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Just not that into me?

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  • #236881
    Amelie
    Participant

    So, I’ve been in this relationship about 5.5 years now. He’s 7 years older and this is my first serious relationship. We started dating when I was 18 and he was 25. I could already see he still had a lot of growing up to do so I felt safe enough with the age gap. He’d obviously been with a lot more people and had a few serious connections before me. I was always fine with it, until they kept coming up. We lived in a small town and it was inevitable. It got to be uncomfortable, talking about missing each other, meeting up, he looks so good, saving her bikini pics off Facebook, just really crossing the line of someone friendly from the past. He never understood why I felt so disrespected by these interactions. I spent his last birthday dry heaving in the bars parking lot while he chummed it up with another ex he ran into. We finally moved away from that small town and he’s miserable. he’s very very emotionally unavailable to me. He won’t show me affection, always hides in his videogames and i wish I was exaggerating but it’s all he’s willing to talk about too. It’s like prying teeth to get him to tell me what’s going on in his head and not his Xbox. Recently I broke down and sat him down because I feel close to giving up on this. I let him know how my needs for affection and emotional intimacy haven’t been met in a long time. He said he used to be so affectionate and caring in his past but by the time I came around he was burnt out. He used to massage them, take them out, spend quality time away from screens, write them poetry, take them lingerie shopping… I can’t even get him to help me with household shit, let alone any of that above and beyond level he devoted to them. This man has probably done 20 loads of laundry in the half decade we’ve been together, only worked a collective few months of odd jobs, doesn’t have a license or phone and no concept of work ethic and responsibilities. I have been supporting us this whole time, sacrificed staying with my family when they moved across the country to be with him, and so much more. I could take him being lazy even though it sucks, but to hear everything he used to do for these girls I have had to fight him to leave in the past, I hate myself. I feel so played. He says this is just how he is now. I don’t think I can live with that. Has anyone been through anything like this before? I do still love him but it’s turning bitter because I feel stupid for it. I’m too isolated in my life for any advice and I’m losing my mind. Am I jumping the gun on giving up? Anyone ever had a honey stuck on the past? I appreciate any insight.

    #236893
    Mark
    Participant

    Amelie,

    Your first serious relationship?  What have you learned about yourself in this?  Have you learned to love yourself?  Have you learned to set boundaries with him?  Have you learned what you need and asking for it?

    Read what you posted as if a close friend written it.  What would you tell her?

    Mark

    #236915
    John
    Participant

    Mark really hit it on the head. Our first major relationships are often fraught with mistakes, mostly because we have not fully learned to love ourselves yet. If you cannot love yourself, you cannot love anyone else.

     

    That being said, if this were my daughter telling me this story, I know what my answer would be. Five years is a long time to support someone and care for them as if they were a child. Perhaps the past women he did so much for treated him badly, and this is his misguided way of “getting what’s his”? I can’t really tell. I have known some people who did that. I have known some who honestly were just lazy. And I have known some who are in that sort of funk and are DEEPLY depressed. That depression leads to no work ethic. Hell, sometimes it leads to not wanting to leave the house. So I guess it all depends. If he is happy go lucky, that doesn’t mean he isn’t depressed. My friends were all amazed when I told them years ago that I was clinically depressed. Maybe just ask him about it, and be warned the conversation is likely to be an argument if he really is either lazy or depressed, because both are things that person will know about themselves but not want to hear. Perhaps bring up depression first, then move out to outright laziness. See which one you get the biggest rebuttal over.

     

    As I said, if this was my daughter, I would be driving over to pack your stuff and leave him behind. But we don’t know the whole story, so making that sort of knee jerk reaction to it could be quite bad. What do you think? You think he might be depressed? How is the economic environment in your area, ie are there many jobs open. Thinking he isn’t wanting a job and being unable to find a job are two different things. We all hear that the jobs market is booming but fail to realize that isn’t a universal thing in the entire world/country. Just spitballing here.

    #237013
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Amelie:

    Reads to me that  the  things he  did for the other young women in his life were easy things,  writing  poetry, buying lingerie. Easy. What he needs  to do now with you is difficult, laundry, getting a driver’s  license  (if I understood correctly), finding a job… not fun, like poetry or commenting on an ex’s photo on social media.

    I don’t think it is about him “Just not that into (you)” as  it is about him being used to taking it easy. It will be for his benefit if he goes the route that feels more difficult for him, but I guess he doesn’t know it yet. It will  be to his benefit to find a job, to do the laundry, to be a good partner to his girlfriend… but he doesn’t know it yet, and he may not know it.

    Any indications that he is unhappy the way things are and find employment and  so forth?

    anita

    #237049
    Mark
    Participant

    Addendum:

    Amelie, I believe it is not any of our jobs to fix the other person nor to tolerate the other person’s behavior if they are disrespectful, non-loving or not making any effort to co-create a truly intimate partnership.  Life is too short.

    If you are putting up with this then I would refer you to my first posting/reply and ask why you are putting up with this?  Why are you not loving yourself like you are loving him?

    Mark

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