Please help! Feeling really torn & not sure what to do....

[butterfly6585]

Hi everyone,

 

My exbf has been calling me & texting me alot trying to persuade me to be his girlfriend again. I'm feeling really torn about this & am not sure what to do. So, thought I'd post here to try to get some advice.

 

We'd basically been together for 3 years (exclusively) in a "long" distance relationship (living a little over an hour apart from each other). However, we broke up last summer for 2 months and then got back together. (He was the one to initiate that break up). Then, two months ago we broke up again & this time the break up was more of a mutual thing as we kind of both decided that things just weren't working out.

 

Overall things were good between us, but one thing that used to cause arguments in our relationship was that I finally got to the point where I was feeling sick & tired of things not progressing in our relationship. Even last summer (the first we split up), I was starting to really fed up as the whole long distance thing was getting to be really hard yet after 2 years together he still wasn't ready for us to live together. At that point, I felt totally sure that I wouldn't even hesitate to marry him if he proposed because I just love him so much & it was pretty upsetting to me that here he was not even sure if he was ready to even live together, much less get engaged & married. So...after he broke up with me last summer, after a few months apart he convinced me to go back out with him by saying something along the lines of how he loves me so much and he knows now I'm the one he wants to marry me and to please go back out with him & he promised that within 3 months at the very most we'd be engaged. Well, long story short a whole year went by without him proposing to me & things went right back to pretty much the way they were before (still just dating & still being in a long distance relationship).

 

This time around when we broke up (2 months ago), it was technically him that ended things (again) yet I was actually very, very close to ending things myself soon as I'd been so unhappy with things lately (frustrated that not only were we still not engaged after now 3 years together but that we still weren't even living together & only seeing each other on the weekends and maybe like one day earlier in the week).

 

All summer long I've been missing him terribly yet at the same time I've felt like maybe it's just time to move on as it's hard being with someone you're so completely in love with and so sure you want to marry & have a family with (who apparently still isn't sure they feel the same way about you or I'm assuming that anyway seeing he still hasn't proposed yet). I'd really like to have another baby someday & as I'm starting to get a little older now (33), I feel like my biological clock is kind of just ticking away. So, all summer I've been thinking there's no way I'm getting back together with him unless he decides that he's actually serious now about wanting to marry me & actually proposes to me. This is because I can't help but think that after 3 years together, that seems like plenty of time for him to know whether or not he wants to marry me & spend the rest of his life with me & also since I really want another child someday, I don't want to invest yet more time in this relationship if it's not going to end up in marriage as my personal preference would be to be married to my child's father.

 

Like I said before, he's been contacting me alot lately trying to persuade me to go back out with him (as his GF) but then also live together. He supposedly is ready and willing to live together now but he says he's talked to alot of people (friends of his?) & they "all" say that it would be stupid for us to get engaged without living together first to make sure that we're truly compatible. I love & miss him so much & I know he loves me alot too but I think he's ended things before because he got sick of feeling like I was pressuring him about wanting us to get engaged & married. So, part of me is tempted to agree to his offer of us getting back together as BF & GF and moving in together. However, I'm sort of afraid to do that as part of me would hate to uproot my DD (12 year old from my previous marriage) & myself and move in with him as he may not ever end up proposing & then we'd just have to break up all over again (for good this time). It just always thought it would be really nice to move in with him (or get a place together) after he'd already proposed as I think I'd feel more at peace with the whole thing if I knew he'd ALREADY decided that he wants DD & I to be a permanent part of his life (i.e. marriage).

 

However, I've talked to various people I know about this & while some people think that regardless of how much I love him that I shouldn't get back together with him unless it's going to be with me as his fiance. Other people though have said stuff about how I have to keep in mind that even marriage isn't a guarantee that the relationship should last as people sometimes end up getting divorced (like me). EXBF keeps saying stuff like we should be focusing more on the quality of our relationship & not care so much about what the actual title of it is. Part of me thinks that he's right, but at the same time I don't want to make the mistake of getting back together with someone that may NEVER end up marrying me. Also, I kind of worry that if I agree to get back together with him as his GF, I think I could probably force myself to not say a word about engagement for awhile. But...then I have to ask myself if let's say 3 to 6 months went by and he still had not only proposed to me, I think I (like before) would probably start feeling stressed about it & maybe even a little resentful wondering why it still hadn't happened (especially if things seemed like they were actually going really with us with the whole living together thing because then I'd really have to wonder why he still hadn't proposed).

 

Any input and/or advice on this would be much appreciated. Thanks! [/b]

[WockaWocka]

Not to oversimplify, but if he's calling you up and asking to reunite I think it would be perfectly fair to tell him you've decided that you've reached a point in your life where you're only interested in relationships that having the possibility of becoming serious and committed in the mid-future. Either this honesty will scare him so much that he will stop contacting you altogether (and maybe that will be a good thing!) or else he may opt to lay his cards out on the table. You two have reached a stalemate. He has every right to want to take more time to decide but you also have a right to cut your losses (if that's how you see it) and move on to greener pastures.

 

Either way, it sounds like you are right to resist a quick reunion. Getting back together without any reference to this issue would only temporarily mask the underlying problem, I think.

 

Good luck.

[butterfly6585]

Thank you very much for your input WockaWocka. I really apprecaite it. Love your avatar by the way!

[lavenderdove]

Actually, getting engaged is not getting married, but it is a sign of serious intent to marry, whether that is a year down the road or 5 years. So he's not actually marrying you by agreeing to engagement, so the idea that he can't get engaged til after he's lived with you is just silly. Engagement is nothing but a ring and intent, not any commitment he can't get out of easily if he wants to.

 

So i would take the position that if he's really serious about marrying you, then he needs to propose to you before you move in together and you need to set a wedding date (say a year or so down the road), and if he decides while living with you that he doesn't want it then you'll break up and not marry.

 

If he balks at setting a wedding date 18 months in the future, with the full option to get out before then, then he has no intention of marrying you and it is just a ploy to get you into a live in situation with no real commitment.

 

Be honest with him... tell him you want another baby and a family life and at 33 you need to be looking for someone you can have a baby with sometime in the next 5 years, and you don't want to be wasting years with him playing house if he has no intention of marrying you.

 

If he is genuinely thinking of marriage and family in the future he will be fine with this offer. If he is just bluffing you (and fooling you yet again), then he'll be nervous and not agree to engagement now.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

EXBF keeps saying stuff like we should be focusing more on the quality of our relationship & not care so much about what the actual title of it is.

 

I think your answer is in these words he is telling you. He wants your company but doesn't want the title of marriage. He may want you around..he may even cave and have you live with him...but you could be living with him for a good long time and never get a marriage out of it. Also, what does HE have to lose by you moving in with him. He keeps his place, his stuff, his life. YOU are the one who will have to uproot your life, your job, your home, your daughter. Simply moving in with him gives you NO security and can end up screwing you financially if he decides to break up with you again....and he already has a track record of breaking up with you. Lavender is also right that an engagement is NOT a marriage. Sure marriages can break up, but there are certain rights and obligations when a marriage splits up which are not the same as when an engagement or living together arrangement split up. After 3 years he should know whether or not he wants to marry you...and this trial run of living together is BS...it is simply a stalling tactic. You have more to lose by moving in with him without marriage (even if you simply get engaged) than he does. Be very careful of your decision, especially since his most recent offer to you is still not making the grade...he is still not really committing to you.

[lavenderdove]

Whenever they start talking about marriage is just a title or a piece of paper, you know you're in trouble.

 

That means they want to AVOID that title and piece of paper, and that attitude is certainly an inaccurate portrayal of marriage, since marriage is so much more than a piece of paper and a title.

 

So i agree totally with crazyaboutdogs. it's put up or shut up time for him, and you don't want to be uprooting your kid for some man who is babbling about marriage being a 'title' or piece of paper and downgrading it's significance and importance.

[sweetpea03]

Give him an ultimatum. You both can get back together and move forward to marriage, or you leave and will never be with him. Make sure he knows you absolutely want to be married and if he can't make up his mind, it's best that you move on. It's his loss.