I give up trying to figure it out, I'll tell you. And, I thought after a 12 year marriage, that I learned everything there was to know.....

I've decided to have a "all about me" weekend - this relationship stuff gives me a headache....

And they say Men are simple creatures!

Women's Poem

Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man, who's not a creep,
One who's handsome, smart and strong.
One who loves to listen long,
One who thinks before he speaks,
One who'll call, not wait for weeks.
I pray he's gainfully employed,
When I spend his cash, won't be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair and opens my door,
Massages my back and begs to do more.
Oh! Send me a man who'll make love to my mind,
Knows what to answer to "how big is my behind?"
I pray that this man will love me to no end,
And always be my very best friend.

MAN'S POEM
I pray for a deaf-mute nymphomaniac with huge boobs
Who owns a liquor store and a golf course. This doesn't
Rhyme and I don't give a ******.


(HAHAHAHAHA)

Hey GG, I'm sorry to hear things aren't as you would like them to be in your relationship with M. You must be enormously disappointed, an understatement I know.

Not that you can change this, but why doesn't M like to open up? Can he understand why you need to be emotionally open & need to hear reaffirming words like ILY?

Having an ex who did say ILY, early in the relationship & until he started checking out, did not make him emotionally available. Perhaps the fact that he can't say ILY means there are more things he'd hold back, not share, not allow you to know. Maybe knowing this now will save you heartache later.

For me, looking back, I feel ex wasn't honest with me about who he was & what his expectations were. He held all that so close to his chest I was left to guess. He showed love through actions as well.

Nams, that really hits a chord. I sometimes feel like I don't know what Mike wants out of me and the relatonship. I ask him what he likes about me. He won't say. I give him a pass on this because that's something that's hard to put into words. But he also won't say what he wants out of a relationship. What his expectations are for now, and for further down the road.

Yes, I'm terribly disappointed. However, better now than later. We both can walk away from this. I really would like this relationship to work out, and so I'm not going to just walk. I'm going to talk to M first.

So far my thoughts are this.
*State my understanding that Mike does not talk about his feelings. State "I accept that."
*State that I think he's one of the best men I've ever dated, and that I care for him deeply.
*Share my own insecurities about the relationship
**We don't talk about the future any more.
**M makes vacation plans for himself without any input from me. (Fine, if we're just dating, but not great for serious relationships in my book.)
**I don't know how he feels about me.
*State that I've come to realize I won't be happy in a relationship with someone who does not say ILY to me.
*Reaffirm that I'm not finding fault with him.I understand that if he's a man who doesn't talk about his feelings, he's a man who doesn't talk about his feelings.
I'm just a woman who wants to hear "I love you." "You're special." "You make me happy." I feel too uncertain to deduce his feelings from his actions.

What do you all think?

I think that it's a great idea to talk to M. From what I've read of your posts prior, it sure sounds like you really enjoy your relationship with him. I'm trying to formulate my talk with T, but I'm not quite sure what I want from him yet. Yes, I would like to hear he ILY out of HIS mouth and not just mine, but I'm also torn because I am not looking for him to state that he wants me and only me forever.......I'm just one mixed up divorcee.....can I borrow your thoughts for my talk? I guess in the end we've all got to figure out what we can and cannot accept in a relationship - and from your thoughts above, your expectations are not unreasonable - and I'm hoping that M can come to some type of compromise so that he doesn't lose you........

At the risk of sounding cold, I don't see the point of this. All your statements are well-plowed grounds, so why rehash them all now?

You keep saying that you won't be in a relationship with a guy who won't say "ILY", but your actions say otherwise. So if I were M, I'd roll my eyes and think, "there she goes again". And how can you blame him? You keep stating the same boundaries, and then ignoring them.

Over the past many months, you have said this same thing over and over - "I need someone who can share feelings and say ILY". We all nod and say "yup, makes sense". Then you come back and say "wow, we had a great vacation, he treats me better than anyone else had, actions speak louder than words" - so you keep dating him. I am sure that you are teaching him the pattern - a relationship talk, "crisis", and then things settle back to normal.

The problem with you speech outlined above, is that it is all the same old stuff.

I would really suggest GG that you step back and decide not just what you want from him, but also what your plan is if you do not get what you want. Because while you say you can still walk away from it, you are investing more and more time into the relationship, the kids get more and more attached, well, you get my drift. I would hate to see you investing more and more time into something that you already know will never work out (if that is the case).

BTW, I do not want to threadjack, but I broke up with the dog lady just recently for largely the same reasons - she showed no ability to be emotionally intimate, and I knew that was not going to work for me. So I can see where you are coming from, for sure.

AGG

I'm glad you chimed in AGG. What you said had been bouncing around in my unconscious. The next bullet point, which I didn't put down, goes like this: That's why I want to break up.

Do you think I should just break up with him without the rigamorale? Or do you think he'll want to know why? There's this big sore spot in me right now. We haven't spoken since Wednesday night, and I don't really want to talk about it. Worse yet, he's got a lot of stuff here that I'll have to get back to him.

Phew, good! I was worried you'd be offended by my "practical" comments.


Ah, that's a whole different ballgame.


OK, slow down a bit, GG. Are you sure you are breaking up with him, or is this still a "I will break up with you if you don't do A, B, C" speech? Those are two very different things, and you need to know a priori what you have in mind.

If you are truly done, then I think he deserves to know why, but your conversation would be more focused on "you did not do this, I needed you to do that", etc, i.e. all in the past tense, because heck, it is now over.

If you are still negotiating, then of course you should give him a thorough shopping list of what you want and need, like you did.



Yes, GG, your pain and frustration show through very clearly.


Yeah, that comes with the territory of most longterm relationships; the unentanglement gets to be a PITA.

You know what is going to happen if you break up with him, don't you? He'll have an epiphany. He'll say that you are the best thing that ever happened to him, and he was a fool, and now he'll change. We men are good at being clueless like that. But before we go man-bashing (I'll stay home if you gals go there), the last two women I dated did the same thing - had "epiphanies" after I broke up with them, despite me telling them over and over what I needed. G with her weird habits, telling me she totally changed her life because I "showed her" the way, and now A, who as soon as I broke up with her, started saying that I taught her how to be loving, helped her shed baggage, and now she is ready for a healthy relationship. Well, crap, I am tired of being a teacher.

Anyway, this is your thread, so I'll shut up - but please make up your mind on what you want from M, and what you will do if you don't get it. If you give him the boundary, he says no, then do not keep doing the same thing as before - it'll teach him that your boundary is not really a boundary.

I'll support you either way, GG; you think before you act, and I respect that <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.

AGG

Well said AGG!

The main points being know what you want. To break up now BECAUSE he lacks what you need or stating what you need & letting him know you can't continue unless there are changes, & sticking to that.

State all this clearly.

Show him this isn't just another talk for him to get through, but a turning point. Have plans made in your head for what you will do if x,y or z happens.

Be careful of an epiphany!

I admire your desire to spell this out with M. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but in the past you seemed ready to bolt when things weren't quite going as you wanted. Better sooner rather than later type mentality, but without much input from M. You know I mean that in the best possible way. :-)


AGG, I'm sorry to hear your relationship didn't work out. "...crap, I'm tired of being a teacher." (((AGG)))

I think a lot of people have "epiphanies" after dating us old timers because... we embrace the principles of a healthy relationship. Look, we almost automatically stop ourselves from LBing because almost all of us have been through training. We are attune to asessing someone's emotional needs and continuing to meet those needs even after the relationship has lost its infatuation feeling. Then, we negotiate with POJA in the back of our minds. If we care for someone, we are unlikely to do anything that they did not agree with enthusiastically. How many single people out there really understand these three principles?

So, naturally, after we break up, they discover how great we were.

I hate teh automatums. "I need x,y, and z to continue in this relationship" is too much like one to me. Besides, I've voiced thsi issue to M twice before. I'm not the type to constantly want to fine tune the relationship, so I figure M would know this is very important to me. Well, I do know he knows. He asked me on Wednesday if I were at a breaking point. I said no, because I hadn't really understood where I was. Now, I think I am at a breaking point.

However, I'm not sure which course to take. I think I'll sleep on it again. Besides, if he never calls me again, it will just go away by itself, won't it?

I feel ungrateful for even thinking about breaking up.

AGG, I'm sorry the dog lady didn't work out. Dating can be such fun, but so often relatinonships are hard work. There's something wrong there.

Oh, now. You're romanticizing dating, GG. "Such fun", geez I don't know about that...Well, at least not the seemingly endless one or two dates rut I seem to be stuck in. Though lately I've just been spending time with my boys or working on school work.

I didn't realize your talks with M had gotten to the point of him asking if you were at a breaking point. That says to me he's pretty clear about there being a gap he's unable to cross. Sleeping on this sounds like a good idea. Waiting for this to disappear if M doesn't call doesn't sound like a very MBer like thing to do.

I agree with you about ultimatums, I know they get my back up, but how else do you say I need this from you or I can't continue in this relationship. You can certainly soften your language but the fact is still, I need this from you or I'm gone.

When you say it's inevitable relationship partners will, once broken up with, see the light of how great MBer types relationship skills can be, does that mean you would want to continue with M if he claims an epiphany?

I wanted to ask you something, something you may want to consider in your reluctance to let this go with M, but I don't think this is the place. Lt me see if I can send you a MBer email.

Tee, hee AGG, she's back to referred to as the dog lady. I guess that's appropriate.

Thanks nams <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />. But you know, I hardly think of it as a relationship, it just never got to that stage. Yes, we were exclusive, and I thought of us as an item - but she put up a consistent wall to emotional intimacy, one that even her push for physical intimacy could not overcome. Physical intimacy without a corresponding emotional one just does not float my boat.

Not unlike GG's situation, I could never get A to reciprocate when I signed my emails with XOXO, called her "dear", or said she looked lovely. Nada. And then she started up with weird LBs, and I had no interest in dealing with that.

So once we split, she said she did some retrospection, and realized that she was keeping me at a distance because she was afraid that she'd get attached to me, that she did not want to have emotional intimacy because she got burned before, that she had issues from her father who died when she was young, etc. And that now she went through this process, and she "gets it", and thanks me for it, and is ready to jump in with both feet. Well, too late, I already checked out. Like I said, I don't want to be a teacher, nor do I want someone to "get it" only after I leave - I have trouble trusting such epiphanies and corresponding overnight changes. Besides, I did try to "teach" her to be emotionally intimate while we were together, but she wanted no part of it.

A is a very sweet lady, and I do cherish my time with her - but it was not going to work for me. And, as always, I am not one to beat a dead horse, and am perfectly happy on my own. Like GG says, dating should be easy, and not full of drama and misunderstandings. I totally agree with that.

Oh well. Time to move on.

AGG

GG, I agree with you about ultimatums, and I don't use them. I figure if I told my GF clearly what I need (or can't stand), it is then up to her to decide if she can or wants to accommodate that. I respect her choice either way, but the consequences are that I then have a choice to act accordingly. So the last two women I broke up with said that after the breakup, they saw the light - but it should not take a breakup for someone to see the light, that is not a healthy foundation for a relationship. Besides, I am still very skeptical of such changes being accomplished overnight.

AGG

YES! You said something I've tried to say over and over when I was in marriage counseling. I don't want to be married to someone who is only willing to change after I've left and filed for divorce. (Although, let's face it, B wasn't willing then either.)

So, I think it's break up. I'm going to sleep on it because I care for this man a lot. He is a great person. At the rootof it, I think he wants something different from relationships and life than I do. I fell victim to the NMNK. UGH!

Nams, I'll call him tomorrow if he doesn't call me tonight.

And I'm checking my email

Nams, send it to [email]greengablesmb@yahoo.com.[/email] Thanks.

I'm off to dinner with my Dad.

GG...when you finally come to your senses and leave this guy, you'll look back at these posts and realize that you did the right thing...

I can't imagine being with ANYONE who couldn't say "I love you" or who forgot my birthday party. Not allowing your dog at his place? Good grief....he may be the "nicest" man you've known in 20 years, but in my mind, you've just been kissing a LOT of frogs.

Do yourself a favor and get out before this becomes a habit.

aeri, your posts are always so refreshingly forthright. Well, yes, I've kissed a lot of frogs in my life. My experience recently has been very limited.

It's so easy to see from the outside in. But when you are finally getting some of your needs met, it is so difficult to walk away. We always want to see the best in people when we love them, but is it real, or are we just seeing what we want to see.

I'm sure M lvoes you in his own way, but it may not be the way you need to be loved.

I'd like to kow how Aeri met her new husband, and how we can find one like him.

I was one of the posters here who had a BF with "ILY issues". I learned the reasons (he had have several losses in his life, the deaths of his mother, the betrayal of his cheating spouse and a very sad divorce, the sudden death of his brother...
The MBers here gave me some really wonderful insight. He is a wonderful man. In fact, I found this place because of him. He posted here a few years ago during his divorce...
He is a wonderful man, and shows his love to me each and every day. I realized that although hearing the words was extremely important for me, he was justified in his reasons for fearing them. I loved him enough to stick it out. I continued to express my love, in word and deed and went on as usual. And lo' and behold (last February to be exact) the words came, and continue to come often <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
I have learned that nothing good comes easy and that patience, honesty and love move mountains.
I hesitate to post often, because so many of you here are so articulate and offer such wise words that I'm afraid mine will seem bit pale by comparison <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
I wish you the very, very best. I know it's hard, and it's painful. Some of the best advice I've gotten from this board is to never settle, work hard on yourself, work hard at your relationships. Good things will come.
((HUGS))
bluerskies