You’ll only miss the man you wanted him to be. Everything else has already been said.
You are going to feel pretty disoriented at first, as you are so accustomed to building your life, thoughts, every action around his “needs”. (Because his every whim is treated as a need, and your every need is treated as mere whim, right?)
Even if you can leave him now without counseling, I would suggest starting a relationship with a counselor right away, so that you’ll have guidance in re-building your life around what you want. Otherwise you’ll be vulnerable to every suggestion and old idea the media, friends, and family have ever thrown at you.
I suspect that this will be your first encounter with your own wishes. Try to enjoy the light airy feeling, and don’t mistake floating for falling!
I’m torn. On the one hand, a disinterested observer can evaluate a situation more fairly and honestly than someone emotionally invested in the situation. On the other hand, all the observers in this thread have to go on is a one-sided thumbnail view of the relationship. Thus the easy judgment, DTMFA. To be fair, this is generally good advice. Given that large percentages of relationships fail, the odds are on the advice-giver’s side. The lack of information from his point of view is troubling, and would render a fair judgment virtually impossible. Since there’s pretty much no way of knowing his side of the story, and since it only takes one side to end a relationship, knowing her side is enough really. If she wants out, then it’s over. The question is how. DTMFA is a fine bit of advice, but consider what we’ve been told. He is older, undisciplined, unmotivated, lecherous, callous, and self-absorbed. This would seem to make things pretty clear.
I see the situation as being a little murkier, and I think the OP’s obligation is not to dump him, but to kill him.
You see, he’s an evolutionary throwback. He’s engaging in r-type reproductive strategies in a society where we assume K-type reproductive strategies. He’s spreading the seed far and wide with little effort to ensure healthy and well adjusted offspring. This would be fine if we lived in the Serengeti and most of those un-nurtured offspring were going to die. Unfortunately we’ve enacted a social contract under which we will all bear the burden for his offspring(probably including his undesirable traits of self-absorption, callousness, etc.).
Since we’ve pulled nature’s teeth in this regard, it falls to us to enforce what is best for the species. Our social contract with each other to support and help each other in our civilized world can not stand under the abuse of selfish wild oats sowers. I think we can all agree that layabout “artists” with no regard for others and no motivation to do anything for themselves should not be allowed to reproduce, especially far and wide. A heavy burden has been handed you, and I don’t envy you it.
Five bucks says the OP will be back here in a week explaining that she was just temporarily annoyed with her wonderful boyfriend, and they’re back together and wonderfully happy, and all the people who told her to dump him don’t understand her situation.
Holy crap. This sounds very much like the relationship I had with my girlfriend which lasted a little over 2 years. Even down to the cleaning her house and her acting like she didn’t want anyone to know that she was my girlfriend in public stuff.
We actually already broke up when her new boyfriend discovered (by looking through stuff on her computer behind her back) that she was still sleeping with me, and then asked that she start being exclusive to him, so that part is over, but it took me a while to come to terms with things (and we even played the “I may not be in love with YOU anymore, but you’re still my bestest friend ever!” game), and right now I finally decided to just cut her out of my life completely. Stop answering her calls & texts, not even update my facebook status. What’s even better is that I’m leaving for a business trip next week and she knows this, so if I can just survive a couple more days, then I’ll severely limit my ability to see her anyway, and hopefully when I get back at the end of the month, she’ll be out of my system completely.
I really understand how hard this can be, and how for every shitty thing he did to make you hate him, you can think of just as many reasons to still like him. Not all guys are like that. I’m a guy, and I actually let someone that I’m with know how much I appreciate them all the time. I think it’s fairly safe to say that if there as many things wrong as there are right, and you realize this enough to start up a thread bout it, then you need to start taking the steps to get out and move on. Don’t waste any more of your time or your life with him than what is needed to rebuild.
This is a good point. Not everyone is verbally appreciative, but in a good relationship, it’s clear that you’re appreciated. I tell my wife that all the time, and she tells me all the time, and we thank one another for even little things (“Thanks for loading the dishwasher, hon” that kind of stuff), and we do things for one another to make each other’s lives easier and better. That’s what a good relationship involves.
You’re not getting that, it sounds like. I’m normally loathe to jump on a DTMFA bandwagon, but in this case it’s the only wagon worth jumping.
I gotta say, this is perhaps the first time I’ve ever sympathised with those who start “Why can’t nice guys get dates?” threads: if I were a Dateless Nice Guy I’d be incoherent with rage right now.
Look, kiddo, any time you get emphatic, no-shit advise from the high quality people who are offering advice in this thread, and you say, “Yeah, but…” well, I think we’ve discovered the problem. I used to have acres and acres of sympathy for women who submitted to this kind of disgrace and abuse, but now they just bore me. I save it for the victims of marital abuse who honestly have almost no options. You are young, you are (at least from outward appearances) intelligent – what does he have to do, fuck an 18-year-old while demanding that you refill his wine glass? The man is a dick, an asshole, a complete cipher with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever! Get thee to a women’s shelter, girl! Quit making excuses for this prick, and GET OUT NOW!!!
excellent point. i wonder about this one a lot, and what really is going on in his mind, and it makes it a little harder. i really try to give him the benefit of the doubt, and that’s why i said earlier i think he really is doing the best he can. he’s had a hard and complicated life. some of it his history, undoubtedly some of this is chemical.
i feel my intuitions about our situation is reasonably sound, though. he seems so entirely satisfied with our relationship (because truly, i give him everything) and i am so unhappy. unless i’m just a overly-demanding, high maintenance person (which i really am not), then just by evidence alone there’s some unbalance.
well, based on the overwhelming response of “DTMFA” or the essence of that anyway (which believe it or not, i’ve never heard before these threads and i had to look up, lol) i’m starting to come up with an exit plan. i’ll probably post a follow up sometime soon.
holy shit. guys like you exist!!! give me your phone number. now.
That. That right there. That’s all the reason you need. I don’t care if your boyfriend is a millionaire doctor/movie star/athlete who donates his organs to dying orphans, buys you flowers every day and rescues puppies out of storm drains…if he doesn’t make you happy, none of that matters.
Not a productive line of enquiry. He hasn’t made you happy, he isn’t making you happy and he isn’t going to make you happy. All else is irrelevant.
Also not productive. Firstly he’s playing you like a harp with this “little boy lost” routine, and secondly there are no excuses for his behaviour. None. There are plenty of people who have had it rough, and they manage to treat their partners with dignity, deceny and respect.
Look, let’s break this down. What is your desired outcome here, and what are you going to do to achieve it? You’re unhappy in the relationship because of his beahviour, so either his behaviour changes, you leave,or you remain unhappy.
Is he going to change? Unlikely. Do you want to remain unhappy? No. So what are you left with except leaving?
Assuming you’ve identified this as your goal, now look at the steps you need to achieve it. You’re financially independent of him and you have your own place so you’re way ahead of many women in similar situations, so start breaking down “what do I have to do to go?” in short, achieveable stages. Then set a timetable for each: by Friday I will have redirected my mail, by Monday I will have sorted out the bills, and so on.
Look, it isn’t easy breaking up a long term relationship, inertia to change sets in and what lies ahead can be scary: sometimes it’s easier to stay with the known unhappiness by telling ourselves “maybe it’ll change, maybe it’ll get better” than face an unknown future. A lot of us have been there already with bad relationships, and believe me, there is someone out there who will respect and value you. You just need to recognise your own worth and do what you need to to go about reclaiming it.
The following advice may not work for you, but have you thought about “testing the waters” and enrolling yourself in a dating site? A flirt at this stage may be a good distraction, if you find you need a distraction.
If you can’t bring yourself to break up with him, maybe announcing you’ve realized that you are “naturally polyamorous” too will be a good way to start getting away from him (even if you really are monogamous, he doesn’t need to know it isn’t going any further than flirting). As selfish as this guy is, I am betting he won’t be happy that you want the freedom to act the same way he’s been acting.
It would probably be good for you to see that other guys out there are not like this. My boyfriend constantly does nice and considerate things for me, and appreciates the nice things I do for him. It can take some time to find the good ones, but they do exist!
Exactly. You’re not happy, he’s not interested in changing. Therefore, you need to find new people to hang out with. Quit wasting your time on this guy. He doesn’t appreciate you.