You’re gonna have to take that up with Zyada. However, if you do really really break up, I get to claim $5 from Lemur866, cause I’m betting you’re gonna take the plunge.
By the way, welcome to the Dope. Hope you stay beyond this crisis.
No. But I would hope I don’t have to remind you that neither is the man the OP is complaining about. Not in any meaningful sense of the word anyway.
Nobody has said it directly but it’s a necessary premise for the characterization of this woman as a victim of her ‘boyfriend’. You even go on to do the very same thing.
Thus the significance that he is not obligated to give her anything. If the OP isn’t happy, it’s her own fault. Nobody has done anything to her. Nobody has exploited her.
He isn’t using her. He just isn’t refusing her favours. And if he isn’t entitled to accept her favours without reciprocating then you are once again implying that he has some kind of obligation.
Did she say he was stalking her? She said she always goes running back to him.
I suppose it’s up to the OP to spell out exactly how he doesn’t accept it. I only said he shouldn’t, because “it” is based on a false premise.
She owes him an apology. That’s hardly him prying into her business.
She owes him an explanation for her past behaviour. He has done nothing wrong. She has. She has made commitments to him based on a premise which she knew was false. She needs to own up to that.
It’s not.
Nope. You’re missing something important. The reason she keeps going back to him. There is nothing for her to ‘get out of’. She does not need to ‘stand up for herself’. She needs to admit that she is the cause of her own unhappiness.
Right. but I would add that she should admit, if not to him then at least to herself, that those ‘needs’ of hers which aren’t being met, are things he made it clear up front that he wasn’t going to do for her.
Yes. He has done nothing wrong. She has treated him unfairly.
I think he’s giving you more respect and trust than you deserve. He’s letting you make your own choices, even though you consistently make choices which make you unhappy, and then blame him. As for dishonesty, even if you gave some examples (other than the questionable one you just did), I highly doubt how it can justify your delusions about his obligations to you.
But he has also, according to you, made it clear that ‘love’ does not mean to him what it does to most people. Sure he’s committed to you. He puts up with your crazy doesn’t he? You’re just mad because he hasn’t made the specific commitments you want him to. Commitments he made clear from the start he is unwilling to make.
So you were trying to change him. Now you’re just trying to blame him for your mistake.
It may not seem like much because it’s ‘the basics’. But what you are asking is something he made it clear from the beginning he won’t provide. Thus you are treating him unfairly by asking and pretending that it’s not much.
Until you admit you were never in the relationship you’re pretending it is, until you admit that he, not only will not, but should not, give you what you’re asking him, there is no reason not to go back to him.
The reason not to go back to him is that she’s unhappy and can no longer stand him. He’s a parasite who takes from her and gives nothing back. She’s entitled to scrape him off. The end. She owes him nothing.
I think you’re also wrong that he’s never promised her any reciprocal committments. Apparently he has.
Sure it does. He just doesn’t mean it when he says it. He uses it as a tool for emotional manipualtion, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what it means.
And if he reallydoesn’t know what it means, that makes him all the more pathological. It would pretty much make him a sociopath.
By the way, there is no such thing as the word “meaning something else.” It means what it means. People don’t get to make up their own self-serving definitions for it. If they don’t mean it the way everybody else does then they have no business saying it.
Well it’s either that or get a job.
NoJustice, I admit that by now it’s my fault for staying in this. Yes, I am the cause of my own unhappiness.
But I also think you’re missing on the basic idea that he has committed and said he would do things to change his behavior and in fact didn’t, and continually doesn’t. He never said he wasn’t ever going to do it for me. He said he would, told me he would, and then didn’t follow through.
I’ve been sort of reading this thread, so I am probably going to repeat a lot of people but…
It sounds like you have a lot to give when it comes to relationships. You’ll have no problem finding someone new who can give you what you want (respect, trust, honesty). Only thing in your way is this other dude, who needs the boot.
I’ve been in a less abusive (but still craptacular) version of your relationship a few times. Yeah, a few times. Because every time I give up all that respect and trust and honesty to a guy they blindside me by turning in to a giant tool. I honestly never see it coming. Maybe I’m stupid, but it has happened more than once.
So I know where you’re coming from, and I know what you’re feeling. I also know that it doesn’t hit you that kicking his ass to the curb is the right thing to do until waaaay after the fact.
Good luck!
NoJustice: actually, where did you get the idea that he “made it clear up front he wasn’t going to do these things for me”? i don’t think there was any point in this thread that was said. the only thing i did say was that he said he was polyamorous, something he did make clear upfront, and something i did accept and say was okay.
bolding mine
I’m sorry, I’m confused. What about this relationship is “open”, other than his zipper?*
Look, **NoJustice **has a tiny point hidden in those layers of projective defensiveness: your partner can’t be blamed for your letting him take advantage of you. On the other hand, it’s not very relevent who’s at fault here. This isn’t a courtroom, it’s a relationship. If it’s not working and attempts to fix it haven’t worked, then it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Just end it. If he wants to blame you, so what? Since he’s not going to be in your life anymore, it doesn’t matter, does it?
(Gods, I feel like I’m writing this to my younger self. One of the best things about getting old is not caring what irrelevant people think about you.)
*And I say this as a woman in a happily open marriage; I’m not coming to this from a position of kneejerk opposition to polyamory.
But now it’s obviously not ok. You have presented no other justification for your anger and resentment. I highly doubt he treats you any worse than he treats any of the other casual acquaintances he has sex with. But you continue to devote yourself to him and expect him to treat you better in return. It’s obvious he never agreed to that kind of relationship.
As long as your leaving him is justified with this ridiculous idea that he has wronged you in some way, it’s only a matter of time before the irrational anger fades and you go back to try again. You have to admit it was wrong to try the first time.
NoJustice, if you’re not the man in question, then why do you keep discounting phoenixundone’s account, that he has proclaimed his love for her and, “said he would do things to change his behavior and in fact didn’t”? Do you have some other reason to believe she’s lying when she says that?
I am not discounting phoenixundone’s account. I am discounting her faulty reasoning. I am assuming that everything in the OP was true. Her more recent claims of this man’s wrongdoing (which appeared only when finally challenged) were supported only by contortions of logic based on the faulty premise that his acceptance of her irrational devotion constitutes a lack of respect.
A faulty premise which everyone here seems determined to humour her about.
Except she’s said repeatedly that he HAS promised to treat her better in return. Why do you insist on calling her a liar? How would you know? You seem awfully invested in trying to preserve this relationship. Why do you care?
Why do you think she has to “justify” leaving him. The only justification she needs is that she wants to. Where do you get this sense of vicarious entitlement for this guy. I’m not 100% convinced you’re not him. If you’re not, you sure do care about him an awful lot, with very little reason.
This isn’t true. You keep saying this guy hasn’t promised to reciprocate anything when she says that he HAS.
It does. It’s exploitive. Exploitation is disrespectful. There’s nothing faulty about that premise. And you need to quit using the word “justify.” She doesn’t have to justify anything.
Then you aren’t paying very close attention.
Why does she think she needs to justify leaving him? why do so many people here feel the need to justify it by pretending that he has wronged her in some way?
Where do you get this irrational disgust for this guy?
You are being highly irrational. I care about the truth. For it’s own sake, and because the key to this woman’s problem is her unwillingness to face the truth. That problem cannot be solved till she admits that she has not been wronged in any way.
NoJustice, are you the boyfriend? If you care so much about the truth, please do not avoid this question, nor lie about it.
You actually do believe that don’t you…
this is beginning to amuse me. NoJustice, you fascinate me. you enjoy conflicts and debates, don’t you?
anyway, whatever. it’s all irrelevant anyway. i’m leaving him.
Please, for the love of god, don’t start sleeping with HIM! 
I’d advise staying out of new relationships for at least a year.
LOL!!! good lord, don’t worry. i didn’t mean it that way, only that he’s (NoJustice) a merciless and stubborn SOB. after i leave the boyfriend, i’m exiting the dating scene for a good while. or at least until i get my feet back on the ground.
I can see** NoJustice**'s point, in a way. The guy is only being who he is, and if the OP doesn’t like who he is and how he lives, then she should really just be honest about that and leave the guy. He is not what she is looking for, at this point in her life. Fine, great, dandy even- they need to break up because one of them is not happy. But maybe she doesn’t have the right to bitch and moan about how badly she was abused, when maybe he was only being him and she may have clearly accepted the conditions on the relationship. Her changing views on what she needs out of a relationship is fine, her changing the relationship is fine. Her inability to change him, however, does not automatically constitute a failure on his part.
But then on the other other hand, I think that maybe he does treat her pretty badly, if he has made promises to change things and hasn’t followed through.
Only the OP really knows for sure what’s going on in this relationship, and only she knows if she should leave. I hope you do leave, since you’re clearly not happy, as anyone should be. Go find what makes you happy, and one day you will look back on all the time and energy you used on this loser and be glad you didn’t waste one more day.