Expert: Susan Dunn, Dating Coach - 2/24/2009

Question
QUESTION: I was dating a really confused man.  Oddly enough, a really confused man with abandonment issues that for lack of any other way of putting it, abandoned me.


We have been together for almost 10 years off and on.  Early on in the relationship he cheated on me.   So we ended up breaking up.  Later in time we both got involved with other people.   He chose a woman that was more afraid of getting close than he was.  She was actually for the most part abusive to him, kept secrets, lied to him, cheated on him and then.... said yes to a marriage proposal.   After saying yes and buying the ring (which she never saw picked up from the jewelers, she disappeared from his life.  Started a fight, and disappeared.

He lived with the abandonment for a long time.   We remained friends throughtout all this and eventually began seeing one another again.

For the last year things have been going fantastic.  We have had some issues from the past that we have worked on with a therapist.  Sometimes though, he hides from therapy.  Meaning, he will work on things, then when he feels a bit vulnerable he will shut down.  Not show up.  Not tell the truth about things to the therapist.  Hide important details of things that are going on in his life from the therapist.  

Anyway, long story short, over the last few months things have been incredible.  He said to me one day that it scared him because he was so invested in the relationship.  Started looking for engagment rings.  Asked me to move to the town he lives in to look for work (I just lost my job).  Even gave me a Valentine's Day card saying that i was the love of his life.

THEN... WHAM!

He was gone!    

Once i lost my job it was as if he got terrified of having to do something he wasn't ready to do.   AND I NEVER asked, insinuated NOR WANTED anything more yet.   I have in the past asked if the relationship had "potential" for a long term future down the road, but I certainly didn't expect or want anything now.  There are still too many things to finish working through to go there.

However, right after I lost my job, my ex fiance showed up in my town wanting to come see me.  He wanted to offer up that all I had to do with the loss of my job was to move in with him and let him take care of things.  Something I have NO interest in and the guy I was dating knew that.

BUT ever since the day my exfiance made that offer, my "new ex" began pulling away, putting up roadblocks, picking fights and even did something he hasn't done in years......  gwaking at women in my presence.  Including turning completely around in the car to look at a woman on a bike going down the road.  After he did that he told me how he was so sorry that he didn't know why he did that, and he felt sure it was something that I didn't want to live with.  That no one deserved to feel insecure.

Now looking back, I think he wanted to upset me due to the cheating past so that maybe I would walk away.  Looking back at all that has happened, it seems as if he was trying to make me angry enough I would run.

Anyway, a few days ago, I started thinking about all this, and I called to tell him that I wanted to make it clear to him that even though I was unemployed I had NO EXPECTATIONS of his doing anything.  That I didn't expect him to move me in, marry me, support me ... NOTHING.   That I would be okay.   That I realized my exfiance offering that may have made him feel that he was going to have to step up to it, but if that was what he thought, it was pressure HE was putting on himself.  Not me.

That the only thing we had to figure out was that I would have to search for jobs wherever I could get a job.   That moving to his area was not possible unless I found a job that WOULD ALLOW ME TO AFFORD TO MOVE AND PAY FOR AN APARTMENT.   So I even made it clear that if I did move to his area like HE asked, I STILL DIDN"T expect to move in!!!!

He started nit picking at me.  I ask too many questions.  I am never satisfied.  on and on.  UNTIL....

He escalated it to a fight.  And it went from there to wanting to date others while we date, to not wanting to date me any more.  To move on, date others and never look back because even if we stayed together I would never want more with you than we have now.

Where the heck that all came from I don't know.   It is almost as if he loves me, knows he loves me, is TERRIFED of loving me and therefore he just picks and picks at me for reasons to keep himself believing it could never be more.  YET at the same time he was having feelings that moved him toward more (move to my town, looking at rings) and then when I lost my job and he thought about all the implications PANICKED that he might actually have to step up to the plate and do something that scares the crap out of him.

SOOOO he bolted.  Just threw everything we had away.   I haven't heard from him since.  It was a shock!!   In fact all I have heard from him is a communication to our therapist that he was closing the chapter on 10 years.  Never looking back and was more inclined to have married the girl that was abusive to him, than he was me!!

Please help me understand this!!!   The only thing I feel like I can do now is exactly what he said.  Date others and move on.  Because no matter if it was FEAR of commitment or whatever happened.  Or if the unemployement thing caused him to get scared... WHATEVER it was... it was!

I can't force him not to be scared.  I can't talk him out of his fear.  I can only do as he asked... let it go and move on.   And IF he ever clears the cobwebs and comes back see how I feel.

However, I keep trying to talk myself into accepting that I have no choice but to accept his decision.   I am so sad, so hurt and feel so disappointed.   And I want to hang onto the thought that he will work through this and return.  However, I know that if I live in the "maybe he will" theory and he doesn't.... I will have just hurt myself more.

What the heck happened right before my eyes... and where do I go from here????

I have pretty much said the same thing I am saying here to you, asking the same question of our therapist.  However, I get danced around because since he works with both of us, and my "new ex" has pretty much gone silent and is hiding from everyone, he won't say much because he works with us both.

PLEASE help me....  Do I just do as my ex said... "move on, date and don't look back"?   And if so, why the heck did this have to happen???   I know everyone says "I didn't do anything to cause this".   However, in this case... I TOLD HIM I HAD NO EXPECTATIONS and up to this point it was going fantastic!!

Thanks in advance!!!



ANSWER: What puzzles me is why you "had no expectations."  I would expect what the past boyfriend offered - that a man who loved you, whom you love, would help you.  That's what a partnership is all about.

I had to re-read this a couple of times to try and figure it out, and that's just the thing.  It isn't working.  His behavior shows ambivalence, and being with an ambivalent person will drive you nuts.

I'd say a fresh start is in order and that you've dodged a bullet. This man is not able to commit to a relationship with you, plain and simple.  The reason doesn't matter.  Just take it for what it is.  How many signals does he have to give you that he isn't 'available' for a relationship?

When dating, you don't waste your time.  If there aren't serious noises about marriage after about 10 mos., you move on. In fact you should see progressive signs all along.  (If you want dating coaching, let me know.  It would be helpful for you.)  

This wasn't "dating" it was something else.  

You'll drive yourself nuts trying to figure this all out - so don't.  Just move on.  In fact, consider yourself lucky.  Take some time to get your own head clear, and then you will attract and find someone who isn't so impossily conflicted, and about whom you are not conflicted.  

When two people are ready to marry, and know they've found the right one, the trajectory is rather rapid and uncomplicated.

Why are you in a position where another ex would show up and offer you that arrangement?  Did you not tie off loose ends?  That enables you to move on.  

Don't waste time trying to figure out what is just another episode in a long messy situation.  Take it for what it is -- a chance for you to move on, without regrets.  This time make it clear it's over, BTW, to free him, but most of all to free yourself.  Then go forward and don't look back.

All the best,
Susan Dunn
www.susandunn.cc


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Susan,

Thank you for your response.  I am working hard to take this for what it is, and move on.  It just seems to be a terrible arguement between my heart and my head right now.

I guess if I were honest with myself, I did have expectations.  Especially after being in this relationship for so many years, breaking up for many years and being back together for over a year now.   

Perhaps when I got a strong reaction to the question "does this relationship have long term potential", I made expressing actual expectations feel even more dangerous.

Ambivalence is a good way to describe the relationship.  And perhaps that is what has me so confused and hurt right now.  The fact that there were times where he made me feel so loved, and a relationship desired, then there were times that he just didn't act like it mattered.  I expressed numerous times that I felt like he could take it or leave it.  If he were in a relationship, great.  If not, that was ok too.  And oftentime he would say things about maybe he was just meant to be alone in life.   So ambivalence is a good discription.

I saw the signals that he wasn't available for a relationship, I guess I held on stronger to the brief moments that he acted like he was.   I wanted those moments to count for more.   I have found myself saying that I might have hung in there for 5 more years and it not change a thing.  Then the other side of my brain thinks if I had hung in there with no pressure it might have eventually won me what I wanted with him.   However, truth is, it is sad to think he was the one that held that control.

My head and my heart are in conflict.  I know in my head that it is time to let it go, move on if he is unwilling or unable to give me what I want, now or in the future.  However, in my heart it is really hard to let go of someone that you have loved for and held onto hopes for 10 years.

Not an hour goes by where, if I have a minute of downtime, I don't think about him.  About could I have done something different.  Should I have done something different.  I try to stay busy, yet give me a moment to think and there the thoughts are again.

I am holding out for this having less hold on me with time.

Thanks again for your help!


Answer
You are not the first women I have heard this from.  

10 years is a long time to invest in someone, or to waste your time, whichever way you want to look at it.  It's hard to let go.  First of all, just spending time with anyone, you will "attach" to them.  It is not easy to let go. Don't kid yourself on that one.  You can't talk your emotions out of feeling what they feel.  And the harder you try not to, the more power you will give it.  

Therefore, I'll say to you - go back.  I suspect that you will anyway.  Go back and try again.  Then go back and try again ... until you, in your heart, get sick and tired of being sick and tired of it.  What usually happens is that you go back and he will say exactly the thing that turns you off.  Because men do not change.

I speak with women who have been waiting 10 years for the man they love("But I LOVE him") to divorce his wife and marry them.  They've invested so much time, they don't dare say "it was a waste of my time."

I want you to go back until you 'get' it. Don't listen to what anyone else says.  And I won't give it any power by telling you that you "should" leave him.  It is hard to let go.  Very hard.  When apart, you think of the good things.  You think of your fantasies, your dreams, the plans you had ... that maybe, maybe he will finally change.  Men don't change, and they tell women 'the truth' we just don't hear it. When a man says maybe he was just meant to be alone in life you should hear it.  Painful as it is.  Because it will save you time.

I had a client, and the man told her on the second date, when we are still fairly free about what we say, "ha ha One woman would never be enough for me."  4 years later she was puzzled the he continued to have other women.  When you read this about someone else, it is easy to see what's going on, because you are not emotionally involved and can be objective.  i.e., Didn't he warn her?  Yes, he did.  SHe just didn't hear it.  

You are still trying to make it "your fault," when he's just the way he is.  If you could discover something you did WRONG, then you think you could do it RIGHT.  I suspect that is not the case, but you aren't going to listen to me or anyone else, until you have discovered it yourself.  

If you were my client, I would ask you "Why do you love this man?"  And you would give me reasons.  Then you would call the next day, or week, with the sad way he has treated you ... and I would ask again, "Why do you love this man?"  It doesn't matter how I think or feel, because I don't love him.  I don't even like him from what I've read.  But that's beside the point.

A heart/head thing.  Well here's something I go by:  You can't reason OUT of someone what wasn't reasoned IN to them.  And love is never 'reasonable.'

If you decide it's best to move on, it will take you time to get over it. Don't try and dam up the feelings - the more you resist them, the more power you give them. If you slip and call him, be self-forgiving.  Just get back on the horse - abstinence!  It is hard to give up ... our fantasies and hopes and dreams, which is what it amounts to.  The way you thought it would turn out.  But it hasn't.  You will have to cry, and mourn the loss. (A good song for this is "Time to Say Good Bye" - Con Te Partiro, Andrea Bocelli.)  It's a nonverbal (not words) things, because you hurt.   

Then at some point, the air will clear, and you'll be ready to move on, and it will be "just a blip on the radar screen."  Most of us women ... we stay in love with the last one until we fall in love with the next one.  I'm not one to fly in the face of human nature.;-)  Men, on the other hand, MMO, men move on.  We see them at the retirement home looking for their next wife "too soon."  That's the way men are.  It's the nature of the genders.  

Another ready 'excuse' is - I have to make this work (or I love him because...) "Now I'm too old for anyone," and "in this town he's the only man with class, and I need that."  If I told you that from someone else, what would you say? (It's hardly likely ... it's just something you're telling yourself...and it will keep you stuck.)

You will have to go through the sturm und drung.  It would be nice if you could find a coach to talk to. They can help you get unstuck, but you have to be a willing participant. It helps in sorting things out. There will be times when you feel like you just have to go back.  Other times it will be easier ...

Don't hold out that it won't have a hold on you.  Acknowedge gently that it will, for a time, and that's OK.  That's just the way it is.  10 years is a long time.  But one day, if you're willing (and really even if you aren't) things will look different, FEEL different.  If you get your sail out of its wind, it helps, though nothing helps a whole lot except (1) time and (2) when the new guy comes along.  You will then immediately forget the last one.  You will say, "What did I ever SEE in him?"  I promise!

All the best,
Susan Dunn
www.susandunn.cc