Ezzie

What does it mean when a guy texts “you’re pretty cute 😉”? To me, I read it as he just thinks I’m okay attractive, not the cutest… but only like half cute.

I will be very careful!

Sorry are you asking me or Batya33? I didn't say that quote. For me, it's still too early to tell if this will go anywhere. I haven't even met him before and I don't know much about him, so I'm not going to let myself get my hopes up anymore. I feel like I have a lot to offer in a relationship and if he comes back here after his trip and wants to meet me, then I will go and see how it goes. But I'm not going to chase him right now or bother him on his trip. We are just strangers on different sides of the world right now and that's it! I'm done with fantasizing. As fun as it is to do, it's a waste of time for me to invest my time and energy into something that isn't even "real" at this point.

Also I just wanted to say that since the breakup happened, I really began to prioritize my friendships and I joined a new church which I have been becoming more involved in. And I'm just so grateful for these pillars in my life right now. I'm also thankful for strangers on eNotalone who give me sound advice and just want the best for me. Thank you all 🙂

Thank you everyone for your responses. I do take the time to reflect and think about the things you all are saying. I do understand and agree with you all that I need to take more time to heal and just be very careful during this vulnerable time. It's not the advice I want to hear, but I know it's coming from a place of good intentions 🙂 I do still feel like if I end up meeting someone who I can potentially see myself with, then I would be open to getting to know them more and seeing where it goes. I will be very careful and cautious. I don't feel like I'm desperate to be in a new relationship but I just want to keep my heart open to love. If it happens, it happens and if not, it's okay. Regardless, I will continue to work on myself and love myself.

Thank you.... yes I agree with everything you both are saying!! Believe me, I know I'm way in over my head. I do have stuff going on in my life like tonight, I'm going to a friend's potluck, I have counselling tomorrow and church events on Sunday so I'm just going to try to enjoy myself these next few days and get my mind off of this situation. I know he's a med student because I found on the university's med school website, (i went to the same university as him) you can look up funded research projects that students have worked on, and I found his which was about breast cancer. It shows his photo and says he's a future physician. On another website, I also saw that he was listed as a visiting student staff at a hospital in Taiwan and contributed to some research papers. I wonder if that's what he's doing now in Vietnam. ANYWAYS none of this matters. He is just a stranger and this all goes to prove how out of touch I am 😞

He's just taking a vacation and also he said he's there for school too. I'm not sure what he meant by that. I didn't want to pry so I didn't ask... I just know that he'll be graduating from med school in May and starting his 2-year family medicine residency in July. I would clarify with him if he just replied me sigh...

I know... everything you said makes complete 100% sense. I can't seem to get him out of my head. Yes I do feel like I'm already in some kind of relationship with him.. I know, it's CRAZY!!! I know I'm being irrational. I know this looks crazy. If any of my friends was acting this way, I would smack them upside the head and tell them to get a grip of themselves 😞 I'm honestly not interested in any of the men who have sent me "Likes" on Hinge. I'm not attracted to them or I'll read something on their profile that makes me feel like their lifestyle isn't compatible with mine. For example, some men said that they want a partner who is athletic and does sports but I'm not like that at all. I like to read and journal and knit at home. My idea of a workout is a nice walk in the neighborhood with my dog. I've only sent out 2 "Likes" so far to men on Hinge. One was another guy who I have messaged back and forth with, only to discover he spends half the year living in Canada, and other half living in Asia. I'm not interested in that kind of lifestyle. I want to be with someone who just lives here. And then the other "Like" I sent was to this guy I'm currently talking about right now. He loves reading, we're from the same culture, and his messages to me were so witty it just made me laugh and captured my attention. I would love to just meet him and see if we have actual chemistry. It just sucks that we messaged for 3 days (I actually thought we had been messaging for at least a week... at least that's what it felt like) and then he had to leave for his trip 😞

Thank you MissCanuck for talking sense into me. Sometimes I just need a little kick in the butt to get me back to reality.

I know that I should take time to heal and be alone but it made me feel so excited to be talking to someone I was interested in and who was interested in me. He hasn’t replied me in 2 days. Do you think he is ghosting me? :(

Hi everyone, thank you for your responses. I read them all and I understand what everyone is telling me. I know that I am getting way in over my head and that I'm setting myself up to be greatly disappointed so I am going to try my best to just focus on my own life and not think about him too much. I am still going to counselling sessions every week to work on abandonment issues from my childhood and I've also been reading a lot of self-help books lately so that I can become a better person and partner to whoever dates me. I feel like because I am headed towards divorce, my heart is guarded. I'm really scared of getting my heart broken again in the future so that's why all this fantasizing is so bad for me, and I know that 😞

Hi all, My ex husband and I decided to separate back in mid-December. I wrote about the situation on eNotalone if you're curious about what happened... but anyways, after crying for 2 months straight and going to counselling, I am happy to say that I am in a better state of mind now and ready to move on. I recently set up an online dating profile on Hinge. It's supposed to be a dating app to find more serious relationships. There's a man whose profile stood out to me so I sent him a message and then we started messaging everyday... although not too frequently because he's in med school so he's pretty busy. I find him really handsome and I also like that he's studying to become a family physician. I think it shows he is really caring about helping others, intelligent and hardworking which is all really sexy to me. Anyways, he just recently left for a trip to Vietnam (I'm in Canada) for 6 weeks (he's close to graduating from med school so maybe it's a celebration trip?). I know he's telling the truth because on Hinge, you can see the physical location of where a person is and now it shows he really is in Vietnam. He says he wants to meet me when he's back which I've happily agreed to. I'm having this problem where I'm starting to think about him A LOT throughout my day. I don't think it's healthy... And sometimes they're not PG-13 thoughts either LOL. I even found his Facebook and LinkedIn profile and now I like him even more. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just find him soooo attractive. Like he's handsome, funny, has good career prospects, and he's really empathetic when I talk to him which is not a quality I've always encountered with other men I've chatted to on Hinge. He's really good at identifying my feelings and it makes me feel understood. So how can I bring myself back down to reality? I haven't even met this guy... and who knows if we really will end up meeting? I think I would be pretty sad if we didn't though. Why am I getting my hopes up about this one person I haven't met in real life before? Am I going crazy?

Thank you everyone for your replies. I read each and every one of them and seems like everyone said that it was better to separate. I felt emotionally weak yesterday and tried talking to my husband about trying again but he wants to move on and says it’s the best decision for both of us. I respect his decision and am going to try to move on too. I think each of the responses I got here was right in saying that I wouldn’t ever be happy in Ireland and that it’s hard moving to a foreign country especially when I’m so reluctant and scared. Even if I was willing to go, I’ve been ignoring some problems in our relationship that my ex reminded me of when we talked yesterday and it made me realize our relationship was not all perfect and I had my own reasons for wanting to separate too. I just have to remember that in moments of weakness. Thank you everyone for your replies. I really appreciate it.

Hi all, I'm so mad at myself and would really appreciate some insight into my situation. I'm struggling a lot to process my feelings and don't know if I made the right choice or not. Yesterday I told my husband that I think it's best if we went our separate ways and I wish I could take it back 😞 We still love each other so much. He is 32, i am 30. We don't have any kids. He is originally from Ireland and I am from Canada. We met 9 years ago and have lived here the whole time. The past year or 2, I started noticing how homesick he was getting. Many times I would ask him if he wanted to go back to Ireland, and he would say no, that Canada life is great. I knew in the back of my mind he wasn't completely happy here but I really didn't want to admit it because then we'd have to make a tough decision of possibly moving to Ireland. I think he also didn't want to admit it because he really loves me and really wanted to try and stay in Canada for me. In August this year, he developed pretty severe anxiety and just completely changed. He became extremely depressed and anxious and could barely get out of bed and go to work. He ended up having panic attacks at his job and so he quit. But the anxiety just got worse.. so in November, I told him that it would be best for his mental health if he went back home to Ireland to be with his family/friends and try to recover. We've been physically apart for a month now. He's been consistently asking me if I'll consider going to Ireland for 6 months and see if I like it. I've been there once before with him. He comes from a very small town while I grew up in a bigger city so I wasn't really used to it. Anyways, I just kept telling him "maybe i'll visit... i don't know" because of these 2 reasons: \- I'm really close to my mom and am really reluctant to leave her. She's a single mother and getting older every year. I'm an only child and feel quite dependent on her still (for support, advice and companionship), even though I'm 30. She's my best friend and I can't imagine not having her there when I'm in Ireland trying to start a new life. \- I'm scared to uproot my life. I don't have many friends and I'm not scared of leaving my job. It's more the fact that I have grown up in Canada my entire life and it's just familiar and comforting. It's my home and I don't know if I can adjust to living in a different country or settling down in Ireland for the rest of my life, even if the person I really love is there 😞 So yesterday, my husband and I were talking and I was encouraging him to go back to work at his dad's business in Ireland as it would be good for his mental health to keep busy. And he made a comment "Yeah i'd like to try it too and see if I like it. If not, I can come back to Canada, who knows?". It was at that moment I needed to tell him that I knew he would never be 100% happy in Canada. I didn't want him to struggle between living in Ireland vs. Canada so I told him that I thought it was best for him to stay in Ireland and that it might be best for us to go our separate ways. He was really understanding and kept telling me he just wanted me to be happy. That's all he wanted. And that he knew in his gut that we would end up separating one day because he knew I wouldn't be happy forever in Ireland. I would miss my home too much. Also another reason why I thought separation might be best: I've had a really hard time coping with his anxiety these past few months. I've lost a lot of weight, am really unhappy, and just feel like my days were centered around his moods/anxious energy. I felt like a caretaker more than a partner. I don't think I could cope with that stress for the rest of my life. And we don't even have kids yet! What will life be like if my partner has severe anxiety and I have kids to raise?Anyways, the good news is that he is trying so hard to get his life back. He's been doing therapy, exercising, and has started taking medication 2 weeks ago. My question is, should I have given Ireland a try?? Is it too late now?? Am I just afraid of losing him and this is all my emotions talking instead of my head?? I don't want to mess with his head as he already has anxiety to deal with 😞 And he's already told his family we decided to separate so they'll think I'm a monster if i do this 😞 My mom and family friends were shocked that I told them we decided to separate. They didn't think it would be so quick. We don't have any relationship issues outside of this. We are best friends and have agreed to remain friends for life.

I feel really sad right now. My husband is struggling with depression and anxiety and it’s really crippling him and our life together. We’ve been married for 8 years and I’ve never seen him like this before. He moved from Ireland to Canada 9 years ago and he says he feels depressed because he is lonely (doesn’t have any friends or family here) and he absolutely hates his job. He wants to quit his job soon but has no idea what career he wants to do. We recently bought a townhouse that we will be moving into next month and the mortgage is quite expensive. Sometimes he will say things like “I want to just end it” or “If anything ever happens to me, don’t ever blame yourself”. It makes me feel so helpless and scared. I don’t think he would ever really hurt himself though..I’ve asked him if he has an actual plan to commit suicidal and he doesn’t. I think he just says these things because he’s so miserable. He says nothing makes him happy anymore.. that he has nothing to look forward to. I tried to encourage him to get some hobbies but he doesn’t want to. And he’s been to 2 counselling sessions with a therapist but now he says he doesn’t want to go anymore because it’s not helping him. He refuses to go on antidepressants as he says those can be very addictive and harmful to the body. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. I wish he could have some friends here but I don’t really have friends either. Most of my friends have moved away for work or school but I don’t feel miserable and lonely in the same way he does. He comes home from work and just sits in the dark in the bedroom. He won’t really talk to me and is just depressed all the time. I just want him to be the way he was before… but he seems so out of reach. Also I just wanted to mention we just recently bought a townhouse which should be very exciting but he says he could care less. It’s like nothing makes him happy anymore. What should I do? I am 30 and husband is 32 years old.