No idea what he is thinking, but I am moving on. Have you had the same experience?

[eleve82]

My ex and I dated for almost 5 years and moved in together almost right away. Things went well for the first 2 yrs, we hardly argued, we had fun, travelled everywhere. He was one of the sweetest guys to me, tho it took a long time to get him to open up to me and I was the first girl he ever got seriously involved with. After 2 yrs, I realised he could b quite absent-minded and was starting to take things for granted - he stopped planning things for us to do, forget to do small things, say insensitive things - the change was obvious. Then we had our place burgled because he lost his keys, and most of the stolen, expensive items were mine. The event caused alot of grief in our relationship as I wasn't being paid well and felt the strain of replacing these items, he didn't help me much with the police report/replacing my things despite being well paid. He has done things like book flights the wrong way round and lock me in by mistake - 4 times.

 

Along the way, he met some single guy friends, and often I felt quite sidelined in the midst of his "bromance" with one guy, who wasn't particularly tactful to me. I became resentful whenever he appeared to prefer his friends over me and for his lack of taking responsibility for his actions. When I lost my job and had to consider leaving the country, I asked him "what would happen to us then?". He'd just say "I don't know". This conversation would repeat many times.

 

Despite all these, I know he was a good natured guy who didn't have alot of confidence, relationship experience or self-awareness. He wasn't a great communicator, often shutting down when confronted with questions. He didn't have any plans for the future with me, but he generally didn't have plans for the future, period. He made mistakes but he also learnt from them, though slowly. I thought he would eventually start taking charge of his life and what he wanted, as he grew older. But after 4 years, I was not sure I could wait much longer. I started withdrawing, and beyond being friendly to his family and friends, I saw little reason to do more when I thought he was having commitment issues. Because he was so reluctant to talk about anything serious, it was difficult to have a meaningful conversation.

 

I started asking him why he never planned or talked about the future (I'm talking about holidays, things we could do, ways we can invest our money, NOT getting married). He insisted it was not in his nature. Finally, he said he was unsure if I was "the one" for him. When I asked him why, he said we didn't have much fun together anymore and only seemed to argue (he thinks it would be "effortless" if I was "the one", no need to make plans). He said he was a more "positive" person, that I saw the "glass half full" (that made no sense to me, as he was always infused with doubt and uncertainty, I think the reality is he wanted to stay carefree and didn't like my pragmatic approach to life and pressure to be more responsible or forward thinking, it was too much effort) and that he wanted his friends and family to like me more. Yet on the flip side, he admitted I had many great qualities - maturity, loyalty, patience, I took care of him, was there for him when his friends weren't.

 

The breaking point came when I found out from his friends that he was going to take a weekend holiday with his guy friends but hadn't told me (second time). He also hadn't thought of anything for my 30th birthday either, which I had done for him. I broke up with him the day I found out, I was too upset. He didn't say a word. The next few days he started withdrawing from me. Before I left on a pre-planned 2 week holiday, I urged him to think about what he needed to change - to take more control of his life, to start thinking about his goals, try out different things to see what he liked to do, communicate more with people and stop being so stagnant in life.

 

When I returned, he said he wanted to just be friends. He rehashed all the reasons we weren't "right for each other". Then, I couldn't understand it -- he said he realised he needed to make these changes I had told him to make in his life to become a more confident and decisive person. He said he would try harder to communicate and connect with people. All the things I told him needed to be changed, he acknowledged was true and would work on them, except he didn't want to continue with us anymore. We ended up talking for hours, the most we ever had in years. I told him it was ironic that he thought he could fix such a major part of his way of thinking and his approach to life, which were the obstacles to us moving forward and still think the relationship had no hope. I told him I believed that Long Term relationships needed hard work, two people who loved each other, loyalty, maturity and compromise, not just "fun times" (even that takes effort after 5 years together). He actually conceded that he knew he had taken things for granted, and had considered he might regret giving up this relationship because of the qualities I had, and that perhaps no one else would have done as much for him but that he probably wouldn't know until later and needed to find out for himself.

 

I knew then that I had to move on.

 

I am still living in the same apartment until I find a fulltime job. He remains nice to me, has even asked me in advance whether I want to do something this weekend and made good on small things he promised to do years ago. but I don't know why he bothers to do this and I suspect it is just to ease his guilt. I thought I'd share my story because I wonder if anyone has ever had a similar experience or perhaps you know someone like this, do share it please. It may help me understand this better.

[dinosaur]

Trust me, just walk away. You're a great girl and you'll find someone who is insane about you and will appreciate you. This guy is stagnant and will probably have a hard time committing because he's looking for something exciting meanwhile he's boring.

[I'm nuts]

I think it's pretty normal in some ways 5 years is a long time and I think that in that kind of time together you pick more easily on on your partners faults, at first everything is perfect and ideal but I believe all this changes after a few years, things become stale, boring, the other person isn't so perfect, they don't give you all the attention they did in the beginnig, that's why relationships are hard work and need constant working on, it's not so easy to maintain a high for such a long period of time, all relationships have the ups and downs.

 

Accept the guy for how is his and consider if his good points out weigh the bad, most blokes like to go out with other blokes for a drink, see a footy match or whatever, we like our own space sometimes too.

 

My own feeling is that you will never find the perfect person, but find someone you love enough to over look their shortcomings which we all have, and see if they are easy enough the live with for a long time, if someone changes their mind over you the really is very little you can do, human beings are odd.

[eleve82]

Dinosaur, your kind words are really appreciated!! XX