bluecastle

So sorry about this. I'll meet your story with one of my own, in hopes it offers some perspective. A good while back in my life a woman I was with, and loved very much, broke up with me. Reason? At 27, she said, she had spent most of her adult life in a relationship and, despite loving me very much, needed to know what it was like to be on her own. So, not the same, but similar. Crushing stuff. And in the wake of it I was in a version of where you're at right now: turning over every rock, blaming myself for various things, hellbent on finding a way back together. I kept that door open for a good while, with occasional contact with her, occasional blurring of the lines—none of which, in retrospect, was very wise or helpful. But also, and very much key: I really went on and kept living my life. Along the way something happened: I stopped thinking about her in the same way, feeling all that. I lived, I loved, and came to really like the person I was becoming and didn't really need her, or anyone, to validate that person. And what I realized—and the reason I'm sharing this—is that this "ending" was just as perfect as the back-together ending I was so, so obsessed with orchestrating when I was in acute pain. I don't think what she told me—that she loved me still, but needed x or y—was a lie or her trying to be nice, and I'm sure your ex means it when she says it to you. But where she is right now? It's not wanting to be with you, and that is the important thing to listen to, mourn, and accept. All the thinking and scheming about how to get her back? I know there is real heart and hope behind it, but, speaking for myself looking back, I can see a lot of it was driven by a refusal to accept something very simple and very painful: I was no longer wanted by the person I still wanted. Without mourning and accepting that—and without giving yourself the space to do so—you're going to remain stuck and frozen in this place, and in this version of yourself. What version is next? Who will you share that version with? Whether it's her, or someone else, you've got to shed this husk and slip into it to find out.

Yes, I would end things. Regardless of the specifics of their relationship, the way you have felt for 8 months—edgy, distrustful, and so on—is the opposite of how anyone should feel in a relationship, particularly in the early, foundation-forging days. In the future, however, I would suggest approaching this sort of issue differently. Rather than repeatedly come at someone with accusation (“You have a crush on her”) I would instead be open about your own feelings (“I’m uneasy, worried we don’t have the same boundaries and expectations, and would like to discuss this.”). That way you give someone a better chance to listen to you, and to see if you two can grow together, adjust some preexisting habits, and make some changes that work for everyone to create a strong foundation.

It's really this simple. Why force something that doesn't fit? If she euthanizes the dogs for you, or keeps them at her sister's, you are going to go from being someone she loves to someone she resents. Ditto for you if she moves in with you with dogs. Meanwhile, you know that living separately is a blast. I'd suggest, moving forward with the discussion, that you try to resist making your point with dollar signs. I get it, I get it. But it's a bit crass, especially if (as I'm presuming) there is a major gap between you two financially: you in the six figure renovation on the five figure mattress, her sharing an apartment with her sister. If that sort of gap exists you run the risk of minimizing her life with your argument. Not the intention, I know, but something to pay attention to.

Great songs, great voices, great performers: sex, in its rawest and most romantic forms, has historically been a potent ingredient, just as history is filled with people from all walks of life who have done extraordinary things (inventing vaccines, launching tech platforms, writing novels, raising awesome kids) while indulging in and celebrating their beautiful libidinous selves. We can’t choose our parents. We can, however, choose to reject whatever about them comes to seem completely bogus as we exit the realm of childhood and claim ourselves as autonomous adults. Never easy, that, but I think you’ll thank yourself for the work.

Just want to say that my takeaway from everything you're writing is that you are going to be just fine. More than that: you're going to thrive as you step into this new chapter. I believe you're 26, from your other thread? That you're thinking this clearly and methodically about everything, in and of itself, puts you in a whole different class from much of the population. Take half a second and smile about that. Hand clap emoji and so forth. There's great advice here, about the specifics of the numbers, all of which add up. You're likely to find moments when they get a little tight—when the fun budget dries up with two weeks left in the month and you realize you want more fun, say, or when something conks out on the car and needs addressing and you realize you need to factor that in differently moving forward. So it goes—and goes and goes. That's life. You'll adjust, learn from that, which I think is what this moment is ultimately all about and not something you can budget for so much as live, learn, grow, and keep living. With what you saved up and the $250 you're already saving monthly you'll be prepared, are giving yourself some insurance for those moments of growth.

I just want to say that I'm very sorry your mother treats you like this, in this regard. I understand you two are close—and see that your ideal partner is someone who will become braided up with your family, go on occasional trips, all of which is lovely—but I would really, really try to find a way to distance yourself from this corrosive nonsense. Life should never revolve around doing things to make others like you, be they friends or guys. That in and of itself is a pretty unattractive quality. Sure, the super duper hotties who are driven by that kind of insecurity will get attention, but even then it tends to be waning, temporary. Makes sense: people ultimately want to connect to other people, and the focus on what to do to be attractive invariably replaces your actual, full self with a series of tropes. All in all, meeting the right person, connecting, involves luck. Luck and a spirit of openness—not just openness to "love," but to all the wonders (and horrors!) of humans and the wild, clumsy, thrilling, terrifying, disappointing, and affirming (among other things) experiment of connecting with humans. This level openness comes more naturally to some than to others, but it is, in and of itself, a kind of commitment, a practice. It is also, I think, something people gravitate toward. Another way to think about this is: here you've been thinking lots about this, doing lots about this, getting the house just so, working on the fitness level, and, at least in part, gauging the success of all that on the question of whether it is attracting guys. And here you are frustrated at where that it is not "working." So I say try a new approach, where you throw that whole conceit out the window for a stretch, be you, cultivate a spirit of openness, and see how that lands.

I want to start by saying congratulations and bravo. To my eyes the takeaway of this thread is that you are an awesome woman and terrific mother who got involved with a man who was incapable of appreciating both those things. Always hurts when something doesn't work out, but in this case it's very clear that this man—rude and boorish and incapable of appreciating the way other people live if it interrupts what he wants—was only going to bring a lot more hurt. Curious: Have you talked with your daughter, just the two of you, about you dating, wanting to date? With him out of the picture, it might be a good time.

Care to elaborate? All in all, if she is not willing or able to hold herself accountable for this outburst—to own that it has nothing to do with you, that it is baggage she needs to sort out and is committed to sorting out—I would say that you have learned that she is not the ideal fit you hoped. That said, someone who comes out of the gates with "trust issues" is often someone cracking a window to a roomful of shattered glass. Replace that with "booze issues" or "fidelity issues" or "cleanliness issues" and it's really know different. We share with others, especially early, that which we want validated and to grow into alongside them—sometimes consciously, sometimes not. For whatever it's worth? When I was your age, I got tangled up in something with some similar shades as what you're dealing with. It really threw me, and no doubt part of that was because I was so sincerely ready for partnership and it felt so, so good to be connecting with someone with whom I seemed to share so much potential with. But what ultimately showed me that I truly wanted partnership? It was stepping away from that bonfire once I saw enough and realized it had nothing to do with me and would just burn me up. The exit was not perfectly linear, humans being humans and all, but it was pretty swift. There was simply no way I could continue to engage with that and continue to profess that I sincerely wanted a healthy partnership with someone, which I found shortly after. This is more than a bit odd. This is her sharing with you what she has chosen to make central to her identity, which is being screwed by men and asking men to soothe her.

As someone just a few years older than you, I totally get the emotional whirl that kicks in as the threshold of 40 looms. When you say "some issues that have appeared" are you referring to this exchange, or other instances where a little alarm bell went off? Just curious, as often these moments bring about a sense of clarity, kind of like how you notice a water spot on the ceiling of a new apartment, shrug it off, then find the ceiling collapses six months later. I do really hope you continue on with your trip.

Sorry about all this. I realize you're in the throes of hard emotions, and reacting to them by rushing back in repair mode, but I really encourage you to take moment to yourself to reflect on all this. From the outside, at least, it seems that she is showing you a lot of reasons to be really, really concerned about whether she is someone to continue with. She is freaking out about...what, exactly? Phantoms, unchecked insecurities, deep fears that have nothing to do with you, and yet she is forking them over you left and right in the form of false accusations and character assassinations and inciting a mushroom cloud of drama where there is none. Are you not on some level furious with her right now? Because all this quickly becomes a trap. You do nothing and you are emotionally insensitive and she is "abandoned." You go into fix-it, apology mode and you are validating things that don't exist, which she'll take as you "admitting" that you've been up to no good, that you're not to be trusted, which will just further activate her paranoia. You are right now in a position where any engagement will reload the very trigger you're hoping to disarm. Were I talking to her I would say: it is imperative to get your insecurities in check if you want to explore a sincere connection with another human being. Bummer your husband cheated on you, but that was one man and you can't put that stuff on the shoulders of all men. It is mean and cruel and will turn any relationship into a ticking bomb. But here I am talking to you and so will say: don't forget yourself, who you are, and what you know to be true. If she can't see those truths—and, from what you've shared, that seems to be the case—she is not the person for you. You want to be in a relationship with someone who can meet you on that plane, not one where you are lost in the mess of another person's baggage.

Have you ever said this to a woman? Like, you're in some kind of romance, long, short, doesn't matter, and in parsing through it all you come back to a refrain: "I'm just very confused right now..." Those words have come out of my mouth, just as I've heard them come out of others. In my experience the translation is something like: "I really, really want to be feeling something that I'm not and don't know how to say that." It's often a passive way of pushing the other person to make the hard, firm move when it's outside of your capacity or maturity. After all, everyone is confused, all the time. That's life. I'm confused right now, over stuff, as is my girlfriend. Sometimes we confuse each other, come away dizzy, and have to reconnect. But what's never a source of confusion? That I want to keep doing this thing with her, as she wants to keep doing this thing with me. That part is always clear, simple. If it wasn't? We wouldn't be. Whatever she is telling the other guy doesn't really matter. Many people are drawn to "I'm confused" because it keeps "serious" or "real" at bay, is catnip to the emotionally unavailable. It can be kind of saucy and dramatic and intriguing. It can turn the ego into a crowbar: Can I be the thing that unlocks the box, turns confusion into clarity? Whether or not that's going on in her world with him—well, I think what matters is that it might be going on with you. I get the impression that you've got a lot going for you in life: good job, a young daughter. Is a LDR the thing that best complements all that? Have you even had a chance to really think about all that in the midst of reacting to the gusts of her various winds?

From the outside this looks a lot like trying to split some very, very small hairs. From everything you're writing it's hard to imagine a world in which you would be sincerely comfortable with her dating anyone, in any form, regardless the human need for a "hug sometimes." I read that and I see someone chewing on some crumbs and trying to convince himself they're sating a deep hunger. My impression is that you want to be in a committed, monogamous relationship but know that that desire is at odds with where each of you are in life right now, geographically and emotionally. She just saw you, after all, and in that wasn't unable to say: hey, yeah, let's give it a go! To think that more time apart from you is going to whip around to that in a few days looks a lot like magical thinking. And I don't think the reason is the other guy, and that placing focus on him is really just a distortion field. I think she's looking into the horizon and seeing a lot of itches she needs to scratch, and space to figure out who and where she'll be during and after these years in the US. That's scary, and it's understandable (if aggravating and selfish and revealing) that she'd like to hold onto you as she keeps stepping out into those waters—a toehold in the "known" as she ventures into the "unknown." There's no malice there, I don't think, but that doesn't mean you're not absorbing real pain. It really sucks. I'd imagine you, like millions of others in their own stories, often think: if only there was no pandemic, then we'd have seen each other enough to keep and strengthen the bond. And, who knows, maybe that would have been the case, and it's very hard to mourn that. But the pandemic happened, and changed things. She's not the person she was when she left, and there is really nothing you can do to change that. Were I to give advice as the best shot of this working out with you two, it would be to put a firm stop on everything right now. The texting, the communicating about every nuance of her housemates' pets and her American dude—that is like stuffing the pipe you want clean with more and more silt. Let her live her life, live yours, and trust that time will deliver the answers with far more clarity than how you're trying to excavate them now.

I hope you give JoyfulCompany's entire post a few slow reads. Reading it prompted me to peek at your posting history, which documents more or less what's documented here for years and years and years. That's not how it has to be, and I hope you can come to see that. What you wrote about your parents is, to me, informative. They were strict with you when it came to dating, don't approve of this boyfriend, which is probably part of your bond with him. In rejecting your parents you get—or once got—the sense of independence that everyone is hardwired to seek, and after so much time all sorts of emotional meaning has likely been placed on him, on you two. But there comes a time when all that becomes a story, kind of like someone refusing to sell the first car they purchased even though it breaks down far more than it reaches the intended destination. Another thing to think about: Most relationships will always fall back on the foundation that was built in the early days, which is to say that you two, despite now being 26, relate to each other much more like teenagers than adults: fire emojis, heart emojis, social media, silent treatment, impulsive yelling, and so on. That's where you were at 21, a few sneezes out of adolescence, and that's where you are today, where 30 will find you in what will feel like a few more sneezes. So ask yourself: Do you want to continue to grow into all that, or do you want to grow out of it? The tenor of your writing tells me that you have grown and matured a lot over the years, which is a beautiful thing, but I can't help but think that growth is stunted if in your relationship you have to revert back to the sandbox to "connect." A few hours or days from now your two will be texting, but I hope you give yourself some time to ask some bigger questions.

With this being the case, I would do what Cherylyn or Seraphim suggested, depending on your own feelings about it all. If he continues to reach out, then you can resume what you're doing now—not responding until he stops trying, but it will be with a firmer boundary set in place. Sorry for the all the complications. I have a half-sibling myself who I don't really know, though some day I do hope we're both in the right life place to say what's up.

What is your relationship like with your family? Is it calm, warm, loving? Or is it contentious, dramatic, conflict-driven? Do you feel love comes from your parents without condition, or that it is something you have to work for, suffer for? Asking to try to understand how his behavior—cheating, silent treatment, rendering you invisible—is equated with family.

Take a moment to think about what motivated you to text him. Was it love? Or was it fear, anxiety, and need to feel better than you felt before? If it's the latter, in any shade, note how you feel right now: not good, even worse. Putting aside all the specifics here, which is admittedly next to impossible, that right there should tell you something important: this is a person who causes you pain. If I cut my hand while chopping vegetables I don't treat the would by pressing the knife further into the cut; I get a bandaid. The same rules apply to feelings. Per the context of the fight? You know as well as I know that a fire emoji is, in essence, the sexified version of "my love ❤." So you can say your motivation for commenting was because he looked good and you felt like it, but I think that's you being dishonest with yourself. Seems to me the motivation for the comment was similar to the motivation in the text you just sent him—to quell anxiety, test waters, and stay tethered to this addiction, with very similar results. I totally feel for you. Along the way I've been twisted upside down and inside out, and know I've done plenty of twisting myself. But there comes a point where you have to see that a knot does not get any looser by pulling the strings tighter. Maybe this is that point for you, or the beginning of it.

I'm really feeling for you, having been in shoes where I so, so want something, and someone, that I'm resistant to seeing—and maybe to feeling—what's happening. Look at this from a birds-eye view for a moment, and what do you see? A woman dating a guy in the US while telling her ex in Europe that she feels "guilty" doing so, as if asking you to soothe her feelings. She uses words like "future" with you, without acknowledging that the future is not some mysterious entity: it is simply the choices you make in the present, plus time. Her choices right now are already adding up to the opposite of you. Stir in time and all that gets compounded. Put another way: she is being awfully shady with not one, but two human beings. It's a pretty lousy look on anyone. Does that make her a terrible person? No. I can relate to where she's at as well, in ways, having made some regrettable choices at certain turbulent junctures. But does it make her a terrible person to invest your emotional chips in? I would say yes, unequivocally, as I would say about myself when I've acted in ways she's acted now. The big irony is: If she is anywhere as great in your core as you believe her to be, when she steps out of this saucy, quasi-juvenile phase she's in the odds are very, very low that she's going to want to invest in someone (you, American dude) who took her seriously when she was behaving as she's now behaving. No one wants their worst, more immature selves reflected back at them. Meanwhile, this little conceit you've created—where everything hinges on whether or not she brings this guy home for Christmas—is, I think, a way of rationalizing hanging on a little longer and keeping at bay the full force of the hurt that's already stirring. Christmas is almost half a year away. As is, she can now spend that nearly half a year dating him, seeing what's what, feeding you crumbs of comfort, and if ultimately she decides to bring him home? She can tell you that 48 hours before. And if she doesn't? She can come home for a spell and have a repeat of what you've just been through. I am all for making risky, sometimes irrational choices when it comes to matters of the heart, seeing if a hope can be realized under seemingly hopeless circumstances. Where I've learned to draw the line is: I will make those choices inside a relationship with someone who continues to choose to be in a relationship with me, no matter how topsy-turvy the whole thing has gotten. Break that pact and I don't see the point.

I'm so, so very sorry for this. I agree with this, at least as the goal to conflict resolution between humans. But it's hard for me to see the cruel, dismissive, and judgmental way OP phrased things two years after the fact ("most likely having sex with some guy") and not imagine what it must have been like for this daughters as they explored something deeply human and, ultimately, essential to humanity. But this wasn't the rule, as OP stated it. The rule was that his daughters remain virginal and sexually inactive so long as they lived in the house. So I can't really imagine a scenario in which a 20-year-old woman who spent her girlhood being told that no sex is allowed, and who dealt with every moment of sexual curiosity with feeling torn from her parent, could in good faith believe that calmly apologizing for breaking a house rule—"Sorry, dad, I lied to you tonight in order to have sex"—would result in deescalation but rather the opposite. This is from OP: While he admits anger "may" have blurred judgement, he kicked his daughter clear out of the house, closed the door on her while she was crowing, and "truly expected" her to come home the next day. To which I ask: Home to what?

That is a very tall order when the gun of homelessness is being pointed at you by your parent, especially once you know that your parent is trigger happy. Given that that gun, in some form, existed all through their childhood, one would expect some repercussions in adulthood, like a struggle to confront the moment in the manner you laid out. You are, in essence, asking why two 20-year-olds could not be more grounded and mature than the person who raised them.

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding where things currently stand. Am I correct in that both of your daughters are now out of the house, with one kicked out a two years ago and the other a year ago? What is your relationship like with them today, and why do you think you're reflecting on all this now? At the heart of this seems to be a house rule: that they can live with you so long as they remain sexually inactive. If I had to guess, your daughters found themselves in a bind as they grew up, and into themselves, and realized they wanted to participate in romance and sex. They've probably known from a very young age that you didn't approve of this, and that you would come down on them very hard if they broke the rule, and so they kept this part of their life a secret, lived with a lot of fear, and told lies to keep the peace. Your anger and disappointment at their lying is understandable. But I have to say that your reaction to it tells me that both your daughters were choosing to lie for a reason: they wanted to find some way to explore their truths and live their lives without becoming homeless. Lying was their way of finding some safety in an environment where they didn't feel safe to be themselves. At 18, for example, Sarah watched you kick her sister out of the house. Perhaps in your ideal world that would have guaranteed she remain sexually inactive and completely honest, but people rarely respond to attempts at control that neatly. She followed in her sister's footsteps for as long as she could. I don't think there was anything "disrespectful" in Sarah's choice to leave. You gave her two stark options, and she was not comfortable talking to you. And, really, why would she be? What precedent did she have to trust that you would be understanding rather than punitive? These are questions I'd try to explore with some humility today. The hard path she'd been lying to avoid—carving out a life where she could set her own rules and live without fear of punishment—became in that moment the easier path. Deep in your heart, do you feel you made the right choice in kicking them both out? Do you feel you were maybe harsh, cruel, and/or that your rules were maybe unrealistic? If so, I think you could share that with them, along with an apology and letting them know (if this is true) that you miss them, accept them in whatever choices they're now making as adults, and would love to find a way back into their lives. How they react to that—and this, I suspect, is going to be the hardest part for you—is their choice, not yours.

In the annals of mistakes, this is pretty small, to the point where I don't even think the word "mistake" applies. Please, please step back from beating yourself up over it, as that's just taking on someone else's baggage (this recent ex) and making it your own. That he jumped to catastrophizing this and assuming the worst about you is very telling, and very concerning. That is his lens, who he is, and really has nothing to do with you or the (understandably human) choice you made. I know this moment hurts, but I really think you dodged a bullet and hope you can come to see that.

What comes across in your posts, to my eyes, is two people on drastically different planes trying somewhat desperately to convince the other, and themselves, that this is not the case. For instance, this... ...feels like you trying very hard to see that she is making all sorts of sacrifices, while to me it looks like the nebulous words people say when they are all over the place (and kind no place) emotionally. My sense is that she sincerely hopes something in her will get reprogrammed by life and she'll truly want to be with you. Since you are great, since you guys have so much history, and so on. But there is a difference—a very big difference—between wanting something and wanting to want it. What she wants, sincerely, is evident in her present choices: the US, romance that isn't so loaded, all of which seems drastically at odds with your own wants. That you're still considering this while she is dating another person—well, I'd look into that. When the ego gets a shot like that it can be easy to confuse it with the heart. The person she is today is not the person she (or you, or me, or anyone) is going to be in two years. So, yeah, I get that there's something appealing and romantic about the idea that, some 700 days from now, what you want today will be real. But I don't think time and people actually work that way, sadly, and if you loosen the blinders of hope a bit I think you'll see that she's already given you the information you need.

Sorry about all this. I can't help but think that your focus on his ADHD is maybe getting in the way of things, rather than offering clarity. Remove that diagnosis, which I'm in no way trying to minimize, and you have a very common personality type: someone who is not very tidy. Given that you have tried to talk about this and address it countless times over the years, and given that he seems to be doing everything possible to manage his condition, I really wouldn't expect a drastic change, at least when it comes to this. Which leads to the hard question of: How to manage? In what ways does he contribute to the basics of running a house in ways you find satisfactory? Does he cook, handle bills, do the grocery shopping? All in all, I guess I'm trying to see if there's a way where you can feel that things are fair and equitable, in the big picture, without trying find equity in this realm. There may be some small victories and adjustments here and there, but time has shown you just that: they will be small.

Aside from this friend, have you spent time with others? How about him, with your friends—do you all hang out? I ask because I think we only really learn how great we are with another person by learning how our full worlds blend. That doesn't mean you're always doing everything together or adoring everything and everyone they adore—heck, it could mean that some people you opt not to spend time with—but just that there's not a whole lot of mystery and edginess or that familiar sense of being good only in a "bubble." I can only speak for myself, but looking back at 26? There are many, many people from that time in my life who I remain close with, at 42. But there are others that now feel more like an extension of adolescence—people who kind of faded out, or I faded out on, as life's more pressing priorities (often relationships) took root. I can't say, of course, where she fits into this life story, but in your shoes I'd try to be more open to learning than assessing from afar. I'd rephrase the above: Deep in your heart, you would like to feel less anxious in this relationship and more confident that you're with the right person. Spending time with the people he spends time with is crucial for that, so...

Sorry about the whirl of complicated feelings. First things first, just want to say that the way you're processing all this—the care, consideration, and thoughtfulness—is really admirable and something to be proud of. It's a very important skill, to be able to both fully feel and fully observe emotions like this, and not one a lot of people cultivate. In terms of the specifics? I'm of mixed minds. That your boyfriend is asking you to hang out with this friend is, I think, a very positive sign. It likely means he wants you to understand their friendship, to not be threatened by it—and, I'd go so far as to say, it opens the door for this to be something you talk about together. Generally speaking, I can't help but think you are giving her a lot more power than she deserves, perhaps because you don't want to ask the hard, blunt question of: Why is your boyfriend devoting so much time to someone who smokes a ton of pot and likes a dash of drama? I don't mean that to imply that there's anything romantic or untoward going on; in ways, I'd imagine you'd maybe have some similar discomfort if she was a man whose lifestyle and values clashed with yours. Some questions: How much time have you spend with her, with his group of friends as a whole? Do you feel integrated, and vise versa, with yours? I'm also curious to know how old you guys are, as that sometimes helps with context. All in all, I'd try to spend more time with her, with the two of them, observing. That way when and if this needs to be talked about—and, by the way, talking about things like this is not the same as putting someone on a "leash"—it's coming from a place of good faith rather than just thorny emotions.