Navigating a new relationship

[amkxoxo]

1 hour ago, basil67 said:

@amkxoxo have you ever been in a good relationship?  One where you the guy is reliable.....and you feel heard, appreciated and valued?    

I can't help wondering if you've never known anything other than dysfunction

I've never been in a good relationship 

[basil67]

2 minutes ago, amkxoxo said:

I've never been in a good relationship 

The secret to finding a good relationship is to not waste time in relationships which aren't good.  This is not a good relationship and you'd be better off moving on so that you can find someone who really cares for you

And if that relationship doesn't meet your needs, move on from that too.  

[NuevoYorko]

@amkxoxo - Will you please answer this question:

Why are you so intent on chasing this man no matter how dismissive he is towards you?  It almost seems like you are harming yourself on purpose.  

Yes, I know he "treats you like a princess" via text or getting you a glass of water or whatever when he's stopped by your home.  We don't need to revisit that.  

[Alpacalia]

"I've never been in a good relationship" is not an excuse to stay in a bad relationship. It's like saying "I've never known how to swim, so I should just stay in the water and drown." That's not a valid excuse to stay in an adverse situation.

And who cares if the guy doesn't shower right before coming over. I mean really, that's the least of your concerns. Him not showering wouldn't bother me. I actually really enjoy the natural smell of a man, so if he's not taken hygiene to extremes.

I love the smell of my man when he wakes up in the morning. I would even go as far as to say that it's a turn on. With a nicely placed tatt. mmmmhhh a combination of his favorite cologne, the soap he used and a hint of sweat. Okay, I went off on a tangent but what I'm trying to say is that if you're in an unhealthy relationship it's best to get out of it as quickly as possible. A bad relationship can have long-lasting consequences on your mental and physical health and wellbeing.

It can cause depression, anxiety, and even physical ailments like exhaustion, weight gain, and headaches. Do you want headaches? Weight gain? I don't think so. No, the fact that you've never been in a good relationship is not an excuse to stay in a bad one.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Alpacalia

[Wiseman2]

2 hours ago, amkxoxo said:

I've never been in a good relationship 

Sorry to hear that. Are you under a lot of pressure from family, friends or your culture to be married and start a family? Because unfortunately it seems like any man, no matter how they treat you, will do.

You seem to like him but even with all this overinvesting and overinvolvement on your part, you may not end up with anyone because someone this indifferent and casual doesn't seem to be moving toward your goal of married with kids.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Wiseman2

[ExpatInItaly]

6 hours ago, amkxoxo said:

I've never been in a good relationship 

And this isn't isn't shaping up to be a good one, either. 

I know you are very disappointed and looking for just about any way to make it a you problem rather than admit to yourself he's just not as into this as you are. But no amount of "fixing communication" or being more patient or caring with him is going to make him more into you. His interest is lukewarm at most, and that isn't likely to change. 

My guess is that this will have fizzled out within the next couple months and you'll still be trying to blame yourself for it instead of dealing with the truth. 

[JTSW]

7 hours ago, amkxoxo said:

I've never been in a good relationship 

This isn't a good one either.

No relationship will be good if you can't communicate with each other properly.

 

[amkxoxo]

27 minutes ago, Ivy1990 said:

If you truly want to learn how to better communicate, start here with us, we're all anonymous.  You can start that process by answering the questions asked and asking your own.

Also by updating us about what's been happening and how you feel about it. Truly feel.  

In other words, participating.  With people - on line, in the real world, in LIFE.

You can't expect the relationship and life you desire to magically happen, you create it.  

Again, by asking questions, answering questions and participating.

You have created a few threads, to seek help and guidance. Allows us to help you. 

Jmo but that's how you start. 

So that said, what's been happening since his return?   Do you have another date planned? 

He came over tonight for a couple hours. He's still getting over his illness. We talked a lot and caught up. We got intimate. This is the third time we've had sexx and third time he didn't finish. He made sure to do a good job and he always gets me to finish. It feels great. 

 I asked him if it was about me in any way,  him not finishing. He said no, not at all and reassured me that he wouldn't try so hard to make me feel good if it was something to do with me. He kissed me and reassured me it was him and he had issues since he was a teen. 

He said he sometimes has to take pills and he gets too in his head about it. 

All seemed good and we are getting together Saturday. He is coming to a big family function with me all day. 

[Kassieee]

30 minutes ago, amkxoxo said:

He came over tonight for a couple hours. He's still getting over his illness. We talked a lot and caught up. We got intimate. This is the third time we've had sexx and third time he didn't finish. He made sure to do a good job and he always gets me to finish. It feels great. 

 I asked him if it was about me in any way,  him not finishing. He said no, not at all and reassured me that he wouldn't try so hard to make me feel good if it was something to do with me. He kissed me and reassured me it was him and he had issues since he was a teen. 

He said he sometimes has to take pills and he gets too in his head about it. 

All seemed good and we are getting together Saturday. He is coming to a big family function with me all day. 

  Sometimes people can be very judgemental when men have these issues 

good for you for asking and clearing the air. He's honest, that's a good sign.

Edited August 23, 2023 by SlimShadysWife

[amkxoxo]

I asked him if he wanted to pop over tonight for dinner. I was cooking and it's on his way home.  He said he was so sorry but he already made plans with his guy friend to hangout with him tonight. So that's the most recent thing that's happened. 

Edited August 23, 2023 by amkxoxo

[ExpatInItaly]

2 minutes ago, amkxoxo said:

I asked him if he wanted to pop over tonight for dinner. I was cooking and it's on his way home.  He said he was so sorry but he already made plans with his guy friend to hangout with him tonight. 

And? What's your question? 

[Wiseman2]

47 minutes ago, amkxoxo said:

I asked him if he wanted to pop over tonight for dinner. He said he was so sorry but he already made plans 

Unfortunately that's the problem with him. You keep asking him to spend time together.

When you try to pin him down in advance he agrees but then he comes up with last minute excuses (sick, flat tire, "forgot", etc.) and when you try to get him to spend time with you last minute he has reasons such as he's already busy. 

Hopefully he will actually come to your family get-together and not come up with the usual "my dog ate it", "my tummy hurts" stories.

He's very unreliable but you seem to tolerate an if and when situation.

[Weezy1973]

18 hours ago, amkxoxo said:

He kissed me and reassured me it was him and he had issues since he was a teen. 

This could explain his flakiness as well. I suspect it causes him a lot of anxiety and avoidance is a pretty standard way for people to cope with anxiety. Perhaps instead of him needing to reassure you, you might want to reassure him that it’s not a big deal. Not saying that will magically work, and he might just be a flake in general, but it also could be that he’s built up a ton of defense mechanisms to try to cope with the shame he feels which can include staying super busy with guy friends. 
 

Just a possibility. 

[Versacehottie]

58 minutes ago, amkxoxo said:

I asked him if he wanted to pop over tonight for dinner. I was cooking and it's on his way home.  He said he was so sorry but he already made plans with his guy friend to hangout with him tonight. So that's the most recent thing that's happened. 

oh no🙈 why are you PRESSING things?????!!! You just saw him yesterday and you are a brand new couple  (call it two months or whatever but that doesn't really reflect the true time frame)...he just got back..um he was sick yesterday and the day before...don't you start to hear those things as excuses??? As a guy with no money and a lot on his plate, and a brand new girlfriend, he sure has his priorities straight😭😭I'm being sarcastic. Um, see how he was hemming and hawing when it comes to making plans with you but he HAS set plans with his friends, immovable ones, that he planned and was capable of planning and committing to. He doesn't need to do that with you because you will a)do it for him with your chasing b)you will accept whatever half-a**, last-minute and wishy-washy thing he throws your way.

I don't entirely blame the guy bc what you are doing drives down interest and you are teaching him how to plan for and treat you. That said, you seem like you are on two entirely different pages. 

If you've never had a good relationship, you have a bunch of people here trying to throw up red flags about this guy on your behalf. Idk if you have some fantasy that he's going to improve over time, but I don't see it happening. Even if he becomes a better guy with his act together, your dynamic is already messed up with each other. I don't think he will value you unless you stop chasing. 

BTW, has it ever occurred to you that he asked you for a relationship after 2-3 dates simply because he is lazy and has ED issues? Sorry, it was the first thing I thought of. If he had his act together and didn't need a quick, built-in girlfriend who would bend over backward to fix things for him, he likely wouldn't have done that if he was a normal guy. It's extraordinarily quick and also doesn't match how he is behaving toward you.I think part of what he needs is someone to boost his ego from his "failures" and he sees you as ripe to do that since you are over the top chasing and overly understanding...Things are out of balance too. 

IDK, I think you should drop this clown

[amkxoxo]

11 minutes ago, Versacehottie said:

oh no🙈 why are you PRESSING things?????!!! You just saw him yesterday and you are a brand new couple  (call it two months or whatever but that doesn't really reflect the true time frame)...he just got back..um he was sick yesterday and the day before...don't you start to hear those things as excuses??? As a guy with no money and a lot on his plate, and a brand new girlfriend, he sure has his priorities straight😭😭I'm being sarcastic. Um, see how he was hemming and hawing when it comes to making plans with you but he HAS set plans with his friends, immovable ones, that he planned and was capable of planning and committing to. He doesn't need to do that with you because you will a)do it for him with your chasing b)you will accept whatever half-a**, last-minute and wishy-washy thing he throws your way.

I don't entirely blame the guy bc what you are doing drives down interest and you are teaching him how to plan for and treat you. That said, you seem like you are on two entirely different pages. 

If you've never had a good relationship, you have a bunch of people here trying to throw up red flags about this guy on your behalf. Idk if you have some fantasy that he's going to improve over time, but I don't see it happening. Even if he becomes a better guy with his act together, your dynamic is already messed up with each other. I don't think he will value you unless you stop chasing. 

BTW, has it ever occurred to you that he asked you for a relationship after 2-3 dates simply because he is lazy and has ED issues? Sorry, it was the first thing I thought of. If he had his act together and didn't need a quick, built-in girlfriend who would bend over backward to fix things for him, he likely wouldn't have done that if he was a normal guy. It's extraordinarily quick and also doesn't match how he is behaving toward you.I think part of what he needs is someone to boost his ego from his "failures" and he sees you as ripe to do that since you are over the top chasing and overly understanding...Things are out of balance too. 

IDK, I think you should drop this clown

I did date guys in the past, they couldn't wait to see me, saw me two to three nights a week. They'd have sex with me, they couldn't get enough of me. They didn't have ED issues. They finished every time.  They wanted to sleep over and be all intimate and cuddly.

This is definitely different. He gets very aroused with me, so he is feeling it.  I don't judge him at all about any sexual issues he may have. I guess I'm a bit confused. We talked about sex early on. I'm very sexual. He and I both said how we love sex and having lots of it. I haven't seen that from him. Then he told me he masturbates a lot. But then he can't get off with me. I wonder if he has some trust issues. His ex-wife cheated on him and slept with other men. Maybe he's scared? 

Edited August 23, 2023 by amkxoxo

[stillafool]

1 hour ago, amkxoxo said:

I did date guys in the past, they couldn't wait to see me, saw me two to three nights a week. They'd have sex with me, they couldn't get enough of me. They didn't have ED issues. They finished every time.  They wanted to sleep over and be all intimate and cuddly.

This is definitely different. 

What happened that made you break it off with these guys?  They seem like what you need.

[amkxoxo]

4 minutes ago, stillafool said:

What happened that made you break it off with these guys?  They seem like what you need.

One was a raging alcoholic that was mentally and physically abusive.  The other guy, I just couldn't see my future with him. My feelings were not as strong as his. 

[Els]

2 hours ago, amkxoxo said:

I did date guys in the past, they couldn't wait to see me, saw me two to three nights a week. They'd have sex with me, they couldn't get enough of me. They didn't have ED issues. They finished every time.  They wanted to sleep over and be all intimate and cuddly.

This is definitely different. He gets very aroused with me, so he is feeling it.  I don't judge him at all about any sexual issues he may have. I guess I'm a bit confused. We talked about sex early on. I'm very sexual. He and I both said how we love sex and having lots of it. I haven't seen that from him. Then he told me he masturbates a lot. But then he can't get off with me. I wonder if he has some trust issues. His ex-wife cheated on him and slept with other men. Maybe he's scared? 

Sex is the LEAST of the issues that this guy has...

[Versacehottie]

2 hours ago, amkxoxo said:

I did date guys in the past, they couldn't wait to see me, saw me two to three nights a week. They'd have sex with me, they couldn't get enough of me. They didn't have ED issues. They finished every time.  They wanted to sleep over and be all intimate and cuddly.

This is definitely different. He gets very aroused with me, so he is feeling it.  I don't judge him at all about any sexual issues he may have. I guess I'm a bit confused. We talked about sex early on. I'm very sexual. He and I both said how we love sex and having lots of it. I haven't seen that from him. Then he told me he masturbates a lot. But then he can't get off with me. I wonder if he has some trust issues. His ex-wife cheated on him and slept with other men. Maybe he's scared? 

Hmmmm I think you are "narrowing in" when you need to be "widening out"...what I mean is that you are narrowing in on smaller subsegments of the bigger PROBLEM, singular:

You need to make it simpler for yourself not more complicated. Try to ask yourself simply: does he treat me well enough in my standards to what I need to be happy? On the whole!!! You might even ask yourself, assuming he means well but he STILL isn't capable of treating you in the way you need to be treated (that is a composition of all the elements of the relationship).

I don't think it's good for you--especially in light of the way you characterize both your past relationships & having never been in a good one--for you to compare this guy to the other guys you dated. As you discovered with those, there were some good things about them and some major dealbreakers. 

Maybe he just talks about sex in lieu of actually being able to perform. All talk, no action. Maybe he's always been like this and like other things in his life, avoids dealing with it, so his wife cheated on him for that reason specifically. I wouldn't get caught up in the nuances of making excuses or explanations for him. 

um, maybe "he's scared"? huh, again, I think part of your big issue is you have quite random takeaways from the problem staring you right in the face. This is a guy that seems to jump right into relationships so I doubt he's scared. Scared of what? He's obviously an avoider. I'd bet he runs from most if not all of his problems. I wouldn't even take what he says happened with his ex-wife as truth-it's just his spin on it that's less of blow to his ego. Oh wait, the only thing I can think he might be scared of is that you are coming on too strong!!! Probably feels like pressure when he has no real intention in near future to make room for you in his life--but then he doesn't really have to be that scared bc when you push and he bobs&weaves, you just roll over and accept the new low.  So, no, I think he's feeling quite comfortable for now. 

Anyway, I would argue the deciding he's scared is almost as bad as you deducing you had communication issues a couple of days ago. In both cases, you are seeing the problem through lens of "what can I do to fix this; what can I do to be enough; I must have done something wrong; there must be something I can do, ie to make him feel less scared?". Nah, you just need to see the guy for who he is/what he can do for you right now at this point in time and measure it up to see if it's good enough for you, I'd emphatically say NO. If you don't believe there is better out there for you and don't work on your self esteem, you are going to end up in dead-end relationship after dead-end relationship. You will be taken advantage of and what little self-esteem you have left can be chipped away even more.I'm sorry, I'm fairly sure this is going to be a bad one. or is not going to last or will be torture for you if it does.

[Versacehottie]

3 hours ago, Versacehottie said:

It's extraordinarily quick and also doesn't match how he is behaving toward you.I think part of what he needs is someone to boost his ego from his "failures" and he sees you as ripe to do that since you are over the top chasing and overly understanding.

I get placeholder vibes totally.

[NuevoYorko]

I don't judge the guy for having ED.  But it does seem really empty to have the guy come over,  do what you call "a good job" of getting you off, and leave.  You said he stayed for a couple of hours. 

This is not "intimacy."  You're not building.    

I can't tell if you really are satisfied with this? Are you?

[amkxoxo]

40 minutes ago, NuevoYorko said:

I don't judge the guy for having ED.  But it does seem really empty to have the guy come over,  do what you call "a good job" of getting you off, and leave.  You said he stayed for a couple of hours. 

This is not "intimacy."  You're not building.    

I can't tell if you really are satisfied with this? Are you?

 I think we are building extremely slowly. The reason I don't feel like we are completely stopped is because I am still learning new things about him and him me, but its slowed down from what it was. The growth and learning about each other is very very slow now. He's meeting my family this weekend and I'm meeting his in a few weeks. 

I want romance and sleepovers, and mornings together talking in bed. We just fu**

We kiss, make-out, get all touchy Feely,  he touches me all over and I touch him, some oral stuff,  then we go and he fu*** me. 

And the way he goes about it is like he's making me feel good and making me happy. Like I needed it.  Like it's his duty. To me, sex should be mutual and like we are enjoying an experience together. Not just him- I got to get her to finish. And then he doesn't finish. 

[NuevoYorko]

 

3 hours ago, amkxoxo said:

I want romance and sleepovers, and mornings together talking in bed. We just fu**

You have been around here a long time and you've written many posts.  Surely it's gotten through to you that "what you see is what you get."  You're not having those things.  Why are you throwing yourself under a bus like this?

[ExpatInItaly]

8 hours ago, amkxoxo said:

I want romance and sleepovers, and mornings together talking in bed

He doesn't want that with you. 

He's not scared. He's not trying to build anything, even "extremely slowly." He just isn't looking for something that serious with you. You're who he's seeing for right now, but I urge you not to con yourself into thinking he's going to be your long-term guy. It's pretty clear that isn't his aim. 

[FMW]

It sounds like you quickly zeroed in on this guy and made him your primary focus, while he has seen you as an occasional fun distraction.  

Back off, stop initiating seeing him, see what he does.  Not what he says, but what actually happens.  

This will require you to focus on yourself, make plans without him.  Find activities you enjoy that provide you opportunities to meet new people, make friends.  Expand your horizons and you'll see you're putting in way too much thought and effort to a situation that's giving you very little of a positive nature in return. 

If a friend described this relationship to you, what would you honestly think?