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I appreciate you. I'm going to soak in your words and decide what to do. Thank you for your time

When you're playing tit-for-tat like this and you've barely started dating the person...the relationship has a poor prognosis. I don't mean to be unkind, but this is totally unrealistic and usually what people ignoring their screaming gut instinct try to do. Why? Well, quite simply, you can't unknow what you already know about him. He cant unsay the things he's said to you. He can't undo his past. Wiping the slate clean is deeply flawed concept because it's not realistic to expect these issues to suddenlly not be issues anymore. How have you even come to that conclusion, though? You two haven't spent much time together in person and it's already evident there are indeed some big red flags about him. it sounds to me like you have gotten over-invested in the idea of him and are trying to make reality fit the idea. It is. Decent men don't randomly start spouting off about their sex lives to women they're just messaging online. That is inappropriate on so many levels. Eh, I think this is an excuse. He just sounds gross, unfortunately. And perhaps it's worked with other women he's had sexy chats with online. But hoestly? I've known men who've behaved in similar ways and been sexually inappropriate out the gate. They're not the ones to date. I would not let the excitment of having a boyfriend override your common sense or gut instinct here.

When we first met it was on an online forum and he admitted he was mostly just messaging me because he was bored and horny. So he pretty much just said whatever the f*** he thought was hot, without thinking about his audience. I admit that I had no intention of ever dating him and was mostly just talking to him to ask him questions about his country (he lives in a different one than me) and thought it was gross then but just continued to use him for information since I was planning a trip there soon. Unfortunately, I caught feelings for him though and it was after that that I realized how gross it was. He's never been single since he was 18 and very obviously had not clue how to talk with women at all. Last night I had a talk with him and randomly told him some sex details between myself and my ex. He got really upset about it, and I told him that in the beginning of our talking, he told me a bunch of details about his ex without asking. This morning, he told me he was having gross thoughts about my ex and I, he didn't like hearing those details and it kept him up at night a bit. I told him how he understands how I feel about him sharing all the gory details without my consent. I told him I want to move on from all that and start brand new with him, and he agreed. He knows now that if he shared that information, I'll share mine and/or just block him altogether. The major red flag was that we started talking in May, he was separated then, however he didnt tell me he hadn't filed for divorce. Part of that was my fault though, as I hadn't asked for details on it. I lost my s*** in August and told him I no longer wanted to speak to him. He sent me a copy of his divorce application the next day (it was legit) and told me he was waiting on her to file with him. He realized that wasn't going to happen until after I told him to stop talking to me. Since then, he's been very transparent with his divorce proceedings and is aware that I'll easily drop him if he omits information. Honestly, other than those two glaring red flags (swinging and him being married still) he's really a decent guy and ticks most of my boxes. I've kind of decided to give him a timeline in my head though and if he's not single and gives me any whiff of wanting to go back to his old ways, I'll be gone.

hopefully this friendly neighbor reported the hit and run accident

Yep. Its something Ive done a lot of reflecting on in the last few years. Ive come to believe that people are misled to think that you just need a "positive mindset". But you see many people on the other end of the spectrum who are overly jolly, telling everyone around them to cheer up if they're looking the least bit sad or down. Those people are struggling as well but in a different way. If you are analytical, somewhat rigid and prone to negative judgements you are not going to change yhe nature of your wiring, but you can stop taking your catastrophic thoughts less seriously and recognise they are probably not a good reflection of reality. Rather than the whole happy clappy mindset rubbish the real aim should be non-judgement. Accept all your feelings, if you feel s*** sit with it but dont let it lead to sweeping conclusions about you. your future or life/people as a whole. Then the next step is action. Go after what you want, but don't accept anything that leaves you short-changed. And I think in fairness OP has done this by giving this relationship a go, that deserves credit. You see so many posts on here along the lines of "I'm a 40 y/o virgin who never leaves the house and plays video games all day, how do I meet the love of my life?", and they've pretty much answered their own question because nothing happens if you don't act. I think where you're falling down, OP, is that you're too stuck on your vision for anyone to really fit it at the moment, and when you meet someone who very obviously doesn't fit like your ex you try to mould the situation rather than quickly accepting this one didn't work and nothing could be done. By getting more comfortable with life's flow and all the uncomfortable randomness it brings, you can free yourself up to find where you actually need to be. In other words throw the whole life vision out the window, relinquish the need for control and do more active observing rather than judging based on your pre-set criteria, both of yourself and others.

Just speak to her when you get home. Text is useless in this scenario.

Then don't. Put the pan on the porch and block her. Or just box it up and drop it at the post office. Let us know when it's done, and maybe we can help you from there.

This. I can’t stress enough how important this is. I have a similar character. I can’t stand it when things appear to make no sense, when other people behave in a way that seems irrational and illogical to me. I’ve always craved for clarity, closure, certainty, security, constancy, transparency. In the end, it truly is about control. We hope to shape the world and the people around us according to our wishes. Life keeps shattering those hopes. We must learn to accept things we can’t change, no matter how hard it is.

Again, this is normal. I think you are just qualifying it because it wasn't what you envisaged, a calm sit down in a coffee shop where you hash out all your problems and decide to break up. Breakups are often messy like this because there's lots of strong feelings involved. I know because I've been there. Me and my ex broke up twice, the first time was after our first holiday together where loads of unresolved stuff popped up, we had a big argument as soon as we got home, she suddenly said "maybe we're just not meant to be together", burst out into floods of tears and told me to leave. The next few days my head was so full of doubts and unresolved questions, I missed her and ended up reaching out and we got back together. Then when the same problems came back, and twice as intense this time, I resolved to break up again, but "properly" this time. We met and sat down for over an hour and talked. It was about as clean a breakup as you could ask for and we did some silly stuff like agree to stay friends etc (which rarely ever actually happens unless you were already friends before dsting). And guess what? The second time ended up even more painful than the first, I still had so many unanswered questions, it still felt unresolved, despite the fact it wasn't so abrupt second time round. It didn't help at all. All thats to say breakups are just messy and emotional by nature. They suck. You're not special or unique in that sense and there is nothing to work out here, other than just feeling like s*** for a while, accepting you feel that way and slowly moving on with your life when you are ready. Looking for answers you are never going to have only serves to drag out the process and eat into time you could spend furthering your life and improving things which are more relevant to yourself. Any answers you could have don't really matter as she is not in your life anymore anyway, it's done and it has good reasons for being done, there's nothing you could say or do to make her the right person for you. Sorry if this sounds a bit hard but I say all this because throughout your postings in here I get the feeling that we have a lot in common, so I share my experiences in the hope it will help you. The one common theme I see is a need for control, a need to make things fit in the way you see as "right", but I think this is the very thing that's keeping you trapped. You have to work on accepting that sometimes the pieces just don't fit, there is absolutely nothing you can do and you have no control over it, and that's ok. All you can control is your own actions and your own nervous system, and try to make better choices. I think you deserve to give yourself credit for trying to build something with her, but knowing when something is done and accepting it's done is important. All you need to do from here is reflect on what lessons she taught you.

I agree. OP, you are ruminating about the same things over and over and over, repeating every detail of the relationship and of her behavior. You're stuck in a loop. There's nothing left to analyze here. At a certain point it's on you to make a CHOICE to move on.

I was about to say that it was very weird and inappropriate of him to have shared all of this to begin with - especially when you didn't ask him. I can't imagine in what context such details would have come up in a conversation at any point unless you'd specifically inquired. This is not the same as making someone aware that their sexual history had been colourful or that they preferred an open relationship This is inappropriate over-sharing, and even as someone who's done some of what he has, there is no way I'd go around offering up those details to anyone else. I can't imagine his ex-wife or other sexual partners would be thrilled to know he's out there blabbing about their sex life together, either. The more you write, the more red flags I see with this guy. He's got a lack of boundaries that would deeply concern me. What kind of issues?

I’m currently out of town on a work trip and planning to do it later tonight when I get home. I’ve been pulling away slowly through text and what not and I think she’s beginning to think something’s up, Should I text her anything before arriving home or just do it right when I get there?

What will it take for you to see her behavior is dysfunctional and dishonest? Not to mention financially and emotionally unstable! Sure the first 5/6 months were good because she thought she had a willing and pliant "victim" for her pregnancy (and likely financial) plans. You dared to interject some good sense into the situation and she devolved. You should see yourself as very lucky that you are not emotionally or financially obligated to this woman for the next 18 years! You can be sure that, had she succeeded in getting pregnant, she'd have made your life a living hell. Again, what are you doing to move on? The more energy you give her, the longer your healing will take. Yes, some thoughts are unbidden, but you can choose to put your focus elsewhere. Take up a new hobby, get into the gym, volunteer at a shelter (human or animal), take a course in something you've always been curious about. And BLOCK HER. Do something productive other than ruminating about why this woman isn't who she isn't. It makes no more sense to wonder why she's not who you want her to be than to wonder why the earth isn't a square. Stop feeding your unhappy thoughts.

Oh my goodness, why are you STILL saying this? It doesn't matter that the first 6 months were good. Lots of relationships are good in the first 6 months, before things fall apart and the cracks appear. The first 6 months are called the honeymoon period for a reason and they are not an accurate representation at all of what the long term would look like with a person. You already know that the relationship was most definitely not good, and all the serious problems that came out after that honeymoon period was over.

This is bad advice. When someone is having serious doubts about a person they should not be even thinking about setting for them, marriage and lifetime commitments. It's not fair to the other person to string them along like that and enter into a situation that is most certainly going to fall apart when the truth comes out that they never really felt that it was the right fit.

MY 15 year old daughter goes to a good but strict school, last friday she had an after school detention for bad behavour, she decided to skip it to go bowling with her friends, sadly for her the schools detention policy says that any student missing a detention will automatically go into a 4hour 30 minute satuday detention, last night she brought home the satuday detention letter, that was sent from her head of year, i must admit its VERY stict the satuday detention starts at 8:45 am all students must wear full school uniform , white shirt school tie black skirt and black blazer, they have been told their school uniform MUST be worn smartly shirt ironed, collar done up tie neat, and blazer buttoned up, they will then spend 2 hours sitting at their desks and told to write an essay on why they are being punished, then a 15 minute break, then back to their desks for another 2 hours, this time they have learned from satuday detention. Now here comes the problem, the only way a student can get a satuday detention put off is for a parent to write a covering letter, it can only be for doctors appointments weddings etc, well this coming satuday is my daughters friends 16th birthday party and its at a theme park, my daughter took for granted that i would lie to get her out of it, i have refused saying its her own fault she got a satuday detention, and she should of thought about that before she skipped the reguler detention, as you can imagine my daughter is sulking, both my husband and my other daughter who is 21 fully support me saying that she deserves to be punished, i just want to know what other parents think ? am i doing the right thing ? please be honest ?

I think I'm mostly uncomfortable not that he did it but how he presented it to me when we first met. He was pretty much bragging to me about it, like I was supposed to be impressed. He was an idiot and told me details about their sex lives when I did not ask for them. Perhaps if he had presented it to me in a less tactless manner it wouldn't have bothered me so much, I could have been more "OK, I'm glad that worked out for you.". It wasn't even a "not sure how you feel about this dynamic" but more he was shoving it in my face without my consent? My issue is now that I sometimes have intrusive thoughts now, because he shared very specific details what he did with his wife and large groups of people, again when I didn't ask for details. That should have been my big red flag there. I've Asked him since if he'd like me to share specific details of sex acts my ex and I did and he got upset about that because he doesn't want to know. I didn't want to know about what he did with groups of people. He does know that if he ever did try to open the relationship that I would be gone. I'm very firm on that. My fear is that he's lying to me that he's changed to keep me around and long term, he'd change his mind. By that time I will have been deeply invested in him. Another user says that I'm stressing out too much about this and they're probably very right.

I was thinking more along the lines of needing therapy as to why I can't just walk away from things like this. He has some issues already that don't even involve the swinging history and yet I stay. But you're right, I need to slow the hell down. I think it's just because I've been single a really long time and he's been the first guy I've really had any sort of feelings for (in 15 years) so I feel like there's a lot of risk here. I appreciate your input, I really do.

I don’t think I’m mentally ready to engage with her at all. She has some of my stuff, which I now don’t care about and I have more than just her pan. I have pyjamma bottoms her mum got her for Xmas. Like, where does it end? Could be more stuff she’s left here etc. This is why I don’t understand why even if we were going to break up, she didn’t speak to me on the phone like an adult. She just hung up and refused to answer calls etc. I don’t genuinely believe she thinks her life is better without me or she now has a better chance of getting what she wants in life, because she has always acted this way. First minor argument back in September, which was misunderstanding about not coming to see her when she had a cold, she deleted my number straight away. There was no abuse, no raised voice, nothing bad said. She said I gave her the silent treatment ( I didn’t it was the day I started this thread and needed advice) The problem with communicating with her is I feel tempted to rationalize things or think about the ‘old times’. I was shocked by her message to be honest with you. The whole argument which started the breakup was ridiculous and I didn’t really have anger towards her till a few days ago when I realized all the things she’s done against me. Dating shouldn’t be this stressful. I don’t know anyone who just argues for no reason and doesn’t accept logic. Things got bad in December when she kept insisting I didn’t show up for her as I didn’t plan anything with her for Xmas, which wasn’t true. She would then drop it and act like things were okay, then when she went away with her family for new year, turned against me again, for no reason. Even because I wished her happy NY 30 mins early. And apart from the frying pan, she probably doesn’t even care about the fact I was lucky I didn’t have to pay cancellation fee for the holiday I booked for us on Jan 28. She doesn’t know that. She would have been okay leaving me in that predicament where I had wasted £820 ($1200). She was the one who picked the dates of the holiday and suggested the holiday and didn’t offer to pay towards it. When she brought up the false argument about me not spending time with her over the festive period, I would bring up the fact it isn’t true plus we have a trip booked for January and she would just dismiss that. Nothing is ever enough for her.

The whole thing is stressing me out to the point I can’t think straight. On one hand I think, look how many complaints I have about her, surely this is a sign the relationship wasn’t good. Then on the other hand I think of the first 5/6 months which were flawless almost. The way she scrambles my brain is by her inconsistency. When we first started talking about kids after 3/4 months, she said she doesn’t really want to do IVF because if she wasn’t mean to have kids, then that’s what was ordained. Then few months later it is let’s try to conceive naturally up till May, if not pregnant by then, let’s get investigations. She doesn’t have any savings or money so I suspect that means I should pay for the IVF. When she talks about me not showing commitment apart from unprotected sex with her, she is most definitely meaning because I haven’t asked her to move in or gone ahead with investigations. This isn’t even rational. What is in it for me? Few weeks ago she said don’t worry we have all the time in the world I’ve accepted you want to take time, I questioned that because it isn’t logically or biologically accurate, then she flipped again to this low key sort of pressure. When she would start an argument she would say I’m 40, I don’t want to waste time, then I’ll get annoyed as I’ve known her for 8 months of those 40 years, wasting time can only refer to biologically, which again, has nothing to do with me. Even now we have broken up, by time she finds someone else and they feel comfortable to have kids with her; it may be too late. She would emphasize early on how independent she is and how she likes living alone, then for the last couple of months of relationship she was bringing up moving in with me, almost daily. Not out of positive emotion, but most likely due to financial pressure as she is in debt and has been for years. I feel deceived. The relationship felt at first like, it would be nice to have kids and try for kids but there is a possibility it can’t happen and that’s an acceptance. It quickly felt like it became a pressure situation and I saw how she turned against me for no reason on nearly every occasion. I’ve gone from the very upset, to confused, to angry, now upset and angry.

It wasn’t like the normal blocking of an ex which is inportant and makes sense. This is how the breakup happened. I felt a rift between us, maybe because of all these petty arguments, maybe because of her having travelled in November and December. I said to her the day before the breakup, let’s chill after work. She does night shift sometimes and finished at 9/10pm. By this time my eyes were so dry and sore and huge storm. I said is it ok if I come another day? We were due to see each other on the Wednesday anyway. She said she is disappointed and my words don’t match my actions and I don’t respect her time (she was at home in bed anyway! What did she want me to do, crash my car?) she didn’t say goodnight. Next morning she sent me some random instagram reels about stuff like the caregiver wanting to be taken care of sometimes and other dumb relationship stuff. I ignored it and just spoke normally and asked how she slept, etc and if still wanted to see the same movie on Wednesday. She was being passive aggressive and not asking me questions in return and no longer putting kisses after her messages like usual. I asked if she is still mad at me? She said disappointed and then when I explained myself like a normal human being would accept, she was like ‘I can’t see how we can move forward, this isn’t working’ I then got annoyed and said if I didn’t want to see you, I wouldn’t have asked to in first place, it was very late and I wasn’t feeling great etc. didn’t want to accept what I was saying and said things were done. I said she is a narcissist (same thing as her friend called her) as she never ever cares about my stuff and sees everything as an ‘excuse’. I tried calling her to speak like adults, she didn’t pick up ten times in a row. Then when she finally did and I then tried to reason and explain she hung up on me and said I don’t care what you have to say, it’s done blah blah. I tried to make contact again, but she wouldn’t pick up. Next morning I see she had either blocked me or deleted my number again. I stopped contacting her. Then on Sunday night, out of the blue she sends me that shitty message about the pan.

You probably meant to say “Better is the enemy of good”. Otherwise you’re sort of supporting my point Why would you assume that there is an endless search for better on the OP’s side? And why would you think that a relationship that doesn’t make the OP happy, which he himself doesn’t see as a future long-term commitment, can qualify as good? In the context of love, “good” means something more and something different than “being with a good person”. As a bare minimum, ”good” in a romantic relationship requires strong romantic feelings. The OP doesn’t have them towards the person he’s currently with. That would doubtless make him and her miserable if he chooses to stay. What’s the point of encouraging him to do that? This is linguistically wrong. “Settling down” simply means “choosing one person to be with”. The “down” part refers to stability, symbolically represented by things standing firmly on the ground, like trees, houses, and so on. It doesn’t have the connotations of “below” or “beneath” in this case. It’s not the same as “marrying down”.

In my country we say "Good is the enemy of better". If someone endlessly thinks they will find better, and better, and better, they will never appreciate the good that's in front of them. There's a reason marriage is called "settling DOWN".

I agree with this. I get that it feels cold, OP; but the relationship is over. Anything other than the one she used would likely have given you false hope when she's probably already working on lining up her next potential sperm donor.

This tells you there is a fundemental incompatibility between you. That would be my biggest concern, that some of our core values don't align. I also think you two are putting way too much pressure on a very new relationship. Trying to make sure he will never go back to his old ways and considering sending youself into therapy over it ...for a guy you've spent a total of two weeks with in person? Girl. Breathe and pump the brakes. It shouldn't be this distressing. It should be your cue that this might not be the right person for you, and you two are trying to force all of this too quickly. This is the stage where you assess if the other person is right for you, not try to therapize yourself into making yourself okay with who he is as a person.