Struggling to keep a healthy pace/mentality with dating

[2much2early]

As I'm getting older (mid to late 20s) I'm finding dating is a lot different than when I was younger. When I was younger I felt it was all cutesy, honeymoon stuff and when that ended the relationship usually ended. My last relationship was my most and only serious relationship. It started with us just jumping right into it, without us really getting to know each other. We pretty much started having sex and being a couple that excluded everyone else. It wasn't very healthy and I really regret it because I had to completely rebuild my life after it ended.

 

I've spent a lot of time getting my life together and things have been great. I started dating about 2 months ago and I'm struggling to keep a healthy mentality about the whole thing. I'm used to very codependent relationships and I recognize that and the tendencies I have. I'm trying to address those by keeping my own life while dating and keeping my life going independently. This current girl is great at it and she's just as busy as I am.

 

The problem is my insecurities are creating anxiety because I'm interpreting everything as disinterest. I'm used to a girl being super clingy, constantly wanting to see me and text me. Always pushing for the next level. This current girl started this way and I posted about it here:

 

 

 

We're still seeing each other but I'm definitely putting in more of the work now as far as talking to her and trying to see her. She's responsive and still seeing me, but it's making me a little insecure and as I mentioned in my previous thread I'm worried I'm coming off as desperate or clingy. It's not really fair to think this way because I pretty much told this girl to back off and she's doing exactly what I said. Plus I'm sure she's hesitant now about the whole relationship. I'm worried I killed the honeymoon phase and maybe a relationship can't start without this. I don't know because all of my previous relationships started based only on this.

 

Can I get some advice on this?

[Cadence44]

If you learned lessons from your previous relationships (good on you!) that you are now applying, you are in better shape than many people. So many of them just carry on their patterns and don't stop to think why things don't seem to change.

 

Do you think she's acting this way because she's confused and is worried that you're not interested? Or do you think she's taking it too far as a way to assert her independence and is perhaps acting a little passive-aggressive?

 

Regardless of what you think it is, I think it's probably time to suck it up and have an honest conversation with her. There is a way to do this without coming off clingy and needy. Choose an environment where you can talk freely, keep it lighthearted and just state the facts:

 

 

- You think there's been a miscommunication and that you wanted to slow things down

because

you really like her and you want to give this the best chance to work out.

- In the past, when you've rushed in to something it's ended quickly and you didn't want that to happen with her.

- Now you feel like she's really backed off and you don't want her to think that you don't like her, as it's exactly the opposite of that.

 

 

That's all you need to say, and that should be all that she needs to hear. I can't think of how you might regret saying those things if this doesn't work out. Hopefully things will improve from there and you both can feel confident in each other's interest.

 

If it doesn't work out, then chalk it up to another lesson learned. Dating is a gamble. You can never control what the other person will feel and do, but if someone is worth the risk then you need to take those risks.

 

Good luck.