I understand the concept of compatible mates. But if you are in love, would you quit it just because you have missed some of the 'check' boxes? If you do so beforehand, that's being very smart, but I just feel it's too cold to give up what you have just because you see unchecked boxes on your list..., you know what I mean?

Some things are "must haves".
Some are not.

When I divorced my XH after a horrid two year marriage, I made two lists...one list is dealbreaker stuff, the other is preferential. The preferential list is negotiable, the dealbreaker list is not. For instance, on my dealbreaker list I have "Christian, honest, no drugs, sense of humor, etc." On my preferential list "enjoys camping, riding motorcycles, etc." I enjoy motorcycles but can live without them. But I canNOT be with a cheating lying scumbag again!

Hurrah for the bubblebath! Gosh, this guy sounds wonderful!

I had extremely busy, physical, tiring, YET fun-filled and beautiful weekend. I am exhausted, even now many parts of my body aches, but it was GREAT that I did not have to dwell on any sad thoughts.

KC, yes, this guy is an extremely nice person, and for me, intelligence is a 'must-have' item on my list, so he has it more than any of the guys I have ever dated. My X-BF is well educated and very sharp too, but he was not well travelled so did not know much about different cultures, he tends to be narrow minded, which was a bit unfortunate aspect for me. Anyhow, this new guy is nice and smart, only if I can find him physically attractive, it would be perfect... I keep hearing physical attractiveness is more important for guys than us women, so I am hoping over time I wil not even remember I said what I said...

With my late husband, George, my soul mate, best friend, and love of my life...it wasn't physical attractiveness that first drew me, we were attracted initially from the heart, but our love grew to the extent that there is no one in the world that could compare with him and the attraction was sizzling. That was NOT my initial first thought upon meeting him though.

There are others who have said the opposite. My kids dad was probably more physically attractive, yet we never had that spark. He didn't treat me with love and tenderness though. I think how you interact makes a HUGE difference in whether or not you develop attraction. (Remember Beauty and the Beast?) Still, there are relationship experts that cite the physical pheromones as being an integral part of it. For myself, how you are treated plays in hugely.

How many guys have fallen for a physically attractive woman only to find that beauty is skin deep? I know widowers whose wives were ravaged with cancer and their love was immeasurable. So it can't all be chemistry or physical attraction.

The point is to not fall in love with someone who isn't compatible.

If you are already married, then of course take steps to make it work. If you are NOT married when you discover the incompatibility then consider that knowledge a gift and run away.

I never thought Valentine Day was THAT hard without my XBF. It is ridiculous, my life is not determined by him, yet I had to fight every single minute. I do miss him...

I have had the urge many times where I wanted to tell him "okay, you won! I don't care, we don't have to marry, I just want to be with you". But I haven't...I am fighting each day. Besides, I am not even sure now if HE wants to get back with me even without the marriage promise.

My son bought me the best rose bouquet at the store for Valentine Day. He is only 9, so obviously does not have much money yet insisted that he gets the best one for me. I wonder if he felt sorry for his mom without her boyfriend who always got me flowers...

I know all of you have told me to move on and close the deal with my BF. But..., I still have a feeling for him and am devastated this morning. I have an account at an online dating site, although right now I am not a member (but I still receive matches, it's just I cannot see the pics and also I cannot respond to any of those matches b/c currently I am not paying) - this morning I fir some reason decided to check it out. Then... Boom! My xBF showed up. He lied about his age by 2 years, but the same name and city, I knew it was him. I checked and surely it was him. So now he is officially looking for a GF. This devastates me. He still emails me and came to my son's basketball games, and I thought he still cared about us. That's why the fact he didn't even call or email me on Valentine's Day I was so sad.

I really want to talk to him.... I shouldn't be desparate, but that is how I feel. What should I do?

Milkshake,
I know how you are feeling, most of us have been there, but getting back with him is not the answer. He has moved on, you need to too. You are not defined by a man or having a man in your life, you are defined by YOU! Spend time on yourself, give yourself the gift of time, and when you are fully healed, you will be fully ready to embrace your NEXT BF. (((hugs)))

Tell him to stop coming to your son's games. Block his email address. Change your phone number. Realize that this guy is so scummy that he lies about something as basic as his AGE.

Read this blog.

http://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/

Thanks KC and Kirby. But it was so hard on Valentine Day, clearly I still have feelings for him. I do miss him. But he may not be open to the idea of getting back together. If he says that to me, it will devastate me even more. I really can't take any more hurt.

Then staying completely out of contact with him is the right thing to do.

AGG

I know you guys will yell at me, but I have to be honest. I ended up calling my XBF and left a message saying that I miss and still love him. Next day (yesterday) I got an email from him but he was just talking about the nice weather, how my son and I should go out and have fun, blah blah blah.., basically nothing to do with my voicemail. So I took that as a statement he is only interested in staying friend with me and being involved in my son�s life but nothing more, which of course devastated me and I could not respond to his email pretending I was okay. All day we spent at my friend�s house yesterday to keep my mind occupied. When we came home, there was a phone message from XBF (he have never emailed and called in one day after we broke up in Sep � when we were together we talked several times a day). Very light and cheerful, almost joking message for both of us. Again, it had nothing to do with my phone message the night before.

XBF obviously cannot say yes he loves me too and wants to get back together. Yet he contacted me twice in one day, which never happened after we broke up, so he does not necessarily want to lose me either � he cannot make up his mind. That is how I interpreted. He is the kind of person who does not like to pursue much or initiate, he likes things to come to him. OK, whether that�s good or bad, but if I am the one who wants to get back together, I feel I should be doing the work. I don�t mind that. But, has he already made up his mind? I do not want to keep wasting my time, but at the same time I do not want to tell him NOT to contact me just yet. I am not ready�
Aside from regaining my inner/mental/emotional strength (I�m working on it!), what else can I do? There is a spring concert at my son�s school, which XBF always came. I want to invite him but only if he is open to us getting back together. Is that dangerous to ask him to come, IF and ONLY IF he is interested in getting back together?

I know I sound pitiful, I am very aware of that�. And I know you have told me to move on, 99.99% chance I know I would HAVE TO move on, the way XBF has been behaving...., but I would feel that I need to do this last time before giving up. If there is a 0.01% chance XBF is still willing to giving it another try, I would want that.

I cross posted with AGG. Thanks AGG, I know you made it clear that you believe moving on is the best way and otherwise you would not comment. I totally respect your opinion, and as I mentioned above, 99.9% of (even) my brain tells me that that is the right thing to do and ONLY thing I can do.

XBF knows I still love him. He still cares about me and my son, but not to the degree where he can make any type of committment. I realize that. He is in the power now. He knows I am not likely to go anywhere anytime soon. This will probably promote him even more to go out to see other girls, because he CAN.

This is why I feel that I should send the email to let him know that even though I still love him, I cannot be friends with him and if he is not interested in being my BF again, I would not want him to come to my son's spring program.

I am not sure if he noticed that I now know that he is online looking for someone else - I am not sure if I should let him know. Maybe that's none of my business now?

Milkshake.

It's very hard for people to be sufficiently brutal to get the message across to someone that they should move on. I would not read in anything into your XBF's response other than guilt.

I'm sorry. But if he wanted to be with you, he would be with you.

Nothing turns off someone who has already checked out of a relationship than the other person trying to resuscitate it. Even if he does allow himself to get enmeshed again, he will not be able to give you what you need.

Look. When I met my husband he was not ready for a long-term relationship. We dated for a year but it just didn't make me happy. We broke up. After some time, we became friends. After an even longer time, (like, 12 years!!!) we got married. He had changed. But NO WAY would that have happened had I hung onto him. It hurt like hell. I wanted to be in a relationship more than he did. Now he loves and wants to be with me every bit as much as I do. Because he's not the same person that he was 18 years ago.

I am NOT saying this will happen for you. I AM saying it will NOT happen for you RIGHT NOW. Not with this guy.

Thanks kerala, you make perfect sense and that's what I have been reading and hearing. Many times when you completely cut the rope, either (1) you break up (and it is painful....) yet meet someone who is better and willing to make the type of committment you want, or (2) your old love comes back and this time he is ready to make the committment.

I know this, but it's so hard to do when it is about myself. But okay, you just gave me some encouragement. I was writing the email I mentioned above, but I will hold off..... I think I am very afraid that he will meet someone online soon, and will hit off, at least initially, and he will completely forget about me. For me, even though other guys may be asking me out, I just do not feel ready so nothing really happens, but for guys, it's different and he can always welcome new sex and that can occupy him for a while...

Milkshake, I would not write any email to the XBF. He has absolutely no, zero, zilch, interest in being back together with you.

He apparently does enjoys occasional interactions with you, maybe saying hello or going to your son's concerts, which is why he pops into contact occasionally. But these interactions are extremely painful to you, because you keep hoping that maybe they are signs of him wanting to be back together with you. But they are not, and the sooner you accept that the better.

I actually don't think that your XBF is doing anything wrong, he is just leading his little life as he wants to, which is his prerogative. He is not leading you on, he is just being friendly. The problem is, you cannot be friends with someone that you want/need more from. It is an unbalanced and unhealthy relationship. To some extent, I have to give your XBF credit that he is not taking advantage of your neediness, that would be bad but not uncommon.

But the point is, you are the one here who is causing yourself pain. If this helps at all, I was dating a woman who put me in a situation similar to yours. Or I should say a woman with whom I placed myself in a situation similar to yours, because it was my choice to allow it. She kep leading me on that maybe some day things would progress between us, she just wanted time to decide. So I went all out to woo her, yet nothing ever developed. And every time I decided to back off, she'd call me, e-mail, invite me to do stuff. And I would think "wow, maybe she has changed, things will be better". But that never happened, she only called because she was bored or whatever. This lasted on and off for several years, I'm embarrassed to say, until I was able to decide to make a clean break from her, to ignore her calls, etc. And after a couple of months, I hardly knew her name anymore. I guarantee that if kept responding to her contacts, I would have never moved on.

I don't know what else I or anyone here can tell you for you to cut off contact. Even if we did get as brutal as kerala mentioned, it would still be up to you to act on the message. So you have to realize that you are a big part of the problem here, but the beauty of it is that you are also the solution, if you just cut contact completely.

Don't forget that your XBF is an X for a reason - he did not give you what you needed in many years of dating. So ask yourself, why would want him back? And "because maybe he changed" is not a valid answer.

AGG

AGG did the below follow a pattern from your XWW? Also - did it follow a pattern of 2 years for your PEA chemicals to die off? Would you classify this as pure lust/infatuation? If yes, why did she never go farther with you ... was it a character flaw of hers? Did she fit Dr. Harley's Freeloader description? Can you provide feedback in terms of your Lovebank? What was keeping your lovebank high with her? Was the physical attraction the key LB depositer? Thanks for the insight!

AGG, I really appreciate your feedback.


My head knows that you are absolutely correct... my whimpness has the hard time accepting it.



That's true, sadly I must agree with all of that. He could have taken advantage of me, but he hasn't. When he took me out to dinner for my birthday, he kissed me on my lips but since then when we met he just hugged me tight, that is all.



Thanks for sharing your story, AGG. I wonder why you always sound so sure about these types of situations. PEP also share her story and I know in my head that my situation is not any different from those of yours, PEP's, KC's and all others.


This gave me the positive energy. Yes, since I am the one who is holding onto something impossible, only if 'I' cut the code, the pain will eventually go away... I need to keep telling this to myself each morning and night.


I am getting tired of second guessing each time he calls or emails me, if he misses me and wants to get back...but regardless of his personality (that he is very proud and stubborn, even when he has arguments with his best friend, he waits for his friend to initiate contact - one time I asked him why he was not contacting his friend if the fact he wasn't talking to his best friend bothered him, he said "if my friend is not calling me, our relationship is over and I am fine with it"), if he truly loved me, he WOULD have come through to let me know that he would not like to lose me. So, yes, he has already given me the answer.

I will try not to think about his profile on the online dating site. It should not matter to me, I will need to keep telling myself that.

Everything else I can control - my career and finance and my appearance and household stuff - I do so well, I don't understand why when it comes to romantic relationships I totally suck at them.

Hmm, good questions. It did not really follow a pattern from XW. It took me a while to get over the loss of the marriage, but I don't think that the PEA chemicals had anything to do with it, it was the loss of the family that I mourned. It's kinda hard to have much chemical attraction to a woman, even if she's your wife, who is receiving texts at your home from a married coworker saying "Lick My C***!", right?

As for the woman I mentioned earlier, yeah, that was all infatuation. I made her out to be a demi goddess in my mind, largely for PA reasons, but also because she fit the mold of who I thought was perfect for me. So my Lovebank overflowed, but not so much based on her actions as for what I thought she was, which she wasn't . Did you follow that?

I think that milkshake (since this is her thread) is doing the same thing. She is projecting that her XBF was the perfect guy for her (like our newer poster tnmom67 something was doing with her XBF), despite the compelling and overwhelming evidence that these guys can't and won't give them what they so desperately need/want. So how is that healthy? How is it healthy to be mourning or yearning for someone who does not meet your needs? Yes, the answer is "because they COULD meet my needs", but there is no evidence of that whatsoever. What they are doing, like I did with the woman I mentioned, was latch on to the positives, and brush off the huge elephants in the room with a "well if only she did A B or C, then she'd be perfect". I didn't realize how absurd that sounded until I looked back at it with a clear head. Same with mikshake ("if only XBF told me he loved me") or tnmom ("if only he committed to me") - sure, the road to misery is paved with "if onlys"....

I know for a fact that one day milkshake will look back and wonder what she ever saw in XBF.. But she needs to cut the cord or pull off the bandaid (take your pick) and never contact him again before she can start clearing her head.

AGG