Dear  jwhy:

You met her in a work setting two years ago. A year later, April 2019, she quit her job and moved to a remove village in the mountains. Four months later, you visited her in her new home for a few days, and “confessed (your) feelings for her”. She told you that she was not sure about having a long distance relationship with you, but after you returned to your home, for a few months, the two of you texted and called almost every day, as well as send letters to each other, and the two of you”got closer”, before she told you that “the physical separation was getting to her”. She asked you to move to the mountains with her.

If you moved to live with her, you will have to give up your job as an engineer, a job that cannot be done from a remote location. She on the other hand, does not want to move to your city, or any city. You told her that you are willing to have moving to the countryside a goal to work toward in about 3 years time, gathering sufficient resources before such a move.

She didn’t find your suggestion attractive and told you that “she tried to make the long distance work, but she’s unable to”, and apologized.

My thoughts: you spent no time with her in-person, as a boyfriend-girlfriend, as I understand it. The two of you got close over texts, phone calls and letters, but not as a result of spending time together in person. This concerns me if I am to think of you giving up your job, moving to her village.. and the two of you getting to know each other in close proximity for the first time. It might not be good experience for her and/ or for you, and you will end up without a job and without a relationship.

What do you think?

anita

Dear jwhy:

You are very welcome.

I will retell your story based on your two posts (it helps me process information better when I do that):

You, at about 31, met this woman, 25 in the office where the two of you worked. For a few months before  she quit her job a year ago, April 2019,  “to work in a remote village in the mountains”, the two of you spent lots of time together, going “for events and walks etc.,” during workdays and on weekends, getting “to  know each other quite well”.

In Jan 2019, you hinted to her that you were interested in her. After April 2019, you continued to communicate with her through calls, texts and letters. In August 2019, you visited her for a few days where she now lives, in a remote village in the mountains, and you told her directly that you are interested in a love relationship with her.

Her reactions to your clearly expressed interest in her: at first she said “she was not sure” because of the distance. Later, when you were back to where you live, you communicated a lot and “got closer”. Next, she told you that “the physical separation was getting to her”, and she asked you to move to the mountains with her.

You wrote about her that she is “kind, resourceful, hard working, tries to live sustainably, and is very beautiful”, and that “any guy who has her in his life is lucky”-

I am ready to give you my input: any guy would be lucky to be with her perhaps, except for one thing: “she usually goes quiet if something is bothering her, and I need to get it out of her… this quiet phase”-

This means that she does not share with you her thoughts and feelings whenever she is troubled. She thinks and feels what she thinks and feels, but keeps it quiet, not voicing it to you. When “she usually goes quiet”, her thoughts are noisy- but you don’t get to know what they are. You are left guessing.

Her most recent positions that she did voice to you were “essentially saying that she tried to make the long distance work, but she’s not been able to. She apologized for putting me in this uncertain situation for the last few months”, and that “she felt that we haven’t spent enough time with each other for her to be sure”- this is what she chose to tell you after contemplation. This information here is a part of the truth that she chose to tell you. You don’t have the whole truth. There are probably reasons and considerations in her mind that you need to know if you were to quit your job and move to a remote location with her!

A healthy relationship requires open and honest communication, especially when either party is troubled. The fact that she goes quiet when she is troubled blocks you from crucial information, leaves you guessing, assuming what may not be true at all and making choices based on wrong assumptions.

Being married to a woman who goes quiet like that, repeatedly, as a pattern of behavior, makes any man who ends up with her, an unlucky man.

My suggestion: I don’t think that you have anything to lose if you ask her for more of what she thinks and feels, for more of the truth of what is going on in her mind and heart. You need her to be open and honest with you. Ask her.

anita

Dear jwhy:

You are welcome. I am sorry that you are hurt and sad, that the relationship (long-distance since April 2019) was called off. I wish you had her love back during this time of global crisis.

From your recent post I learned that in her place in the mountains, she had “almost no internet”, and that “In person, she’s.. forthright, honest and voices her view with consideration”. But you also wrote earlier: “she usually goes quiet if something is bothering her, and I need to get it out of her”, which means she has the tendency to go quiet when bothered, independently from internet accessibility.

In Jan 2019, after a few months of spending time with her in-person, you hinted to her that you were romantically interested in her, but she didn’t express back to you, at that time, that she had a romantic interest in you back (did she?), and she proceeded with her plan to quit her job April last year, and moving to a remote location in the mountains.

When you visited her there August 2019, and confessed to her your feelings, she said “she was not sure”, and that “she was sorry for having led me on and she was aware of her tendency to do that”. During a recent phone call, she told you that she does not have “an emphatic yes” for you.

Overall, I agree with your analysis in your recent post, regrettably: she lacked a clear, or strong romantic interest in you, and when she asked you to move to the mountains with her, “her motive for asking me to move to the mountains may have been to assess the strength of her romantic interest towards me… My view of moving to the mountains, in contrast, was to commit to a life with her, not as a test of my interest in her”.

In relationships between people, particularly in romantic relationships, it is the exception, not the rule, that there is complete honesty and transparency between the two parties, even when the two  parties are otherwise honest people. Complete honesty on her part would have been if when she asked you to move to the mountains with her, she would  have told you that her motivation was to test her feelings.

Although that would be very selfish on her part, to have you quit your job and move to a remote location, so to test her feelings.

I suppose one lesson to learn from this is to not proceed with a woman if she doesn’t match your romantic interest in her, to not proceed when the romantic interest is not two- sided.

Please do post here any time you would like to post, if you do, as long as it is of any benefit to you. You read like an honest, appreciative, gracious, kind, patient, intelligent and rational man, and I imagine that the woman who will end up with you, will be a very fortunate woman.

anita

Dear jwhy:

You are welcome and thank you for your kind words!

About her tendency to go quiet- it is a good thing, if the purpose is not to say anything “in the heat of the moment”, so “to not cause unnecessary pain”. But like you said, her going quiet in the context of a LDR caused you unnecessary pain, so it defeats the purpose, doing the opposite of preventing pain.

In Jan 2019, you texted her that she was your favorite person, and you interpreted her response (“this would be high on the list of her personal accomplishments”) to mean a No to a romantic relationship. I agree: you made a quick, untested assumption, and you should have asked her what she meant by it. I also agree that you “should have gone the next step and asked her what she thought would happen had I done so” (moved to the mountains with her).

The best way to avoid basing your choices on wrong assumptions is to test your assumptions by asking questions and evaluating the answers you receive. (A non- answer is an answer. An indirect answer is also an answer, it gives you valuable information, even if it is a dishonest answer).

It reads to me that she had some romantic interest in you, but that interest was not strong enough to stop her from moving to the mountains; not strong enough for her to consider moving back to your city, or any city; and not strong enough to give it more long-distance time (so that you move to the mountains with her later).

It would have had to be a very strong romantic interest for an intelligent, independent woman to change her plans to move to where she wants to move to; to live where she doesn’t to live.. all to accommodate a romance. So it doesn’t surprise me that her interest was not that strong.

anita