kizmet74 Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 How many men and women out there would fight to keep a SO who no longer wants to be with you? And if you would, why? I have been curious for some time now why someone would want to stay in a relationship with someone who wants to go. Link to post Share on other sites
Pocky Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 I think if someone I was in a relationship told me they didn't love me anymore then I would end the relationship. I wouldn't want to be in a relationship where the feelings were only one-sided. However, if I were in a relationship and the other person wanted to end it because of other issues, but claimed they still loved me, I would fight for it. I wouldn't give up until there was nothing else to do. Luckily, when I was one foot out the door, my husband fought me non-stop to keep me home. I'm so glad he did. Link to post Share on other sites
lynnered Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 How many men and women out there would fight to keep a SO who no longer wants to be with you? nope wouldnt do it & i would expect my partner to be honest ,and let me know ASAP,i may be hurt a little but,i be pretty pissed if they let me stay in a relationship they knew was going nowhere. why someone would want to stay in a relationship with someone who wants to go. i think in the MM/MW cases that the SO doesn't know the other person is unhappy,or to the extent that the Op does not love them anymore, i was in a relationship for 3years XBF,after 1st year , i was unhappy ,he really loved me ,but i wasn't in love with him no more, i stayed because i was comfortable&i felt he was there for me when i needed a friend ,like i owed him, eventually i felt i had 2 options either cheat or break up with him , i chose to break up & it took me 2 or 3 times cause he felt he could change the way i felt, he could fix this,he begged ,cryed and all that fun stuff, so i don't agree at all with staying when you no longer want to be there , but at the same time i can understand the factors (many)that play into it . Link to post Share on other sites
heart2heart Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 No, I wouldn't fight for someone that no longer loved me, what would be the point? Ppl can end up making nothing but fools of themselves when they will try desperately to hang onto someone, that no longer loves them/wants to be with them. Best thing to do is to let them go......"if you love someone, set them free...blah, blah, blah.... When I found out about my H's affair, first thing I'd asked was "Do you love her"? He'd said "Yes". He'd then went on to say that he loved me too, but he was no longer in love with me. And so I let him go without a fight, Knew I'd be totally wasting my time trying to win him back.........he was *gone* and long before his affair began IMO. His affair was merely the final nail in the coffin of our marriage. Link to post Share on other sites
MsMree Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 but usually when i am think'g about my MM's W - why would you (she) stay w/a man who has told her twice that he was in love w/someone else - i now think i know the answers and even though i believe i'm a strong woman i cannot say that i wouldn't struggle with the same issues. First of all if you have children the marriage can be centered around them - right or wrong. I think it is easy to think to yourself, 1) So he's not in love w/me anymore - he is in love w/his children and won't hurt them OR 2) So he's not in love w/me anymore - SO WHAT, we have a responsibility to our children. Also, in my case, after he has told his W that he's in love w/me, the guilt consumed him and he has tried to act like it is not an issue - that i wasn't in the picture and tried to get along w/W for everyone's sake - again, if i was still in love w/my H I could easily fall right into playing that charade as well. To me the bigger question has always been "How can you pretend you do not know..." - Again, if i was married, i could see the "why's" a person would stay w/spouse who'd rather be elsewhere - but i cannot understand HOW a person can pretend everything is fine. I'm just look'g at it from a married person's pint of view - as a single woman i could not stay w/a man who did not love me - no matter what. It would hurt like hell to end the relationship, but i don't think it would compare to the hurt of trying to save a relationship that doesn't want to be saved. Link to post Share on other sites
nextel Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 If one is fighting for something, then they really dont have it in the first place. Link to post Share on other sites
LucreziaBorgia Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Originally posted by kizmet74 How many men and women out there would fight to keep a SO who no longer wants to be with you? And if you would, why? Because the hopes of what they want to have with them outweigh what is actually there (or not there, in this case). In a relationship, you are dating two people: the actual person, and the version of them you carry in your heart and head. One is real, the other is idealized through the emotional context you map onto them. When someone is faced with the actual person saying "I don't love you and I want to leave you", they cannot reconcile that with the version of who their SO is inside their own hearts. The idealized version becomes the 'real' version that they fight for, even as the person is making it clear that they are done and want to leave. As long as they have those hopes for a relationship with a person, they cannot let the SO go. Letting go of a person is easy, compared to letting go of your hopes and expectations of that person. I tried to hold on to someone, and he ended up not only getting away from me - but hating me in the end because I tried so hard to keep him with me. I just couldn't let the guy go who I fell in love with, even when it was apparent that version of him existed only in my heart. I didn't want to be without that feeling that I had when we were first together. As we grinded to a halt, it was horrible. Painful. But, once I realized and accepted who he was without that 'idealized' context of love, I realized that he was wrong for me all along and it was easier to accept that he was gone. Eventually I was thankful that it didn't work out. Very, very thankful. Link to post Share on other sites
izzybelle Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 couldn't do it...wouldn't do it.... got out of a bad marriage because i just couldn't find anything about him to love anymore. always wondered how the Ws in these situations handle it. my MMs reasons for going back, history, guilt, the kids (who don't even live at home anymore)... whether he was lying to me, or what he told her for staying with her, i don't know. but i'm asuming he didn't give her the same reasons he told me. if he had told me (as a W) all those things and love never entered into his reason, i'd show him to the door and wish him well. relationships are hard enough when there's love, i can't imagine living every day knowing i was going home to someone who was with me because he felt he should be, not because he wanted to be. i know they say that OWs fall in love with a fantasy, that we only see what the MM wants us to see. but i have to wonder if the same holds true for the Ws. do they only see what they want to? do they really know who the man is that they married? or are they just holding on to what their fantasy was years ago of a family and happily ever after? sometimes, in spite of the pain we go through, i think we, at least can walk away more easily. we can see the realtionship for what it was, as much as it hurts. i think some of the Ws may be stuck in the fantasy that was their life before the A, and don't see the sad state that the M has become, or the man their H really is. no, i'm not saying all are this way, sometimes the Hs really may be sorry for causing the pain. but i also think that there are some out there who are mostly just sorry they got caught. Link to post Share on other sites
StillHurtin Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 At first I tried fighting for H when he said he wanted out of the M. He said he still loved me but the M was not a happy one. Of course he never admitted that the OW had a little to do w/ his decision to leave. I fought for a few weeks for him but finally gave up, gave notice to my clients I was closing my doors, found another house in my hometown and another job. I was going on w/ my life. He wanted the OW, I wasn't going to stick around and live the life I once knew, I had to start a new life somewhere else, away from him, and the OW. Of course several months later HE was the one fighting to get ME back. Link to post Share on other sites
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