Just wanted some opinions here. My best friend will not leave a girl no matter how bad a the relationship unless he knows he has another girl willing and ready to date him which has led to him cheating in the past. He is always comes to me with relationship problems and when he needs advice or emotional support.
Anyway, back in October he had been interested in this girl he met at work (I’ll call her Anna). Originally he was into her friend but thought she wouldn’t go to bed until marriage so went for Anna instead. Well, he was in a relationship with a bipolar girl at the time. Things were going down hill fast and he wanted out. However, he wouldn’t leave her despite being miserable. So, he pretended he was single and took Anna out on a date. Well, Anna had a mom who was sick during this time and soon after things took a turn for the worst and she didn’t have time to do things with him. So, he lost interest. Well, he found out that the girl he was interested in first would go to bed before marriage (I have no idea how he figured this out). This is when things turned. Before this he told me he felt no spark for her and thought she was disgruntled and hardly smiled and claimed she always seemed pissed off. Now he started going out with her and thinks she is the one he has been waiting for his whole life all the sudden. I’m a little confused because when he first started dating he met her family and thought they were annoying and couldn’t see himself fitting in with them. However, since she is fully committed to him now he is telling me he feels a spark with her now, her family loves him, he dumped his bipolar girlfriend a week ago, and is already picking out baby names and planning to marry this girl.
Now, I’m not saying that some people can’t meet someone and fall in love and be together for a very long time. However, this seems rushed to me. They only came out as an official couple a day ago. Apparently she told him she loves him and only wants to be with him and he is telling her that he loves her to etc. etc. I’m not going to say anything to him about my feelings. I just would like to know if talking about marriage and saying I love you so soon could be bad for a new relationship. He would be crushed if this relationship fails. Also, this girl is going off to a college about 3hrs away from where my friend lives. Could this cause a break up or can long distance relationships with a girl? She is 10yrs younger then him (he is 30 and she is 20). Opinions, stories, advice? All is welcomed. I want my friend to be happy, but he has a history of failed relationships and I think he might be setting himself up for disappointment. I hope I’m wrong.
I agree my friend can act and behave like a loser, but he’s still my friend and I want to see him happy.
@ nikonikosuru: you confirmed what I was thinking too; this relationship probably won’t last through the girls college years. However, I still hope he can get his life together and work things out.
I agree that this looks like a disaster waiting to happen. Your friend sounds like he’s deriving a lot of his self worth from his relationship (and sexual) status and that’s not a healthy way to approach a relationship. However, all you can do is state your opinion and hope that you get through to him. In the end, he’ll probably brush off your concerns and proceed as planned; he doesn’t strike me as someone who is capable of much introspection. Hopefully he won’t hurt this innocent girl he’s dating in the process. I hope I’m wrong on all points.
As for long distance relationships, I was in one for almost two years. She was in Los Angeles and I was in DC. We saw each other for one weekend per month (or maybe a whole week, if we were lucky). It was really tough, but she’s moved in with me now and things are great. Things were always great, but I’m so glad the long distance is over with. A friend from work was long distance with his then girlfriend, now wife for five years (he was East Coast US, she was in Bangladesh).
So it definitely can work, but it really doesn’t sound like it will with your friend. The girl is still in college, probably trying to discover her own identity. The guy, as you mention, is prone to cheating and seems like he’ll have no problem messing around behind her back once he starts to get lonely from the distance. This will probably not end well.
I can’t be sure what that would that mean. I suspected he was unemployed or not earning much. He sounds like guys I knew that really wanted someone else to share the cost of life. Sometimes all of the cost. Maybe that’s not him. But he does sound dependent on maintaining a relationship with someone. There might be multiple issues there, not just one about emotional attachment.
Anyway, there probably isn’t much you can do about it.
That was my thought, too. It sounds like high school drama, the way he approaches relationships.
This too. He doesn’t sound very psychologically healthy.
I might be completely off base here, but is he from a different country other than the US? He almost sounds like he was raised with a different set of cultural norms than there are in North America.
My question is: why do you think he comes to you when he has "relationship problems and when he needs advice or emotional support. "? And what advice do you think you could get from anonymous, though well-meaning, smart strangers that he could not figure out for himself?
So: assuming he is an adult male, he will either figure this shit out by himself, or he won’t (and hopefully will learn something in the process.) Why are you even involved? Do you realise that it is HIGHLY unlikely your opinion or actions matter at all, here? He “asks for your help” so he can either ignore, or bolster, whatever is emotion du jour is.
In other words: you are irrelevant and unimportant to his life, in the long run. He (and you, by association) sound extremely immature. Luckily, this is a condition cured by tincture of time and learned common sense.
