Ginger...yep, she wants to do what she needs but keep me around. She can do as she pleases, I won't contact her at all. Her decision has consequences and the big one is that she will lose me. I am walking directly away from her...even as I so wish I didn't have to do. I've read all the crap about getting her back, I'm just doing the only thing I can do to look after myself and have my needs met and not settle for less than I'm worth or deserve. Another lady out there WILL be happy to have me one of these days. Just tired of not valuing myself and saying "ok, sure we can be friends". I hope I was able to convey in a loving way my wants and feelings. It is a shame we ended, but not my choice.
heck now even if she came back at some point and said she wanted a relationship with me, how could i ever trust it given that she's already walked away once
Exactly this!
(Oh and btw, that public affection in front of her kids? Please don't meet anybody's kids until you've dated them for six months and are pretty sure this is the one).
She's showing you her flakey side, don't ignore it.
You're missing that high of infatuation and how that made you feel. We get that. And it's intoxicating because it validated that part of you that was wounded by your ex. But you got sucked in by a flake and the rapidity of emotions was a huge red flag! Again, healthy adults who aren't in their teens or early twenties and have been around the block a time or two might feel the infatuation, but should still be evaluating whether a partner is right for them after only three months and a few dates. Don't go so fast next time. You put more thought into buying a new lawn mower.Do your research, observe and evaluate, or the emotions are going to lead you into buying a lemon.
(And yes, she's a lemon. This whole coming on hot, turning cold but still wanting to hang onto you as a friend and Plan B is Manipulative Girl 101. Whether it's deliberate or due to a mood or personality disorder, who knows. But giant red flags are waving.)
kml...i've been here better than a year now, fully got through my divorce and the main reason I came here, but in less than a month you've kicked my butt more times and harder than anyone else ever has...and as much as I feel you kicking me, I know you are right.
I'm thankful that I've had the ability to continue to grow and learn from this experience. I'm happy that I could draw for myself the logical conclusion I came to in the quote that you highlight. To be clear it was she that was ready to introduce me to her kids on the timeline that she chose. I never pushed it and was always respectful about when she felt it was right. I can see that going forward for the children's benefit, I will push to take it very slow.
Yes, she totally has shown me her flakey side. Simply put I didn't feel we went that fast especially in comparison to other relationships that I've had. Perhaps because they have all failed, I see now that I need to slow them down even more than I realized. I don't think we weren't still evaluating each other. Heck, she's totally dumped me so clearly she's evaluated something and decided to chuck me. With us not seeing each other but 3-4 times a month I just really thought we had a good pace to us. For sure our minds/hearts got way ahead of our actual experiences together.
And yeah, my IC has said as much. She said "she's overwhelmed and for whatever reason is unwilling to do the work that she needs to do. she couldn't be with anyone right now, not your's to fix and this is totally on her." Like I say I know I have to walk away. No way I was going to go from where we were to letting her friend zone me. She made her choice, she can live with having lost me. From all she said, it's easy to believe that maybe that will bother her, but maybe she simply didn't mean any of it. Life goes on I guess.
I hope to go quiet now so you don't have to kick my butt again in the future.
so I met with my IC yesterday and explained to her the most recent events. she said that she was very proud of how i placed value upon myself, stood firm in my wants in the relationship and didn't accept the breadcrumbs that new girl had offered.
i told her i decided to get back on the horse, BUT with a completely different and hopefully more adult mindset in doing so. between much of what you all have provided and through continued reading on my own of mistakes i feel i've made, i put myself back on OLD.
i am focusing on me and moving my life forward as I see fit. given what i experienced recently it's brought into focus that instead of being all consumed about someone else/wanting to be in a relationship, i should be consumed about myself, being happy by myself and enjoying life. along those lines i've been spending some time re-exploring my interest in some new and old hobbies, continuing to purchase new items to furnish my home that only i have the decision on and just enjoying my time with D4. bottom line i'm approaching this go with much better judgement and knowledge than the time before.
for whatever reason with OLD in the past I never sought to date my age, only 5 years or more younger. never been one to worry about birthdays or getting older, but just never considered dating someone my age. well i decided to explore the possibility and i've been pleasantly surprised by what i've found. had some initial contact from more ladies than i expected, but perhaps that's because being of roughly the same age their profiles sound more "right" to me than the younger ones. the other big change in me is that this go around I'm planning to date as many as i can with the only intent of having fun. in the past i've been first one i like, relationship AND i was the pusher for it. this time if i date 5-10 ladies casually so be it and if they have interest in me past casual, well they can come after me. if at some point it feels right to me to have a certain lady add to my life as opposed to taking over my life then we'll see how it goes. i've come to realize i have no rush and i'm going to take that to heart. at the same time after going through what i went through there's no reason for me to not be out, having fun and exploring so i'm going to.
i'm disappointed that new girl bailed, but from it i have been actively learning how to better myself in many ways because of it. who knows if any of this OLD craziness will even come to a date, thing is I'm good to go if it doesn't. when the time is right if a new lady comes along that's meant to enter my life it will happen when it's time.
...now that i've said what i feel is a positive update, let me run for cover lest KML come at me with both barrels again!
I think the first girl you date after D is always hard. You see a spark, you see potential, you feel wanted for the first time in a while and it causes you to overlook a lot. Live, learn and keep moving.
This is one of the greatest benefits of the board to me. Getting unbiased advice from people that don't know me or have a vested interest in seeing me happy. If you're honest they can help you navigate through some challenging situations.
I am 46 and my range was 2 years older and I think 5 years younger. IMO OLD is hard because there are so many things that have to be aligned. There might be a lot of people at your finger tips or your swipes but they all don't want the same thing, value the same thing, etc. It's almost a necessary evil but one that most people don't like.
You're safe from me this time. Don't suppose you remember the old 60's song "you better shop around"? Dating is shopping - seeing what you like and don't like about different people while looking for the right match.
I do always laugh about guys who only want to date a woman who is younger even if it's just a few years. I mean, guys who want to date 20 year olds, that's a completely different creepy dynamic. But a guy say who is 40 and would date a 38 year old but not a 42 year old? Is that because guys think they need to have the "power" of being the oldest in the relationship? What earthly difference does a few years make?
I was four years older than my ex (I had never dated someone younger when I met him in our twenties) . Since my divorce in my 50's only my first date was older (by a couple of years). Boyfriends since then have just happened to have ranged from 4 years younger (current) to 9 years younger and my age has never been a factor.
kml...so yes I do know the song and for the first time probably ever in terms of dating that's what I'm going to do.
truth is rightly or wrongly I modeled my ideas on relationships/marriage as I saw from my father. only through some very painful lessons have I learned that my ideas about marriage in the 60's are completely out of whack for modern ladies/relationships. in that belief of mine, he married my mom who is two years younger. as such even back in high school I never considered dating girls within my own grade. I looked 2 grades or below simply because that is what i knew my father had done. that may sound crazy but for sure i have to believe guys model their expectations on relationships based a good bit on how they saw from their fathers.
to date I've actually had some nice intro chats with ladies 2-3 years older than me. i've never been one who has issues with birthdays, but drawing the age slider on OLD sites to beyond my age...simply had never done so before. I know i'm weird with this, just stating my feelings. perhaps there is a power aspect to it, although I've never felt that way. the past girl was 10 years younger than me, but i never felt as if we were anything, but equals. the awesome thing to me is that I've found many more ladies my age and slightly older that I'm interested in than younger now that I've gotten rid of whatever stigma i had attached to it in the past.
B...funny how we become aware of our biases over time. Funny...the only person I have ever dated who is older than me is my first XH and he is three years older. After we split, the only guys who approached me OLD were between two and six years younger than me. My XH is six years younger than me. This time around, it was the same thing...two to six years younger than me and now the guy I am exclusively dating is 13 years younger. That has REALLY been a stretch for me but I'm adjusting and he really is the one guy out of the eight I went out with who I connected with the most and who I had the most fun with. Whether or not we end up being serious longterm remains to be seen but I am hoping if we decide to call it quits, it would not just be about the age difference. TBH...most of my friends are younger than me and I look younger so maybe that's why I felt most comfortable with him? I sure hope I'm not trying to recapture my youth and am just not aware of it...lol.
