ConfusedinSaltLake Posted July 11, 2016 Posted July 11, 2016 Back in 1981, as a newly divorced man, I met and fell in love with a newly divorced woman who also fell in love with me, but who had met another man just an hour before, an man who was established and with his own home. She married him instead of me, and I heard nothing more for 32 years. By sheer accident, I found her online, and discovered that her husband had passed. I contacted her on Facebook, and we started chatting, then talking on the phone. I went to visit her in Salt Lake City on New Years Day of 2015, and it went incredibly well, as if the intervening years had never existed. After a few months of flying back and forth to see each other (I lived in Portland), it came to the point where I wanted more, I wanted us to live together and I volunteered to move to SLC, where she has a very high-paying and prestigious job. She had some problems with this, said she had never been single and independent in her lifetime (three marriages starting at 17), and wanted to see what that was like. But she loved me and wanted to see if we could work, so she invited me to be her "forever love" back in October of 2015. But it never turned into a real commitment, which was frustrating for me, and I was always anxious about the state of the relationship, where it was going, was it progressing, etc., which was annoying and frustrating for her. I wanted a full commitment though it would not have to be a legal marriage, and she would prefer that I move to my own place and that we see each other frequently and get together for fun and trips. Well, yesterday, after an argument about something unrelated, she told me she wanted me out by September 30, which is when her retirement starts. I think she was using the argument as a "final straw" excuse to resolve the problem she had of being on the fence, do I totally commit to this man, or do I become totally independent, which she had experienced a taste of for the 16 months that had passed since her husband's passing, before I came back into my life. She was furious at the time, and refused to reconsider her decision that I have to be out by September 30. I asked her, repeatedly, to reconsider, and she calmed down enough to finally say that yes, she would reconsider but not to get my hopes up. That was yesterday morning, and I moved into a friend's apartment to give her time and space to think about things. I truly love this woman with all of my heart and she says she loves me too but cannot live with me. I still think we can be happy together but she is so confused about things; she said (about a week before this happened) that she is in a damned if she does, damned if she doesn't position. She is still grieving for her husband too, I think. What do I do? For right now, I want to leave her totally alone to think, but how long before I contact her to see if she has reconsidered?
Recommended Posts