Hey Anita I did take your advice and I have not said anything further regarding love. I am checking myself everytime I want to receive those words or say them and I try to question why. You’re right, it is a vicious circle, in that when I do hear them I will always be wanting to hear them again to check to see if the love remains constant.

Sometimes I wonder though if we could get to a place where we could express that and not have it be riddled with anxious undertones or fears. I do know of a relationship he had about 12 years ago where he said he expressed it quite freely and often. So I wonder what has changed in him since then. I do feel a lot of love with him now and I am more confident knowing that he could see us living together and that he isn’t looking for other women. That is enough for now. I feel like I really needed something. I know that love is not always forever and people can and do fall in and out of love, change their minds. There is no guarantee and yet our hearts want the stability of something everlasting. I’m trying to really experience now for what it is and enjoy what I feel is happening in the moment. I do feel that we fall in love again a little each and every day, and that feels true.

Anita, thank you for your continued insight. Your latest post about my OCD tendencies and compulsions is very true, and I check myself often to ask myself why I am needing something, and whether I need to ask for it right away. I usually try to sit with my anxious thoughts for a few days before bringing them out into the light.

TeaK, you are new to my topic here but I really appreciate your insight, and I have been thinking a lot about my wounded girl and how to keep feeding her on my own, so that I am not looking for him or someone else to do that. It is so true, when you are full you become a fountain, overflowing and the love does not become something you are seeking, it becomes something that you already own, that you are at home with. I also agree that I cannot tip toe around him forever and his issues and there needs to be open and honest communication. We have since started this discussion and I will address this below.

Luz (Rosalina), lovely to meet you and have you share your unique experience. I appreciate the overlaps that you see in our stories and I am happy for you having found the love that you did not in the past, embracing it fully now. I do agree with a lot of what you shared, the importance of expressing what I want, and continuing to ask for what it is I believe I need. This is where I feel there is a lack of understanding on Chickadee33’s part. She says that I am hung up on psychoanalyzing him and needing to create excuses for why he will not fully commit to me or for why he is not in love with me. You also addressed this as a pattern of yours with your past twin flame. I have no desire to get him to fall in love with me. Being in love would not be the goal of my continued relationship with him. There have been many men before him that expressed a lack of a desire to continue a relationship and I did not spend time psychoanalyzing them. I could’ve taken a few guesses for sure, but I did not feel like there was a need for a continued relationship and we parted ways. I don’t feel that I have a need to make someone love me. I am not simply chasing or psychoanalyzing this man out of a desperate attempt to hold out for a sliver of love. I don’t think he will realize one day that he is in love with me. What I am looking for is what we currently have. A relationship where there is undisputed love (whether we are in love or not is beside the point for me), affection, care, support, honesty, trust and an agreed upon level of commitment.

I do not wish to be his therapist and have told him this. I recently suggested that he might want to consider therapy in the future as his lifelong sadness and numbness (as he puts it) has plagued him from early childhood, and I feel that it might keep him from feeling the depth of his emotions fully. That may or may not apply to our relationship. That is for him to discern and attempt at his leisure. Do I believe from my very intimate view of him that it does keep him from experiencing love fully, and has him holding out for an ideal that doesn’t exist? Yes I do. He admits this also.  Is this because I hope we will one day have a fairy tale romance and that I need for him to be the one? No. I don’t believe in fairy tales, I just believe in what we have shared up until this point which has grown to be a consistent expression of love and support and a slow and steady submission to greater awareness of each other and ourselves. Growth in a relationship? What an absurd thing to strive for, haha.

Chickadee33 while I respect the “he’s just not that into you” approach to dating and relationships, it will forever be far too black and white for me, and my deal breakers are completely subjective and unique to my experience. I would never want there to be blanket deal breaker, except that I am not physically or mentally abused, and treated with respect and kindness. That’s the basis for all relationships. As far as, this man or woman should do this, within this amount of days, in this exact way, or else the relationship is worthless and the love isn’t real…. Well those are expectations I do not want to be wrapped up in. I come from a background of psychology, and I know how multi-dimensional people are, it’s too hard to ignore that. Should we make excuses for people, and not consider our own needs first? No. I made it clear that I was not accepting of him still being on the apps and it was not behaviour I would accept if it continued. But he needed to make that choice himself.

Chickadee33, I might even have agreed with you if this was a few years ago. That he’s just an object of my obsession and all of my hopes and dreams are wrapped up in him. In other relationships I pushed for the advancement of things, just out of a need for security and love that was false. But I also left men in those relationships when my needs weren’t being met, including an alcoholic, another depressed man and a man who was lying about not dating his ex when he was. I have moved on from men who don’t meet my needs, and have since learned a lot about what my needs are. Now it’s more about balancing my needs with my compulsions for security. I deserve love and commitment and all of the things I’ve mentioned, as we all do, as I am trying to balance those desires with a healthy dose of reality and understanding of the other person in the relationship. I am trying to be aware of myself, while also not being too demanding. No one is going to be able to give me everything instantaneously and I do not wish to leave someone who is giving me a lot, due to a lack of acceptance of where he comes from. I feel the need to at least try to reconcile that with my own experience and see if we can find a happy medium. You cannot have a relationship of growth without fully accounting for the other persons’ experience. Do I need to ask for basic things that I feel that I deserve? Yes.

Most recently we had a very open and honest conversation and I laid my cards out on the table. I said I would like to be in a fully committed relationship where I am his girlfriend and we do not see other people. I said at this point that is where I felt we stood. He said he calls me his gf and has not been on the apps and will not be going back to them since we had a convo about that about a month ago. He says he loves me and values me in his life, even though it is not the romeo and juliet ideal he had in his head. He admits that he does not believe that that is real and that we have a lot of good between us and he wants a future with me. He does not want to move in together at this time (since we had been discussing that more recently), as he wants to be on his own with his own space for a while and his early schedule for work (middle of the night wakeup) would either disrupt me, or he would be disrupted by me. He says we can definitely revisit the idea in the future. He looks forward to having me stay over with him on weekends and bringing my dog. He seemed very anxious that I would be upset by this, but I just said that it’s fine for now, and it’s something we could always try down the road.

Are we madly in love? No. Would I want that? Not really, as the rush and the height of that eventually comes tumbling down, and I feel that being “in love” is impermanent and ultimately just a state of intense infatuation. I want something consistent and real and supportive and that has depth. I am still wildly attracted to him, more sexually satisfied with him than I have even been, and really enjoy spending time with him. I was with a guy before him that I was definitely highly infatuated with and it just burned out so quickly. There was so much that was unmet in that relationship.  He has been a very slow simmer, but such a wonderful one at that. Had there not been any progress up until now, I would be feeling very despondent about our relationship. Even just last summer I was told he did not want to be exclusive and this resulted in my many posts on this forum. If anything when we agreed that we would date other people, I did and he did not. Not one date. I had a few almost other relationships. I know what lies out there for me, and I am not giving it up just for the chance to psychoanalyze and get what I want from someone who won’t give it. I just don’t see love as something to attain and hold onto desperately. I just feel that it is something fluid that slips in and out of our grasp, dancing around us, reflecting back what is already there.

Chickadee33, I no longer feel the need to justify what I feel to you or defend myself. I have tried to explain why I feel that this is different, and you are insistent on calling the kettle black. You accuse me of being redundant, and yet you remain unwavering in your assessment of an intimate relationship of mine, a view from the outside. You, nor anyone else knows the future of my relationship, as you are not some all seeing woman with a crystal ball. You continue to make judgments about me that I do not resonate with and no it is not because I am unwilling to see other perspectives aside from us ending up together. I have admitted that I do not know if we will and do not hold out for this as the end goal, and I have been very open to others’ interpretations and suggestions. Anita too has highlighted some of my patterns and I am working on things.

You take my words and twist them and take them out of context. I am definitely not just there for him when he feels like it. He has put in equal if not more effort most days than I have. He takes regular trips to visit me on weekdays and weekends and we have many leisure activities that we both enjoy, indoors and outdoors (I also do not live nearby). He has encouraged my involvement with friends and family and everyone has been accepting of me as his gf. I mentioned that we were not exclusive in the summer as a demonstration of how things evolve and change, even when you think they may not or you should throw in the towel. It did not feel over when he said he wanted to see other people and as I resisted this suggestion of his, the happier he seemed to become and the more he secure he acted. Do I have surveillance on him 24/7? Do I know for sure if he had casual sex or dated other women, no, but I trust him and he is honest. If he did it couldn’t have been of much significance and it definitely didn’t take up his weekends as he’s spent every weekend with me since we met. His weekdays consist of no leisure time, except for an occasional dinner with me when he can muster up the energy. He’s just not a casanova and I’d be almost impressed to find out that he’d been one, without my knowledge of it. It seems that maybe you’ve dealt with some men you could not trust in the past, who may have betrayed your trust.

Your entire aggressive black and white view of relationships tells me that there are a lot of unresolved issues between you and men. You almost seem angry with me, and without fulling knowing your story, I wouldn’t be able to determine why. Do you see yourself in me? Maybe you had a similar relationship in the past, and got burned. Now you are either closed off because of it and have very high expectations of men, or are in a better situation, but I can’t fully understand the reason for your need to scold me, or preach to me. You see me as some sort of foolish woman, who can’t get her pretty little head around the fact that this man does not love her. He does not keep me on the edge of his life, he has me quite fully immersed, he’s just admitted that I’m not what he pictured, but I don’t see that as him denouncing what we have. I’ve said time and time again that if he feels the need to date and still keep searching, he should do that. I don’t have any desire to hold him back from complete happiness. Something seems to have changed with our relationship, where he does not feel the need to do that, and says he is happy with me. He is not some lothario who keeps me on my toes, never returning calls, answering texts, seeing me infrequently, completely ignoring my feelings or my daily life stresses. This is a man who is giving and kind and completely there for me but is currently asking to have a relationship, while living apart. I don’t think that makes our relationship something to leave, or something outrageous, if it works for us.

If he met someone who truly knocked his socks off, there would be a discussion. He doesn’t think it will happen, and he admits that he has trouble being knocked off his socks because of his own eternal sadness. But do I leave a man who is there for me out of fear that he might one day leave me for someone else? I would then truly be at the mercy of an anxious avoidant attachment style if I did that. One day at a time, like I said being in love in impermanent, love is fluid in that in changes, it surprises you. I do believe it can be constant, and no I don’t think it has to be desperate. It does slip between our fingers from time to time though. It takes effort to keep loving someone. It becomes a practice. It’s not just a choice you make once, or the divorce lawyers of the world would be out of business.

TeaK, the thing is I feel that he is and has tried a lot to work on his issues so that they do not affect the relationship. He takes my feelings into consideration, will hear them now, won’t try to escape or leave the room or belittle them. He will sit and be comfortable with me crying. I know he still will need to go deeper, in order to feel things on a deeper level, but he really does try to give all that he can within his limits at this time. He didn’t say he’s never willing to work on himself, just that he isn’t ready right now. I am trying to have a little faith.

Maybe love can come close to having complete stability, where someone really promises to stand by your side no matter what. I guess they can hold that intention at least. I meant that the intensity of love changes as does our other feelings and one day love ends, as everything does, and then renews again. I’m probably getting too philosophical here about it all.

I wanted to clarify a few things today and expressed to him that I wish to live together in the next few years. That he should take this time for himself now and live alone if that is what he wants, but that I do see that as a goal and I want him to see that with me. I am willing to see how things go and I am very happy now, but that I probably don’t want to eat alone forever. He seems to see it too but has a lot of practical fears. I think he’s quite afraid to have any sort of unhappiness within a relationship. He seems to rely on it to maintain a bit of equilibrium, so it’s as if he’s trying to create a situation that will instil maximum contentment and peace. I mean I think even having a conversation about how we would deal with issues as they arise before we’d live together would be important as well. He did have a terrible experience with his last roommate and that seems to have scarred him. He’s also never lived with a woman and he seems to have skewed views of what it might be like. When he does move out and live alone again, I think showing him that things can be good when I’m over there and that I don’t invade his space, might go a long way to ease some of his fears.

Luz, yes I agree I do believe that I do suppress some of my own needs to communicate out of a fear that they are arising due to my attachment style. I do agree that words of affection (my main love language) will be something I will want to practice more with him and encourage. It may start with me expressing what I feel more and being okay with not hearing it back sometimes. I know I am not his ideal love, but we have admitted love to each other and it would be nice to express that more. It still exists and is what it is.

Sometimes I have hard time coming to terms with what it is I want, vs what I am supposed to want. Society says I should be married now with kids and I don’t really see any of that for myself, but sometimes I think that would be nice. I just feel that I will never be one of those women who can demand it. I want that to come naturally if it’s meant to go in that direction. At the same time, I’ve usually been the one pushing and men are always fine to keep things status quo. My last major ex was willing to get married he just wanted to further his career a little more, but there were other issues there. Marriage wouldn’t change a lot for me, it would just give me a fairy tale moment of someone proposing. My friend says but it shows a bigger intention that someone wants the ultimate commitment. I just feel like it’s sort of out of my hands, especially with the custom of the man asking in our culture.

I try to live in the present most days, so I do just take things as they come and I know how swiftly everything can change, even the best laid plans coming from people with the best of intentions. So I’m not completely against just letting things unfold as they do, but I know I need to at least voice my potential dreams for things, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I just feel like I had grand romantic ideals when I was younger that I held on too tightly too, and now I want what I have, something more real. I just want to give him all the lee way he gives me to be who I am, but try not to sacrifice myself too much in the process.

He is a grand communicator through acts of service and gifts. He will do anything for me that I ask. He has gotten much better at expressing affection and love, saying “I miss you” and “I can’t wait to see you” etc. We just haven’t gotten to the point of saying I love you with any kind of frequency. It means more in a way when I do hear him express words of love.

I don’t know, it would be very hard to end things right now. Things are good and I am happy with him, I just see a future with him and want to at least sketch a plan for that. He seems receptive to possibilities so we will see.

I am having a very hard time right now, as as soon as we make progress, things seem to retreat back to square one. Chickadee 33 would use this as further proof that he is showing me all of his cards and I’m refusing to see them, but as I’ve gotten to know him, I see that he has certain patterns and fears.

So he again told me that he doesnt see me as a life partner and he thought the relationship would eventually end. He thinks that there isomeone who could give more emotionally and offer a promise of long term commitment. He still says he sees the possibility but since I’ve brought it up more he wants to be honest that he doesn’t really see it happening. He says he’s not looking for other women though and doesn’t expect to find someone else. He wants to continue things the way they’re going and says on one hand maybe he is just messed up in the head and needs to sort through that. He says he can’t see the future and doesn’t know for sure what he wants.  He says he would probably regret it if we ended things now. I just don’t really know where to go anymore. I don’t feel that it is over.  He says he’s worried about disappointing me and being disappointed. He says he’s never felt that anyone had fulfilled him this way before.

It just seems like if it’s going to end I’m going to have to do it. But it doesn’t feel over, I just think hes messed up.