Thanks for the opinions, everyone. Particularly to Skald for sharing his story.
I don’t want to go into too much detail here, but to sum it up: I have to leave the country for a year, and for the past year I’ve been involved in a tempestuous and exhausting non-relationship that will most likely end when I leave. Probably for the best. But the guy in question has had a rough life and is currently going through a difficult time (rejected from grad schools, unstable part-time jobs) and he told me he thinks I’m better off without him because he feels like his life is doomed to failure while I have a shining future ahead of me. (I don’t feel like that at all, but that’s another story.) We come from somewhat different backgrounds, although he tends to exaggerate the difference like some kind of princess-beggar fairytale. I’m just frustrated because he’s letting something I consider superficial become an excuse for us to not try any harder to actually make anything of what we have. Although it’s probably a moot point since I’m going to be away for an entire year anyway, and there’s very little chance we’ll even live in the same area once I move back.
Heh, I used to be that guy, right down to the unstable part-time jobs and feelings of failure. I remember my year after graduating college well, and I still refer to that time as exile-lite. I wound up joining the army which stabilized my life and brought me into contact with the woman who would eventually become my wife.
FWIW, unless he’s got psychological or drug problems, chances are he’ll get through this period just fine. That said, he’s right about the relationship (and I was wrong for assuming the worst about him in my last post, although I still would have phrased it differently). The last thing he needs during this period is a serious relationship. He has to get through the tempest first and think about long-term relationships after he’s reached calmer seas and gotten both his financial affairs and immediate future somewhat under control. That could take years.
I had two relationships during my exile-lite, and they both ended badly, and both times it was my fault. The best thing you can do is be his friend and offer a kind word and a shoulder to cry on. He’s got to get through the storm on his own and unattached though.
I’m going to offer that this line can be used as shorthand for, “We are looking for very different things (I’m divorced and not looking for marriage), and I know I can’t provide you with what you are looking for (I’m infertile and can’t provide children).” In that context, I don’t see it as a bullshit line.
In my single days I was in a few of these, and finally figured out that it was the tempestuousness itself, the oscillation between hope and despair, that was the stimulating part. Exciting times, but in hindsight I should have taken (or given) no for an answer much sooner.
Not knowing the principals, I’ll still wager there’s no “probably” about it. Good luck.
I can easily imagine someone in financial trouble who is exerting maximum effort just to keep himself together enough to hold down a job while going to counselling, and simply can’t spare any more to maintain a relationship. I can imagine it, because I was that person seven years ago. Now, if I’d been approached by an interested woman, I probably would have ended up saying ‘you deserve better than I can give you at this time’.
Heh. I suppose the part about him not being ready to get his shit together is all too true. If a year isn’t enough time I dunno what is.
It just seems impossible to meet someone you really click with, and it depresses me that I’ve met that person and life is making it difficult for anything to work out between us.
Oh come on, it’s not that bad. You’re what, in your mid-20’s? Just out of college, or are you still in? I seem to remember a recent post from you about school. I also seem to remember you posting a picture of yourself in a Halloween costume. You’re hardly spinster cat lady material yet, and I would lay odds against you becoming that, unless you decide you want to, of course.
There are plenty of guys out there to click with, and if you keep an open and adventurous attitude toward life, you’re going to run into quite a few of them. Too many people–both men and women–wind up in bad relationships out of unrealistic fears of living the rest of their lives alone, or boredom, or being too nice to cut the knot.
Thanks. Yes, I’m turning 26 this year, and I’ll be going back to school next year, hopefully.
26 may be too young to resign myself to cat lady-dom, but I’ve met quite a few men in the past few years, and this is the first time I’ve shared such a strong connection with anyone. I suppose I’m afraid that I’ll wake up ten, twenty years from now, never having experienced this kind of thing again. Then again, maybe then I’ll have decided this “thing” I’m so hellbent on keeping was vastly overrated.
I’ve been through enough in my (admittedly still rather short) life to know that things that seem like the end of the world can become trivial in retrospect, but that knowledge doesn’t help me now, unfortunately.
Okay, I’ll stop whining now. I suppose the best way to deal with it is just to continue having mindblowing sex for the next two months and enjoy it while it lasts.
The one time I said this to someone, that was pretty much the case: I’d met somebody else I wanted to be with and while we hadn’t even kissed yet, I knew it was headed that direction. FWIW, I really meant it: I knew I couldn’t give the first girl what she wanted relationship-wise and I knew that the way I had let things develop with the second girl before I closed out the first relationship made me something of a heel, so I really believed that she needed to find someone better.
