I’ve been in your situation. On and off again love over the course of 15 years. He never really promised me anything, but I always felt like “he really wanted to”. And, yes, every time he came back, I wondered if he was just stringing me along. I said exactly the same things you are saying now. Every time I ended up going with him and every time it ended poorly.
Real life love is never like the movies. There aren’t any sudden realizations, years later, of missed opportunities. He would have, at the very least, kept in touch with you after you moved, if not outright tried to stop you from moving at all.
I think it’s okay to see him again just to catch up and talk. But I agree with everyone else…he’s on the rebound and just wants to find someone to fill the void/boost the ego/pass the time with. As long as you never lose sight of this and don’t delude yourself into thinking he’s in love with you, things will be fine.
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If this were a “meant to be” type of situation, there wouldn’t be so much fear, anxiety, and inner conflict going on in your mind. Not a good sign that your body reacts to the thought of him like that.
True. But I don’t know how much of that is because he’s hurt me in the past by not reciprocating, or is my intuition picking up on something about him now.
And now he’s saying that he thinks he could develop feelings for you if you go along on this road trip?
I wouldn’t go.
He can come visit you in Arizona if he wants to see you. That’s the next natural step in a long-distance relationship, not serving as a prop on his arm for his visit to his friends.
Now you’re getting defensive. No one every said you should feel bad or ashamed because you love him. We are pointing out that he probably doesn’t love you in return – at least not in the same way.
He’s done the married thing. It didn’t work out. He’s lost a child. It’s perfectly normal for him to now look fondly back on the days when his life was a hell of a lot less complicated. Unfortunately, he associates you with freedom, not commitment.
Other folks have said it better than I can, but I wanted to chime in too. The story really reads as if he successfully strung you along before and he’s on the rebound and looking to see if you’ll still dance for him. If you don’t mind being a disposable warm body (again), I say go for it.
I’d probably tell him thanks but no thanks. (I realize that’s pretty easy for me to type on a message board, or course.)
After I submitted that, I was concerned that someone would take it that way. But no, I was referring to talking to him about it. A lot of men would not want to talk about it, and would try to make a woman feel bad for talking about her feelings, implying that she’s a drama queen or whatever. I don’t know if he would be like that if I told him that I was concerned about having my heart broken again because I’m in love with him, but that’s what I was referring to. I wouldn’t let him impugn my dignity if I did admit to him how I feel.
I’ll also say that the reason you get nauseous when you talk to him is probably because you are totally infactuated with him but 1) you feel unable to express that to him and 2) you are petrified to hear that he doesn’t feel like you do.
But if I were you, I would bite the bullet and tell him point blank how you feel. How he reacts to this information will answer a lot of your questions. If he equivocates and says he doesn’t know how he feels about you yet, it will hurt but it won’t be the end of the world. At least then you’ll know where he stands.
I suspect what he’ll say is that he likes you a lot but is gunshy about being in a relationship right now and needs more time to figure out what he wants. Which is the same song and dance he gave you the first go round, right? But at least you’ll know the deal then when he says this. Maybe the cold ugly truth will cure you of your infactuation.
In the remote chance that he says he knows he wants to be with you and can’t get you out of his mind he’s so in love with you, don’t automatically believe him. He’ll need to demonstrate that with some tangible actions (e.g., like coming out to see you). But at least you’ll have a reason to continue talking to him other than just wishful thinking.
In my on again, off again love, every time he came back, he upped the ante emotionally. The first time around, we were just a temporary fling. The second time around, he loved me, but wasn’t willing to sacrifice his career for mine. The third time around, he said that his life was miserable because he loved me and didn’t have me. This went on for several more rounds, until he loved me so much that it was destroying his life. :rolleyes::dubious:
The important thing is that he never changed anything in his life to accommodate mine. Someone who really cares will meet you halfway. Don’t focus on what he says, focus on what he does. So far, it doesn’t seem like very much.
I know this must be hard to hear. I totally ignored or was crushed by comments like these. But many of us are speaking from experience. For what it’s worth, I’m in love with a great guy now, who always meets me halfway and I can’t imagine following around the old flame.
I think I’ll go a bit against the grain: If you go into this knowing that he doesn’t love you and will never love you, and steel yourself against that fact, what’s the worst that could happen if you do end up seeing him and maybe having a fling with him?
If you are *that *attracted to him as you seem to be, and are currently single, what would a short fling with him hurt, as long as you go into it aware that nothing important will come out of it?
Of course, if there’s any chance that after seeing him you’ll start to think that he loves you and there is hope for the two of you as a couple, then it’s best not to see him at all.
But, if you go into it fully prepared to let it stay at the short-term fling level, why is seeing him worse than not seeing him, since he is *that *attractive to you? Do you think that even under these conditions there is the possibility that you will get majorly hurt?
If I can just distance myself, I think I should be able to get together with him and nothing go wrong. I’ll just have to decide if I can do that, or not. I guess.
He has nothing unattractive about him? Nothing? :dubious: I’m sorry, but that sounds not so much like you’re truly in love with him as like you’re deeply infatuated with him. If you know someone well enough to truly love them, you’re plenty aware of their faults and annoying traits.
Why won’t he come just to see you? Why doesn’t he want to come and develop a relationship with you? Why will he only see you if you are accompanying him on his road trip? Is he expecting you to meet him in Florida to accompany him?
Then why didn’t he when you were there with him that whole time? That whole time where he never even bothered to learn your last name?
I don’t think he’s a very good guy. The parts of him that are your dream guy aren’t enough of him.
The word for this feeling is not love, it’s limerence. It has nothing to do with the man in question- people can feel limerence for the Berlin Wall. This feeling is an evolutionary trick, and while it can be pleasant it’s good to remember that it’s confined to your own brain, with no special meaning of its own. Realistically, you don’t even know this guy. Your brain is having a (perfectly natural, extremely common) reaction to an idea (loving this guy) that it basically made up.
If you can go in knowing that it is going to end and you think you can handle the hurt that will come with it, there is nothing wrong with having a fling with someone you are extremely attracted to. You will get hurt, but it could be worth the adventure as long as you know you’ll have the coping skills to handle the end. But know that if you go on this road trip, you are effectively cutting off whatever small chance there is that that it could bloom into something more than a fling. He will lose respect for you, and will discard you. But if you don’t mind drama it could be a reasonable mid-life fling.
If there is any chance of this being something more (which there almost certainly isn’t) you need to stop taking more than a phone call once a week, around your schedule, and refuse to jump through a single hoop. Men are constantly testing women to see if they can justify not respecting them. The moment a woman puts herself below a guy, or starts arranging her life around his, he feels justified in not respecting her and loses interest in anything long-term. You said yourself that you have a happy little life. He should be turning back flips to figure out how he can fit into that. If he wants it enough, you won’t have to work for it. He’d go through hell and high water to make it happen. Every time you serve him, you drive him away and make it easier for him to leave you.
He did not chose you earlier because he did not want you like that. This is true. You can’t call anything “love” until you can find the empathy and bravery to see it through his eyes and accept that he made the best choices for himself, which is all he owes anyone and really all he can do. He did not break your heart- you broke your heart. Until you can confront this period with genuine acceptance, and actually appreciate the choices he made without hurt or blame, you can know that what are feeling is not love. Ironically, if you can open your heart enough to understand why he did things the way he did, I think a lot of these gaspy feelings will evaporate.
You’re not a weirdo - there are just things that inexplicably work between some sets of people. It’s a normal part of human sexuality. I used to work with a woman who found it very enthralling when I would speak my crappy high-school French around her - it didn’t matter what I said, it was just the voice and the rhythms and sounds of the language.
Um, I would have to say that it would work in the short term but not the long haul. I realize I speak only for myself here, but I honestly find the thought of a relationship based on one-sided devotion a little creepy. It just sounds to me like you would have to continually pour energy into the relationship without much reciprocation. It sounds exhausting to me.
As you have described your feelings, they remind me of the way I felt when I was desperately “in love” with girls (and later, women) with whom I had no chance in hell. Later, I found a relationship that is based more on mutual contentment, and it has proved to be a much better feeling for me.
I have to agree with another poster that this perfect guy is just looking to get his dick wet. He knows you’re all googly over him and he’s hoping to cash in on the opportunity. He may not think that’s what he’s after, and he certainly won’t admit it, but it doesn’t sound like he’s given any evidence that his position has changed - only weasel words about how it might, given time.
In other words, be my fuckmoney for some indeterminate period of time and I might eventually decide I can’t do better - but if I do find something better, sayonara!
Other than weirdness of the name thing, in looking at the OP I’m trying to find where this guy became the son of Satan and I’m not finding it. I her 20’s she had a causal friend/sex relationship with a man who told her up front he was not ready to commit to marriage, and that drifted apart when they became separated by distance. He got another woman pregnant while in a subsequent relationship and married her. He re-contacts her 16 years later being divorced and reaches out to see if there is a spark. What a bastard.
Re the “he’s just after one thing” assumptions if he just wanted to have sex it’s a hell of a lot easier to find willing 40 something women in the proximity of your backyard vs. chasing an old flame thousands of miles way.
The one thing that does not make sense in this scenario is the name thing. I’ve searched for old girlfriends on Facebook, not to reconnect romantically, but just out of curiosity to see what they were up to. I’m not great with names, and I’ve forgotten women’s names I’ve dated years ago, however, to not know the name of someone you slept with repeatedly over months and months is… well… a bit bizarre.
The only scenario I can see is if her name is *really *weird and he did not remember the exact spelling the Facebook search engine is fairly basic and is not that helpful. It ain’t no Google. If he did not know her last name period I suspect there’s something Alice is leaving out of the narrative.
He’s not just looking her up, he’s making a booty call while simultaneously making it clear he doesn’t want to commit to anything.
It doesn’t make him the son of Satan, but there is ample evidence that he doesn’t care about Alice the way she thinks she cares about him, and she’s likely to come away disappointed and heartbroken.
If he wants to commit to coming and seeing her, that’s one thing, but “come and be my fuck buddy on a road trip, and maybe I’ll bother to learn your name” is asking her to put herself out with no promise of anything in return.
Alice, weren’t you the poster who moved into a very bad living situation which we all told you would be bad, then you found out in an extremely short time that it was really bad - like, putting your child in danger bad? This is like that - not that your child is in danger, but that you don’t want to listen to good advice again. This man cannot give you anything you need - if he could, he would have already.