Please help me make some sense of our relationship

July 22, 2008 12:25 PM

Mr. Fog and I broke up last night. I am completely obliterated and need advice. ASTOUNDINGLY Long detailed back story inside.

Mr. Fog and I have been together for almost 3 years. I still love him like mad. He still give me goose bumps and butterflies, but apparently I don't do the same for him. Our relationship hasn't been an easy road. He was burned quite badly in his divorce, ex-wife said we can work it out let's get back together... so he did and she burned him a second time. He date a few girls in between her and me but nothing as substantial as what we had altho there was one girl he told me that he probably would have married if she hadn't broken up with him and after the girl dumped him that he dated immediately preceding me I over heard him say one day at work (where we met) before we were together "That girl made me think of getting married again" I was secretly in love with him all throughout that short lived ( a few months) relationship. Not too long ( a few months) after they broke up we started dating.

I did all the asking out at first. I don't think he would have made a move on me if I hadn't made the first move. We moved in after a month of dating and moved to Florida (from Texas) after about 7 months of dating (we both hated that job where we met) I had some issues with feeling like sometimes he was not fully committed to the relationship. He said blatantly many times he did not want to get married and at first I was OK with that. I had a lot of insecurities at the beginning of our relationship and although they have gotten much much better over time damage has been done and he sometimes gives me good reason to be insecure (see below)

We have had some pretty scarey fights lots of yelling and I get kind of radical hitting my head sometimes with my fist or on a wall if I can't get through to him. He can be so stubborn and put words in my mouth and tell me what I am feeling and won't listen and I get so frustrated. He says this freaks him out which I guess it well should. I can be a nag. He can be a slob. But I don't love him any less. If I could just have him back he can leave his soda cans wherever he wants and his razor and shavecream goop on the couter everyday. He has an 8 year old son from his marriage. He is with us for the summer so that has put alot of strain on us. He is a bit of a terror and while I love the kid his manners and behavior leaves a bit to be desired. Our relationship has been bumpy.

He has NEVER been romantic with me except for maybe the first few months after we started dating. But he has been passionate. I truly truly believed we were forever. And my views on marriage changed over the past few months. I have been wanting it more and more. But i still don't want it if he doesn't want it. But I have brought it up and we have argued about it. And I have told him I would wait until he was ready. He says he never wants to go down that path again. I said you aren't going down the same path... you never left the path you are on. I am not the same path. I don't see why if he didn't love me truly then why he couldn't take that chance with me I have never given him and reason to believe I would do what she did.

And then the past week or so he has been very standoffish which can be normal for him but I usually give him some space and he comes out of it. I let him k now I was feeling kind of neglected and he just kind of stared into space but I didn't push the matter. We made amazing love that night but I felt he wasn't into kissing me at first and i have never never never felt that from him before. then last night he got a text while he was laying beside me in bed as he was setting his alarm. He looked at me quickly he didn't open it while I was looking at him and the rolled over and replied. I asked him who it was and he took to long to answer so while he was sleeping I got the phone and found some flirty mssgs. with an intern he met at work. nothing too bad just the kind of stuff you txt with someone when you are looking to start dating them maybe. I woke him up and confronted him about it and he just kind of sat there. I asked if he wanted to break up and he burst into tears. He doesn't cry easily. He said he loved me he truly does but not in a forever way. That maybe once he did. But he has just been trying to find it again for so long and he said he would keep trying as long as I wanted him to. The I was the best friend he ever had and if I could only understand how hard he has tried and the guilt he has been carrying around because he feels "he is wasting my time" I don't feel a minute was wasted NOT ONE SECOND. I got the whole it's not you it's me... even though he admitted it was cliche. We decided to remain roommates until our lease is up in november. He doesn't make much money at all and I don't make enough to keep this big house by myself. So I was going to take a room and he will take a room.

Is it too much to hope that we can rekindle the flame like that. That he might miss me and see what an amazing, if not perfect, relationship we had. I can give any more info needed please email me here or on my yahoo which is in my profile if you don't want to post. I want any words you can give. How to cope with losing him how to keep him... I am lost and confused. THings seemed TERRIFIC just 2 weeks ago we were making passionate love everynight he was affectionate and loving and then BAM 2 weeks later. He is an amazing man a good person. I don't want to lose him but I don't want him to be held down in a relationship and not be head over heels. Please Hope me....

posted by fogonlittlecatfeet to human relations (27 answers total)

Get outta Dodge. The only shot you've got that he will miss you is if you disappear for a while. Do not stay as roommates until your lease is up. Don't take his phone calls, don't see him, just disappear.
posted by Flying Squirrel at 12:44 PM on July 22, 2008

First breathe. Then do it again. OK?

Things weren't "TERRIFIC" two weeks ago -- you just said that yourself, before you said that they were. I'm not saying sit around and think about all the bad things about him that you can come up with, but stop convincing yourself that everything was perfect and that now everything is shit. Because that's not true. Keep repeating to yourself that it's not true.

And move out of that house ASAP -- can you find a subletter to be his roommate until November?

And keep breathing. It gets better, I promise.
posted by Airhen at 12:50 PM on July 22, 2008

Also -- write a list of everything you loved about him, and another with everything you hated about him.

The problem when we breakup is we flip flop -- one minute we'll think "I can't believe I stayed with that jerk so long!" and then the next "Oh but his smile was the greatest."

Whenever you think about going back to him, look at that list of everything you hated. The list of everything you love will help to keep perspective.
posted by Flying Squirrel at 12:53 PM on July 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wow. You should go back and read what you have written a few times. I bet you come up with the answer yourself.
In case you don't: It is time to go. Do it for yourself. Give yourself some space so you can get some perspective.
Take some time to yourself to get over things.
Take care of yourself. You need to.
posted by a3matrix at 12:54 PM on July 22, 2008

Okay. This post is really, really difficult to read, due to the lack of paragraphs. I'm going to try to break it out a little so that we can maybe get a handle on what your issue is.

• You and Mr. Fog, who has an 8-year-old child from a previous marriage, have been together for three years.
• He has custody of the kid this summer and it's been a strain on your relationship. You say you love the kid, but find his behavior offputting. I don't know what Mr. Fog thinks of the kid, but he appears to dislike his ex-wife a lot.
• He had a pretty bad marriage and he seems like he doesn't want to remarry. You want to marry and have brought it up, although you've couched it in terms of waiting until he's ready; he says he will never be ready again.
• You don't see why he wouldn't want to marry you, and appear to view it as a test of his love for you ("I don't see why, if he didn't love me truly, he couldn't take that chance with me.")
• Mr. Fog has never been "romantic" with you past the early stages of your relationship, but he has been "passionate;" by your descriptions, I suspect you mean he's been sexually interested in you and you in him, but he hasn't been conventionally attentive and so on. It's hard to tell what you mean here.
• You guys don't appear to cope with conflict terribly well-- you resort to physical self-harm and he clams up. Your fights are frightening affairs, and you find yourself feeling insecure. (Please tell me you don't self-harm in front of the kid.)
• Mr. Fog is exchanging flirty SMSes with an intern at his job and not telling you. You, on the other hand, are OK with checking his SMSes without his consent to find out what he's up to, which suggests that you don't trust him and you're OK with violating his privacy (or feel that he has no right to privacy in this context).
• You guys have pretty much broken up already, you're living in the same house still because you can't afford it yourself, and he says he doesn't love you in a "forever way."

The kicker, to me, is that you and this guy have these wicked fights and then hot make-up sex, but you don't seem to have anything else going on here. You say the relationship is "amazing," but all I'm seeing is a bunch of yelling, slamming your head into the wall, and then having sex. On top of that, he's OK with flirting with the intern at his job, and then cries and tells you that he doesn't love you in whatever the hell a "forever way" is, once you've caught him in the act.

That's not really a mature relationship, sadly, and exposing a kid to that kind of stuff can be bad for their sense of trust and stability. For the kid's sake, you guys should probably either break up or find adult means of communicating that don't involve self-harm or screaming fights. No one likes to slam their head into a wall and scream. No one likes to feel like they could be replaced by the intern at work. No one wants to grab their SO's phone every ten minutes to perform an Infidelity Check.

On top of that, your boyfriend doesn't want to get married and you do. If you eventually do nag him into marriage, you're going to find yourself in the same situation several other people in Ask MeFi this week have-- finding out that either you don't *really* want to marry this guy and wondering if you can just get a divorce in two years, or ending up in a very unhappy and combative marriage for 26 years and however many kids. He doesn't want to marry you, and you need to see that and re-evaluate your long-term goals.

Also, why do you want this situation, again? You guys sound like a match made in hell, honestly, and no amount of hot sex will make up for that. I speak from experience gained by dating a self-harming bipolar screaming guy with a kid. *No* nookie is worth what you're putting yourself, him, and the kid through. Good luck finding a new place to live.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 1:02 PM on July 22, 2008 [25 favorites]

My opinion: Both of you need room to breathe and think, you made a lot of moves very fast, and he comes with a lot of baggage. My wife and I broke up 3 times over 10 years before we got married. There's nothing wrong with taking some time to re-evaluate your life and relationships, especially when you've gone through what he has. Giving him some time and some space might do him a world of good, and if he really loves you then he will realize it eventually. For you to take the time to re-evaluate might be a good thing to, do you want to be with him because you truly love him, or because you are afraid of being alone?

The suggestion of just disappearing seems a little strange to me, relationships require effort, you get nowhere just running away. Move to a different room, and get about finding a new place to live. Take some time for yourself and give him the same, after a few months apart you may find that life has taken an unexpected turn.

Good luck.
posted by Vindaloo at 1:04 PM on July 22, 2008

After my last devastating breakup, I realized something very clearly: love does not conquer all.

You can love someone, and they can love you, and there can still be no way to go forward together. All the parsing of subtext and all the untwisting and retwisting of narrative threads cannot undo this. Heaven and earth sometimes remain unmoved, no matter how much our hearts wish to move them.

Everything ends. All relationships end, whether by separation or death. This is the first great truth, and it's painful -- so painful that in its face we will do anything we can to try and opt out, to make the truth go away, to sidestep the truth staring us in the face.

You are on the precipice of grief, and do not wish to take the plunge. I know. I've been there. I've been literally on the floor screaming to gods I don't even believe in to save me from it. But the only saving is to fall in, to allow yourself to grieve, and to believe -- even as every fiber within you cannot believe such an absurdity -- that one day you'll move through the grief into a new place.

This chapter of your life is closing. The next chapter will be hard. The chapter after that will be better.
posted by scody at 1:04 PM on July 22, 2008 [114 favorites]

Wow, that's rough. Do you have a good friend you can talk to? Or a therapist? Getting over this kind of thing is not a quick or a painless process, and it's a lot easier if you have someone to help shore you up when you feel like you're going to fall apart.

I think Airhen is right that you need to get away from him as soon as possible--find a subletter if you can, and check the terms of your lease to make sure there isn't a clause that will let you out of it early due to major life changes like separation.

Mostly you need time. You're in a really lousy place, but you can get through it. You say you don't want to lose him, but if you reread what you wrote you'll see that you already have lost him. He doesn't really love you; rather, he thinks of you as a friend who takes care of him and whom he cares for. It's not clear if he fell out of love with you, or whether he never truly fell in love with you to begin with, but that doesn't really matter.

You deserve a happy life, and you won't find it with him. Please get whatever help you need to move on and accept things as they are. And get out of that house just as soon as you can.
posted by cerebus19 at 1:08 PM on July 22, 2008

Ouch, I'm sorry to hear this.

If the relationship is over, which it sounds like it is, sharing a house until November is not going to be easy. What you don't want to do is follow him around the whole time, with a "Can we work this out/I love you" expression on your face. That's not going to get him back - even if you decide you want him back, which is hopefully debatable. If you can't move out, you're going to have the pull off an acting role that Meryl Streep would envy - make that guy think that you're doing fine. Go and cry in the car if you have to, but weeping and gnashing your teeth (and punching yourself in the head) will not result in a romantic reunion. Plus, it's really bad for your self-esteem, which is the more important thing here.

Second - this is a generalization, but sex does not equal love. Good sex is only one of the components in a healthy relationship. Someone on MeFi mentioned the Triangular Theory of Love - read up on it. You're missing out on some stuff.

And third - he's said from Day One that he doesn't want to get married. When someone tells you something like that, just listen. Don't start the mental planning of "Oh, they don't really mean that, they'll change their mind once they see how great we are together etc..." If marriage is something you want, then right now, this guy is not for you.

And lastly - I know how bad this hurts right now. I really, really do - we've all been there. It's going to be OK, I promise.
posted by Liosliath at 1:09 PM on July 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

Listen to yourself. You are talking as if you're trying to take care of him ("I don't want him to be held down in a relationship" -- poor guy! if only he were an adult who could just choose to end a relationship that was bad for him!), and about how hard it is for him to be in a relationship he's not that into (I feel for him! So hard that he's starting to date other people to escape the pain!), etc.

But meanwhile he is done, the relationship has been over in his mind for a while, but he didn't have the courage to tell you that up front. Instead he was sneaking around trying to start another relationship (maybe hoping you would find out and do the hard work of confronting him).

He was treating you badly. Stringing you along because he was afraid of losing the comfortable situation he had. That's a shabby way to treat your "best friend", and an even shabbier way to treat your partner. He was not looking out for your interests. You don't want to be in a relationship like that. That's not marriage material. That's you getting used.

For now, breathe and go talk to a real-life friend of yours about it.

But in the next couple of weeks, you should be looking to move out. Living with him will tempt you to stay in the "I will take care of him, he has it so hard, it was so great and we could get back together, maybe we will have sex, etc" role. But remember: he has already moved on in his mind. If you stay around, and stay in that caretaker role, that "I would do anything for him" role, it will not be reciprocal -- he will be getting the advantages and you will be doing all the work and keeping your unrealistic hopes alive. It will just delay you getting started on the next part of your life. This sucks, but it is a wake-up call. You need to re-focus on looking out for your own interests rather than his, because he is not looking out for yours.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:12 PM on July 22, 2008 [3 favorites]

Something about love crushes the idea of coherent paragraphs. What it is exactly?

My sense: You're mad about him, but he's just not that into it. You're probably making it worse by trying to discuss feelings that he probably doesn't want to - and probably can't - talk about. You can't talk someone into loving you, and when you try, you just push that person further away. I think it's over, and you should put your emotion aside and just leave. Just creating the appearance of strength is going to make you feel better and it'll certainly make you more alluring to others.

When I read your post, I was struck by how desperately you were looking for things to bolster your belief that this guy was so amazing. Most of them feel hollow. Someone out there is going to love a person with as much passion as you have, but he's not the one.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 1:16 PM on July 22, 2008 [2 favorites]

The hardest thing to remember is that breaking up is NOT a fight. You can't Win at breaking up. No amount of logic or brute force will make one party 'right' You need to find some space of your own and make a life that doesn't involve him. From that vantage point you can then look at this mess and see if there is something worth working for.
posted by French Fry at 1:17 PM on July 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

This guy sounds like he is not really into you. I know that sounds bad, but let it free you. You deserve someone who will love you with his whole heart. And if you find a guy who will do that, you will look back at this and wonder why you were so upset to lose someone who really wasn't a good match for you and made you feel insecure and inferior all the time. I would withdraw from this guy as much as possible and try to make arrangements so that you didn't have to live together until November. I would be remote. Not mean, just remote.
posted by onlyconnect at 1:20 PM on July 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry that you are in pain over this - but I have to say that after reading your post that this wasn't a very healthy relationship. I see a lot of passion, but little affection - I see a lot of you trying to convince this guy to want something he obviously doesn't want. In other words, I see a relationship that came with an expiration date.

I think you need to take some time and think about what you wrote. There is so much there that can convince you that this is the right thing for both of you right now. Take some time to calm down, heal up, and get those darn sex chemicals out of your head. You will feel differently in a few weeks.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 1:31 PM on July 22, 2008

If I could just have him back he can leave his soda cans wherever he wants and his razor and shavecream goop on the couter everyday.

No, no, no, no, no. That kind of thinking leads you to, he can hit me, steal my money, slob around, not contribute, have sex with other women if I can just have him back. You deserve someone who is as in to you, as you are to him. And he's not into you. You chased him and he let himself get caught. Another man, someone who's right for you, would appreciate your effort.

You need some time alone to work on some of your behaviours. Hitting yourself in the head accomplishes nothing. You know that. So why do you do it? Is it to pressure him? Is it a display of your passion? Work out sensible approaches to dealing with and discussing your anger instead of throwing tantrums.

Great sex has got nothing to do with love. Nothing. It's nice when you get the two together, but you can (if you're lucky) have great sex on a one night stand - it does not mean that you have met your match.

So move out. Get a journal. Get therapy. If you can't get therapy, read some books about what adult behaviour is. Decide what you'd like for yourself in your future. Get emotionally healthy. Then, maybe, start looking again.
posted by b33j at 1:45 PM on July 22, 2008 [10 favorites]

"We have had some pretty scarey fights lots of yelling and I get kind of radical hitting my head sometimes with my fist or on a wall if I can't get through to him."

Did I read that correctly?

Do you punch yourself in the head to get his attention? Do you slam your head against the wall?

I think that act alone, sums up (figuratively AND literally ) what you are doing in this relationship.

You shouldn't be part of ANY relationship where you have to punch yourself in the head.

Seriously.

Its basic advice, but umm...dude, don't punch yourself in the head. If this relationship leads to that, get out of it and don't look back.

Wow. Don't punch yourself in the head, theres no reason to. You can't even get a world record for that...

BUT, if you want to KICK yourself in the head, GO FOR THE GOLD!!!

Good luck.
posted by hal_c_on at 1:49 PM on July 22, 2008 [5 favorites]

"He has NEVER been romantic with me except for maybe the first few months after we started dating. But he has been passionate."

I'm not sure how that's even possible, but maybe it's a semantic thing. Is it possible you were confusing "passionate" with "horny", here?

Anyway, as others have said already... you're done here. Move along. It sucks but it happens. Your vision of your relationship is different than the way he sees it... and probably always was different.

It seems probably that he never really was into you nearly as much as you needed, wanted, and sometimes believed.
posted by rokusan at 2:15 PM on July 22, 2008

Is it too much to hope that we can rekindle the flame like that. That he might miss me and see what an amazing, if not perfect, relationship we had.

YES.

He might miss you. He might realize what an amazing relationship you had. But it's just that. HAD. Past tense. Even if he misses you, even if - IF - he wants to reconcile, you'll never be able to undo what you're going through now. If your relationship could stand the strain of your disagreements, you wouldn't be in this situation - clearly, you've reached the end point.

Appreciate what you had for what it is - something that you cherished that is now finished.

And yes, get a new room-mate, find someone to sublet, move to Antarctica - ANYTHING - just get some physical space. I know from experience that the worst part of a break up when you're not ready to let go is having to see that person in the flesh. Living with my ex for a month after he decided to be my ex was the most harrowing, g-d awful month of my life. As soon as he was actually *OUT* of the house, my world opened up immensely.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 2:33 PM on July 22, 2008

That he might miss me and see what an amazing, if not perfect, relationship we had.

Oh, and this reminds me: you did not have a perfect relationship. You did not have a perfect relationship, because perfect relationships do not exist, because perfect partners do not exist. You had a very intense relationship between two imperfect human beings. As long as you keep thinking your relationship was perfect, you will naturally want to cling to it with all your might -- after all, how often does "perfect" come along, right?

Well, in fact, perfect never comes along. Even the best relationships are never perfect, no matter how warm, loving, steady, or delightful they may be.

Once you can accept this relationship as imperfect (and accept that you will only have imperfect relationships in the future, because that's the only kind there are), the idea of it being over may not be quite so terrifying. But until then, your range of emotions is likely to be locked into a pretty narrow space between paralysis and panic.
posted by scody at 2:46 PM on July 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

If I could just have him back he can leave his soda cans wherever he wants and his razor and shavecream goop on the couter everyday.

Can he fuck his intern? 'Cause he's gonna.
posted by nicwolff at 3:05 PM on July 22, 2008 [6 favorites]

Dude. This is bad.

Is this the first time you've ever fallen in love? Because you are absolutely behaving like a young woman without the perspective and experience to know that whatever happens, you will get over it and you will move your life forward.

Grown ups in healthy and well balanced relationships do not have regular screaming fights, bang their heads against the wall, live with a complete absence of romance, and subsume their desire for everything from a shaving cream free sink to marriage in order to be with another human. Your behaviour is clingy, co-dependent, bad for you, and reeks of lack of self-esteem.

Hit the road, Jack, and don't you go back.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:11 PM on July 22, 2008 [2 favorites]

I've been told that in South Africa kids catch monkeys by placing a piece of fruit into a glass jar. The fruit is just small enough to pass through the neck of the jar when a monkey reaches in to grab the fruit, the children run out to chase it. Often the monkey will panic and run but will not think of releasing the fruit and it just drags the jar until it gets caught.

Let go, suffer the loss, heal and get on with living the rest of your beautiful life. Easy to say, I know, but you have to do it.
posted by bonobothegreat at 3:56 PM on July 22, 2008

You sound completely obsessed with this man, and he may be an incredible person--but I am afraid I am not seeing anything like that on his side.

He likes you, sure. He enjoys being your friend, he even enjoys being your 'friend with benefits', but he is clearly not crazy about you. I think maybe you rushed into this relationship and pushed too hard to be serious, but in the end it really comes down to you caring much more than he does and thinking that it's enough. Please understand that his feelings are not going to become more and deeper and stronger simply because you are working REALLY HARD at making this work.

It's sad to say, but you really can't make him love you. And the way you get so upset in your arguments, and so frustrated that you are literally banging your head against the wall makes it very clear that you are in a completely different space than he is.

He had a very rough divorce, and then found two girls he cared about who broke up with him. He doesn't want this relationship to fail because he will hurt you by ending it and because he has failed before--but those are the wrong reasons to stay with YOU. You need someone who loves you.

To you, he was "the one". To him, his former wife was "the one", and now she's gone, and he is confused and lonely and looking for solace.

He is not looking for marriage. You did nothing wrong--repeat this to yourself--he just doesn't feel what you feel.

He is not in love with you.

Move on. It's hard, but there is really no chance for this relationship, and you know it.
posted by misha at 5:29 PM on July 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

I hate to agree but I truly believe that Scody is correct. All relationships end. All relationships are imperfect. One book you might find helpful is Melody Beattie's Codependent No More. Once you finish that, the next step could be Judith Viorst's Necessary Losses. subtitled "The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations that All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow." Both are older publications -- but both are classics and are held in high esteem by professional counselors.

That being said, I lost the love of my life last year and despite doing my best to move on - to try and establish a new life with new expectations -- it still hurts like hell, and I still grieve. I say this to say, "there are no easy, quick solutions." I truly wish there were.
posted by peace_love_hope at 5:31 PM on July 22, 2008 [2 favorites]

He's getting text messages from an intern in the middle of the night?

Sorry, but it's over.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:39 PM on July 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

I believe first off that scody is right, and she said it much better than most of us could, so yea, read her post again.

Now read your post again. Really read it, and take time to try and process all of that.

You are engaged a relationship that from what you report contains zero intimacy, no trust, and lousy communication. You are actively betraying your own needs to cling to someone who's already admitted he doesn't love you, PLUS he's now lying to you and going behind your back to hook up with his next housing/meal ticket/fuckbuddy. I'm sorry to be rude like that but... well the writing is on the wall.

Time to drop back ten and punt, kiddo. I'm sorry to add my .02 to the "DTMFA" chorus but in this case it's pretty cut and dried.
posted by lonefrontranger at 6:55 PM on July 23, 2008

This is not a healthy relationship, it was very one sided from the begining. If you let it this could drag on and on. You need to have the courage to let it all go and decide for yourself that this is not good enough for me. Also I think you WANT him more than you love him.

It is a process to "Let Go" unfortunately it takes time and you do grieve the loss. But take one day at a time, just get up every morning, keep busy, try something new, be around your friends, cry it out for a few weeks, and each day it will hurt just a little less.

I think if you are really not done yet the only thing left you could try is the "No Contact" for say 2-3 months. Its a win win situation, either he misses you so much he pulls himself together and wants to commit to you or you would have moved on.

I heard something the other day "without integrity there is no love". You will love again.
posted by CharlotteSarah at 8:23 PM on August 20, 2008