bluecastle

I'm sorry you had such a lousy day. Are you still talking to your therapist as you feel your way through all these feelings? From what you've outlined here, it's very hard to understand what you found so compelling about this man, why you'd consider getting back together. I think that's really worth understanding if you want a future that looks different from the past and present. The love we experience and share with others is only ever as deep as that which we extend to ourselves. Looking at other threads, it's also very hard to see this as a relationship that really gelled and got off the ground, one where you two were ever actually together-together. He "chased" for three months, then you "started to open up." But did you two commit to each other? If so, what was the longest stretch you two were committed? I ask because four months ago, in late Nov, you were posting about hooking up with the ex that came before him, and feeling pretty shattered. Two months or so later, in Feb, you meet the guy at the bar shortly after "getting back together" with this ex. New guy is enticing, you realize this ex and you aren't working, and it ends...again. If prior to all this is the chasing period, prior to that another relationship, and in between a lot of breaking up and a hookup with an ex, I'm not quite seeing where this thing had time and space to evolve out of the choppy waters of dating and into the stiller ones of a relationship. I don't outline all that to negate all you're feeling, along with this guy really sucking a few different ways. Nor am I judging, having swum around in every gray zone imaginable myself and been occasionally scalded by some short stabs at romance. I'm just trying to understand what's been going on with you over the past year, and maybe help you understand it all in a way that helps you, as others are saying, to become a more authentic advocate for yourself.

No one here can tell you exactly what or how he thinks of you. From what you've shared, I can just as easily make a persuasive argument that he's feeling the same charge, and enjoying cultivating it, as I can that you are drowning in your own thirst. It's a coin toss. It's also a coin not worth tossing. What's clear is that you really, really, really want confirmation that he has thought of you in "that way" and is down to act on it. What is that all about? Is there a void in you that existed before he came into your life that you're hoping to fill? Before these fantasies took hold, did you fantasize about sabotaging your life you could start fresh from scorched soil? Not a fun line of self-inquiry, I get it. But right now who you are is a woman of 33 spending your precious time and energy in trying to instigate an affair with a married man who you work with. If I met you at 30 would you have described this as a life goal? Assuming the answer is no, in your shoes I'd start trying to figure out what's going on with you rather than trying to excavate what's going on with him.

I'm sorry you're going through a hard time. Not long ago you were posting about another guy, the young artsy barfly. For a sparkling hormonal moment he represented salvation: reason to end a relationship, maybe even the blossoming of a new relationship that would be all the things the previous one wasn't. When that didn't pan out, it seems you turned back to this ex for some comfort—this ex who, when you two first met, was supposed to bring salvation from the previous ex, a man who was still very much coursing through your emotional bloodstream. There's a pattern here, not unlike adding one drug to the system to offset the affects of another and upping the doses as tolerance increases and the highs become shorter, less potent, and the lows more agonizing. I can't help but think this pattern, far more than any of these dudes and where they've come up short, is the deep source of your anger and frustration right now. Not fun to face, all that. But there is tangible power and growth in doing so, the cultivating of something in you that you seem prone to look for in him(s). Until breaking this pattern eclipses the impulse to indulge it, I fear you're going to find yourself right back in this situation. You ex wasn't very kind to you on this recent call, no. And that sucks. But to some degree you were asking him, indirectly, to make you feel better after something didn't pan out with the guy who was supposed to be his replacement. That also sucks. To expect a warm, authentic exchange with all that static is a recipe for disappointment, as is hoping for a warm, authentic relationship when you're emotionally torn between multiple men. I don't say all this to tsk-tsk. I've indulged in similar habits. It took me a good long while to see them as such, and to create new ones that gave me a better shot at what I actually wanted, to say nothing of actually being the kind of person I yearned to be. It's never a straight line, but it's good to at least see the straight line so you know where to return when you stumble.

Just going to come at this from a slightly different angle... Lying to your mom about heading over there, lying to you gf's step-mom in saying you were allowed—very uncool, all of that. Also uncool? Your mother yelling at her step-mother. Is your mother generally hot-tempered? Is part of the reason you didn't tell her where you were because you feared her reaction based on past interactions? Curious to understand that better. All in all, sounds like there's an overdue conversation you need to have with your mother so you don't feel the need to conceal your truth. Hopefully that makes all this terrain that you can navigate without all the fear and hiding. Can only speak for myself, but if I was in your mother's shoes I'd be far less concerned about you lying than that you felt the need, and I'd want to know what I, as a mature adult, could do to prevent that in the future save for blowing my top. As for your girlfriend, don't push anything. Give space, be kind. Time will settle everything down. Trust that.

I don't see anything here to be depressed about, which is not to negate the way you feel. Still, what you are describing is humans being humans. On my way home, every day, I pass through a gauntlet of billboards for movies. The people on these billboards, being movie stars, are very attractive. Being that I am attracted to women, I tend to notice the attractive ones. My girlfriend, I feel safe assuming, notices the attractive men. There is, in those moments, a teeny harmless jolt of pleasure for each of us, no different from your friends watching some rugby dudes square off in a muddy field. Speaking of movies... Say what? Did you work as a key grip on that one 20 some years ago? Did you see "every woman" behaving this way? This is, I believe, what Harvard sociologists call poppycock and what Harvard psychology professors might call catastrophic thinking, confirmation bias, and/or self-sabotage. You are speaking in reckless hyperbole (all women, all erotica...) to recklessly validate some very deep insecurities in yourself. This is troubling stuff. Here you are, with an actual woman who seems to be showing some actual interest, and you're so far down this rabbit hole that something potentially real is already being snuffed out by your deepest fears and steadfast resolve in proving them valid. In your shoes, right now, I would see all that as a sign to get a little help in understanding the roots of all this, so you can yank them out and go about the never-certain but often-incredible business of connecting with people.

So, here's a perspective to entertain: All around the world, every day, going on thousands of years now, some people in relationships have grown bored and found themselves fantasizing about other lives, other people, sometimes erotically. Sometimes it's for a few seconds, sometimes it's sustained. Sometimes it leads to the end of relationships. There is nothing that can be done to prevent this: no perfecting of the physique, no fattening of the bank account. People who embody the most conventionally attractive of stereotypes, while also being wonderful, kind, smart people, are often left and divorced, and often (gasp!) for people who don't embody such stereotypes. Any supermarket celebrity rag can double as a study in this as relevant as any that you're eluding to, to say nothing of just living and breathing in the world and observing human folly with a generous eye. In short, the same fears you have applies to the very people you feel chronically inferior to, as human beings have been proving for millennia. That, at least to me, makes everything you're spinning out about something to learn to shrug off, not search near and far in dubious corners of the internet for reasons to keep spinning. Where you are right now? You are digging deep into a hole where human beings, in all their glorious complexity, are being reduced to cringe-inducing cartoons. And to what end? To prove you are screwed? This attitude you are cultivating is going to hamper your shot at glittering, sustained, and saucy connections far more than whatever numbers you drew from the genetic lottery. "All women want only x," says a man who most women, sooner or later, will drift away from, regardless of muscular topography or surface-level virility. Similarly, a person who says "No one will ever want me because y" will generally find themselves alone and angry, even if they moonlight as a body double for Channing Tatum.

This would be all I needed to hear to know it was time to walk away, not propose.

I think the sense of thinking it is something to fix might, ironically, be part of the problem. What you're describing is a big part of dating: meeting people, maybe only once. This is more common than everything other outcome, people being the wonderfully complex organisms they are. You have to be cool with that. If you go into it thirsty for forever, or looking at it like a puzzle to solve, you're not just likely to turn some people away but you miss out on actually getting to know a human being. So the "fix," I think, is coming at it from a different perspective.

What is it that you "have" to know? Why she gave you her number? Seems she likes attention from men, especially those that can help her. Seems you find this to be pretty compelling. Seems to me you are making a mystery where there isn't one to be made in order to rationalize the sour aftertaste this compulsion is leaving on your palate. No one is saying this, best I can tell. But keep in mind these are relationships that she is encouraging, devoting her time to establishing, just as another human being might politely discourage the gifts. Stir in the comment about "all" her relationships are based in lies and, well, it's not the cutest of looks, cute as she may be.

It seems you could look in the mirror and see that your read on things is maybe fantastical. Do the math. You would like to be "around" this beautiful woman, which, hey, is an understandable impulse. One could deduce from that that you wouldn't mind being, ahem, more than just around, should the opportunity arise through some persistence. These men, their gifts: it may not be conscious, though it may very well be, but I would say it's safe to assume that the gifts are given in hopes of being more than just around. I also think it's safe to assume that she very well understands all this, regardless of whether or not she chooses to pretend otherwise, since she is open about searching for a wealthy man to take care of her.

I don't think what you've laid out here is a philosophy. It's one person's interpretation of her life story. As for the interpretation, my own take on it is pretty similar to DancingFool's. Damsel stuff, in short. Seems her comfort zone is being a victim of other people's whims, which is not uncommon. It has its pluses, in that you don't have to take responsibility for your own choices, and some negatives, in that you stunt your own growth by outsourcing it to others. As for all this stuff involving older men and gifts? Honestly, why is this so compelling to you? Is it that she is attractive and you're interested in her? Do you want to be a respite of a truth that changes her view of people and relationships?

From everything you're writing, this all seems to have little to do with your ex reaching out and a lot to do with the state of your current relationship. Replace "ex from 20 years ago" with "cool guy at bookstore I talked to yesterday" and I suspect you'd be having similar thoughts and feelings right now. Reading between the lines, it seems you kind hope your ex has romantic or shady intentions of some sort. Why, exactly? Perhaps because it opens up a door for you to explore ending your current relationship? Not saying you want to run into his arms and have an affair, but that you seem to be looking for a reason to end your current relationship. That's where I think your energy would be best spent right now, as going into a wormhole trying to decode this ex and his potential "ulterior" motives is just drama. Drama distracts, sure, but it doesn't sweep away whatever needs to be cleaned up. Really sorry to hear about your father, and your boyfriend's mother. That is a lot of heavy weights on the scale during a very heavy time in the world.

Let's put the search for love aside for a moment. What else compels you? What makes you excited to wake up in the morning? What do yearn to do this month, this year, this decade? How'd all that take shape in, and how'd all that change shape over 37 years? Feel free to answer, or not. I ask because questions like that are what many people will be interested in—and, with the right person, drawn to. They are also things that you get to cultivate, every day, just by inhabiting yourself. I can't help but think that maybe you've let some of that slip in the focus of "finding love," when there's a good chance that love will be found when you engage a bit more on all that, rather than the search. In dating, as in life, people generally don't want to feel like they're being sized up to fill a void.

Sorry about this. Short answer: No, you do not just settle. In addition to being a recipe for despair, and likely divorce, it's a pretty cruel thing to do to another human and a pretty lousy model of love for a child. Switch the script and ask yourself how you would feel if you heard your partner say, "I just settled for him." Not warm and fuzzy, I'd imagine. What you're calling your "only shot at true love," in short, is not at all what true love is. I'm curious to understand these past 10 years a bit better. How long was the relationship with the woman who was abusive, and when did it end? Aside from her, were there any other committed relationships? And in terms of dating, how often are you going on dates?

This is normal. Whatever the circumstances of a relationship ending, there's a little tug of war between head, heart, ego, and loins. You just have to ride it out, though the ride is next to impossible if you don't give yourself the space to take it. What strikes me in your last post is that you're assigning more power to him than any human being ever merits, especially one who has repeatedly proven himself such a dunce. Another way to say "he wouldn't take no for an answer," after all, is to say "I said yes." That requires taking some personal responsibility, which can be uncomfortable, but it will help you reclaim the power that you're still giving to him. You can't control his actions, but you can control a choice you've repeatedly made: to continue to keep the door open to him. Imagine I live somewhere that is almost always freezing, and I keep the door open in hopes that a warm breeze might slip into my home. Odds are you would tell me that I won't warm up by continuing to treat the weather outside as a mystery, but only once I close the door, firmly, regardless of any wind that kicks up outside.

Sorry about all this, particularly the infidelity. That's a very hard thing to go through. So, to first indulge your need for analysis: I don't think people actively wake up one morning and come up with plans to "toy" with people's feelings. That said, I think people who are all over the map emotionally, not particularly mature, and composed of questionable character often end up doing just that without intention. The trip, the texts preceding it, the bizarre behavior during it: I'd see it all as that, a reflection of his emotional instability, lack of maturity, and iffy character. What else is a solid reflection on that? His choice to cheat on you. So, in a sense, he just helped you to see him a little more clearly, and helped you understand that your choice to end things was the exact right choice. In the privacy of your mind I'd thank him for that, and then take whatever steps are needed to create a clear boundary where this man is in the past so you can fully live in the present and look forward to the future, one where he is a memory and not a bug who keeps appearing on your windshield. In short, I understand the urge to overthink, with history shared and emotions still raw. I just don't think this really merits it, since it's actually pretty simple. Whatever his good qualities, and whatever good times you two shared, it seems this guy is going to great lengths to show you that he is a dunce who, simply by being himself, will end up hurting you.

Could be that her therapist was actually doing this, what she said, which would make the therapist almost comically lousy. Could also be that she interpreted the therapist's words as such, which is far more common. Some people want only confirmation of their righteousness, not a challenge to their perspective. Look back at the relationship and note how often you said, "Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, you're right, I didn't see it that way..." and compare it to how often you heard her express something like that that. My hunch is that the ratio is far from equal, which is why my hunch is more about how she's using therapy than the quality of her therapist. Great. In my experience, the path out of a breakup generally goes something like: waves of self-blame, waves of them-blame, waves of epiphanies, sometimes all forming and crashing simultaneously, sometimes shifting from one to the other. Eventually it all settles down to a pretty simple notion: two people who worked for a stretch, for a variety of reasons, until they stopped working. It's in resisting that simplicity that people spin out, turn into emotional forensic scientists, because we generally want a grander story to validate the pain in our hearts. On that note, I'll repeat myself: slack, slack, slack—keep extending it to yourself. Sounds to me like you extended loads to her, and are now habitually used to that: giving her lots, yourself little to none, and using brainpower to fill in the places where that leaves you emotionally strung out. Like discovering smoking is bad for you when you get winded in a stairwell, discovering the corrosive effects of that kind of habit can be an empowering godsend, and a path to calm and good health as you keep stepping forward.

Seems that you're on a very good journey right now, if still in the hard stages. The first year out of a relationship as long as yours, regardless of the particulars, is going to be a year of whiplash. Not sure it can be avoided. The digging into yourself sounds great, productive. But equally important, and I say this as someone prone to self-examining myself for every possible existential pipe to unclog? Cut yourself some slack. I don't know the ins and outs of your time together, but from the snapshot provided here? Your ex feels deeply self-involved, driven far more by ego than heart. My hope for you is that you can come to see that, and see it as something to just distance yourself from rather than internalize as personal faults and shortcomings. This past exchange about money, the frankly absurd exchange about the other woman: I get that they sting, but in time, hopefully, they will just tell you that your joy is elsewhere. When you see that, and really feel it in your bones, you'll be able to explore all sorts of new romances without all the guilt.

I'm happy to hear you've found a more stable place to live. Question: Does your girlfriend know that you post on this site? Or have you shared with her things that you've shared here? I ask in reference to your thread before this one, which outlined you having suggestive online conversations when you were unhappy in a brief a relationship, lying in panic about those conversations when confronted, and how something similar happened in a prior relationship. Seems it was around that point that you got involved with your now-girlfriend, so I guess I'm wondering if she's in any way keyed into that chapter of your life, if she could have spent the past year quietly afraid of meeting a similar fate. Seems, from what you've shared, that she has been mighty insecure in this relationship for a long time, with that insecurity bubbling up periodically and mushroom-clouding now. No judgement, mind you. That's the past, you owned it, we're all works in progress. If it's something that's been nagging at her—perhaps the grist of the ominous quip about "I know more than you think"?—she could have chosen a number of different ways to bring that up. Whatever is fueling her distrust right now, her way of expressing it is, to be frank, the stuff of skull-and-crossbones flags. She has shown a propensity to go on the attack when you are most vulnerable and a complete inability to put her own concerns aside at a critical moment. Unlike the fire that got your home, this is the sort of fire that never quite goes out. Hopefully with some peace of mind restored at your parents house, this is something that only comes into clearer focus.

Sorry about all this, especially the fire. I can't begin to imagine the blow that's been for you. I agree with the general sentiment already expressed here already by others, namely that she doesn't seem to want this resolved so much as that she wants some kind of leverage and power over you. She showed you that pretty clearly this morning. Curious to hear you answer some questions: Prior to moving in, did you feel the relationship was strong, solid? Were moments of tension and friction common or rare? Over the past year, has she ever questioned your integrity, expressed fears that you're in some way shady? Would you describe her generally as a trusting person or prone to suspicions? Just trying to get some context here. All in all, I would start looking for an alternative place to stay. Just knowing there is an option might help you process all this a little better, including have some time to really reflect on the whole of this relationship. From what you've described here it is very hard to see you two as compatible. This is likely one of the hardest moments in your life so far, with the house, and this is the kind of support you're getting? How can you trust her in the wake of all this?

I hope your day with your girlfriend can be the start of more such days. It seems to me that getting cozy in your own shoes, and on your own two feet, would really benefit you right now. That will take more than a weekend, a shift away from an insta-mindset where insta-story views and comments are infused with more meaning than they ever deserve. I skimmed through your past threads and saw that, when you were with your ex boyfriend, you were still very hung up on the man who preceded him. Now you are contacting that ex while feeling a bit stung from this dude. This is a habit worth acknowledging, and then deciding if it's a habit you want to take into your 30s, or break now. I say that not from any podium, but just as someone a good bit older than you who really wished I understood this when I was your age. Your posts here brim with a yearning for partnership, which is clearly sincere, but the behavior outlined in them does not strike me as very partnership-oriented. Think about it this way: Would you want to get serious with a man who is prone to contacting his ex-girlfriend whenever he is feeling wounded and lonesome? Would you want to explore a relationship with someone who is ruminating about their ex? To my eyes, these are the habits that are hampering authentic connection far more than sex on an early date. That's more another symptom than a cause. It kind of sounds like your 20s have been spent inside relationships while other relationships remain emotionally unresolved, and that your go-to solution for discomfort is male attention, be it from a new man or past man, or some pinballing between the two. What you've learned over the past week or so—with the sensitive-but-randy barfly, with this recent call to your ex—is that this does not work. It only amplifies the nerves, the swirl of feeling, keeping you in a state where what's required for genuine connection and eventual partnership—patience, groundedness, self-security—is washed out in the waves.

I'm really sorry to hear about all this. I can't imagine all the fraught, contradicting emotions that take root in processing all that: anger, mistrust, longing, regret, grief, and so forth. Have you had a chance to talk all that out with a therapist? I ask because it seems you're in a place where any small amount of discomfort connected to men and romance is triggering this much larger pain to the point where you're confusing the latter for the former. This man's behavior? It's the opposite of ideal, in terms of building a romantic connection or being clear that a romantic connection is no longer in the cards. But it's not cheating, it's not death. Logically you understand that, but emotionally it seems you're having trouble separating this moment in your present from your past. As you put it yourself: you have only seen this human being three times in six weeks, or just a handful of hours in your 41 years of life. No one you see three times in six weeks should be affecting you like this, or leading you to search through marriage records and Facebook pages. All that, I'm sorry to say, is far more concerning than how he has acted. How he has acted is like a man with a lot on his plate—lost job, kid to raise—and simply not being all that compelled by this brief stab at romance or forthright in expressing this. That's not a crime, so all this justice seeking is for nothing. What this is, as the saying goes, is life. Since it's not what you want, in and for your life, it's time to just walk away.

I suspect he quickly realized that accepting the request was a very bad idea, given that his girlfriend would be unlikely to be understanding that he was new insta-buddies with the woman he had been cheating on her with. Nothing to do with hating you, in short. Just him experimenting with having conscience, same as his choice to not respond to your earlier messages. But, big picture, I think you want to work on stepping away from him, far away, as you're still hanging out on the end of a plank dropping into a black hole. This wasn't a man you were friends with and hooking up with, but someone who was cheating on two people—his girlfriend and you—by lying and lying and lying for the better part of two years. His good qualities, and the good times you shared, do not negate that. It sucks to get tangled up in something so ugly, I know, and there's often an instinct to find some way to be "cool" to make the ugliness of it all less potent. But it doesn't work that way, sadly. Many people, myself among them, have gotten into some swampy territory romantically. The way you remove the muck of it all is to steer clear of the swamp once you've realized it's just that.

Just to stress: So long as your approach (to him, to men in general) is to dictate how they should act, what they should do, and so forth, you are going to be very disappointed, especially when it comes to men who have in no way, shape, or form committed to you. I can only speak for myself, but I've generally found that people behave much the same way in ending things as they do in things, even things this brief. So it's not a shock that he has been vague, opting for the nebulous fade out rather than a straightforward "I'm not feeling this" memo. Frustrating, for sure. But it's a mirror to the same things that have long been frustrating you, no? You don't cut your losses when someone gives you permission, or is "man enough" to express himself in a certain way. You cut your losses when you stop having gains. And the best part? You get to decide that moment. I think a lot of your anger right now is connected to you outsourcing that agency to him. Grab it back and you're likely to find yourself feeling a whole lot better.

Just going to echo this, as I think you could stand to read it a few times over, and add that it's worth reflecting a bit on why this... ...is so intriguing to you, so attractive. All in all, this is a man you hardly know, have spent very little time with, and has shown little sustained interest in you. And in the brief time you've spent? He gives you a shady vibe to the point that you are researching his entire past with the tenacity of rogue FBI agent. Someone who triggers such nerves so early is someone to step away from, not dive into. My girlfriend, for whatever it's worth, had the last name of her ex-husband when we met. My mother has the last name of my father, and they divorced in 1984. Many people don't change names, especially when children are involved. But this is neither here nor there. To be going this deep into a stranger's life, because said stranger is failing to meet your fantasies, is a habit to break. In your shoes right now, I'd think of him as someone who entered your life to teach these lessons. Thank him in your head and fade out, as he's been fading from the very beginning. Next time you meet someone treat them as just that—a new person you've met, not a partner of many years. If that's a difficult prospect to consider, you might want to reflect a bit on why. Did you recently break up with someone, or is there some deep romantic issue from your past that feels unresolved?