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I'm guessing you're a guy. Eight years is a long time for a woman. Long enough for her to watch her youth and options slipping away.
No Im a girl. I can see where she might have felt that being with someone from the time she was 20 to almost 30 she may have missed out on a few things. But if they had been married early on, what difference would it have made? She still didnt want the family home, obviously didnt want to continue living together and preferred paying for her own place. I would have thought she just as easily could have moved into his townhome and asked him to impregnate her I just feel 8 years is a lot to invest in someone, especially if she can hear the biological clock.
I might agree that she felt she was being jerked around if the OP was being a jerk, and I just misunderstood the original post. It seems to me he had plans to settle down. From the post, he doesnt seem to be some rude, unambitious bachelor type. He seems like he wanted to build a life for them and have a proper set up for a family. She didnt want to wait around. Not even the OP knows why she decided to book it. Unless of course he's leaving something out like saying "I never want to get married and I never want to have kids with you!!!!!!!!" In that event, I retract all previous posts. The case may be she was begging him to marry her, but we wont know until the OP logs on.
Side story, my uncle was married for eight years. His wife was 34 and he really wanted to start a family BADLY before it was too late. After eight years she just took off because she decided she never really wanted kids. She made all these plans with him and then abandoned him and broke his heart. Some people just dont know what they want, not even women with their biological clocks ticking.
Ok, all joking aside. If all she wanted at this point was a marriage and to start a family, wouldnt it be logical assume that if the OP went to her, propsed, and told her he was ready and willing to be a father, she would consider it? I mean she did devot 8 years of her life to this man. Wouldnt her rejecting such an offer indicate that it was not his reluctance that drove her away, but merely the fact she didnt love him anymore?
Location: from houstoner to bostoner to new yorker to new jerseyite ;)
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Originally Posted by Smithey
I might agree that she felt she was being jerked around if the OP was being a jerk, and I just misunderstood the original post. It seems to me he had plans to settle down. From the post, he doesnt seem to be some rude, unambitious bachelor type. He seems like he wanted to build a life for them and have a proper set up for a family. She didnt want to wait around. Not even the OP knows why she decided to book it. Unless of course he's leaving something out like saying "I never want to get married and I never want to have kids with you!!!!!!!!" In that event, I retract all previous posts. The case may be she was begging him to marry her, but we wont know until the OP logs on.
Yeah, I think I misunderstood it, too. I thought she wanted a house first after two years together, but he didn't because he wanted to wait for the family home? He said they argued about it for six months, and only then did she go get her own place and then he his. Then later they moved in together, then moved back out after only six months with plans to finally buy together... but when? Eight years, that seems like a long time to wait and a bit of jerking around to me, even if the guy was a good guy and did know what he wanted was her, it seems like he wanted to do everything in his own time. Maybe instead of all the fuss about the house, he should've proposed instead, to help ease her mind, or at least set a firm date for all this stuff... after eight years, she probably needed some firm symbol of commitment and security, and he never provided her with that, in which case, his thread title is on the money. I don't know, maybe I'm misunderstanding the sequence of events... I need to see a timeline!
Yeah, I think I misunderstood it, too. I thought she wanted a house first after two years together, but he didn't because he wanted to wait for the family home? He said they argued about it for six months, and only then did she go get her own place and then he his. Then later they moved in together, then moved back out after only six months with plans to finally buy together... but when? Eight years, that seems like a long time to wait and a bit of jerking around to me, even if the guy was a good guy and did know what he wanted was her, it seems like he wanted to do everything in his own time. Maybe instead of all the fuss about the house, he should've proposed instead, to help ease her mind, or at least set a firm date for all this stuff... after eight years, she probably needed some firm symbol of commitment and security, and he never provided her with that, in which case, his thread title is on the money. I don't know, maybe I'm misunderstanding the sequence of events... I need to see a timeline!
Yep I completely see your point now!! She was the one that wanted to move in together first. Perhaps if he had just said screw it and gotten a place for them right off that bat, instead of waiting for the family home, she wouldnt have gotten tired of waiting.
Your ex is ready to sample new men. It's that simple. She spent the last eight years with you, then found reasons why she was no longer attracted to you. She feels she's missing out on other experiences with different men, hence the desire to explore.
You will gain nothing by waiting around for this woman. She is done. She has already moved on emotionally. Rest assured that she's already been on at least a date or two. This is how women work.
Here's the thing, she told me to "not wait for her" because, as she said, she feels really selfish that she's doing this, but needs to do it....
She wants this time to experience what she never had before, but wants to come back to me... Of course she doesn't know how long that will be, plus, I have already experienced the things she's looking for, eg. independence, going out late at night without feeling guilty of leaving someone at home... ie, college/university free-style/carefree living... She was always overly conservative..
Thanks guys for your opinions so far.
It's over. I have to agree with the others here. When a woman says "Don't wait for me" she means "get on with your life because I'm gone". I'll go one further and say it usually means "I've met someone else" or at least "I've decided I want someone esle". Just be glad you weren't married when she decided to leave.
I'm sorry but I'd say there's about a 98% chace this is over but I don't think there is much you could have done about that. It doesn't sound like she left because you didn't get a house. It sounds like she just wanted something different.
No Im a girl. I can see where she might have felt that being with someone from the time she was 20 to almost 30 she may have missed out on a few things. But if they had been married early on, what difference would it have made? She still didnt want the family home, obviously didnt want to continue living together and preferred paying for her own place. I would have thought she just as easily could have moved into his townhome and asked him to impregnate her I just feel 8 years is a lot to invest in someone, especially if she can hear the biological clock.
I might agree that she felt she was being jerked around if the OP was being a jerk, and I just misunderstood the original post. It seems to me he had plans to settle down. From the post, he doesnt seem to be some rude, unambitious bachelor type. He seems like he wanted to build a life for them and have a proper set up for a family. She didnt want to wait around. Not even the OP knows why she decided to book it. Unless of course he's leaving something out like saying "I never want to get married and I never want to have kids with you!!!!!!!!" In that event, I retract all previous posts. The case may be she was begging him to marry her, but we wont know until the OP logs on.
Side story, my uncle was married for eight years. His wife was 34 and he really wanted to start a family BADLY before it was too late. After eight years she just took off because she decided she never really wanted kids. She made all these plans with him and then abandoned him and broke his heart. Some people just dont know what they want, not even women with their biological clocks ticking.
I stand corrected. Might I guess that you are very young? I don't think too many women want to spend 8 years with the wrong guy. How do you know he's the wrong guy? After 8 years you have no proposal, no engagement ring, no wedding date, no home, no kids, no nothing but a boyfriend. That's a sign you are with the wrong guy and to look back and know you devoted 8 of your most productive years, and your heart and soul, to the WRONG guy is a heartbreaker.
The OP had many of the benefits of having a wife and committed relationship without the actual commitment or responsibility. She must have loved him a lot because I bet dollars to doughnuts that almost every friend and relative of his ex thought she was wasting her time and needed to get out. 8 years with the wrong guy is 8 years you can' get back to spend with the right one. Just my opinion.
Last edited by laysayfair; 08-16-2008 at 11:33 AM..
Reason: typo
I stand corrected. Might I guess that you are very young? I don't think too many women want to spend 8 years with the wrong guy. How do you know he's the wrong guy? After 8 years you have no proposal, no engagement ring, no wedding date, no home, no kids, no nothing but a boyfriend. That's a sign you are with the wrong guy and to look back and know you devoted 8 of your most productive years, and your heart and soul, to the WRONG guy is a heartbreaker.
The OP had many of the benefits of having a wife and committed relationship without the actual commitment or responsibility. She must have loved him a lot because I bet dollars to doughnuts that almost every friend and relative of his ex thought she was wasting her time and needed to get out. 8 years with the wrong guy is 8 years you can' get back to spend with the right one. Just my opinion.
Yeah, I see the error in my assumptions. I'm 21 by the way. Does that count as very young?
I've been thinking about it more and I know 7/8 years does sound long, however it seems we were really only together for a shorter period - it could just be that I'm a guy and rationalising it this way.
Our first 3 to 4 years together we were still studying at University and our relationship worked out very well given that we were both studying - it was as easy for our lives to get along as we both had the same goal (to pass exams etc).
I actually finished my degree before hers, and we went on together for about a year where I was working full-time and she was still studying. Everyday after work I would drive 60 minutes from my work to her (parents) place to see her, then I'd drive home after dinner. The stressful thing during that period was that I' had worked all day, battled the traffic and was mentally exhausted when I saw her, but she had finished study at like 2pm and had spent hours waiting for me to arrive, ie she was ready to see and enjoy time with me, but I needed time to recover before I could enjoy time with her - she said that me coming to her seemed an inconvenience to me. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I tried to tell her that, that this was the best part of the day, however I had carried all the negative experiences of the day to her house which I needed to get over first. We discussed it, and she became more understanding of the situation - whether she just accepted me in a grumpy state or not I cannot determine, but things were a lot easier.
After a year or so of the above situation she starts work, so we both re-adjust to each others' working lives. I had evolved my working life around driving her home after work, because it was the little bit of time we got to see each other each day. During this time I really tried not to work late, but the worked required it sometimes. As I wanted to see her, I didn't stay late but made up for the work load during weekends. However there were also many occasions when she stayed late with me at my work - she ended up doing her own thing, which at the time involved looking at places to buy. We still saw each other on weekends, but then I would head back into work afterwards (later in the night).
A year after I had started my job, I went back to part-time study to commence my Masters Degree, while still working full-time - again, another big life re-adjustment for both of us. I studied part-time for a further 2 years during which time she went through 4 job changes and trip on her own to Europe. I so wanted to go with her on the Europe trip, but I was stuck in work and study, plus the timing was so so bad in that my brother's wedding was smack bang right when she left. She couldn't reschedule the holiday as it was the period in between one of her job changes.
The initial house plans discussion took place when we were still adjusting to everything, me balancing work and study, and her finding her footing in her line of work. I always supported her in her career as I knew that's exactly what I could do, other then love her deeply.
I see now that with so much happening in our lives at that point in time, that the purchase of a place together was a big commitment for her to show that we can get through this together as a 'team'. But it could've been that my parents are 'old-school' and brought me up thinking otherwise, that the guy should provide everything, and I was hesitant to commit to the place together (probably from pride) as I wanted to be the one to provide for us. Obviously, looking at it now, I had long term plans which didn't help her needs at the time.
So you know the story from there, in that she bought her place, and I bought mine to attempt to secure a future for us by acquiring the 'family home'.
We moved into her apartment as part of a contract with the State Government. During that time, the Gov't offered first time home buyers a $10k bonus if they bought and lived in their first home for the first 6 months. I automatically forfeited that bonus as I already had property in my name before the bonus was available.
So the story goes, I finish my study and secured a good position within the company and she obtains a position within a highly regarded company too.
Just as I finished my Masters Degree, she took up extra study too (ie. work full-time and study part-time). As I knew how hard it was to balance work and study, I tried the best I could to support her - forcing her to study, using me as a reward (eg. no I won't come over to see you unless you study), driving her everywhere I could to save her time for study etc.
I felt that I had worked enough for us, that I really wanted to work at us, but at the same time she's found her footing in working life and wanted to expand on that too, which is where we are now (timeline-wise).
Now that I feel that I've got a strong career base, I really want to make up ground in the relationship area - particularly as she had also given me great support during my work-study-life balancing act. Up until then, the only major way I could show her love was to support her career changes, support her study and drive her everywhere <- obviously there were other was to show her love, but that was the consistent thing during all the changes we had been through in our lives so far.
Children was always a far off thing as we were both career orientated, and didn't want to start a family until later on in life.
Prior to the break/break up, I booked in two weekends away for us, which were to take place immediately after her final exam (within the next 2 weeks). The first weekend away has been canceled, in that I am not going and she is going alone. The second weekend away is still on the table, but I haven't spoken to her in a few days so I don't know if she still wants to go with me.
As it is now, as she tells me, she finds that I cause more stress to her work-study-life balance then support. In particular, her new work has a lot of carefree and unattached staff, which I feel is exposing her to the life she never had as our lives were continually changing and finding footing.
Prior to the break/break-up, what also really hurt me was she had time for her work-colleages (ie. after work functions and Friday night drinks), but if I ask for a couple of hours with her, I'd get the lecture about how I'm stressing her out and am going to make her fail her study. I think realistically, I was the symbol/pinnacle of everything negative in her life so far and the main reason/cause she hadn't and couldn't fully live her life to date.
She tells me it's not about another man, but that she felt she missed out on the best part of her years. She did say she feels as though she's wasted all this time with me. I feel that we've both equally input into the relationship, but differently. However, looking at if from the outside point of view (as one other post said) it looks as though we've been doing nothing - no marriage together, no house together, no children... I feel that is very much the vibe she's been feeling and has recently received from her new work place which appear to be all early 20s people.
That is exactly why I gave her the rings, to show support and commitment to the relationship (I told her the second ring wasn't an engagement ring, but a commitment ring) although the second ring had such a negative experience attached (as previously posted).
So... looking at our relationship just between myself and her, we've gone through and done a lot.. Looking at it from the outside, we've done NOTHING, and I've been jerking her around...
What I fear about time apart, is that she'll forget what we've been through and what we've been working at. Particularly given that milestone events in our relationship (eg. buy house together) didn't happen for reasons which seemed somewhat acceptable between us, but not acceptable from an outside perspective (without knowing the happenings at the time and our history).
I feel that my career/job means nothing relative to the relationship. But that's only come from the hard work I've put into it - eg, Without sounding big-headed, I've made myself very marketable and can pretty much get a job anywhere. I really want to focus on 'us' as now I feel I can be that one to provide her with everything and have the income to do it.
The reason it feels so much shorter then 7/8 years is because we kept on re-learning each other and re-adjusting to each other's (mainly) career movements. Strictly from my point of view, I feel I've been robbed of the opportunity to show her my true feelings for her and how I feel we can build a future together, because up until then, we'd mainly been doing the support-love role for each other, not the in-love feelings for each other, as it was for the first 3 years during University.
What we've both said is that we'd be pissed off when/if the other gets another person, because we felt we've put in so much effort/support into the other to make them the person they are today.
She says that if I were to meet someone else 'today', that the new girl and I would be married within a short period and building a life that she always wanted. This is likely true, but the error in her statement is that I don't want a new girl, I want that girl to be her.
So, I don't want to let her go because I feel we've put too much into this relationship to let go of , we really work well and should receive the benefits together. I want to give her space so she can enjoy what she missed, she assures me it's not about another man - but it's so hard not to see it that way from the outside point of view when you're hurt.
I feel we couldn't give this relationship the best shot as too many life changing events were happening during the later part of our relationship. But as we've nearly overcome all that, I see that we work really well together on so many levels. I feel she has so many 'outside' influences which don't see it anything other then you've got nothing to show for the last 7 years or relationship (even though 3 of those were still in University). Ultimately I see it that way too which is what I want to change.
During the past 4 weeks of break/break-up time, I've really started to rebuild myself and pull myself out of the hole which my previous job dug for me. I feel really good that I am again in control of my decisions and not always having to worry about coming into work etc on weekends - lost weight (10kg so far), have more strength, etc. I have also started to live the life that she (and I) both missed out on because of our career movements, but I really want to experience them with her. I went to a jazz lounge last night, and felt so so so guilty as this is something she wanted to do but I never had time or strength for.
I want to put my fullest focus on 'us', but at the same time I feel that is also driving her away because it's something we've never experienced during our relationship, ie, I'm sure she's gotten used to me making decisions about us with work in the back of my mind, eg. ".. Sorry baby, I really want to go, but this weekend I have to go into work.." or ".. This is really fun, but I'm sorry I have to go because I have to go to work.."
What's funny is that many times she would come into work with me on weekends (aswell) and the joke was she was becoming office furniture. Many times she did tell me to quit my job as she knew how straining it was on me and our relationship, but I guess indirectly she was also assisting me at staying because she would come into work with me and always support and be there for me when things went bad.
For the great amount of support she gave to me to be able to do those things, even though it was at the loss of her needs, I say 'Thank You' and 'Sorry' to her as per my previous post.
I want to give her 'her' space and time, but at the same time don't want to lose her, because again I feel we are now able to live the full potential of this relationship and what love has to offer.
With reference to another one of my previous posts, I feel it would be so unfair for me to move on with another girl. Firstly because any feelings I have for the new girl, are feelings of love I have for my girlfriend which I want to her to be the recipient of... Secondly, another girl might want to experience that 'dating' and 'courting' scene, but I feel that I only want to live and re-live that with my girlfriend - for many of the back-end years we didn't go on romantic dates, but more-so just went out, which is likely the reason why I felt guilty about the jazz lounge (AND I WASN'T EVEN WITH ANOTHER GIRL!)
Ultimately, this is where people say time heals all wounds, but at the same time, who I am today is very much a part of her (in all aspects of my life so far).
So my original question as per my original post still stands.. What should I do?
Thanks guys
Last edited by Tinkers; 08-16-2008 at 05:52 PM..
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I can see where she might have felt that being with someone from the time she was 20 to almost 30 she may have missed out on a few things. But if they had been married early on, what difference would it have made? She still didnt want the family home, obviously didnt want to continue living together and preferred paying for her own place. I would have thought she just as easily could have moved into his townhome and asked him to impregnate her 
I just feel 8 years is a lot to invest in someone, especially if she can hear the biological clock. 
She was the one that wanted to move in together first. Perhaps if he had just said screw it and gotten a place for them right off that bat, instead of waiting for the family home, she wouldnt have gotten tired of waiting.
