catfeeder

That's a vague thing to say. Did she give you any examples of what she meant by this? You gave this as an example, but it's missing a key ingredient. Did she explain what she means by this? I mean, I wouldn't take too kindly to a blanket statement that I'm being controlling or narcissistic with no example of WHICH of my behaviors they're characterizing this way. It's like saying "You're being a jerk, and it's up to you to figure out how..." Not helpful. Also, what's with her holding up boundaries on YOUR behavior? We can only form boundaries for ourselves, not someone else. (Attempting to do so IS controlling and narcissistic 😉 )

I understand. We've discussed your black and white thinking, and you're doing it here, when you raise only two extreme options; either total enmeshment where you feel engulfed and believe that that's a unique 'you' problem, OR a permanent flee. A simple tool called 'diffusion' can expand your focus beyond spinning into an unproductive drill OR running away. It's no insult from those of us who have raised expanding your focus onto other people. First, your posts never discuss your social life outside of the scope of this woman, so we have no way to know that your attachment isn't focused like a laser beam with no diffusion. It has sounded that way, and so our suggestions are perfectly reasonable. Second: diffusion is not avoidance--it's the balanced middle point between enmeshment and fleeing. Perfectly healthy people get exhausted from the intensity of an SO or any other person to whom we've been over-exposed. Hunkering down into suffocation is not exactly the best tool for resolution. Taking a breather to go shoot baskets or take a walk with someone else, or helping someone to clean out their garage, or whatever--these are healthy tools for 'normalizing'. It offers just enough distance to gain clarity, which can avoid a spin that drills you down into panic or keeps you floundering inside a perspective that is too close to your nose to see clearly.

One tip to consider if you want to make some work friends is to let the people around you know that at 3PM you'll be going for a walk around the outside of the building, weather permitting, if they'd like to join you to stretch their legs. You could let the guy know, too, in case he or any members of his team would like to join. I just stayed consisted with my 3PM, even alone. Then one or two started to join. Then a few more. And more. We ended up dividing into two groups, the turtles and the rabbits, depending on the pace people wished to go. Anyone could join at any point along our routes, and we made lots of new friends this way. HR heard about it and got everyone in the company pedometers. Twice annually, they sponsored a step contest for a full month. Top steppers won money or days off or whatever. It all started with a few walks.

Yes! Suffocation is a thing. With everyone who gets too tangled up with someone. That’s less a mental problem than a behavioral one. Your focus needs some liberation. Go make some other friends, and you’ll be surprised how quickly all this navel gazing will change.

That's a vague thing to say. Did she give you any examples of what she meant by this?

It's not a fail, it's part of a process. Just keep envisioning the freedom and confidence you will enjoy soon, and keep taking the next step in that direction. Decide that you are more important to yourself than him. Head high.

You've done the right thing by ending it, so it's not that you're not able. Keep giving yourself credit for that, and stop telling yourself that you can't. Allow yourself some grieving time each day, but schedule commitments with other people that you will not break. This will force you to stop living in your head, and it will help you to feel better and appreciated. Keep taking baby steps in the right direction.

I'm one of these people who screens on this subject prior to going into a new relationship. But only to a degree (I get the gray stuff). For instance, I learn through dating whether a man is still involved with an ex. If he tells me that they're still best friends, I thank him for his honesty, and that's our last date. If, like you, he's kept in touch during Covid or he still has a business relationship, or whatever, it's a case-by-case observation, but I'm not inclined to involve myself there. If he co-parents with an ex, then it's on me to observe over time whether their relationship is something I can live with. I'm inclined to be fine with even the friendliest of contact. It's the adversarial stuff I'd have doubts about, because to me, when couples aren't behaving as a good co-parenting team, it signals that one or both are using their kids as a battleground to continue their toxic attachment to the other. But once I clarify for myself the degree to which a potential lover is involved with an ex, one text would certainly not derail me, especially given that he's straight out told her that he's with me now. That's the thing that I would stress to your GF, but if she's still mistrustful, then you're not going to be able to fix this. There are two kinds of jealousy: the kind that's based on suspicious behaviors--but those are plural and raise concerns because the pattern of a person has become un-trust-worthy. The other kind of jealousy is the toxic stuff that someone brings into a new relationship and projects onto the new person. That's battery acid, and it signals that this person isn't relationship material. There is no proving a negative, and there is no reason to remain with a person who cannot offer you trust as a foundational aspect of a relationship. You'll never have that with someone who projects mistrust from their past onto you. That's stuff they need to be left to work through with a qualified therapist.

Great! So as a go forward, don't jump to self talk like 'mercurial," when just 'busy' is more accurate. She's into you enough to think of you and send you some updates, and this liberates you from any need to take the temperature of the relationship all the time. Relax into some mystery here and there, and enjOy!

This could involve calling a suicide prevention hotline on the Internet. Not to be talked out of it, exactly, because many of the people who volunteer there have been in your shoes and they understand the futility it trying to do that. But rather, learning more about the person or people who do that work, and learning what they can offer you in terms of their own experience. Maybe they found a way to help other people who are going through the same thing, and this allowed them to bridge each day until they found a passion for something that kept them interested in learning how they might impact something important to them. While nobody here can claim that we could unlock that in you, it doesn't mean that we don't care about you.

I think twice every day is too much. It's hovering. I'd dial that down to once a day, then every other day. This allows her to fill in the gaps if she so desires, and if not, I'd drop yet another day. This allows you to learn the pace at which she's comfortable. It also makes room for the fact that the intensity bubble around new dating gets popped as the real world must pour back into our lives. If we don't have enough going on with the rest of our lives, that's kinda creepy. You raised the word 'mutual' and I think it's a good one, along with reciprocity. Making room for these is not a game. Learning a reasonable pace is valuable. If you're too proactive you prevent yourself from learning valuable information about the other, and you don't allow yourself to diffuse your focus to tend to other important aspects of your life.

Haaaah! That's so funny, it's how I view vacation romances. Once that vacay bubble is popped we see people come here all the time complaining that the other person isn't so into them. Wul? They're thousands of miles away from you living their real life.

It means that you told him you didn't expect an answer, and he agreed not to give you one. Don't say one thing if you really mean another. Either follow through on your words and leave him alone about this, or bother him for an answer and make yourself look like a hypocrite.

Sounds like a combo plate: she's trying to weave into the rest of her life while you're being too intense. I'd back off and get some air while respecting that she needs to do the same.

I would mitigate the worry about learning of ex being with someone else by assuming that he's already with someone else. So, where to go from there? I can stop the rumination. It's done--he's with someone else, and I can move beyond moping and get on with my life. Give it a shot.

Nobody 'owes' anyone consistency at a few weeks of dating. You're sounding way too hard core. This might be what she has reservations about.

I would do this, but not without getting legal advice of your own, and also without the 'start getting a divorce' part. In the spirit of team-work to get the child into the right program, you can both learn what life is like without living together. You can date one another. You can explore whether there's anything salvageable in your relationship over time. If so, you can both shop for a nice house in the area and move in together. If not, you can work together to make a planned split.

Good. It's not just about the 'work' of setting up dates, it's about allowing for yourself and the other to catch your breath and reflect between the dates. Too much, too soon is suffocation. There really is no coming back from that. This woman had these events lined up, and she's running from one thing to the next. Let her catch her breath instead of pushing her to stay running on a hamster wheel. Pressure doesn't feel 'good'.

No, you're not wrong. Your mother just knows that it's her best interests to manipulate you into believing that you're wrong. However, she's in charge of running her life, your sister is in charge of running hers, and you're in charge of running your own. You don't deserve to have your household or your finances harmed by those who want to use you as their ATM machine. And I wouldn't count on never hearing from your mother again. She'll be asking you for something else at some point, and you're better off suggesting that she contact her local hospital's human services department for a referral to a case worker who can help her to apply for resources. Head high, and my heart goes out to you.

I can't speak to the SM point, but most people I know don't use apps to schedule full expensive dates, just first mets over coffee to check one another out. If either wants to invite the other for a full date after that, then great, but in most cases it not a match. That's just a statement of natural odds, it's rare to strike simpatico no matter how you opt to meet a new person.

It's only been a few weeks, and you're still strangers at this point. Pipe down. Allow for a natural progression, and appreciate that nobody can fully trust anyone during the storm of a whirlwind. I'd pull back and allow her to settle into some reflection and deliberation of choice. That's how both you and she will be able to trust that your next future date is fully voluntary. Don't pressure her to trust you--that has the opposite effect. Think: whenever someone rushes into anything, it's usually about persuasion, and nobody likes to feel manipulated. Head high, and congrats on meeting someone fabulous. Tread gently.

I know some couples who opted to stay together through the blahs because they were focused on prioritizing their family and cultivating their home and friendships and shared bonds. I know others who divorced yet in hindsight ended up wishing they had stayed with their partner and what they'd built together. I know still others who divorced and went on to build partnerships with other people, or they've remained single out of choice. All of the above are valid options. We are not the morality police here, and we're also not living your life FOR you, so we don't get a vote. I will say, however, that I would opt to fully lean into my choices--none of this half-azzed, "I'll just resign myself to misery..." stuff. I mean, you can do that if you want, it's not against the law, but it's a mental take-down of yourself and everyone around you. I can appreciate that you feel this way in this moment, because this is how people typically feel after a breakup. So grief is natural, but I'd reach for some professional help with it. People have no trouble hiring a plumber or electrician or tax accountant when they need that level of expertise, so why disqualify your whole quality of life when there is expertise to be hired there to help you enhance it?

My heart goes out to you. You've picked up the myth that adolescent development ends at age 18, but your prefrontal cortex is only mid-development, and it doesn't complete until between ages 23 to 26, This is why so many people consider themselves to be entirely different people in their 20's. So you became suicidal as you entered puberty, and you have not yet experienced what life could become for you on the other side of that stage. You might consider exploring how to become a peer counselor to help others who are suicidal to feel understood. You might find comfort in offering comfort to keep yourself alive long enough to learn whether maturity beyond adolescence brings a state you'll thank yourself for experiencing. Regardless of your choice, I would give myself the benefit of researching developmental life stages and teach myself enough to operate on real information rather than on emotions alone. Emotions are fluid, and so are life stages. Holding you in my thoughts.

I'm not clear what you find to be the big surprise, is it that he won't marry you? Given that you're not happy with him, isn't that a blessing? Untangling a house purchase will be no picnic, but it's far less expensive than going through the cost of a wedding, only to hire divorce lawyers who would eat any profits from selling the house. Consider the ages, happiness and stability of your children along with watching the housing market, and create the most peaceful and loving household possible, even while you plan a long range exit strategy to sell the house when appropriate. This could be one year or five or whenever you decide that the best interests of your children would be served. But the most important thing I would consider is why you believed that you were happy enough with this man to make such a long range decision to share a home with him, only to decide that you can't enliven the same degree of happiness today. He was never affectionate even prior to this choice, so how did you cope with that before moving into this house?

Hah! I see. When I raised local dating I wasn't speaking in terms of TV shows. That's not dating, it's auditioning. 🙂 There's something healthy about getting to know a person in the context of one anothers' day-to-day lives. I don't mean living together, but just how a potential partner invests in work, play, family, friendships, and where a committed relationship can fit into that--or not.