How to cope in this situation?

[NightOwl2021]

Hello,

I'm in the midst of an absolute life breakdown and need some kind of help. I'm a man in my early 50s, divorced about 10 years with a child who is now a young adult. I'm trying to cope with what I believe is my latest relationship breaking up.

First, some seemingly incongruous background. I've had a porn addiction problem since adolescence in the late 80s, back when teen guys had to actually go into stores to buy magazines and videos. This of course distorted my sexual development, a distortion made so much easier after internet porn became available. I can't say it distorts everyone's sexual development, but I suspect that a combination of (1) a tendency towards addictive personalities in my family and (2) my anxious attachment style caused porn to send me into a pleasurable escape mode. One or two women to whom I've confessed my porn habits always told me that porn is fake. I don't know if they intended that as advice or help, but at some point it did not matter to me what fake even means. The women on camera were actually having sex which visually was all that mattered to me - at first. More recently I have realized that porn actually makes me angry because it is titillating even as it makes me feel inadequate. This was also complicated by the fact that my parents had a terrible marriage and my mother abruptly moved me and my sister from him one day when I was about 12. As much as I realized intellectually that we had to leave, I was a mess and cried so much at leaving him. The reason I mentioned all of that is because I seem to have a tendency to use these outlets (porn and alcohol) to relieve anxiety and stress, but the effects spill over into the rest of my life as low self-esteem, wasted time and money, and depression.

Anyway I have been thinking about that porn habit lately because when I got around college age, I started drinking alcohol. Somehow despite several drunken weekends in first semester of freshman year, I realized I would not be able to continue to study properly if I kept drinking like that, so I scaled it way back.

Fast forward to after college. I met a woman when I was right out of college. Basically moved from my single mother's apartment to my soon-to-be wife's apartment. My wife and I eventually had a child and on the surface things were ok. But my porn habit continued, and my wife even caught me once when she got home early, keys rattled at the door, etc. Very embarrassing. She actually then asked to watch some of it which amazed me. For some reason I thought she might like it. Instead she started crying. That made me feel horrible. But of course, porn remained a secret part of my life.

Eventually, she and I divorced as I mentioned. Somewhere in there I am sure porn was part of it, but she never mentioned that outright. It was more of a general increase in conflicts over other stuff that signaled, for the sake of our child, we could not remain under the same roof.

After the divorce, I settled into a new apartment with some money from the divorce agreement. I started dating, too soon it turned out. My porn dropped off but my drinking gradually increased. Although I met a few attractive and smart women, in at least two cases my drunken, overly emotional texting drove them to block me. 

Then I met a woman on a dating site who, although she didn't watch porn, was somehow equally sexual and flirtatious anyway. At first she said she wanted children, which I said I did not, and she said let's be friends. Little did I know how complicated the "let's be friends" thing is. After a while, things progressed to where we were going to dinner at night to compare notes on our supposedly parallel dating efforts. In fact, we had effectively started dating each other. There was a lot of sexual chemistry and (as the people pleaser that I am) I even somehow convinced her that I could try to have another kid. When the chips were down about a year later and I had to admit that I couldn't, she of course got extremely upset and called off the dating/sex side of our relationship. 

But things didn't really end there. By reverting to friendship with me, she was still in touch. So a few times over the next couple of years we would meet up and fall into bed together. And all the money I had spent on child support, dating, and drinking had started to add up. 

When she finally met a steady man, I gradually reduced the time I spent with her and eventually it became the occasional lunch or dinner where we kept things strictly platonic.

Around the same time, I met another lady, let's call her Mary, on the same dating site. I was already slipping into a kind of bachelor/hermit mode where I did not really invite people over to my place and I was slowly socializing almost all the time at bars. That was early on though, so it is not super relevant at that stage. Just mentioning that it foreshadowed more drinking later. Also to be fair to her she is also divorced (he cheated on her) and they have a teenage son.

Because I was ambivalent about dating or living with anyone, and because for whatever reason I got a friendship vibe more than anything else, I told Mary so. She later told me she thought "I don't need any more friends," but she appreciated my honesty so she said sure let's be friends. 

Those first couple of years, we occasionally met up, but there was no kind of FWB stuff or anything like that. It really was just friends, and it was only later that I learned she had a relationship over that time. Near the end of that relationship, she happened to randomly see me at the same bar. She was with that guy, so I did not want to go over, but I waved discreetly to her as I left. I texted her later and she immediately suggested we meet up. 

From that time on, we started to meet up more and more. Every time it led to hours of conversation where we lost track of time. And it wasn't like we were using up things to talk about. We genuinely seemed to hit it off so much. However, we also drank. One evening we both had a lot to drink, and she moved in and kissed me. Despite my earlier protestations of friendship (she said I had "friend-zoned" her which is funny because I had heard that women never use that term), the kiss was amazing and I returned it. 

However, I guess I never realized the extent to which Mary had very disciplined ideas about being a friend, so as soon as I admitted a bit of ambivalence (followed immediately in the text by saying I could see things progressing), she apparently felt like we had to keep things as friends, meaning no physical stuff. 

At the same time, however, we kept spending more and more time together. Given that this was over the Covid pandemic, I realized with increasing happiness that she had brought me out of my loneliness in the best possible way, and my feelings for her grew. We both liked sports, movies, news, and on and on. I even confused my porn habit and she asked me to send her the link for the site I visited. I was amazed she would ask that; but I did so and she actually looked at it. Even though she didn't like it, it didn't matter to me because I watched that on my own, and also she was incredibly nonjudgmental about it. Coincidentally, I started watching porn less and less as she and I got closer and closer.

The one odd thing was that she has a background as an athletic trainer, so when I joined her for a workout and joked that I couldn't do that every day, she took it seriously and later on used it to say that she wants a man who loves to work out, not one who does it only because she likes it. But I digress.

Fast forward again to this spring. We kept meeting up with outdoor and then indoor dining, and drinking. One evening she invited me over to her place. We were watching tv on the couch and she dozed off. But then she half woke up and started pressing closer to me. I don't need to go into all the details but that was the start of our sexual relationship (brief as it has turned out to be).

Things started changing though when she got increasingly annoyed that I kept saying I couldn't travel with her. I had been saying things that like for a couple of months, but finally I had to break down and tell her I have a lot of debt (around $30,000) that I need to work off, which is why I can't travel. That exact day things changed, even though she claims that money had nothing to do with it. Of course it didn't help my case that she drank more when she was with me, so one day when she got hung over she used that as the moment to tell me she did not like feeling that way, was confused, and that we should go back to being just friends. 

As you can probably guess by now, that started me down my own alcoholic emotional spiral. I started texting her more and more about why she was changing her feelings and saying how could it not have been about the money, which has made her only more angry at me. And when I'm drunk I am capable of sending dozens of texts like that, which is completely out of control.

So, over the past week or so, after my most recent barrage of drunk texts, her texting has dwindled down to nothing. Oddly, though, she hasn't explicitly told me to stop contacting her, and she hasn't blocked me. Today I have had nothing to drink which I hope I can keep going for as long as possible. 

In the meantime, however, I am in a bind about how to cope with these terrible emotions that I feel.
First, the humiliation of not having enough money to be a partner with her,
Then the anger that even though intellectually I understand why she would not want to move things forward with me, that that still hurts so much because she initially offered me some money, which I refused. So my anger is specifically that, yes, I am in money trouble, but she went in the span of just one week from having a supportive, loving attitude to one where the supportive love went out the window. Again I really can't blame her I just feel so bad losing that affection from her.
Finally, I know you can't always decide in black and white what "just friends" means, but she apparently thought SHE was doing it correctly because she says I had this "line in the sand" (which I don't recall) about being friends and that I had repeated that several times. I guess my failure to try to discuss with her what she thought "just friends" means contributed to the confusion.

Yes, I repeated "just friends" a few times, but I told her I was reluctantly doing so and never as a rejection of the possibility of something more, and I feared precisely what happened when I admitted my money problems. She slammed the brakes on almost immediately and I could see a change in her that I can describe only as a loss of desire followed by a loss of respect. Totally understandable, which is what makes this so much more depressing and painful. She's right about the money, and she is right about the drinking. There isn't even a sense of righteous anger that I can use the way other people do when someone breaks up with them.

And this is maddening because Mary and I had what Google seems to call a "situationship." She kept expressing concern that she didn't want friends with benefits, and I guess the drinking clouded that, but it seems like a really weird coincidence that prior to my confession about the money, she made an effort to introduce me to her family and friends, tell people who called her that she was on a date with me, and so on. It was like she somehow thought this was friends with minor alterations around the edges, whereas I started falling hard for her and saw it as a progressing romance, all the while fearful that the money issue was bound to come up.

At this point, I have literally read about the stages of grief and am trying to apply them to being broken up with. I'm not quite at acceptance but I am closer to it now than I was a week or two ago. I am very sad at the prospect of taking the step of blocking her and starting the "teardown" process first, because for some odd reason she leaves my messages on read but hasn't blocked me. A couple of days ago she hinted that this behavior was because she was still angry with me. But this is also confusing because even if she really did want to be just friends, behavior that is somewhere between the Silent Treatment and Ghosting does not seem like a very friendly thing to do. 

It's not even about retaining my dignity at this point - there is no dignity left. I am just trying to figure out the least painful way to get through the next unclear number of days trying to forget her because she's already checked out in so many ways. 

Finally, and yes I bet I provoked this with my emotional texts, she tells me she's been on a couple of dates. Already! This is another problem with our undefined relationship. On the one hand she dated me and even made love to me, and introduced me to her friends and family in a very relationship type way. But when guys flirted with her or when she decided to move me to the "friend zone," then her justification is that I said I wanted to be just friends so I had not committed and she had the right to explore. When she said she'd been on a couple of dates, I couldn't believe it. But I guess I should have. And although I have no desire to date other women, I probably can't anyway because of my debt. 

The last time I said anything close to "just friends" was back in February, way before we got physical and definitely way before it was clear things had moved beyond friends (pet names, lovemaking, holding hands, taking day trips, and so on). Some days I have felt like I am losing my mind because, even though I have been rejected before, this time is by far the worst. I feel like she now considers me a broke, unambitious alcoholic while she has stopped hanging out at bars and prefers to read books, work out, and eat healthy. But a month ago she was expressing her desire for me two or three times a day while hanging out at bars and drinking right along with me. Total whiplash. Then I turn around and think, maybe she is right. I have spent so much of my life in my head that I haven't spent time learning more things like dancing, an instrument, cooking, or whatever. 

Again, I'm not saying she has to keep dating me, even though I hoped she would; I just mean her reaction seems so cold and abrupt, and such a total repudiation of what I thought she felt about me. It's so bad I don't even know what I will do even after digging myself out of this financial hole. My ego is in ruins because she also was suggesting that she does all the healthy things that I don't. I am really stunned and hurt not just to hear that, but to hear that from her after all we have shared. And after she knew about the sacrifices I made for my daughter - many of them financial which is part of where I am now. 

I texted Mary yesterday morning around 7 am (an apology, again)  and again a couple of hours ago to send her a Tik Tok that my daughter sent me about a very touching wedding ceremony. She left yesterday's text on read and today's messages are still unread.  I realize a day and a half between texts is not a long time in this context. And I have combed dozens of sites and YouTube videos that give varying amounts of time to let elapse between texts. But I guess my real question is do I just rip the Band-Aid off and block her on everything to reduce the pain? Or does that mean she "wins" by making me seem immature? The alternative is to just stop texting her and wait. I have no idea what's going through her mind that would cause her to just openly ignore messages that she has read but not come out and tell me hey let's just say it is over and stop communicating. 

And yes, I get that I am supposed to "sit with the pain," which I have. And I have been trying to walk a lot to burn off stress, but for about 3 weeks now I have been crying about every other day because of the way she and I socialized EVERYTHING reminds me of her and I also beat myself up about being so stupid with my money. Even compared to my divorce and some other rough parts of my life, this is an unmitigated disaster. 

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Thanks for any help - by which I mean any help in addition to "stop drinking," which I know I need to do but which really won't help me cope with the pain that I will feel while sober.

Thanks again.

Edited July 28, 2021 by NightOwl2021

[spiderowl]

I'm so sorry to hear what happened, NightOwl2021.  I can hear your confusion loud and clear.

It sounds like both you and she were going back and forth to the 'just friends' base.  I am not sure from what you say why you wanted it to be just friends but maybe it was because you weren't sure what she wanted?

You have both spent a lot of time together and know each other very well.  Despite what she has said/done since, this situation must have hurt her a lot too.  I would guess she was very disappointed you could not travel with her because she did not know what your financial situation was and was working on the basis that you would want to go.  Did you indicate you would like to go?  

I guess I am wondering if you have covered up the financial position to the extent that you went along with what your friend was suggesting and let her dream that was going to happen.  Dropping out then would have been a big shock to her.  At the same time, I can understand why you didn't alert her, because of your fear of this.  Unfortunately, in relationships big secrets matter, especially when they are found out.

While it is understandable, I am sure your grief and shock at losing your best friend (and sometimes lover) triggered behaviour that you are now embarrassed about - bombarding her with texts.  If she is a wise lady, she will understand that but may find it a bit frightening too.  She will realise how hurt you are.

I think you now need to move on as if it was all over.  Find yourself things to do, try to put her out of your mind, do good things for yourself and others to build up your confidence.  I have no real idea but it is always possible she will relent after she has had chance to absorb all this.  She knows you are hurting and she is hurt too.  However, it was a big shock and your relationship was always uncertain and ill-defined.  Am I to understand that you said 'just friends' with her because you were afraid she'd find out about the finances?  She may have been hurt about being friendzoned, now she finds she has been lied to, well lied to by omission.  She obviously cared about you though.

I think you need to switch off from her.  Don't block her, give her chance to recover, but ignore all her social media and do not message her, let her come round and message you.  Give her chance to get over this shock in how she perceives the relationship.  She may have given up on it for good, I don't know, but for your own sake you need to act as if it is completely over.  

I hope this turns out good for you.  

Edited August 7, 2021 by spiderowl

[glows]

If she doesn’t respond, it means she doesn’t want to talk to you. Silence is an answer.

Yes, I do think finding support and help with your drinking is the first step. 

Your porn issue doesn’t sound like an issue. It’s a big bad thing your exes might have made a big deal about. It sounds more like you didn’t care for it either once it stopped being “the big bad thing” or a taboo.

”Mary” is not as self-actualized if she’s gaslighting you. Dump. 

And a tip: I don’t block usually. I just mute a contact. This means I don’t see any notifications but the messages come through. I may check it later if I feel like it but it’s not a priority.

I hope you do start with help staying sober and feel better soon.

 

[NightOwl2021]

17 hours ago, spiderowl said:

I'm so sorry to hear what happened, NightOwl2021.  I can hear your confusion loud and clear.

It sounds like both you and she were going back and forth to the 'just friends' base.  I am not sure from what you say why you wanted it to be just friends but maybe it was because you weren't sure what she wanted?

You have both spent a lot of time together and know each other very well.  Despite what she has said/done since, this situation must have hurt her a lot too.  I would guess she was very disappointed you could not travel with her because she did not know what your financial situation was and was working on the basis that you would want to go.  Did you indicate you would like to go?  

I guess I am wondering if you have covered up the financial position to the extent that you went along with what your friend was suggesting and let her dream that was going to happen.  Dropping out then would have been a big shock to her.  At the same time, I can understand why you didn't alert her, because of your fear of this.  Unfortunately, in relationships big secrets matter, especially when they are found out.

While it is understandable, I am sure your grief and shock at losing your best friend (and sometimes lover) triggered behaviour that you are now embarrassed about - bombarding her with texts.  If she is a wise lady, she will understand that but may find it a bit frightening too.  She will realise how hurt you are.

I think you now need to move on as if it was all over.  Find yourself things to do, try to put her out of your mind, do good things for yourself and others to build up your confidence.  I have no real idea but it is always possible she will relent after she has had chance to absorb all this.  She knows you are hurting and she is hurt too.  However, it was a big shock and your relationship was always uncertain and ill-defined.  Am I to understand that you said 'just friends' with her because you were afraid she'd find out about the finances?  She may have been hurt about being friendzoned, now she finds she has been lied to, well lied to by omission.  She obviously cared about you though.

I think you need to switch off from her.  Don't block her, give her chance to recover, but ignore all her social media and do not message her, let her come round and message you.  Give her chance to get over this shock in how she perceives the relationship.  She may have given up on it for good, I don't know, but for your own sake you need to act as if it is completely over.  

I hope this turns out good for you.  

Thanks for all of your advice. I made a huge mistake last night and sent her a rash "I can't just be friends" text and blocked her, shortly after which she blocked me. I later saw a YouTube video that said precisely not to do that - don't make her an ultimatum "relationship or nothing" because at that point she is going to choose "nothing." Yes I had had 3 beers. Not a huge amount for me but of course that wasn't the point. It was enough alcohol to trigger me to say and do stupid things to her.

Now I realize your advice about not blocking her was correct although I read it too late. 😞 I hope she will unblock me but I fear she won't. 

Yes, btw, part of why I was wary of opening up to her as more than friends was my money situation, and similarly my pessimism about dating. It is almost as if I made a self-fulfilling prophecy with her.

Also, so many of these advice videos and books focus on how I need to be more masculine and have this abundance mindset and play what seem like games because "attraction is not a choice" and so on. And it drains my sense that she is an individual woman rather than one of many fungible women who are programmed to respond this way or that way without any room for error on my part. I mean the videos specifically - this woman obviously gave me many signs and chances after she pulled away. I just was too much in denial to listen.

Basically makes me feel worse because almost everything they say to do and be goes against the way I have been since adolescence. It's like I was sold a bill f good about manhood. I never saw my father after the age of 12 and have never realized that such a void might come back to haunt me. 

I don't want to be some Don Draper alpha male. I just let this woman win me over after I thought she wouldn't, and now her pulling away has smashed me heart.

The more devastating part of all this is that as I said before, she and I did all sorts of things all over the city and even day trips outside, and talked about everything under the sun. So everything reminds me of her, and now on top of that I have money, drinking, and my immature/emotional tendencies to deal with. And then two different though related issues with women - (1) my money/drinking/immaturity problems are mine so they will be there no matter what woman I meet and (2) I know they say there is not "the one," but the trajectory from high to low in this case has completely crushed me. I am basically in the same place I was a couple of years ago over a situation with a far less important woman whom I also pissed off and who blocked me. To think that I am in the same boat with a woman who wanted me so much is really heartbreaking and dispiriting to me. I just cannot believe it.

It is absolutely shattering my ability to concentrate and make it through the day. I just feel like crying for 90% of the time. Well. I will try to get through the rest of the day. Thanks again.

Edited August 7, 2021 by NightOwl2021

[spiderowl]

Do you have access to therapy?  If not, please consider AA, not necessarily because you are an alcoholic because people who drink a lot are not necessarily addicted.  I was thinking of it more as a place you could go to talk, to hear others, to find support and to build yourself back up.

You already know drinking is not helping you.  It is self-medication to cover up hurt.  I'm sure you already know that too.  As it seems to have been a bit of a theme throughout relationships, maybe it is time for you to tackle this and find out why you resort to alcohol.  Women are generally supportive of men through problems but alcohol is always a worry - is he a regular drinker, a heavy drinker, or someone heading towards alcoholism?  It's something to cut down on.

Those of us with vulnerable nervous systems suffer from emotional pain and some try to deal with it by smoking, gambling, drinking alcohol.  It leaks out regardless and it is a question of finding a way to soothe your pain that does not impact others.  It does sound like this woman cared about you and enjoyed your company.  Maybe she had doubts about the drinking - hard to see as she was drinking with you - but finding out you were not going to be travelling with her was too much for her to deal with.  I think reducing some of the harmful behaviours will help you to build a better life for yourself where you don't have to cover up your circumstances or drink.  I am very much in a similar situation, suffering from depression and wondering how others would cope with this.  I have come to the conclusion that, however imperfect it makes me, hiding it is not going to help.  Basically what I am saying is you want someone to love you for who you are, not love the fake persona you have created to cover up what you see as failings.

Essentially, you haven't failed.  You have struggled and learned.  You have great potential and being honest with others is the way to start.  I am sorry your background did not offer you help and guidance, not that parents are always best at that anyway.  As I see it, a great man cares about others, has integrity, does what he can within his abilities and has compassion for and protects those who are weaker.  You have all those qualities already!  Find some mates at AA and build on your strengths.  You've had a nasty shock but you are a solid guy, you just don't realise it.

 

[NightOwl2021]

Thank you so much, spiderowl. I do in fact medicate with alcohol to cover up the pain. And of course, the more I grew to have feelings for Mary, the more I did indeed fear revealing the truth, hoping I would somehow find money to clean up the financial mess before she found out. I did realize that was a lot for her to deal with as well and it surely hurt her even though she initially offered to help me. Even though she and I had no actual financial comingling, she had to deal with my not being able to carry my own for the things she wants to do. 

I care for her too, so I finally had to fess up. But revealing that vulnerability about myself, along with her pulling away, has sent me into a much more global personal shock about my whole life than I was prepared to handle. I can't even watch the Olympics, or movie trailers, or couples at a bar or walking on the street, or anything without feeling like a loser who has sent his life down the drain. It is very scary.

Sorry you go through some of the same stuff, but I take heart in your comments and in the fact that you have chosen to work on it on your side. I appreciate your comments so much. I have been to AA (for the thing with that other woman, whom I met only once in person and built far more of a fantasy relationship than I had with Mary), went 38 days without a drink. 

I have to get over the fear of coping without alcohol as well as with the shame of admitting I can't usually stop when I should. But I will work on getting a therapist and trying to get back to AA. Thanks.

 

[spiderowl]

I know it's not easy when you've had such a shock.  There are no simple answers.

I guess we just have to be honest with ourselves and others and let the chips fall where they may.  

I've been fortunate in not getting into alcohol - mainly because it makes me feel ill - but I have had antidepressants.  I might be wrong but it seems to me many guys turn to alcohol to cope with feelings, which is a shame because it then causes other problems.  Have you considered antidepressants?  I know it makes a difference where you are, with medical costs and so forth.

I know you feel bad but there is probably nothing fundamentally wrong with you.  It's just the way you are dealing with pain that is causing you problems.  This woman liked you so you are obviously a likeable/lovable guy.

I'm older now and have been through a few heartbreaks myself.  We live and learn from these, hard lessons I know, but also good things too.

Edited August 7, 2021 by spiderowl