Hi, @lissy123. The lack of explanation is a common reality in this kind of situation. I’m very cause-and-effect oriented and therefore need the relational checking account balanced to understand where I sit and whether or not the relationship is progressing. I’d been dating a girl for a couple months a little earlier this year and she was entirely incapable of explaining her motives on actions, which inevitably caused in me reactions, which consequently caused her to counter-react and induce argumentation. The fights might have eventuated very differently but at their core was the same spark – a lack of explanation. I brought up a similar contention to yours on another topic (http://tinybuddha.com/topic/help-im-living-in-limbo-during-separation/) and one poster enlightened me with this quite basic revelation:

‘The most valuable thing I learned from a counselor was that if you are in a relationship with someone, and you tell them what you need and what you want (reasonable requests, of course) and they do not give it to you, it is because they do not want to. If that person is of normal intelligence, functions in the day to day world, their reluctance or inability to do something is not because they do not understand or you didn’t explain it right. They just don’t want to do it. It’s the simplest thing in the world, and the hardest to accept.’

Like you, I always dwell on a relationship’s past as if it is going to give me valuable clues about its future. I don’t hold grudges but I do ‘remember’ things that people have done and find it hard to not go into unrelated arguments completely and utterly bias-free and independent of those memories. I know I brought up closure that pertains to breakups but the same line of thought lies also with during-relationship closure, which is obviously a little harder to regulate. The freedom of breakup closure is that it’s over and it’s out of your control, meaning you can move on without getting tied up on something that’s no longer present. Whereas during-relationship closure like yours is immeasurably more complex because the relationship is still alive and growing. When people can’t be held accountable for reasoning away their role in the conflict, especially when it hurts their partner, I’ve found they are either (a) behaviourally impaired from doing so (extrovert vs introvert mentality etc.) or, most likely, (b) they have no desire to do so. If he wants to be in a relationship with you then he needs to understand that one of his compromises for you is trying to communicate more. In the same way, one of yours for him might be to try be a little less over-analytical or sensitive of his actions when you know, and have accepted, that that’s ‘just him being him’. Apology does not negate an explanation, an apology (at least in your case) is him just addressing the point you have taken issue with and attempting to make it cease to exist in the fastest, easiest way possible. With an explanation, you get both it and the apology as one. In any case, my father was exactly like this. He would explode over trivialities and then return later with saccharine apologies that never contained explanations – just blanket statements of remorse. I hope you can work through this. But the simple fact that you’re citing issues as far back as 3 years makes communication now an imperative if you’re both to make the relationship work. I’d appreciate if you keep us updated on your progress!

Hi, @requin. I’ve brung her up before but the girl I was dating for a couple of months – well, not so much dating as getting to know more intensely than one otherwise would – did the same thing as your ex. I challenged her for reasons, saying something along the lines of ‘there’s always a scoreboard, whether conscious or not’, and all I got was, ‘I guess you caught me in a vulnerable moment and I wanted to be close with someone and now I realise I don’t want anything like that and I don’t really have the time anyway’. When I couldn’t entirely accept this, I started disclosing my own likely assumptions on why it wasn’t working, all of which she was only too eager to tick as effects. I can’t lie though, I knew it was coming, I got to the point where I was completely and utterly gritting my teeth to impress this girl when no one should ever have to try and be someone they’re not. She later told me, when I brought up some of the things she did that reassured her 100% interest in me, that the whole time she was ‘still making up [her] mind’. It’s funny to write these recent sentiments of ‘needing closure’ on a topic I actually made called ‘YOU DON’T NEED CLOSURE’. I guess it’s an ongoing struggle. What a pitiful demise to something that started so exhilaratingly and not at all ambivalently. Just like you stated, when all was said and done, my closure from this specific girl came in the form of extremely vague answers and blatant skirting techniques. I even wonder, like you, if she even really knew. I’m so glad you brought up the avoidance issues and typified that as a personality because I feel some of what you described of your partner is directly reflective of this girl. Although I would definitely hasten you to not revise the past in a way that might shed hopeful light on a future that can now never happen. It’s exactly the same as closure; the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’ do nothing but stultify our processing of the relationship and prevent us from accepting that, regardless of what happened, it’s now over. Obviously, as I say this I’m overcome by a myriad of the same questions – questions that turn to regrets, regrets that turn to frustrations, and frustrations that turn into feelings of anger, resentment, and ultimately loss. It’s really heartbreaking, I can understand this. I’m even more affected by your testimony given I’m half that guy’s age and have always confidently presumed that by that age we are so much more capable to love and care and appreciate others. I’m reminded of a song called ‘Desperado’ by Eagles, chiefly one line in particular that really shred me when I realised my (much earlier) commitment/trust/intimacy issues: ‘you better let somebody love you… before it’s too late’. I hope, for their sakes, that people like that can find someone because when I was over-critical I used to elect anything as reason to leave a relationship. It was immature. People like that need to understand that, unfortunately, sometimes it can get too late and so many times I hear regret and lamentation from the people who have realised they had a good thing much later after they actively got rid of it. Relationships are never infinite but neither is human life. We need to find what works for us ‘now’ and give our 100% to that, because anything less contradicts my idea of love. Lastly, the ‘doesn’t have time for a relationship’ is a damn poor excuse. I’m sorry, but at 50+ I think I would’ve had my whole life to mow the lawn, hang out with mates, and work overtime. His idea of being with you antagonises my principles because he’s listed ‘everyday’ occurrences as temporal preclusions to having a relationship. How sad. I’ve been regularly dating lately, more or less just to detach from the most recent women who I invested too much into. In my experience, there are those who will make time for you and those who won’t – why get preoccupied with asking ‘whys’ of the people who are disinterested when it’s already obvious they are not simpatico with our expecations. Just like your situation, I think if someone truly likes you they will make time to see you or if it’s a longer term relationship, then they will have had enough idea that this is something you need out of it and to compromise accordingly.

Hi, @cookie1185. Firstly, I don’t think there is anything more emotionally, psychologically, and physically devastating than being betrayed by someone you loved unconditionally. I could walk away from my mother’s funeral less numb. I guess that’s because a funeral entices loss, sadness, and agony from an uncontrollable occurrence whereas betrayal, by definition, is premeditated. It’s chaos, sheer chaos, and I don’t envy anyone locked up in its throes, what’s more, I wouldn’t even wish it upon liable enemies. You are right. He made a very much conscious decision to take what were marital issues and trade them in for temporary release. Essentially he had sex a few times with a stranger and this was somehow supposed to make him feel better. Well, he’s lost a lot more on a really bad relational transaction, and he will continue to find more and more he’s lost as the days go by. He’s lost trust, intimacy, care, acceptance, and all the subtleties that go into constructing a 7-year relationship. He will not likely have gotten much, if anything, from this other person. In fact, having invested his frustrations and intimate details into her will leave him even more desolate when she inevitably disappears too. He’s withdrawn everything from his savings and thrown it at a dodgy investment. But he hasn’t just lost ‘money’, no, because he now owes ‘money’ to you and to his own conscience. The texted confirmation was purely abominable; I will never understand why people like this exist in the world because I am so coldly incapable of cheating on anyone. I guess that stems from my integrity and relational principles but I refuse to ever submit to that level of scum or subject others to it. It’s emotional rape and in many ways is more torturous than its physical counterpart. I feel for your situation. I feel for humanity. This stuff has always happened but it just feels as though it’s happening more and more and more. It’s depressing to say the least. Anyway, keep us updated on how you’re progressing in this and I hope you can find some calm in your days, however fleeting. You deserve better and are owed nothing. Any explanation or measure of closure he has tried to deliver should be treated in the context of his misdeeds.