Okay Dopers, here is the opportunity to dissect my romantic life. Some of you know me and a bit about my situation but for those of you who don’t, here goes. I am 36; I have been divorced one year and have three kids. I am pretty self sufficient and very independent both financially and emotionally.
I have a man (Studmuffin) I have been involved with off and on for 6 years. We met in Europe and when he moved to Boston we tried to have a long distance relationship but neither of us were very good at that so we broke it off and remained good friends seeing each other when we could but we both dated others. Last December I met a guy and started dating my first real boyfriend since my divorce. Studmuffin was rather jealous of this guy and when we broke up, he made arrangements to move to the state I live in to be closer to me. He didn’t ask me about this ahead of time, he just made these arrangements to get transferred here. I kind of understand that it was because he didn’t know if it would be approved or not, but I think he might have at least told me he was TRYING.
So in May I was taking a holiday at the beach and he came down to join me and sprung this whole thing on me. He told me how in love with me he was. He’s told me that for years and I always knew but I also knew that the distance between us was prohibitive of a relationship developing any further. Then he told me he’d be moving here in August. I was thrilled. He told me he was moving all because of me.
He had a business trip to South America and we spent a few days together before hand and when he returned we spent 4 wonderful fabulous romantic sex filled weeks together.
I was so in love. We did all these incredible things together. We shopped for a house for him and spent more time together than we ever have. But I made a HUGE mistake. He left to go back to Boston to move his things. He would be gone 6 weeks before he returned.
We have known each other 6 years. He has NO DOUBT how I am. He KNOWS I only sleep with one guy at a time. We have been lovers for years. He knows if I am having sex with him and we are talking about having a romantic, dating relationship, I am not going to be sleeping with anyone while he is gone. BUT, I didn’t’ get a commitment from him before he left.
To Studmuffin’s credit, he is an incredibly honest man. He has always been honest with me to a fault, even when it will get him in trouble. He went back to Boston and I knew something was wrong because I didn’t’ hear from him for 8 days straight. When I finally did I asked him if he was seeing other women and he said "There are two women here that I have been dating that I will be sorry to say goodbye to but no one you should be concerned with " I know the Studmuffin…dating=sex. I was crushed…still am. I am not a particularly jealous woman but I can’t think of him making love to someone else. He told me this in an email so I didn’t confront him right away. My Irish/Cuban temper dictates that I wait and have at least 57 beers before there is any sort of attempt at communication on my part in an attempt to divert a nuclear explosion.
I tried to talk to him about it on the phone about a week later and it didn’t go well. I asked him about his relationship with these women and he got defensive and said I had nothing to worry about because he was moving to my state to be with me. To the best of my knowledge he’d broken up with a woman he’d been dating prior to coming to the beach BECAUSE of me….at least that is what he told me at the beach. I had no idea about these other two. I asked if one of the women was this woman he had broken up with and was appalled to find out….neither of them were. Then I asked the bombshell question. “Did you have sex with them?” ……and uncomfortable silence. Well I suppose that was my answer. He got all pissed off at me because he says that I would never have known had he not told me and that I am not being fair to him by punishing him for being honest with him. And he pulled the technicality card that we had no commitment anyway. Well all of that is true but several things make me uncomfortable. First of all he can’t dispute the fact that he had no confusion that he knew I wouldn’t sleep with anyone else and he did not tell me ahead of time that he had not one but TWO women waiting for him back in Boston all the time we were canoodling here. Secondly, he told me that he broke up with one girl to be with me but told me nothing of the other two and the fact that he was dating three women at once in Boston and apparently sleeping with all three doesn’t say much for his character. Third, We have known each other long enough to have told each other all about our family histories and I know that his father slept around on his mother through out their marriage……I’m wondering if the apple has fallen very close to that family tree.
Now originally my instinct was to just set him straight, tell him okay we didn’t have a commitment but if you want to have sex with me you can’t have sex with anyone else buster! And leave it at that. I have to look in his eyes, I can’t do this on the phone……something about knowing his intentions and if he is being sincere….I can’t do that on the phone. And he swears to me everything will be different when he gets here……hmm I am skeptical. We decided to talk about it when he gets here next weekend.
But all of these recent developments make me hesitant to even give him another chance. It isn’t easy for me to trust once I have been hurt. Right now my gut instinct is to RUN FAST AND FAR!!
Okay now if all of that isn’t enough of a brain twist for you, I have been in this limbo for about six weeks and have talked to just about anyone who will listen to me.
There is a man I know named Fernando. I’ve known him for about a year. Total trophy guy. I know him from work. He is does some contract work for our company and I see him from time to time. Older than me by a few years and makes HUGE $, very very hot and completely and utterly out of my league. Long before the boyfriend that made the Studmuffin jealous I considered how I might get his attention but he pretty much has always kept it as a professional friendship – as I said, he is kind of out of my league. [ho-hum]
Anyway, I gave up and settled on a friendship and last Friday we were having lunch and I was whining about the Studmuffin saying I didn’t know if he would give me that commitment and he said something that totally blew me away and I nearly fell into my Caesar Salad……”Mipiace, the man is going to do whatever you want him to do. You are in the drivers seat and you don’t even know it. A man would have to be dead not to be attracted to you. You are a vivacious, intriguing, intelligent young woman. Not to mention incredibly sexy. And he can have sex with you any time he wants” and the voice inflection on that part indicated that he must be a lucky man to have sex with me any time he wanted…I’m serious I was feeling faint by that time! My jaw must have been wide open! The TROPHY GUY? Saying these things? There aren’t many men who intimidate me….but this guy totally made me nervous and he was giving me the compliment of my life! He went on, “he isn’t about to screw that up unless he is total idiot! He will do anything you want him to do. But the minute you let your guard down he will be right back to his old tricks. Quite frankly, I think you are capable and worth much, much more than that.” I swear I wasn’t breathing at that point.
I was so confused I think I must have said something really stupid……I don’t know what I said……I think he might have been hitting on me? Or maybe he was just trying to be a friend and say I should dump the Studmuffin? I don’t even know. I mean what kind of a guy can’t even come out and say he is attracted to a women, but if he is going to choose a round-about way that is definitely the most powerful round about way I have ever heard.
So now I am really confused. Today I feel like telling Studmuffin “no thanks” I kind of feel like heel but I never asked him to move here to being with and he is the one to can’t keep it zipped anyway. But I kind of want to do a double check and make sure I am not doing this for something stupid like because some cute guy paid attention to me (That would be really stupid)
I have too much of an emotional investment with the Studmuffin for just some guy to come along and change all that. Oh and another thing. Even if I am mad at him. Even if he is kind of a man – Ho……we have been really good friends for a long time and I don’t want to loose that. That was one huge thing I thought of before we got into this, I didn’t want to jeopardize our really good friendship. I do love him, as a friend and as a lover, I just have to protect myself and my dignity and my health too.
