Can this relationship survive?

[girl68]

Best of luck, enjoy life.

[Girl79]

I think you are doing the right thing ally. He isn't going to change, he fully admits it, so what more do you really need to hear right?

Relationships are work. Obviously everyone knows that. But it just seems like it's always a struggle for you and him, and you shouldn't have to feel this way all the time. It shouldn't be THIS hard. Your relationship shouldn't make you feel drained and sick and worried all the time. You deserve someone better suited for you, you really do.

[allypally]

I have to wonder here

 

None of his relationships have lasted more than 18 months. Its possible he gets bored after a year.

 

I couldn't believe that his first serious relationship, they were friends already for 3yrs, the relationship only lasted 9 months, and she married someone else?!

 

I think that despite the proposal, he feels at home oggling other women with his mates and acting the lad. He is wealthy, doesn't want to have to consider someone else, at the critical time, leaves the decisions up to me. It should be BOTH of us moving forward TOGETHER.

 

He has basically told me not to have any expectations as to his behaviour.

[lady00]

It is quite possible that he has fallen into a relationship pattern due to perhaps an insatiable desire for female attention.

 

He has taken the easy way out by telling you not to have expectations of his behavior.

[allypally]

Lady00 - sounds like you could be right.

 

Anytime we have been out dancing at a work xmas do or just out in general, he is constantly on the look out for I can only guess - women.

 

On one occasion, we were dancing at a xmas do and he was looking around him - showing off, wanting to be noticed.

 

As for his lads night out - I don't want to imagine what he got up to. I don't know his friends very well so I think they would keep stum if he slept with someone else. One of his buddies is always organising boys nights out and lads weekends. I see this guy as the ringleader/troublemaker. My bf laps up these opportunities.

 

He isn't going to grow up, doesn't understand what an adult, mature relationship is about.

 

I think my love for him is evaporating fast.

[lady00]

So is it over for good?

[allypally]

I have been under huge pressure to make a decision - should I stay or should I go? The emmigration process has taken me 4 years - 4 WHOLE YEARS of my life. A massive commitment which has required focus and patience. We have been together for just over a year and he has already shown signs that he has an eye for the ladies, will prioritise someone else over me. Those reasons alone are not going to entice me to stay in my home country to build a life with him. He isn't reliable.

 

His marriage proposal was totally unexpected, and I think he hoped that I would stay in our home country - however, since the holiday incident, I have had doubts that he is truly ready for a commitment as big as marriage anyway. He admitted that he still thinks like a single guy which I think is pre-emptive that I shouldn't expect him to change.

 

I can only conclude that if he wants me badly enough he will follow me - BUT he has always had excuses/reasons for not wanting to change his life in any way.

 

thereforee, I can't see how it would ever work.

[DN]

I can only conclude that if he wants me badly enough he will follow me - BUT he has always had excuses/reasons for not wanting to change his life in any way.

 

Well, i think that is specious and unfair reasoning. "If you love me you will follow me" is no different than "If you loved me you would not go away".

[allypally]

Yes, but he KNEW about my plan to emmigrate from the start of the relationship. He did not have to get involved.

 

It all happened sooner than expected.

 

My biggest concern is his inability to think in terms of a couple, that he likes to party and be with the lads and using my experience of our first holiday together as an example, I am doubtful that he is truly ready to settle down.

[DN]

My biggest concern is his inability to think in terms of a couple, that he likes to party and be with the lads and using my experience of our first holiday together as an example, I am doubtful that he is truly ready to settle down.

I think that is a legitimate concern - but you should not parlay that into the issue about which country you live in - they are different issues.

[allypally]

This emmigration plan has been a long-term goal - as I said before - 4 years of hard work, patience, money - it has been gruelling and has taken a lot out of me.

 

I am faced with asking myself the question - am I prepared to let 4yrs of hardwork go down the drain? - this is a 1 off opportunity - I am weighing up whether the relationship is worth fighting for - it is tearing me apart - I don't think half the time he realises the enormity of such a decision. His recent unreliable behaviour and inability to think as a taken man/couple is what is causing the conflict. Accepting that that is the way he is, he is highly unlikely to change, especially at 36 yrs of age.

 

So, I ask myself - am I willing to give up 4 yrs of hard work for someone who I am not sure I can rely on, most particularly in marriage? Marriage won't improve him, he will just yearn for the single life and the pow wows with his mates.

 

He doesn't want to say goodbye to family and friends and will miss them (which I totally understand - I will miss mine too), and because he is an adopted only child, leaving his support network behind and the life he has built would be a massive upheaval.

[DN]

I don't think that you have enough confidence in him at all to make that sacrifice. I think you are so convinced about his behaviour that there is nothing he could do to change your mind and believe that he is serious about marriage and is not interested in any other woman. Even if you were to get married and he were to go to another country with you your doubts and suspicions will remain and corrode the relationship. He would only have to look at another woman for your suspicions to be aroused.

 

I think that the relationship is so broken that to sacrifice your plans to go abroad would be a mistake. I think that to marry him would be an even bigger mistake whether he goes with you or you stay here.

[allypally]

I would be taking a big gamble staying in my home country to try and make the relationship work.

 

He has not filled me with confidence that he is serious about marriage BECAUSE he has demonstrated that he is unable to resist the attention other women pay him. He is too easily led on by women who come onto him.

 

How is this a good basis for marriage anyway??

 

I am not sure he understands how serious a marriage commitment is. How behaviour such that he has demonstrated would corrode any relationship we have and that he has admitted that he can't THINK in terms of a taken man/in a couple.

 

How can a healthy relationship be built on unhealthy foundations??

 

A few days ago he said he is the happiest he has ever been, when I am in a state of constant stress and anxiety. He seems to be ok with the situation.

 

I think we all have dealbreakers - and for me, its when a man can't resist the opposite sex, so much so that he has to follow his instincts - it makes me seriously question whether he can remain faithful or not - it is also a source of constant concern and I do not want to have to deal with that kind of concern for the long-term.

[DN]

I think we all have dealbreakers - and for me, its when a man can't resist the opposite sex, so much so that he has to follow his instincts - it makes me seriously question whether he can remain faithful or not - it is also a source of constant concern and I do not want to have to deal with that kind of concern for the long-term.

That is what I am getting at. I just don't think you trust him enough and i don't think you ever will.

 

But if you are going to break up with him then I do think you should do it now. Because he has said he is happier than he has ever been and if you are going to shatter that happiness you should do it sooner rather than later, otherwise you would be misleading him.

[allypally]

I have never mislead him - he has known the status quo from the start of the relationship.

 

He knows my feelings about the relationship as we have discussed until we are both blue in the face. It has caused me massive anxiety.

 

He said he went through a similar situation when at uni when a girl he had been dating for a couple of months slept with someone else (she was also into drugs). He had to cut himself from that person to gain his sanity back.

 

Of course he is happy because he doesn't have decisions to make, nor have I done anything that would cause him to doubt my integrity and loyalty to him. He on the other hand has caused me doubts.

 

I am seeing my therapist on saturday with the aim of trying to seek clarity - I was thinking about asking my bf to join me for a couples session.

[DN]

If you want to marry this man and spend the rest of your life with him then you are going to have to make a decision whether to trust him or not. If you don't trust him it would never work.

 

You have been posting about him for some time now and you are still in basically the same position that you were when you first posted. It just seems you will never let what happened on holiday go - and that it will always cause you to distrust him.

 

Has he cheated or just flirted? Do people who first always cheat? Will this man who did and does flirt cheat? I don't know. No one on here knows. You don't know.

 

But you think that he is likely to and that means you don't trust him and I don't see how a relationship can survive that.

 

So I for one am not going to say something like "don't go abroad, don't pursue what you want because he won't cheat, he was only flirting." Because he might. I happen to believe flirting is not appropriate but I also don't believe it necessarily leads to cheating. I can't guarantee that however and this is your life and happiness we are talking about - not mine.

 

Although I can't guarantee he won't cheat I can guarantee that if you don't trust him you won't have a happy marriage even if it doesn't end in divorce. And that is why I think you should not marry him. Not because he will cheat - but because you don't trust him.

 

It is clear you have not mislead him to date. But please make sure he is not led into thinking all will be well if it won't be.

[allypally]

I do not have the clarity required to make the right decision.

 

I love him so much and yet I have felt angry with him for so long because of the fear he has caused me to start having that he cannot be trusted.

 

Of course I don't want to throw this relationship away - but its also destroying my sanity that if I did decide to stay with him/in my home country and a similar situation occurs, then i will have wasted an opportunity of a lifetime.

[Girl79]

Honestly ally, I really think you should go abroad. You have been working on this for 4 years. To completely throw it all away for a guy you can't even trust, who has constantly proved to you he will not change and he is who he is, would be the wrong move in my opinion. You have gone through so much with this guy, and I just don't want to see you throw away 4 years for a guy you have only been with for a year and who has caused you all this grief.

[allypally]

It occurred to me today that he had actually admitted to me that what he did was inappropriate by telling me about the girl who cheated on him at uni and how it made him feel.

 

When I told him how much it had messed with my head, and then for him to tell me this .... I think he is admitting to me that he screwed up big time.

 

Don't know - just a thought.

 

He is now saying he doesn't want to live together before marriage, which is fine because I have always been against it. Before he had always been pro doing this.

 

We are taking each day as it comes and will be talking to his mother this weekend to tell her about our intention to go overseas - very nervous. I think he resents me for having to do this.

 

Oh, and he also wants to get the 'intelligent' girl back into his team again who he had to let go of. He tells me a lot about her it seems.

[lonelycop]

Sounds like he is a "table for one" type of guy. Shows up at a restaurant with a bunch of people and asks for a table for one. Self-centered, ego-centric. How can he not see that his visits mean extra work for you? Not letting go of the buds? I mean really. By your mid 30's those days are few and far between, not the norm. Almost as if you are a stand-in for his mother. Ditch the table for one.

[allypally]

The situation is this:

 

1) When we saw eachother on Tues, I had sent him a pros and cons spreadsheet of moving overseas v staying here. The conclusion was that given the predictable reaction from his mother (not good at all), I will have to stay here.

 

2) He then started crying which annoyed me - I was in a complete state, exhausted, and resigning myself to the fact that 4 yrs of hard work was going down the drain - and the fact that jobs over there are extremely hard to come by given the economic downturn. When I asked him why he was cyring, he said he was crying because of what I had had to do to stay here i.e. give up my dream. I had hoped he would be strong for me.

 

3) I then said to him that I needed to find another purpose in life, maybe run a marathon or something. Marriage being another one.

 

Now that we are not going to live together before marriage, he still has done nothing about his house up north, still hasn't rented a place near me and relies on coming to my place - I am once again dis-illusioned about the future. Even though things are really bad overseas, what is there for me here when he has not given me any reason to believe that he intends to marry me and make my life easier.

 

4) At the very least I would expect us to start building a life together, buying a home etc. I am not staying in this country only to wake up a few months down the line to the fact that we haven't moved forward at all. He organises nothing, leaves me to make all the decisions. I am constantly stressed out.

 

5) We are engaged again, but the ring hasn't come back - if it doesn't appear this weekend (Valentines) I will assume we are not engaged at all and go abroad anyway.

 

As a footnote: the other day I asked him if the tables had been turned and I had done what he had done, would he start to doubt me, and he said that it would have caused him to doubt the relationship. I am at even more of a loss as to why he did it at such a crucial time.

[DN]

Actually you did do some good work. And don't blame him for crying - men these days never know whether to show their emotions or not and always seem to get it wrong. That is more about you than about him.

 

Now you need a plan that you work out together.

• Objectives.
  
• Time lines.
  
• Execution.
  

Don't make assumptions about what the other is thinking or what they want. None of this: "If I haven't got the ring back by ..." stuff. Ask him outright.

[allypally]

I don't think he is as invested - it is ALWAYS me who initiates the conversations about the relationship.

 

I have been through too much as it is to tolerate any more procrastination on his part.

 

Each time end up feeling more and more frustrated as I'm the one who organises holidays, weekends away etc. Maybe its insecurity - don't know.

 

We had a chat last night, which didn't go down too well - about objectives, time lines, execution. Now I feel bad about it.

 

Now he baulks at the idea of marriage.

[DN]

I am sorry it did not go well and you are sad.

 

But what has happened is that you have made him become at least somewhat more clear about what he wants - by default.

 

So now I think it is time you made a declaration and said to him that you are not prepared to continue in this way. Either he is committed to you, wants a life with you and wants to be married to you or he doesn't and it is becoming increasingly clear that he doesn't. So tell him that you require him to make his decision because if he isn't committed to you then you need to know that in order to make decisions of your own.

 

Ultimatum? Yes, possibly. But sometimes they are required and I think this is one of them.

[allypally]

I have gone through hell to get to where I am now (4yrs of patience, a lot of money and effort to make this happen) - now it is within reach - AND I now have to face a recession in Canada and somehow find a job.

 

His mother is as self-centred and selfish as he is - this I discovered last weekend. She couldn't care less about his happiness and his life - she wants him for herself so that he can do the list of chores she makes for him whenever he goes to visit her. She complains non-stop about her life and yet she has SO much to be grateful for (5* accommodation, plenty of money etc). Now she is complaining that she has to live in proximity to other old, retired people (she is 75yrs). What more does she want and most of all expect????

 

I am at the end of my tether now - he doesn't appreciate how much stress I have had with my family problems, stressful job, the effort that has gone into this emmigration process. He is happy for me to jack it all in, and yet he can't get his act together and make a life with me EVEN over here. He drags his feet about everything.

 

We are going away this weekend and I hope something positive will come out of it.