Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
But yeah, DT38YOMFA.
Is this a grammar joke I'm not getting or Dan being tired after reading that letter?
I was otherwise not interested in the slightest bit about this shitheel's problems.
Maybe it won't be the new girl but there are tons of women out there who want what he wants and shares his values, but he's only going to meet them if he gets that albatross off his neck.
The short of it is, you are being played. I completely understand how in love you think the two of you are; been there. But she doesn't know what love means. You're fun and interesting and keep her life spicy. That's what she's training herself to be and want. If she ever did leave her husband, she's almost guaranteed to cheat on you too...though you probably don't believe that now.
I will never again date a married woman...or a recently separated woman either. Never.
Looking at just the first woman alone, if this were a woman writing in about a married man who says his wife doesn't sleep with him any more, we'd all be saying, "He's a big fat liar and he's using you!" Yes men and women are different, but in this case I think it applies. If this woman really is his friend then she'll stay his friend after he tells her that he has to move on romantically (but I think we all know that's less likely).
Sad but true: A 38-year-old man who has a job and is open to kids is more likely to find a partner than his female counterpart.
If it sends some running to their dictionaries, all the better.
The rest of us enjoy the adjectival flair.
This LW is simply lost in that. In truth, it's likely there's a reason HE can't commit to a real relationship (the married woman is convenient).
But yes...delete the email and phone number and never, ever look back :-)
If you really love this woman and can't imagine life without her, put it to her one last time like this. "If there is anything I can do to get you out of that life and into mine, please tell me what it is. If you aren't coming with me, then I've got to get on with my life." You have to stop putting yourself and her through this pain. Do something about it or end it.
So, in short, I disagree with your advice. He should leave and quickly, and explore what it is within himself that sought a woman who is now, and forever, completely unavailable to him.
"The married woman I'm seeing did get pregnant by me"
LW is a dude.
Dude looks like a lady.
38 yrs old and you've been with this woman for 10 yrs? Like, the best yrs of your life- well, it looks like that from my age- alone at night, drinking and as Dan says Blah, Blah, Blah.
Leave both these women.
And get a life that is real. Cause. You do age. Or you die. Or you age and die.
And why have you been alone at night? No thought to study? Learn some new skills?
Tick Tock.
It's strange that LW is concerned about the 11-year gap between himself and the new woman but not about the age gap between himself and the post-menopausal married woman.
Dan's advice is sound. The fact that LW has found himself actually clicking with someone new means he's ready to move on at last. Tell your married lover that it's time she observed the campsite rule and let you go. Or just tell her you want to be poly, and those are the new terms and conditions. With both partners he can have great sex, a family, and a best friend with benefits. (I know, unlikely to work out that way given Married Woman's possessiveness, but he can give it a try.)
I'm going to tell you that you deserve a full and complete life. Having a fulfilling relationship is only one part of that. Having no friends is not going to help you be in a healthy space to look objectively at where you are. I dated someone for five years who was everything to me. And I was unhappy and reasons and blah blah blah. I got my ass into counseling and talked it out and learned about myself and finally, here I am. New love, stable, amazing relationship, kick ass job, supportive, loving friends. You can have that too! Whether you're ready to leave now or not (and my money is on close but not quite) you can still take steps towards the life you deserve and taking better care of yourself. Test out a few therapists - you don't always find a match right away. It may be weird for you at first, but eventually, it's like magic. Your life starts looking and feeling like you never knew it could be. Good luck and Godspeed!
Especially once you've dumped your life-ruining older partner.
But he has to be willing to give it time, and that means knowing that he's likely to spend a significant amount of time--years, perhaps--alone. He should look at that time alone as an opportunity to really do the things he likes doing: take a class in some sort of artisanship; take a class in something more academic; join a hiking group, a community choir, a book group, an intellectual salon, a recreational soccer/softball/volleyball/kickball/bowling league; sign up for a speaker or a film series. Take up new sports or athletic endeavors. Learn to knit, to cook really well, to dance, to decorate cakes, to build and launch model rockets. Volunteer at the local animal shelter, community soup kitchen, or environmental clean-up group. Go to a pub trivia night and join a team; learn how to make a short animated film; take up an instrument, and take lessons; get into therapy. As secretagent said, he may have to try several therapists out before finding someone he clicks with. And he may want to try different types of therapy, too. He'll be keeping himself busy, having fun, widening his social circle. There needs to be more to his life than waiting around for his girlfriend to have a few hours to give him in secret.
If he can look at that time--if he can use that time alone as a gift he gives himself, he will be living a much richer, more fulfilling life. When you're doing that, I find, relationshippy things tend to fall in place more smoothly. And if they don't, you're not left so bereft.
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Of course, getting to know himself well enough to be able to choose a partner who can provide what he needs is going to require some new skills, so your advice is still good there.
Letter writer seems to have problems (like maybe depression) that are leading him to bad relationship choices, not the other way around. "See a therapist" is not always an advice-column cop-out, it sometimes is useful guidance.
This is a 38-year-old man who is considering having kids primarily because his parents want him to. No wonder he's let someone push him around for ten years (which couldn't possibly have anything to do with his bouts of depression). He needs to ova up indeed and stop waiting around for Mommy to tell him what he can or cannot do. She doesn't want him to have sex with other people? She doesn't even want him to be friends with other women because he might have sex with them? Tough shit - she's not offering him anything close to a complete relationship, despite his efforts to round up (easier to rationalize ten years of it that way). Time to Dump The Controlling Fucking Mother Already and get some therapy to figure out why he doesn't believe he deserves to live his own life and enjoy doing so.
Very true. And she's an older woman/mommy substitute.
Sally: Nobody thinks he's never going to leave her.
Marie: You're right, you're right. I know you're right.
He never leaves his wife. She never leaves her husband. Nobody thinks she's ever going to leave her husband. We're right, we're right, we know we're right.
But to be honest, the LW sounds a tad easy to manipulate.
Even more common than infidelity.
Don't worry, the rush to babies will fix that right up.
The LW has given ten years to this relationship, and knows that he isn't getting what he wants out of life, including a genuine partner and possible children. His selfish love has all that already, and no reason to give that up. LW has by his own admission made significant sacrifices, relationship and career, which now have made him so invested in this dead end relationship that leaving will force him to admit that he's wasted ten year for nothing. But all that's sunk costs, and he better leave now than in ten more years, when his opportunities for dating and career are yet more limited.
Although Dan is right to remind the LW that his choice isn't between these women, the LW's issues with his new partner seem quite lame, particularly as fairly minimal age gap, which makes me think that she's a better fit for me than he's willing to admit to himself.
Many people live in a reality distortion bubble and would rather "refine narratives" for their life to present to others than they would fix the garish state of things. They read them for how they want them to come off, but sadly I feel a lot of the LWs don't have trusted friends or at least honest, good friends to run them by first. Granted, that would probably screen out most all of these letters beforehand. Perhaps others don't share them with friends because the friends are SICK TO DEATH of hearing about this problem and having their pleas to dump so-and-so fall on deaf ears.
Better fit, but not a great fit. He needs to stop the immediate search for "the one" that's been pushing away MUCH better candidates than the two he's presenting as a false dichotomy.
Dump the married lady, TMA, and have fun with the new woman. She may not be "the one" (blah), but you can have fun with her as long as it works. Just follow the campsite rule.
I'm glad someone else was annoyed by the obnoxious, sexist stereotyping. Since I typically find these kinds of arguments on the internet to be tedious and annoying, I decided to simply discredit #19 by pointing out that they were 100% factually wrong.
Feeling a bit blue are you?
Grieving a marriage, takes time.
Be gentle on yourself, and my suggestion is- leave other women alone untill you have finished your grieving.
This kind of trolling is subtle, but I feel it needs pointing out...Notice how his construction is WOMAN:man and boy:Older Woman.
Think on that for a few. I'm pretty sure you won't need Waze.
Well, the obvious reason for this is that if there were no "details that would make any reader DTMFA," the LW wouldn't be writing for advice. And if there were no "glowing" attributes, the LW wouldn't be writing for advice, because DTMFA would be the conclusion they easily reached on their own.
It's easy to look at a situation from the outside, to rationally evaluate a person you're not in love with, and conclude that a relationship should end. Not so easy when you're the one in it -- particularly when "every relationship has problems, if you love someone you can work them out" is the prevalent mindset.
Besides which, most of the people writing into SL are people who like sex. A bird in the hand, etc.
Yes. Obviously the reason why she doesn't want a family with you is her reproductive age, and certainly not because she prefers you as a kept man.
YES. The ubiquitous attitude that virtually any relationship can and should be saved is actually incredibly destructive, because it encourages people to stay in abusive or unhealthy relationships and implies that if you leave a relationship, you failed because you didn't try hard enough. This is why DTMFA is such an important meme. No relationship is perfect and any good relationship still takes some effort, but many relationships simply aren't worth the cost of participation. Life is too short - move on, you deserve better.
It certainly doesn't mean I'm going to jump straight into having kids next week. It just means I'm going to start looking elsewhere if the other person doesn't want kids at all, or wants to raise the kids fundy Christian, or strongly advocates spanking, or whatever.
But what sets certain situations apart isn't the fundamental incompatibility of two decent people drawn to one another, and unable to reconcile their incompatibility, which I think comprises most DTFMA situations in Dan's column. Situations like LWs show that some people get so blinded as to not see their partner for the lying, manipulative, and controlling person that they truly are, and it is that fact, and the willingness of someone to waste years of time, and contemplate wasting years more that is surprising.
People can feel they don't want children , yet fall into the love realm later on where they want children with this person. ie; You.
So, I wouldn't go there too early.
Rearing children comes from a deep love.
The abstract notion can be scary.
But of course, I could be totally wrong, having never wanted children and never gone out with a guy who wanted any either.
To her specifically, wanting to have kids with THEM after four weeks sounds a little... eager to please considering everything else he's said about her. Nothing wrong with wanting kids. But wanting babies so quickly and not knowing the person, he needs some time off from moving this fast.
Have you ever been in love? Truly in love? I've been in love. The willingness to waste years of one's life, when one is in love, doesn't surprise me one jot.
Falling in love- that's a specific form of love. Different to love, as I know it.
Love is wanting the other happy.
This boy, he's not being loved. He's being used. And he should pull his head out of his arse, fuck this woman off.
Forget about any other woman, till he grows a back bone.
But in five words or less: hell if I know. That's the point. I know what I think it is. Mainly. Mostly. When I'm not too confused. But having run up against, and been puzzled by, other people's different expectations of what being in love should mean, and having read about many more in these hallowed pages/threads, I'm willing to bet it's not what you think it is. Not exactly, anyway. And vice versa.
[For example, BiDanFan says, "Well, I was in love," as if that explains everything. "Truly in love." I think the way people experience love themselves--that's what they mean when they say "truly". You were in love how? Possessively? Self-sacrificingly? Selfishly? Selflessly? Obsessively? Vaguely? Unhealthily? Physically? Spiritually? Dependently? Cruelly? People have been in love in all these different ways, and many more, and expected different things from their loves. Were you expecting a ring? Were you expecting a fuck? Was it platonic? Or did you long to touch? Or to be touched? Share breakfast? Share a smile? Share life goals? Cheer on their success? Inspire their success? Profit from their success? Be their strength? Be their toy? Be their boss? And btw, I think you can love someone you abuse, as uncomfortable as that notion may be. Or if you don't buy that, there's toxic parental love. Which is one more reason I find the word "love" unhelpful. Love manifests itself in so many different ways it's almost a meaningless word.]
There is a difference between love and attachment.
Love is wanting the other well, happy, growing into their potential. Despite the pain one might have to go thru to see that happen.
Attachment, is about wanting the other to do what pleases oneself. They do what will avoid any pain or anger in oneself.
My ad hoc interpretation of
the Buddhist notion of love.
I went out with a man ten years older than me for a few months last year (I'm 27 now). I did notice a life experience gap a lot starker than with guys within 5 years of me, up or down. I have more in common with a college senior than I do with a divorcé Gen Xer.
I wonder if there's merit to the mode francaise of keeping a mistress/gigolo but not necessarily expecting that to muck up your real life.
Basically, when I think of "in love", it's like being under a spell. It physically hurts. Positive reinforcement from the object of your love is a more thrilling high than any drug could provide. Rejection, or even lack of the kind of reinforcement you'd like, is devastating. When you're in love with someone who loves you back and treats you well, there can be no truer happiness. When you're in love with someone who doesn't love you back, it literally makes you feel sick. When you're in love with someone who doesn't treat you well, or even doesn't share your goals and priorities, you find yourself acting against your own interests rather than hurt or lose that person. That's the definition for me. You put their needs as more important than your own. Love is, in a word, stupid.
I would like to patent some way of getting the oxytocin highs of passionate sex without having it morph into that all-consuming, illogical trap of love. Sadly, it's a difficult tightrope to walk.
http://www.wallpaperup.com/77725/Neil_Ga…
There's a difference between this healthy interdependence and codependence. I believe that you can value a loved one highly without acting against your own interests. If feelings get too intense, and if it's tempting to make bad decisions, some space often helps. When you don't resist the temptation of the moment to stay true to your self, this is doormat behavior.
On a more local level, I wish there were distinctions like agape, eros, philia and storge in English. Sub-genres of eros might be helpful too.
Oh certainly. But I would argue that is a different kind of love. The two partners I am currently with, I care about very deeply, but I don't have this sense of profound emptiness when they are not there. I am not "IN LOVE."
Thank fuck for that.
Oxytocin does fade, and what does it leave behind? Either you realise that you don't actually have enough in common with this person, they're getting on your nerves, you want that new shiny buzz and they're not new and shiny enough anymore... or you realise you can't imagine living without this person, you'd prefer to be with them than anyone or anything else, even if there are massive glaring dealbreakers they don't really matter. Sorry, sap, you're in love.
Obligatory YMMV. But when I say love that is what I am talking about.
BDF@90 -- Suddenly I understand why Mrs. Bloomer was concerned--and I wasn't--about one of us falling in love when we talked about opening our marriage. I don't experience love that way, but I suppose she can. I can see how it wouldn't leave much room for kids or marriage anymore.
I always figured the kind of passion you describe was just a cheesy romance novel trope. Thanks for enlightening me.