She says she is ready to change, but...

[lebbis]

I posted this in another thread, but I need some advice for myself.

 

I am 25 years old, and I am engaged to a girl who have dated for 3.5 years. I can say that overall our relationship has had a positive impact on my life, but yet I sit here prepared to break it off at any moment. For the past 9 months or so, since we got engaged, they negative aspects of our relationship grew. She has become very dependent on me financially, emotionally, socially, you name it. Her maturity level and her expectations in our relationship do not sync up with mine, and this has caused me to love her more like a little sister, daughter even, than a romantic partner. The fact that she moved in with me has pronounced this dynamic even more, and for awhile I have been emotionally, physically, and intellectually disconnected from her. Like you, my sexual attraction to her has dwindled, despite the fact she is very beautiful.

 

My problem was for all this time I never took a critical view of our relationship. I always chalked it up to compromise and the inevitable routine of being in a long term relationship. I never fully articulated exactly what I wanted in a girl, and because I got along with fiancee, laughed with her, and could still have deep conversations with her, I thought that this was good enough.

 

Two weeks ago, I met a girl at a bar with my friend and hers. Fast forward to the four of us meeting the following day for college football to me forgetting my sunglasses in her purse, and me asking her to dinner to 'get them back'.

 

We went out to dinner, dinner led to drinks, and drinks led to an all nighter (I didn't sleep with her). I could never remember a time when I had so much fun on a 'date'.

 

After that night, the girl captivated my thoughts. I simply could not stop thinking about her, and it took strong will to play it cool. I met her a few days later to inform her that I was engaged but not happy. She said she was really into me, but I needed to take care of things between my fiancee and me. After that, we saw each other another night, and again had a fantastic time together.

 

My fiancee returned last Thursday. We went out and I started out by telling her I was happy when we had space between us and it would be a good idea if we had some separation. Last night, we got into a conversation, and before I knew it the words, "There's a girl" spilled out of my mouth. It completely devastated her, and we had a 6 hour long conversation about our relationship.

 

I told her everything I was unhappy about in our relationship, and she pleaded with me saying it was unfair of me to suddenly unload these grievances without giving her time to try to 'fix' things. She told me she didn't want to lose me and she made so many mistakes in the past with us. She promised to change things, and if only I confided in her awhile back, she would already be changed.

 

At this point all I can think about is the new girl. However, I feel obligated to give my fiancee a chance to be the woman she wants to be for me, but I am very skeptical and don't have a lot of faith in folks that promise they'll change.

 

Don't know what to do.

[Jeff M Stevens]

Gonna seem like I'm hammering you here. I mean nothing personal by what I'm going to say and I am not saying you yourself are a bad guy. I'm just reacting to this one situation you presented to me. Gotta keep it real so you will get exactly what I'm thinking on what you wrote.

 

I don't blame you for falling out of love but your fiance' deserves much better than the treatment you're giving her.

 

I don't know the whole story but from what I can gather, she has been loyal to you. She might have problems. She might do things that have driven you crazy. You might not be in love with her.

 

However, it seems as if she's been loyal to you.

 

For you to wander out and have dates while you have a loyal fiance' at home is a bad move.

 

I'm not saying that you have to stay with her but you definitely owed her better than sneaking around with a new girl.

 

I know you might say "well nothing physically happened" but you knew what you were doing. You even said it "I've never had so much fun on a date."

 

"Date," being the operative word. You knew it was wrong when you did it but didn't care. You even told the new girl, a virtual stranger, that you were not into your fiance'. Nice. Talk about a sucker punch. She is waiting for you at home and you are wandering around talking about her to strangers about how she's not right for you. How many beans did you spill about her? I'm sure she would definitely not appreciate being the subject of gossip from her own fiance' as he's on a date!!!

 

Plus, think back to when you were really in love with your fiance' (since she is your fiance' I imagine that you were in love at some point). How would you have reacted if she did to you what you are doing to her? I bet you would have felt sucker punched as she probably does now.

 

You might say now "But but but but she's got all these issues and all these things that are driving me nuts.....I just had to explore."

 

Again, you might have a laundry list of things that she did wrong. They might all be correct. But if she has been loyal to you, she deserves loyalty back.

 

You either need to cut your fiance' loose or stay and make it work with her. Its unbelievable that she would want to stay after that display of disloyalty from you but she does, so that's where she's at. It definitely sounds like your fiance' has very high interest level in you, so you have that working for you.

 

Sounds to me like you just want to get out and you're enamored with this new girl. That's fine but remember that they are STRANGERS until you hit at least 10 dates with them. Are you overrating the ether of being with someone new after being in what you perceive to be a stale relationship?

 

I wish you well man. I hope you do find what you're looking for but just remember this as you move forward.

 

If someone is loyal to you and treats you in a straight up manner, you owe them that much back.

[Gdunkman]

Looks like my story, but I am in the position of a dumpee. My ex wouldn't explain what went wrong, because it was me who worked and she who was sitting at home having a lot of free time for her hobbies, it couldn't last forever.

 

It will be painful for your girl anyway, so I'd say it's better to end your relations right now if you are skeptical, because it might happen that you will understand it's over and you'll start to move on, and she will still be trying to save your relations, it will be unfair to her.

[Gigz3050]

I'm not trying to be mean, but for you to think about running out on your fiancee without giving her a chance to redeem herself makes you look like an immature little boy who runs away from his problems when things get tough. Now, I would understand a lot more if you gave her some chances and she never changed for the better. I was in her shoes once but my problems stemmed from stress from school and some issues with my Mom and my ex never gave me a chance either to fix things. He tried to go after another girl as well. It's really messed up and what do you think you will get out of the new girl if things don't work out with your fiancee? Your fiancee definitely sounds loyal to you. Give her a chance. I also know that once people get engaged or married, they have a tendency to change. Talk to her about that and tell her that you miss the old days before the engagement. Give her some time to work things out, if you don't see some improvement in the following weeks/months, then yea go ahead and break it off. Just make sure that's definitely what you want.