catfeeder

You did great! And no need to feel shy with him if your paths cross in the future. He could be tied to someone at the moment, but you never know how that will play out. Meanwhile, see how well you can parlay your newfound courage into exploring other ways to meet men. Screen them through conversation to learn whether they are single, and then suggest grabbing a quick coffee to learn more about one another. As for strangers on the Internet who slam you, I would just take that as misguided folks trying to impose their own limitations on another. No need to internalize any of that. Head HIGH!

Your partner's behavior is likely to escalate rather than get better. He's not rational, and he's a danger to you and your children. You may not see this clearly now, but if you remove yourself from this situation, you will be able to see it more clearly for the threat that it actually is. Please contact an online domestic violence prevention hotline or the human services department of your local hospital for counseling services and other forms of help. You can start here: https://www.thehotline.org

I'm confused. Was her ex found on her page or the page of her new guy?

^ Me too, I agree. Wouldn't it be a comfort to have a counselor, social worker or therapist listen to the pressures you feel and give you some feedback and tools to help you cope? Professionals are trained to do this, and they understand your grieving process in addition to the difficulties involved in long range healing. My heart goes out to you.

Women have flooded colleges in the past decade, and this has resulted in a dating market saturated with an overabundance of successful women. These women tend to seek their equals in terms of education and career aspirations. So they're all in competition for the same men, and these men have discovered that they don't need to try so hard anymore. They can just send rounds of texts like, "You up?"

That's what she did after he told her this stuff on their first date. She backed off, he contacted her to ask why, and she told him what she's looking for in a partner. OP, I would not stay in contact with the guy. Dating is not about becoming someone's social worker.

We are strangers on the Internet. We have no idea whether you're a good person or not. We can only suggest that a healthy person would not stick around to put up with the mistreatment you described, much less be interested in pursuing more contact with such a person for ANY reason. Since you are clearly interested in psychology, why not hire a professional to help you learn more about your motivations and how to work through those?

You miss her tricks enough to trick yourself under the guise of 'helping' her? This is someone who tried to con you out of a credit card. Why go back for more?

That's a lot of work and dedication, you must be so proud! Congrats, Captain!

Only he can answer that. I wouldn't put my life on hold to wait for him. If he's sincere, then he'll have no problem catching up with you no matter how far forward you move ahead with your own social life and dating. My question would be, if he's capable of building his own career, why hasn't he started doing that on his own without being prompted by you?

Online relationships are fantasy feeders that aren't grounded in any kind of reality. Someone who claims romantic feelings toward you without having met you is either touched in the head or a scammer who is grooming you for a setup to take advantage of you. If you aren't willing to pull back from this stranger, consider that your tuition covers mental heath counseling on campus. Since you've already paid for the services, why not use them, and learn ways to redirect your focus onto forming real life friendships and dating with people who are local to you?

I have a few people in my life who love to delve into the details of the way they do things. I want to support their enthusiasm, but I don't commit to doing it their way. I simply say, "Ewww, that's interesting..." or, "Thanks, I'll consider that." Then I go about my business and do whatever I want. Sometimes, the new info is helpful, and I will research it a bit and learn more about it. But the final choice is mine to make, and I don't report back to the person with my deviation unless I've found info that might be helpful to them.

Yay! This is wonderful to hear, Lost. Fingers crossed for you. Ahhh! I think you just solved the mystery for so many women who wonder what's up with all the guys who just say, "Hi." So glad to hear that it worked out for you anyway. When you met, did you tell her about this? It's a great story.

I think that's great and very nice. Of course, almost every word means something different to different people. If my friend asked about my date, and I said, "Ah, he's very monied." She would know what I meant. In my case, it would mean that money is what HE values, and so he'd made quite a show of it. My point has merely been to stress that holding up a 'nice' banner to describe oneself isn't an automatic plus. If I describe my date as 'nice' it says absolutely nothing to my friend beyond the fact that I've used no other adjectives--which says everything.

Yes, this is important to grasp, because you're not marketing yourself to the masses when you're only seeking ONE GOOD match. So you don't need focus groups to tally majority opinions--those don't count whenever they value something you do not value. Otherwise, it's like saying is 'most' men like brunettes but I'm a blonde, so that must mean I won't find a good match unless I dye my hair. The right person for you owns the capacity to view you through the right lens--exactly as you are. Most people will NOT own that vision. That's why you're not trying to match with every.body or even just anybody, you'll need to sort through the haystack to find that one needle. But the needle is the goal, not the pile of hay. The majority of people are those hay strands, and catering to them is not important. If finding love were easy, what would be so special about it? The goal is to strike simpatico with one person who 'gets you.' That goal alone makes all the superficial stuff drop away, so when you meet another hay strand who's hung up on any aspect of that stuff, you'll simply know that you're not a match, and you can let him pass early. Head high.

She's the only one with the answers. The rest of us can spin around and speculate, but you can already do that all by yourself.

Accountable to whom? And how? Unsurprisingly, you remain embedded in your own repetitive defense, and you will continue to get the same results as long as you hold to it. Again, good luck with that.

Yeah, disloyalty is disloyalty, no need to split hairs about it. Just toss her aside as irrelevant. However, joining the closest school with your desired program wouldn’t be a mistake because of the girl, it would be a mistake because she’s not the only one who’s been untrustworthy—your Mom would squelch your natural development for the next 4 years. So go to another school with your program to round yourself out socially. Academic advantages are not the only ones that count. Liberating yourself from an intrusive and controlling mother is more important than anything you can learn from a Bachelors degree.

Okay, good. I think ‘we’ as a collective bunch of strangers on the Internet are well meaning but over-reaching into diagnosing your personality or ascribing characteristics to your mental health based on a few sentences. We ALL struggle at times. You don’t need to defend yourself to us. Observations about which weighs more, a partner or a friend gets so far out into the weeds that it’s not even useful. You feel how you feel. The problem only comes when you translate those into any binary always/never narratives that cast you into a role of being inherently ‘wrong’ for not having found a partner or ‘bad’ for feeling a loss when a friend pulls away. We’ve ALL experienced this kind of divergence in friendships, to at least some degree, as very few friends can live perfectly parallel states throughout their lifetimes. So defending your perceptions to strangers is not useful. Plenty of people have offered our own examples of situations that have made us feel the same way. So you’re in excellent company with good people throughout the world. While this may not alleviate the loneliness of your immediate experience, it does serve to confirm that you are not alone in your feelings during this transition from enjoying the consistent companionship of one best friend to expanding your reach to incorporate more friendships into your life. And you are correct, that takes time. And you’ve been working it well! In the course of this thread, you’ve been getting out, meeting people, and you’ve even enjoyed a good catch up with the friend in question, resulting in a more peaceful and relaxed regard for her! So I’m not clear why some people here are dragging you back into examination of your initial posts in this thread rather than congratulating you for the wonderful work you’ve been doing. I’d suggest not going down that road, but rather, refer folks to the midpoint of this thread for examples of your proactive approach. Meanwhile, share your thoughts and memes with your sister as you look forward to her visit, even while you continue cultivating your new friendships. GREAT JOB!!

Hi SC, are you close (or have the potential to become close) with anyone in your family?

Henry served you well to expose the GF as disloyal and a bad match for you. So put her aside, and consider that there are far more than 2 schools in the world--so start applying to them. Going away to school would remove you from under your mother's thumb, and that's probably the best possible education your could master.

Yes, people can pick up on disapproval pretty easily, and she likely doesn't want to hear what you want to say. So, that lets you off whatever hook you've imagined yourself to be on. Giving someone negative feedback about their life choices is not an obligation, and it's usually not even welcome--so don't do it. It's not as though there's anything you can say that will prompt her to respond, "Eureka! I never thought of that, and I'm so grateful that you think so little of me..." Skip it, handle your own lease obligations with your landlord, and inform any roommates who will be impacted. Beyond that, I'd keep my nose out of this woman's business and part on the best possible terms. No drama!

This is exactly the thing. The 'why' doesn't matter. People get stuck in denial and bargaining by using unanswered 'whys' as their barrier to walking away. Identifying 'why' is not some magic key that would give them an automatic fix to the problem. it's irrelevant. I like to suggest making this less about the partner and more about your Self. Is this how YOU want to live? If so, then here you are. If not, then the only 'why' that matters is why you're sticking around to put up with this when there isn't an answer in the world to justify being treated this way.

Well, maybe he chose you based on visual attraction and the quality of the person? You don't think there was any manual stimulation involved when he watched the porn? If your partner starts to feel like he's offending you whenever he wants to relax around your home instead of being quizzed every time he doesn't pop a boner on cue, you're creating a discomfort and disharmony in your relationship that can work against you. I'd quit doing that. You keep repeating yourself. We get WHY you've asked, but other than trolling to keep this thread going, I don't understand why you're pretending to be too dense to understand the responses.

Yes, and if you move on to start dating others, you won’t waste your time hovering in stagnation. If he ever comes back to ask for a date, you can cross that bridge from a more confident position. There is no need to speculate with others about his intentions when he’s the only one with that answer, and he will show you where he stands, one way or the other, if you’ll just stop contacting him.