Dear Ashmitha,

I agree with anita – it’s my impression too that this guy is manipulating you consciously. If he really wanted it to work, he would introduce you to his family, even if it’s a “big thing” to be introduced. After all, you’ve been dating for more than a year, he says he means it seriously, he’s telling you things like “when we get married, when he have children…”,  so what’s the problem? The only explanation is that he’s lying that he means it seriously.

I invited him to meet my friends next month but he said “don’t be mad, my sister’s birthday party is then.” I said I wasn’t mad and he told me to stop lying and that I can voice my opinion….

Now I see it’s his strategy – he is so “kind” and “understanding” that he “encourages” you to voice your opinion. He’s not some rude guy who tells you to shut up or gets angry and quarrels with you. No, he allows you to express your concerns, listens to you calmly, tells you “it’s a good question” – and this probably makes you feel heard and understood. But in reality, it has no value, since he doesn’t change his behavior, it all stays the same. So your opinion is heard but disregarded. And he probably uses it as a manipulation strategy, because someone who is emotionally immature wouldn’t be so smooth like him. Would be much less refined than him. Unfortunately, this guy sounds like a “smooth operator”, and yeah, a wolf in sheep’s clothing…

Dear Ashmitha:

Before I try to answer your question, I need to ask you: do you agree or disagree with my suggestion that (1) he knows that you are interested in marriage, (2) he has no intention to marry you, (3) to keep you in a casual relationship with him, on his terms, when, where and how he wants it- he’s been dishonest with you, a wolf in sheep clothing?

anita

Dear Ashmitha:

My answer to “Should I just end it?” is: Yes, because I believe, and you seem to agree, that he is dishonest with you, a wolf in sheep clothing.

I don’t think  (although I can’t be 100% sure) that he has any real intention to marry you because he did not introduce you to any of his family or friends, and he did not share about you on social media, and because for all practical purposes, the relationship has been casual and he hasn’t yet invested anything of substance in you: not his time, not his money, not public acknowledgement.. nothing!

But even if he had the intention to marry you, it is not a good idea for a sheep (an honest woman such as yourself) to marry a wolf!

anita

Dear Ashmitha:

You are welcome.

“He said he was not ready for a serious relationship”- now you can be sure about #2 (he had no intention of marrying you).

I hope your feeling of peace lasts. You can post here anytime, no matter what you feel and I, for one, will be glad to read and reply to you every time you post.

anita

Dear Ashmitha:

I hope that you are still feeling peaceful and I know that feelings naturally change. I would like you to be okay with the changing of feelings.

This morning I re-read the majority of your posts since January this year, trying to understand why and how the highly intelligent and educated young woman that you are (“I really loved school. I was consistently at the top of my class, won several awards..  I am confident in my academics.. professors and employers describe me as intellectual and advanced for my level”), (1) misjudged this guy to be “a really nice guy.. a kind-hearted person..100%.. a good person.. a respectful, calm and understanding person”, not seeing through his words and behavior that he only appears nice and good, etc. I want to understand why you did not separate appearance from substance, and (2) why you accepted such a very inferior quality of a relationship.

Please read the following only if you feel calm enough and stop at any time you feel distressed. You have no obligation to read or to reply to me. My goal is to encourage you to use your experience as a learning opportunity so that you are better able to make better choices in the future.

Yesterday, June 19 2021, this guy (I’ll refer to him here as G) told you that “he was not ready for a serious relationship” and the relationship ended. It started in late 2019 between yourself, a busy graduate student pursing your Master’s degree in Health Sciences, and G, “a really nice guy” who works from home, “only busy at the end of the month… has a lot of free time”, an eldest son in his family (a position of responsibility) who is “very close with his family”. Both are 25 years old at this time.

About the very inferior quality of the relationship, considering your expressed intent has been marriage and children: “we only meet in person once a week.. We don’t go out on the weekends, only on the weekdays after work. He sees friends and family on the weekends. We mostly just go out to eat, talk and then are intimate… He hasn’t told his sisters and cousins that he is in a relationship. I think they think he is just seeing me. He doesn’t show me on social media either. Sometimes I feel like he’s ‘hiding’ our relationship… I haven’t met his friends… We don’t take pictures together. We have a few from one nice date. That’s it…we didn’t go on real dates..  we haven’t met each other’s friends”,

“When we’re together, he can be glued to his phone at times, yet when I text him, he can take hours to reply, even though he’s online…he texts his friends and family a lot.. he is actively online for hours and ignores my message…We usually go most days with me receiving 1-3 texts from him, although he is online a lot… He is online a lot during the evening after his work hours, so he is likely talking to friends/ family…I would like having calls daily with my boyfriend. I’ve brought it up before but he says he doesn’t really like talking on the phone”.

Some of his dishonesty (it makes me too angry to detail all of it): “He..  says he considers us to have a stable relationship… When I told him I didn’t feel like we were close friends, he was surprised and said he did consider me one of his closest friends…I don’t think he is using me. I brought that up and he seemed hurt that I thought he was stringing me along”- the lies: he did not consider the relationship stable except in the context of a once a week sexual get-together (“He is still very much sexually attracted to me… We mostly just go out to eat, talk and then are intimate”), and he did not consider you a close friend. He feigned surprise and hurt so to arm his lies with convincing emotion.

Your misunderstanding of him this month, June 2021: “I don’t think he is using me. I brought that up and he seemed hurt that I thought he was stringing me along. I think this is just how he views relationships?”-  you easily abandoned your correct understanding (based on his behavior for over a year) because he feigned hurt (based on his emotional expression for a few moments).

Still, this June: “I invited him to meet my friends next month but he said ‘don’t be mad, my sister’s birthday party is then.’ I said I wasn’t mad and he told me to stop lying and that I can voice my opinion…. Except that I wasn’t actually mad. I feel like he thinks he’s walking on eggshells with me?”-

– you brought up to him a reasonable request: to arrange a meeting between him (the man you wanted to marry, the man who told you that he is interested in the same) and your friends, for the first time in over a year. What he did in response was to deny your request, hiding it in an accusation that you are angry and a liar (“don’t be mad… stop lying”). You got distracted by his accusation and neglected to see what really happened here: he refused once again to publicly acknowledge a relationship with you, showing.. once again, that his intent was nothing more than a once a week sexual get-together.

Still in June: “I know he’s intelligent but he acts oblivious with relationships, or he just doesn’t care about me. I don’t see why that would change in marriage. Should I just end it?”- you were still thinking at that point that marriage with him was a possibility, not realizing that you have been the oblivious one all along, not him. His behavior over the whole course of the relationship (or better term it get-togethers) revealed not oblivion on his part, but purpose and intention: to have nothing more than a casual, once a week get-together.

You expected so little of him: “We live far apart and he drives up to 1 hour to see me without ever complaining almost every time we hang out, which I appreciate”- why did you appreciate so much a man for driving  for over an hour to have sex with a woman? Why should a man complain for driving to have sex with a woman???

“He always tries to pay for me when we go out (I don’t always let him), but it is a nice gesture”- he offered to feed the woman he was about to have sex with before (or after) sex. That was his investment in you, the most you were going to get from him.

“When I bring up complaints, he just listens and never raises his voice at me. He acknowledges his mistakes. I appreciate his calmness because I’m used to seeing men around me with anger issues”- G is very different from your father in that he never raised his voice (and why should he when he gets what he wants with an unraised voice..?), but he is purposefully dishonest: he didn’t really acknowledge his mistakes, because if he did, he would have changed his behavior!

You may have noticed my anger in my writings, and it is true: I am angry. It is unfair for a woman to be used this way! But thing is, I imagine that you don’t really believe, still, that he used you. You prefer to think of him as oblivious and immature. Question again, is why an intelligent and educated woman such as yourself will not clearly see what is so evident?

Unless you post next that you would rather I don’t try to answer this question, I will post again in a few hours, after I try to come up with my best shot at an answer.

anita

Dear Ashmitha:

The answer to my question occurred to me earlier, with hardly any thinking. But I don’t have the time to go into it now. I read just a bit of your recent post. You wrote there: “I can’t see him as an evil person”-  referring to G.

My answer is in this same sentence, only “him” will in reference to another man. Can you think who that might be?

(Looks like I will be away from the computer for about 8 hours).

anita

Dear Ashmitha:

That’s who I had in mind. I will expand tomorrow morning, which is in about 12 hours from now. Thank you and take care yourself!

anita