He keeps on having many meaningless relationships?

[ohso]

I have a friend who is now again in a relationship with a girl he doesn't love. It's been like this for him since he was 20 years old and now he's 37. His relationships last for a few years. His gf were all in love with him.

He finds a girl he likes but she is not perfect for him and they start dating but he wants to keep it casual but the girls fall in love and get hurt.

 

He is tortured by this situations and he confides in me. I am tortured by it because I recently got out of the ltr with a guy who was just like him.

I feel I can't continue our friendship of almost 20 years at this point. I always get friendly with his gf and after they breakup I lost friendships. Even though he wants to stay friends with them, they can't.

I don't know what to say to my friend or what to do. He was in a therapy and it didn't help him.

[TaraMaiden2]

No. He was in therapy and he didn't help HIMSELF.

 

(Either that, or the therapy was wrong, and he gave it up as a lost cause - again, that's on him).

 

You can't fix him.

it's his problem.

You can only decide what you want to do.

 

And if it's ditch him because you can't abide his flakiness and stubborn refusal to attend to his own problems, then by all means - keep in touch with his exes. Who is he to dictate YOU can't keep in touch, simply because of his inadequacies??

 

I take your reasoning, and think it sound....distance yourself from him.

He just pulls you down with him.

[Gaeta]

Well, not sure what it has to do with your friendship of 20 years with this man. I have a brother that for the past 10 years had a different girlfriend over for Xmas each year. Of course some of them we were disappointed to see go but it's his life. We usually accept our friends as they are no?

 

Like above poster said if you've developed friendship with some of these ladies there is nothing forbidding you to continue this friendship.

[ohso]

Well, not sure what it has to do with your friendship of 20 years with this man.

 

A lot. He went through about 15 relationships like this and I was hoping his issue would be resolved by now. I'm losing my patience with him to support him through breakups. He's stepping on my limits regarding morals and emotions of these wonderful girls. He's a great guy but I fear I can't accept this huge part of him. For me it's wrong to date if you're incapable of loving. So I wonder what our friendship truly means to him.

[TaraMaiden2]

Reciprocation.

For him to have a friendship with you, you must have been feeding something in him - and he, in you.

If you had truly never got anything out of this, why would you have stayed...?

 

20 years is a long time to be friends with someone.

 

What was in it for you?

 

Seriously: I'm not blaming you. But once you discover just what it was about his awkward, misguided and seemingly cavalier attitude that actually held you rather than repelled you, you'll have a clearer answer....

[Redhead14]

I have a friend who is now again in a relationship with a girl he doesn't love. It's been like this for him since he was 20 years old and now he's 37. His relationships last for a few years. His gf were all in love with him.

He finds a girl he likes but she is not perfect for him and they start dating but he wants to keep it casual but the girls fall in love and get hurt.

 

He is tortured by this situations and he confides in me. I am tortured by it because I recently got out of the ltr with a guy who was just like him.

I feel I can't continue our friendship of almost 20 years at this point. I always get friendly with his gf and after they breakup I lost friendships. Even though he wants to stay friends with them, they can't.

I don't know what to say to my friend or what to do. He was in a therapy and it didn't help him.

 

This is a hallmark trait of a man with a Fear of Intimacy and is usually rooted in trauma/poor role models in childhood. Is he prone to pulling away from those girlfriends at times during their relationships? Does he need a lot of alone time?

 

There isn't much you can do for him. Therapy can only work if someone is dedicated to the process of delving deeply into the past. However, at his age, the "condition" is likely permanent. In addition, the ending of those frequent relationships fuel it. He does suffer the hurt from ending them which in turn makes him more fearful of becoming emotionally intimate. He does get lonely enough at various points to "try" to have a partner, but can't maintain the relationships.

[Gaeta]

A lot. He went through about 15 relationships like this and I was hoping his issue would be resolved by now. I'm losing my patience with him to support him through breakups. He's stepping on my limits regarding morals and emotions of these wonderful girls. He's a great guy but I fear I can't accept this huge part of him. For me it's wrong to date if you're incapable of loving. So I wonder what our friendship truly means to him.

 

Your friendship lasted 20 years and you wonder what it means to him??

 

So if your friends must have the same dating values as you dump him.

 

I personally accept and love my friends with their own personality and their own view on things. I have friends that falls in love after 2 dates, other friends that are just out for sex, I got friends that don't believe in love anymore, etc. I am not friends with them for the way they handle their dating. I am friends with them for what they bring to my life as a friend.

 

Also, you say he can't love these women but you have to support him through his break ups? Isn't that contradictory?

[ohso]

 

So if your friends must have the same dating values as you dump him.

 

Also, you say he can't love these women but you have to support him through his break ups? Isn't that contradictory?

 

Exactly to the point, that is what's bugging me. After so many years I want to be faithful to him as s friend but it's too hard as I get close to his women. I feel like I'm losing him, his women as my friends, and myself as I'm acting contradictory to my believes.