about a New Direction & Strange Construct of Relationship!?!?!???

[mainman11]

Please bear with me as I write this.

 

I am very much in love with a woman I met originally online. We had a huge attraction and always had a huge connection. She is 41 and loves older men and so being a very young 60 is no problem and culturally we are very much into what the other is. We communicated heavily by email and Skype for 4 months when I went to visit her in Mexico (I live in Texas about 900 miles from Mexico City). (She is of mixed culture and looks anything but a Mexican -with red hair and fair skin). I spent 8 days with her and we got along great with the typical tearful goodbye at the airport and made plans for her to come to my home in Nov. and she spent 9 days with me and we had a great time with a great emotional closeness ,communication and all the relationship closeness one would want. Even a few days before coming and visiting me in Nov. she called up crying and worried about an extended trip to do costume and set design in Europe and not being able to see me. We arranged together and we had Christmas in Paris.

 

The work she does is very creative and she is at a high level in her profession. It is time consuming and she is now 7 times zones different then me, but since I own my own companies I have been able to arrange around that and we have, as we have from the very beginning in July spoken or communicated every day, but perhaps 4 times when she was very tired from long hours of being an artist and having deadlines. She is due back in the middle of Feb to Mex city and I am due to some the next week to celebrate my birthday and then we have tentative plans for her to come in March to my place.

 

Right now her production is coming to a final point and she is not getting enough sleep, is very stressed and starting her period- clearly not a great time to deal with serious relationships issues, whether on Skype video or not and should be done in person. I will admit to be the more expressive in the relationship and perhaps a little needier than her, but we have understood and discussed this and understood each other well.

Neither one of us have ever been married and have both come from bad parenting even though quite different in the nature of the problems. Hers is an issue with both mother and father, but has never really had a relationship beyond a few lunches with her father past the age of 6.

 

She also had a tendency (self-admitted) to chasing after unavailable men at several points and finding that many of the other men she loved did not hold up.

 

Relationships are tough enough and long distance does makes things more difficult. Neither of us are into texting or Facebook, so we depend on Skype - which has many advantages. I happen to think that most advice on what to keep an LDR working is valid and I know that daily communication is considered a “must”. Recently she has complained of feeling lots of pressure to call (I usually let her do this as she is the one with the more inflexible schedule and we have always had this sort of arrangement). Last night we had a call and instead of just saying I miss you and get some sleep it erupted- not into an argument (we have never had one of any sort since the beginning and any issue that came up we talked about) and in the end felt much closer.

 

She all of a sudden wanted to complain about space (I know the most un-favorite of words in relationships) and that then tipped into wanting to change the nature of the relationship to the following construction of which I have never heard of and makes zero sense to me and frankly think is quite unrealistic. She wanted us to be in each other lives, for us to still be exclusive to each other, come to visit each other and do all the things that we have done before minus the “romance” read that as sex! Now how she finds that sleeping together and being together after an intense and romantic relationship that creating a wall against romance would work to anyone’s benefit is beyond me. I have never known anything like that to work, nor does it make sense to me and would put an extreme pressure on me when with her, open up potential conflict and not get us anywhere down the road where we have had discussions about living together, how I would be as a father and so on…! She now says that she may just be the loner type, which sounds silly as she has spent a good deal of effort to find people to date and to love many times before.

 

I am frankly at a loss. I know that we are at the stage that as we have moved from the so-called honeymoon period, we are working on the nuances of each other and our individual lives and how we can be together and adjust to make it work. She did say that she has never had a relationship that she talked to the person on a daily basis (strange to me). Perhaps we have been too intense and with work being intense and she is very tired right now (she needs much more sleep than I do) and then her monthly issues are weighing heavily on her. She does bark about rules and ideas that society has about relationships and some of what I would call that is human relationship needs that are very normal and does criticize me for wanting to define things, but relationships especially LDR have to have a good dose of reinforcement and connection as time, distance and lack of communication will destroy any relationship.

 

I made the suggestion, that we need to give ourselves the best effort to see what we have is real and lasting and that if she needed the extra space, then we can adjust to that in the context of doing so in a loving and caring manner, but that we should continue to see each other in Feb and March- do what we normally do and then at some point after that take a look at how we feel and what direction we want to go in. However I know that the idea of having everything as status quo without romance, but remain exclusive is quite bizarre to me. There is a part of her that sometimes has voiced that her art is more important than anything else, which I understand, but that should not be a mutually exclusive aspect of her life from the other parts of balance I her life.

 

I am really at a loss as to what to think or how to respond to her. I am not a game player (such as disappearing or not answering her calls) and she called early this morning to see how I was and may call later (although I am not going to talk with her, but to say I love her and that she should take time for her sleep and health).

 

Any suggestions are more than welcomed and am curious if anyone has ever heard of 2 healthy people having this type of relationship.

 

Thanks you in advance and I appreciate any help that can be offered.

 

Mainman11

[TaraMaiden2]

So..... What's in it for you, exactly?

[mainman11]

So..... What's in it for you, exactly?

Thanks for responding. I am not sure about your question, but she is the love of my life so far and until yesterday, we seemed to be in smooth sailing, minus her being worn out with 18 hour days and the pressure of a production.

 

So the simple answer would be love with someone who is in love with you and then what we develop from that.

 

You must have something in mind with your question- please clarify?

 

Thanks

 

T

[TaraMaiden2]

Well, all I was getting from your thread was 'she, she, she...'

 

It sounds as if the arrangement would suit her down to the ground. It would benefit her, and she is getting what she wants.

 

Where's your 'reward'?

What's your payoff?

[mainman11]

Well, all I was getting from your thread was 'she, she, she...'

 

It sounds as if the arrangement would suit her down to the ground. It would benefit her, and she is getting what she wants.

 

Where's your 'reward'?

What's your payoff?

I think you make a good point. The two of us have reached the stage that must come if a relationship is going to become a real and mature relationship. Conflicts and differences emerge at this stage and this change tests the relationship, but the idea that I can go to her home and bed and have an exclusive celibacy does not make sense.

 

The question becomes how can I meet her needs and yet meet mine. I am not a monk

[TaraMaiden2]

I think you make a good point. The two of us have reached the stage that must come if a relationship is going to become a real and mature relationship. Conflicts and differences emerge at this stage and this change tests the relationship, but the idea that I can go to her home and bed and have an exclusive celibacy does not make sense.

 

The question becomes how can I meet her needs and yet meet mine. I am not a monk

 

In brief?

You can't.

 

You can't meet your needs and it rather looks as if she doesn't want to.

 

This places you in an uneviable position.

 

Basically, as it seems that the relationship is being geared to run one way - hers - you have three choices.

 

Stay.

Go.

Find a third partner with whom to share your intimacy and sexual desire.

 

You can't oblige her to give you what you want.

But she can oblige you to give her what she wants.

All in all, an imbalance if ever there was one......

And sadly, there is no compromise.

[mainman11]

In brief?

You can't.

 

You can't meet your needs and it rather looks as if she doesn't want to.

 

This places you in an uneviable position.

 

Basically, as it seems that the relationship is being geared to run one way - hers - you have three choices.

 

Stay.

Go.

Find a third partner with whom to share your intimacy and sexual desire.

 

You can't oblige her to give you what you want.

But she can oblige you to give her what she wants.

All in all, an imbalance if ever there was one......

And sadly, there is no compromise.

 

 

I think you are probably right, but it is interesting that she can say all of this 6000 miles away at current time, but in person might be a different matter. However I have needs, but the question becomes if there is any growth and adjustments to be made that bring us back to where we might mature the relationship as what has to happen in every relationship. Part of the problem is discussing this over Skype and not be in person and she is not operating on full cylinders right now with a production opening on Feb 6. Or am I just fooling myself?

[TaraMaiden2]

I think you are probably right, but it is interesting that she can say all of this 6000 miles away at current time, but in person might be a different matter. However I have needs, but the question becomes if there is any growth and adjustments to be made that bring us back to where we might mature the relationship as what has to happen in every relationship. Part of the problem is discussing this over Skype and not be in person and she is not operating on full cylinders right now with a production opening on Feb 6. Or am I just fooling myself?

 

I used to have a neighbour who organised the social commercial events for her company, country-wide.

In any one week she would have minor local events to organise; press releases, leaflet distribution, local tv advertising, hiring of venues, catering, personnel, transport information, and anything else you might associate with public functions. Of course, there was also the National big once-a-year shindig, which applauded, praised and rewarded staff achievements in many different categories... For this event, she had to do everything as above, but of course, bigger. And, with every situation, also had to deal with hold-ups and glitches...

 

She also had 2 young school-age children, a husband, three dogs and an elderly in-law living with her.

 

On more than one occasion, both she and her husband intimated that their physical life was good... to the point that, when we moved away from the area, she was pregnant with number 3...

 

Yes.

You are fooling yourself.

[mainman11]

I used to have a neighbour who organised the social commercial events for her company, country-wide.

In any one week she would have minor local events to organise; press releases, leaflet distribution, local tv advertising, hiring of venues, catering, personnel, transport information, and anything else you might associate with public functions. Of course, there was also the National big once-a-year shindig, which applauded, praised and rewarded staff achievements in many different categories... For this event, she had to do everything as above, but of course, bigger. And, with every situation, also had to deal with hold-ups and glitches...

 

She also had 2 young school-age children, a husband, three dogs and an elderly in-law living with her.

 

On more than one occasion, both she and her husband intimated that their physical life was good... to the point that, when we moved away from the area, she was pregnant with number 3...

 

Yes.

You are fooling yourself.

Thank you- you are making sense. I have decided for now to go with the flow as I have very little leverage, except to walk away.

 

She will get her space on phone calls, although I find it interesting that she has indicated she never had a relationship that she talked with the other person every day. So she can call when she wants, not because of worrying about how I may react or not and I am a big boy and can take care of myself.

 

As far as the construct of this weird relationship she was talking about - it makes no sense to me and I am sure if she thinks about it- makes no sense to her. She has already bought a ticket for me to come to Mexico- so it is not like she is trying to get rid of me. If she wants to discuss this before we can see each other, I am just going to listen and say we shall see what happens and leave it at that. In other words - she can do the work for a period of time. I also understand she is in survival mode with being extremely tired and stressed and production and different people can handle more things than others.

Giving it some thought- the two of us have reached the second stage that must come if a relationship is going to become a real and mature relationship. Conflicts and differences emerge at this stage and this change from fun and honeymoon tests the relationship and she may never ever have gotten past this point before or had someone stick around long enough to do so.

 

I have 3 weeks before going to Mexico and after 10 days of sleeping together and being close, when in a more relaxed situation, I will know at the end what the course of events will be. I love her enough to invest that amount of time and energy to see what happens.

 

Does this seem naive or make a touch of sense?

 

Thanks

 

T

Edited January 31, 2016 by mainman11