Topic : Breaking Up

i have been with this guy(that i am totally in love with) for over 2 years now. i have sacrificed a lot of things to be with him. hes a wonderful guy, trustworthy, loyal, just a good hearted man. now hes telling me that somethings missing and that its not working out. yet he tell me he loves me, i am his "bestfriend", and that he doesn't want to lose me. we live in oregon right now. if i end up leaving i have to go back to tennessee(my home town). i asked him how he felt about us never being together again. he told me something , that i interpreted as, he still wants to end up together. should i try to fix or change anything or should i move on? my heart is telling me that i want to fix it. i am just so confused. i feel as if he was playing mind games with me. i know this is a silly question, but i am just so confused.

 Hi there.

I'm a 43yo divorced mother of three (27,22,16) and am currently in a 3 1/2 year relationship with the view to marriage.  We do not live together - I live with my elderly father and the youngest two of my children.

We've had a few problems in the last few months which have been based on my feeling that the man in my life has become distant - showing little affection, no interest in sex and not wanting to talk about what may be happening to have brought this on.

We decided to set aside a month where we limited the time we spent together, to allow for a little "space" to try and work out our feelings etc. (we normally spend a lot of time with eachother during the day as we work together in his homebased business). 

The whole idea was that, we spend time apart regrouping our lives and have certain times where we would hang out as a couple, kind of like dating, and talk about what we had been doing (in regard to the regrouping).

After three weeks I called quits to what we were doing because within that time he became even more distant (not wanting to spend any intimate time together at all) and only wanting to meet for a "coffee" and was guarded in talking about "how things were going" for him.

I found it extremely difficult feeling so emotionally and intimately shut out of his life in this way.  I became very tense and guarded on our last "coffee" meeting and I could see that he was becoming frustated at my behaviour so I sugested we go somewhere more private to talk. 

We talked and through his frustatration he said that he hadn't had time to think about "us" much and he  wasn't even sure he wanted to be in a relationship with me anyway.  I was stunned at hearing that.  I walked out on him because I didn't quite know what to say and I didn't want to say anything I would be sorry for later.

I didn't hear from him for a week so I decided that I would go to see him and talk things through to either end the relationship or decide whether we were going to work through this patch.

We talked for hours.  We talked about working together on being together - it was really wonderful to be relating at such a deep level again.

Today we talked again and he told me that his problem has been that he won't marry my while I still have my children living with me.  He doesn't have children of his own and would find it difficult living with me and my family because so much of what happens in "that" household goes against his value system.

Once again, I'm absolutely stunned.  We (my children and I) live in what I would call an almost boringly typical parent/child existence.   He's never spoken of this before and when we talked about "working things out together" I imagined that part of that would have taken in blending our family (well, my children, him and me).

He wants to keep our relationship going with the view to marry when my brood have all flown the coup. 

I understand the difficulties of second marriages with children involved, that's why we didn't rush in to marriage in the first place.  We had talked about allowing everybody to get to know eachother slowly to give everyone time to become accustomed to "us"; to build on our relationship during this time and our future (hence working together).

At the moment I find his "offer" unacceptable and I'm quite cranky about the whole thing. 

I'm wondering whether I'm just being altogether too emotional, maybe his suggestion is the most logical one and maybe I'm simply taking his rejection of my children all too personally.

I don't know.

If anyone can think of any questions that maybe I should be asking myself - I'd be more than grateful if you would share them because I'm feeling just a little too lost in the forest to think of any right now.

Cheers!

That his offer is unacceptable.  He apparently doesn't understand that once you are a parent you are always a parent whether the child lives with you or not.  Sometimes kids come home after they have "left the nest".  It's not like your children are a hobby that's on the side that you can just put aside whenever you want.  I personally find his request outrageous.  If he had such an issue with your children, he should have never started dating you.

Many relationships today come as "package" deals.  I myself have 2 kids and my b/f has 1.  Your children are a part of you and always will be.  If this man can't handle that, I would suggest he move on and find someone without children.

A question you may ask yourself is "After the kids move out and I marry this man and something should happen where one of my children need to move home....will I have to tell them that they no longer can come to the place they have always known as home?" 

I wish you the best.  Keep in touch.

 Hi there.

Thank you for responding to my message.  We talked again today and I asked the question about what would happen if something happened and one of my children needed to "come home".   He said that he didn't have an issue with that - he couldn't explain why it would be different.

I ended the relationship today for all the reasons you mentioned in your reply.  I feel incredibly sad but also relieved that everything is out in the open and the inner struggles of the last few months are over.

Right, I guess it's over to the "getting over a breakup" board to see what treasures I can find there to guide me through this :-)

Once again Thank-You....your reply was the bit of morale booster I needed and I appreciate you taking the time to answer me.

Cheers!
Merum

I have written on this board several times, and all about the same guy.  We have been off and on for about three years, and are both 25.  When we first got together everything was great for the first year and a half, until we started fighting a lot.  I have some trust issues and it seemed like a lot of fights would stem from that.  We then got back together about 4 months later, adn things were great again.  But then he had a personal trajedy and went into a big depressoin that eventually led to us breaking up again.  About 6 months after that he came to me saying that he made a huge mistake and wants me back.  So we have been trying but it has not been successful.  I can't seem to get over that he hurt me, and on top of the trust issues, I can't seem to get past the bitterness and resentment.  This causes us to fight and he then has doubts that this is not how it should be.  I love him, and ultimately would love for things to work out, but when is enough to much??  Right now we are trying to take the "intensity" out of us and have some space.  I am also his first serious relationship and sometimes worry that he will eventually leave because of this.  I try to stay positive because being negative really doesn't help any.  Does anyone have any advice about what we should do??  Should I even stick around if he is having doubts too???

Well, I'm over Brandon.  This is how it went.  I recieved a call from him and he asked me to come over...  But he fell asleep while I was there leaving his friend Nick to entertain me until he woke up.  Nick and I went to the skate park and talked for a while and he interupts me in midsentence and says, "Brandon dosen't deserve a girl like you."  I was caught off guard and I didn't know what to say, so I just said, "Thank you".  I learned a lot from Nick.  And, later that night when we both went home, he came back over to my apartment and brought me my stuff that I had left over at their house.  He called me later that evening and asked me if I wanted to  hang out some more, so I said yes.  We sat in the bed of my truck until 5am just talking and at that time i finally realized that I had to work in four hours so I was walking inside when he says, "Honestly, you deserve someone so much better than Brandon.  You're so much cooler then the other girls he brings around.  You're smart and funny and you don't act stupid in front of men.  Just think about that."  So Nick helped me rethink a lot of things.  I mean, that's his best friend telling me that he wasn't good enough for me.  Anyways, nick and I have been hanging out a lot and I finally got to meet that other girl Brandon had been seeing.  Surprisingly, I wasn't jealous at all.  She's pretty and funny and I like her.  I hope Brandon is happy with her. 

I read most of the stories on here and felt like talking about mine. I was in a relationship for about a year and a half. I know that isn't long for most people, but for me it was since I had been in a bad marriage a few years ago. I felt this guy was the most wonderful man in the world. Him and I had been talking about marriage. I knew in my heart that we would be together and nothing could come between us. We lived in the same town but because of his job we could go days without seeing each other. For the last 6 months of our relationship he was in another town for a school, the day before I was suppose to fly down for his graduation he broke up with me. The man did it over the internet, no phone call or anything like that. His excuse was that the distance was getting to him and he felt like he was rebounding. My friends and those around me tell me in need to move on and that I need to realize that it wasn't meant to be. In the 2 months since he broke up with me I have lost close to 15 pounds, which I didn't need to lose, one of my friends the other day told me I am starting to look anorexic. Some days I feel like I need to move on and should be looking for someone else, but there are many days when all I want to do is cry. Everyone who sees me, sees me smiling and pretending everything is fine but I know that part of me still wants to see him and have him in my life. To make matters harder I have 2 kids from my marriage, not with him, that thought he was the greatest and I feel like they think it is my fault that the relationship ended. I am at a point where I don't even know what to do. Sorry for rambling on like this, I am hoping this will help me work through my feelings.