Confused and riding a rollercoaster

[terk2021]

A few years ago, I became closer to a female friend that was going through a divorce. As she finalized the divorce, we began dating. I fell in love with her, but her feelings were not the same. I broke it off with her for obvious reasons. I was crushed for a few months, and began to get back out and dating.

 

I met someone that I started dating seriously a few months later. It was important for me to find out early if she had recently gone through hard times. I did not want to make the same mistake again. She was divorced, but had been divorced for 2 years. She also had a child. We dated, took trips, and by 6 months into the relationship, we got engaged, took a marriage prep course, and had almost all of our wedding tasks complete. All was perfect. We bought a house and moved in 3 months prior to our wedding date. All seemed to be going well until about a month before the wedding. She started getting overwhelmed how big the wedding was getting, and wanted to postpone it. I thought it was a phase for about a week, but she broke down crying and said she was not ready to walk down the isle.

 

We were living together, and she said she just wanted to push the date for a few months. She did not want to set a date, and it seemed the more we talked, or did not talk about it, the further a date was being pushed back or not set at all.

 

We started going downhill after that. I asked her to move out a few weeks later. Since she has been out of the house, we have talked and seen each other. Sometimes she seems like she is ready to come home, others she seems very distant.

 

She has been so hot and cold lately, that I don't know what to think. I still hear I love you, I want to marry you, and I want to have children with you but...

 

She says she needs time to figure out what she wants. The 2 things I do know are that her daughter loves me, and she loves me, but she's just not ready to walk down the isle.

 

I feel deep in my heart that this is the woman I was intended to spend the rest of my life with. Her friends say be patient and give her space. She lives down the street in an apartment in which she has a 6 month lease.

 

Part of me regrets asking her to move out. At this point, I do have the ring. For 11 months I was everything she wanted. Now she's confused which makes me confused even more. HELP

[friscodj]

Welcome to ENA terk2021! Great to have you around here...

 

A wise person once told me that anything someone says before the word "but" in a sentence is BS. The more I think about it, the more truth I see in that statement.

 

Look at this sentence:

 

She has been so hot and cold lately, that I don't know what to think. I still hear I love you, I want to marry you, and I want to have children with you but...

 

She says she needs time to figure out what she wants.

 

Do you see a contradiction there? She "wants" but she needs time to figure out what she "wants"? I thought she already knew what she wanted?

 

I think you guys should sit down together, brush everything else aside, wedding plans, dates, etc. and just have a true heart-to-heart. From that, the answers should be clearer for you...

 

If not, if she wants space, give it to her, really give it to her. Dismiss yourself from her life for a while, focus on yourself, and see in which direction this goes...

 

On a deeper level though, do you think this woman will ever have surety in what she supposedly "wants"? It is quite possible this woman is simply flaky and you must decide whether you can live with this on the next level with her or not. Really think about that. What if you guys are married, have a mortgage together, car payments, kids of your own, and she pulls this noise with you? Then what? Then you're stuck my friend...

[terk2021]

Thanks Frisco. The other hard part is I fell in love with her daughter too. We still spend time together. She says she wants us to work on getting us back to where we were...

 

Staying away is really, really hard, but I am trying to start getting involved in other things as well. The norm is no contact, no contact, let her miss you. I am just not built that way. I don't want to put too much pressure on her, but I don't want to distance myself too much that being apart just becomes norm...

[friscodj]

Thanks Frisco. The other hard part is I fell in love with her daughter too. We still spend time together. She says she wants us to work on getting us back to where we were...

 

Staying away is really, really hard, but I am trying to start getting involved in other things as well. The norm is no contact, no contact, let her miss you. I am just not built that way. I don't want to put too much pressure on her, but I don't want to distance myself too much that being apart just becomes norm...

 

Hey bro, I see a lot of classic points here:

 

1) NC is for you! You seem to be focused on breaking contact so she will miss you. You do this so you can take a step back from the situation, away from the blender of emotions, so hopefully you can see the truth of the situation more clearly. You do it to start realizing a life of your own independent of her and the situation. And "not being built that way" is a line of crap my friend. It hurts everyone, you, me, and the guy down the street. Don't dismiss this option based on your notion of "not being built that way."

 

2) You are waaaay too focused on her! This isn't healthy! This isn't the basis for a healthy and balanced relationship! What about you? You are playing the role of the martyr here. Someone has to look out for you and that has to be you! Martyrdom absolutely, guaranteed, will not generate feelings of true, romantic, healthy, shared love between you two. I've tried this 50 million times and it just simply doesn't work. Plus, you are giving the wheel to a flaky woman who flip-flops on you and doesn't know what she wants. Why would you do this?

 

3) If this thing is to work, there has to be distance. Period. Is this love or is this attachment? That question will only be answered by removing the "attachment" variable here by detaching.

 

4) You're not dating her daughter. You have got to separate this component of your involvement with this situation as it will only make it more difficult to detach.

 

You're lost terk. Lost in this situation with this woman. I sincerely hope clarity comes to you and with it the conviction to follow the right path. But for some reason I have the feeling you are going to do what you're going to do anyway. In that case, please be careful with children involved here.

[terk2021]

Thanks Frisco. The thing is she still wants to get together, and brings her daughter over too. I can't imagine she would do that if she was not interested in getting us back to where we were...

[friscodj]

Thanks Frisco. The thing is she still wants to get together, and brings her daughter over too. I can't imagine she would do that if she was not interested in getting us back to where we were...

 

Be careful here. There are a lot of reasons that could explain this. She might be being friendly, wnating to be "friends" so she still "has" you without the responsibility of being in a committed relationship with you. She might be doing this to soften the "fall" for you as well as herself, she might be in denial about how she really feels and is "going through the motions" with this.

 

This woman doesn't know what she wants and her words and actions are contradictory. The little bit of hope she is giving you is feeding your desire to continue here and the challenge here is motivating you even more. I've been there and done that my friend. I hope you have good health insurance with mental health benefits because you're going to need it...

 

The way I handled it was let it play out, letting it keep eating away at me until I was done. I feel in my gut you will take this path too, I can feel it.

 

The question is, can you live the rest of your life this way? Because I'd bet my life savings that she isn't going to change...

[terk2021]

I can't say that I don't agree with your posts. She is struggling with a lot mentally right now. I can't say that I have ever been in this position before now. Your right. I want to keep seeing her to find out where this goes, but in the end, it could work out great, or just hurt 10 times harder...