Is it possible to get over our fears and make it work?

[Bemused]

I do apologize for the length of my story. I didn’t know what bits to cut out to make it shorter, though. Please bear with me.

 

I’ve known my guy for almost 20 years...let’s call him Joe. We met through a mutual friend in college, and our relationship has taken many twists and turns over the years. At first, we were just acquaintances, and would meet when there was a party or other gathering of mutual friends. We always got along well, and I definitely knew that I was attracted to him, but he was just one of many guys I met back then that I felt some kind of attraction for…it was college, you know? Lots of interesting people to meet. Anyway, a couple years later, I started dating one of our mutual friends…let’s call him Dave. Dave and I had a mostly good relationship for about 6 years before I fell out of love and eventually ended it. Nothing overly dramatic; it’s just that I was 20 when we started dating, and by 26, it became apparent that we weren’t compatible for a marriage.

 

During those years, Joe and I saw a lot more of each other and became closer friends. He had plenty of relationships of his own, and had two significant relationships. A few months after Dave and I broke up, Joe and I started a FWB-type relationship. We enjoyed each other’s company a lot, and the passion was very strong, but I was still relatively fresh from my break-up and he…likes women. Neither of us wanted a full-time relationship at that point and dated other people, but would see each other quite often. The arrangement worked for a year, until I realized I was developing feelings for him. We broke it off amicably and remained friends without the benefits. In the meantime, Dave knew nothing about our FWB, though he knew that Joe and I had remained in contact. Dave and I did not remain in contact – his choice, mostly. He was pretty torn up about the end of our relationship. Joe and I didn’t want to hurt him further, and since we weren’t really dating, there didn’t seem any point to telling him.

 

Add another year, and I started looking to buy my first condo. Joe is really great with the practical side of life, so he spent a lot of time helping me figure out the finances and talking me through the whole process. We ended up spending a lot of time together, and the passion ignited again. This time, we saw each other for a few months before we broke it off again. I wanted a ‘real’ relationship with him, and he wasn’t interested in me that way, so again, we backed off. Joe is one of those “forever is a very long time” people, meaning the idea of commitment wasn’t something he would enter into lightly. I had my own fears along those lines considering I had almost married Dave and knew that I would have been miserable had I done so…it’s better to be on my own than to be stuck with the wrong guy, you know? I was disappointed, but had a feeling our timing wasn’t right.

 

A couple years later, we started a ‘real’ relationship. This time, everything was out in the open. Dave knew, our other friends knew, and we weren’t seeing other people at the same time. We had always said there was “something there” between us, and were finally getting a chance to explore that without complications. We were pretty happy together, always enjoyed seeing each other, always looked forward to spending time together. The passion was stronger than ever, and we started to get to know each other as a ‘couple’. We liked traveling together, and we started running in 5k and 10k races, and generally discovered that we were pretty compatible. After a year or so, though, I instigated a break-up…we just didn’t really spend enough time together. I felt like I was way down on his list of priorities and he was squeezing me in when he had time rather than putting our time first and fitting other things around it. He was struggling with the love vs. in-love thing. He said he loved me but wasn’t in love with me. I believed he was in love with me, but I didn’t believe he loved me. I was unhappy, and he knew it and that made him uncomfortable. We agreed there was ‘something there’ but we couldn’t make it work.

 

After this break-up, I thought we were Done. We had given it a solid try and it didn’t work out. I was pretty heart-broken about it, so went NC for about a year to get him out of my system. I contacted him a year later when I took a job transfer across the country and invited him to my going away party. It was nice to see him, but I had pretty much gotten over him, so I really just wanted to let him know I was at ‘peace’ with him…no hard feelings.

 

I’ve been away for about 6 years, and we got in touch to catch up on the phone occasionally. If business brought me into town, I sometimes let him know and we’d get together for dinner. We were both happy to resume the friendship, and we were both dating other people, and we weren’t looking to be together, so it was all good.

 

Fast forward to about 18 months ago when we met again at a mutual friend’s wedding. Maybe it was the romance in the air, maybe it was being in Maui…whatever it was, the sparks flew. We didn’t say or do anything about it at the time, but a month later we got together and talked. And started to see each other again. We carried on long distance up until a couple of months ago when I finally moved back. Since we got together, everything has been wonderful. We are both very loving and affectionate, we see each other often, and I finally have it through my head that he does love me, and he’s finally getting it that he’s in love with me. Our sex life is fantastic, and the intimacy is more than either of us have felt with anyone in a long, long time.

 

So why am I posting? Because we’re pushing 40 now, and he still calls love the L word. He’s still a ‘forever is a very long time’ guy…dude, it’s not as long as it used to be! I have my own fear of intimacy issues, so I feel like we’re in a catch 22. For him to be comfortable with forever, he needs to see/feel the deepest intimacy with me. For me to be comfortable with that kind of intimacy, I need a commitment. I’m afraid to open up completely and give everything of myself for fear of getting hurt; I need a level of commitment that’s more than he can give without the complete intimacy. Am I making sense?

 

Is there any hope for us?

 

Any advice would be appreciated…and thank you for reading through all this.

[Outcast]

Oh for heaven's sakes! Spring for some counselling sessions and find out why both of you are wasting half of your short lives avoiding being together when clearly nobody else will do since you keep returning to each other!!!

 

You're not getting younger - anything could happen - and you'll kick yourself forever if you let this slip away from you again. So by all means both of you go talk to a competent professional. Nothing in life is a 'sure thing' !!!

[norajane]

I read this thread after just reading the one about the teens who want to get married...talk about opposite ends of the spectrum!

 

I think you two need to get on with it - sometimes you have to make a leap of faith. Actually, you always have to make a leap of faith with marriage. As Outcast said, there are no guarantees. It sounds like you know each other pretty well by now; I doubt that leap is as big as you two are making it out to be...it's only a tiny leap of faith you need.

 

If I read you correctly, it sounds like you would be willing to make the leap to commitment, but your guy isn't so sure? You've only been living in the same city for a couple of months. Maybe give things a little time to settle, and then YOU can propose to HIM?

[Bemused]

Oh for heaven's sakes! Spring for some counselling sessions and find out why both of you are wasting half of your short lives avoiding being together when clearly nobody else will do since you keep returning to each other!!!

 

You're not getting younger - anything could happen - and you'll kick yourself forever if you let this slip away from you again. So by all means both of you go talk to a competent professional. Nothing in life is a 'sure thing' !!!

 

Oh, if only I could get him to try counseling! That's just not something that's likely to happen. He's such a guy and finds it hard to talk about feelings...and yet he claims that he really likes how he can communicate with me.

 

I know we're not getting younger. And I'm also afraid that we'll let this slip away. I just don't know how to make a commitment phobe more comfortable with commitment.

[Bemused]

If I read you correctly, it sounds like you would be willing to make the leap to commitment, but your guy isn't so sure? You've only been living in the same city for a couple of months. Maybe give things a little time to settle, and then YOU can propose to HIM?

 

Yes, I would make the leap at this point. I'm confident that we'd be good together. Proposing to him, well, I can't really do that. I need/want him to do that. I guess I need to know that he wants it enough to want to take that step. I don't think my pushing for a commitment would make either of us feel good about it.