them to talk. DON'T EVER RAISE YOUR VOICE. A good "I love you" before and after wouldn't hurt. There are good/bad phrases you can say in a disagreement. but I'm asking the questions so help me out here....

Keep it short and sweet: 1) What are the topics of arguments with present or past SOs (stupid or significant). Make a list if you want. 2) How often do you argue 3) How long has it lasted/how long did it last. 4) Any one line tips for conflict resolution? For those that never argue: Name some things you disagree about passionately, and tell me how you deal with that passionate dissagreement. To get us started: link removed

Whattheheck that's the Catch-22, well probably not. But that's definitely the rub. You CAN NOT, I repeat, CAN NOT, make it seem like you're changing for them. You have to change on your own, become the alpha male, and hope they contact you or somehow serendipity brings you together. ANY sign that you are changing for her whatsoever will be viewed as a desparate attempt. The point is you need an inital desire on her part to want to see change in you. Even if you change all these things about you, become the alpha male, and she sees all these changes in you (without you showing them to her) she MAY still ignore those changes. She has to have the initial desire to be curious about you. Hopefully NC will help with this. I think it's Muneca who quotes Francious de La Rochefoucauld (sp???) "Absense diminishes little passions and increases great ones, just as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire." So if you don't have any desire on her part to see your change then it won't matter how much you change. I know, life sucks. But like life itself, given the right cirumstances, her desire can flurish. She has to have SOME initial desire and then you have to change. But even that might not be enough if something else is keeping her from you (like in my case, an ex bf). But to quote Swingers: "You see Mikey, there's nothing you can do to make her want to come back. In fact you can only do things to make her NOT want to come back... You see that's the thing.. somehow they no not to come back until you really forget" But NC is supposed to get her curious about you. If she doesn't get curious then there's nothing you can do. If she does, you better be ready. But you're thinking on the order of weeks still. This may take months or years. Sometimes you'll have to let this relationship run its course if she has her mind set on this other guy. Most women don't go around testing the waters with any guy they see. They stay very dedicated to one man until it turns sour. So just because she's dedicated to him doesn't mean she doesn't think about you, nor does it mean she's not making a mistake. It only means that she has her blinders on and is really trying to concentrate with this new guy. Take it from a guy whose girl was so dedicated to her ex that she admitted that she would concentrate on that relationship even if it turned out to be a big mistake. Good luck

I don't remember the circumstance of both of your cases guys, but remember, feelings change, it make take years for her to want to try again with you. I don't know how that makes you feel. If your first thought is, "Oh great, I'm not waiting that long for her," then you better move on fast. If you're first thought is, "I would love to have her back, even if it was a couple of years from now." Then I would say hope for as long as you want as long as you move on an better yourself. Lets say 437 days from now she calls you. How do you want to look? Do you want to be the changed man that she can try again with, or do you want her to say, "I just called to see if I made the right choice and I'm glad I did, he hasn't changed a bit, I can still see why I dumped him." Actually, someone just said something very recently along these lines after 6 monhts of NC, he just wanted to know if breaking up with him was a good choice or not. You have within your power to make this the worst choice of her life. Not her fault, she just didn't know you had that level of change in you. It's actually too bad for the breakers sometimes. The breakers don't hit "rock bottom" so they have no reason to change themselves. The breakees do, then they change everything about themselves. But since the breakers can't see that change they don't think about taking the person back. I always say, hope for the best prepare for the worst.

Pick her up and throw her on the bed. For some reason my exs always seemed to love it when a guy picks them up. Pin her up against something, in my case it was a fridge and walls, but anything will do. Tell her to raise her hands and not put them down just some ideas

Well maybe #1 doesn't have any correlation. I did find one source which talks about "divorced parents and shyness 64.233.167.104/search?q=cache 1unr8DjX28J 2520Impact%2520of%2520Divorce%2520on%2520Children.htm+shyness+%22divorced+parents%22&hl=en But then again, it may just be that children of divorced parents are more likely to be shy. Don't know. Thanks for your responses guys.

If you want skip to the end. But please read "THE OTHER PROBLEM" this is very important for the shy people. QUESTIONS: 1)Are your parents divorced/separated? At what age? 2)What is your conception of yourself? Do you find yourself attractive? 3)What do you think makes you shy? (What was) MY PROBLEM: I'm a recovering shy person. I am 25 and was shy for most of my adolescent life, I had maybe 2 gfs and only had been on a handful of dates by the time I was 24. Before my ex, my longest relationship was one week. I never though of myself very attractive. Actually girls in Junior High school found me more attractive than I did. This is where I actually got dates. In HS I had prospects but not a single date. (Boy it hurts to say this , and the SAME thing happened in College (one date and nothing else). This fact combined with societies pressure to no longer be a virgin caused me to look for women anywhere. I went online to meet girls (I guess because it's easier to talk to them) and had sex with 3 girls I met online (the first one when I was 21). What caused all this? Well I think it stems from the relationship I had with my parent and my Mother's raising of me. My parents were divorced when I was six years old. My mother did most of the raising of us although I did see my Dad on some of the weekends and Tuesdays. I was also the eldest and had one brother with who I fought with a lot (this will come into play later). My Mother didn't have a lot of money and had fashion sense from her native Nicaragua (I'm half Hispanic/half white). Because of this I didn't dress well and NEVER knew what do do with my hair until college. I had a very low sense of self-esteem. Despite this fact some girls in JH actually came on to me after making some dress/hair changes in my 9th grade (which goes to show that the looks where there somewhere). So my shyness (and emotionality) stemmed from, and was perpetuated by, my early childhood. THE CURE: In college I started to break away from childhood habits and although I didn't ask any women out for dates (I can still remember HORRIBLE blind date experiences), I began to become more and more self aware of myself. But it wasn't until getting over a girl that I fell for in college, traveling to Europe and Mexico, going to grad school, and realizing that girls really do like me, but are not the ones to ask guys out, that I truly started to change. I was more and more outgoing. A couple of months ago I asked out a girl after talking to her for 5 minutes. And I see girls check me out all the time, so there's a lot to be said about confidence. THE OTHER PROBLEM: Something you shy people may not be aware of, and depending on your age, if you are not dating much and starting relationships when you're in HS/college you will start your first relationship with the mentally of a person in his/her first relationship. This means you will COMPLETELY lack the maturity/experience that is buit from dating people. I got involved with my ex a year or so ago. Everything was great at first because I was smitten. But after the honeymoon phase wore off I treated her like she was my brother (with whom I argued with all the time). I thought I knew what people meant by communication in a relationship. "Of course we have good communication," I told myself. But good relationship communication is the kind discussed in books like "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." This would of gone on for years without me changing, but luckily her ex begged for her back and she didn't have an emotional attachment with me so she left me after 4.5 months. Even more luckily, such strong psychological trauma ("hitting bottom") was powerful enough to put a mirror in front of me and make me realize why I was shy (my parents divorce), why I was immature in my first real relationship (lack of experience from being shy and not dating), why I argue so much (relationship with mother/brother), and why I am more emotional than most men (raised by my mother mostly). Luckily she didn't leave me for these reasons 5 years down the road. Luckily I was able to learn at an accelerated rate and change many things about myself, from relationship communication to etiquette to dressing properly to being more mature financially, socially (being punctual), and with my career. So make sure you understand all this or your first relationship may end up badly Good Luck.

Have you ever been in love before? Have you ever had your heart broken? We are ALL shy at your age, do you think you are ABNORMALLY shy? Are your parents divorced? How is your relationship with them? How much do you know about this girl? So far I've seen nothing commented on but her looks. Do you think you are hansome? Why do you think she is the one? Without these questions answered I won't be able to make a good diagnosis, but my first stab at it is: I think that this is either a symptom of a larger problem or just simply a case of still being smiten. People at your age put greater emphasis on looks. Her beauty and your conception of beauty have put her up on this pedistol that she doesn't deserve (I mean esp from what she did to you.) And the fact that she rejeced you and you can't have her only compounds the desire. But it maybe that the fact that you're so attached to this girl reflects back on your conception of yourself or your issues with shyness. But I really don't think it's all that bad, and I doubt you can call her "the one." Let me tell you that EVEN IF this is love from a distance (depending on how much you know this girl), heartache in your teens is NOTHING compared to heartache in your 20s, which I imagine is NOTHING compared to divorce. But good luck with all this.

Something to note: Like one guy said guys will fall into "phases." And these phases usually have something to do with ex gfs or girls they like. I had a BIG Asian thing because the girl I liked at one point was Asian. This "fetish" was so powerful that I liked another girl for many wrong reasons, and this was probably one of them. But then I met my ex. Now after dating her I'm hooked on small town girl, skinnier than average, small breasted, dancer bodies. (Yes she had fairly small breasts and I soon LOVED THEM.) Once the guy falls for (or falls in love with) a girl he starts to perfer these characteristics. My friend also told me, "I started dating all these girls that looked like her," referring to his ex, now wife. So it's true that guys generally have a preference--not over this weight, these size breasts, whateever--but these preferences can actually change once they fall for the person.

Jeez Jonny how many times did this happen to you. This is actually happens to probably about 1/20 people I'd imagine. Either way it's rare and you make it sound like it's happened to you more than once. BTW It happened to me to. We can only hope for miracles.

Do you want to have sex with girls? Are you the shy type? I feel for you bro I really do. But make sure you understand that not all A**holes are ones who get girls.

I SORTA agree with just. I mean you probably deserve a lot of this pain. If you did this once there is something SERIOUSLY wrong. You need to know that drunkedness is no excuse. You should know that there are people in this world that wouldn't kiss another girl EVEN IF they're drunk. But to be fair to you, the fact is that PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES. So if you HONESTLY do think it was a mistake--and you may never really know how your subconscious feels or if you're doing this just because you can't have her now--you at least can say your sorry. If you haven't already, just tell her one last time that you are sorry, that people make mistakes, and that you would do anything to prove your love to her. And then LEAVE HER ALONE--forever if that's what it takes. There is nothing more you can do. I'll let you decide if you really deserve all this pain, but you can't change her feelings, she has to decide on her own to take you back. Fifteen months does show a lot of dedication to this woman. Maybe at the same time you do NC you should work on yourself. I can tell you that I would never kiss another girl and I've been pretty smashed sometimes. I mean you do lose your inhibitions when you're drunk but you don''t lose all rationality--few people would kill a man. You end up doing things that social stigma keeps you from doing when your sober. I know you'll say "it's just one little kiss", but you need to kill this behavior before it gets worse, because you're on the road to becoming a man that cheats on his wife. But sorry I couldn't give you better advice.

Ok good. It just sounded like you were being stubborn and weren't going to listen to opposing viewpoints

Hey I'm not saying not to live together. I plan on doing it too (after I propose). I just don't want you to make the mistakes that all the other people make. I mean it's one thing to believe that what you and your bf have is different. That's TOTALLY OK. And I would agree with you because I've read your posts. But please don't throw all these statistics out the window (the amount of evidence was overwhelming) in a stubborn insistence to believe the 1, 5, or 40 couples that you know who didn't marry without living together first, or as some seem to do and trust their intuition. (Actually I found many bleak case histories but didn't post them.) A handful of cases doesn't make a rule. The fact is that if you cohabit first your are 65% more likely to separate link removed So it really seems that your CHANCES are less in your favor if you move in together. That doesn't mean it's going to happen to you. Now that you know you should find out why these other marriages failed and work so that you don't have similar problems. But please don't ignore the evidence.

Be careful, assuming one personal case makes the rule is one of the worst fallacies you can make. But you're right here.

I recommend you read "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." Some of the things you're worried about are in the book.

Wait a sec. Do you KNOW she is getting married or do you think that is a lie too. It's obvious it's not a joke. But before you come down on yourself: Realize that you can be better for him in EVERY WAY but if he still has feelings for her then he is still going to think about her. How long has it been? How long were they together? Sometimes it take YEARS to get over someone. So don't think this has anything to do with you. But it's clear it's not a joke. But he may have said that because he knew you would react like that. But if this girl REALLY is getting married the letter may have been just a goodbye letter. I think we all need more answers before we jump to wrong conclusions or before we can make good judgements.

I'm sorry Mermaid but the opposite is true. Actually I was curious about this too. I did lots of research before, and I can tell you that this is the exact OPPOSITE of what is the case. People who live together are LESS likely to have a successful marriage. Actually, I couldn't find ONE source that said that people who live together have better luck with marriage. Actually the consensus is astounding. It's not just the religious, it's the psychologists and researchers who say this. Check out the statistics on almost ANY link: link removed link removed Several Studies sited here: link removed link removed,,166866_527212,00.html I know it seems counterintuitive, because many people couldn't dream without a "test period" but one of the sources (which I can't find now) pointed to several possibilities why cohabiting couples are less successful in living together and marriage: -this "test period" becomes more and more comfortable -those more apt to live together are those more likely to not commit. -those that do marry or less likely to work on the relationship if it starts to go sour. I wish I could find the link, but I do remember that the best way to make sure you're not a statistic is to get a ring on your finger first (and this article didn't seem optimistic about that either). My research changed my mind so much that I decided I will NOT live with someone before proposing. I know people feel they need the "test period" but don't let that get in the way of committing to the life together.

HA! now I can't tell if you're being honest or following the crowd

Thank you oceaneyes! That advice was invalueable. But the I in depth, penetration, etc... I was referring to regular sex, not fingering. Does it change any of your advice?

hey redneck Why do you use display the confederate flag? I'm not attacking you. I have some friends that do it sorta of an assoiciation of the south. Is that why you do it? Do you think others do it out of racism? Thanks james

Oh i'm going to send it. Just building up the guts to press "send" I guess. Actually this is the last thing I'll ever say to her, so it's neve racking. Espically when you guys make it sound like she'll respond. I doubt she'll respond. I've sent her things like this before when she lived here (she moved away 2 weeks ago) and she was sooo happy that I loved her that much. You should of seen how much she loved these proclimations of love. But that and the 100s of other things was never enough. I couldn't break an attachment she had with her "first love" of with she had 4 years history (compared to my 4.5 months), and the 2 times of him leaving her only powered her desire and dedication for when he came "begging" when he found out we were together. But I guess I should be happy. I leave with knowledge that it wasn't me that was the problem-- in fact I believe I'm the beter man and he will never lover her like I would-- that she just went back because she was still hooked on him. And love is the ultimate deal-breaker. This is why she's been able to give me so much evidence that she still has some sort of feeling for me. I should be happy, it could of ended much worse I guess. But I'll send it don't worry.