Am I too sensitive or is he just a jerk?

[Guest]

Sorry in advance for such a long post, but I have nobody to turn to and ask about such things....I'm at a complete loss.. so, here goes. I hope I get a reply. I've been in tears on and off all week.

 

Okay, here's our background:

 

I'm 26 and he's 24. We met online 3 years ago (Yeah, cringe #1..I know). We talked daily, for five or six hours at a time and became the best of friends. He told me about living in his parents basement and how it was getting very old dealing with them and his teenage siblings and wanted a drastic change. I told him he was welcome to come visit me for a week or so, to get away and have a little vacation. So, he did. We hit it off even better in person and it was obvious there was something more to our friendship, but didn't act on it. About a month later, the idea of moving down to be with me came up and we both thought it was something that would help us both out. I was living with my mom at the time and we weren't bringing in quite enough money to get by. An extra pair of hands would help a lot. So, he moved in and things were very nice, casual and friendly for about a month. We admitted having feelings more than friendship and became a couple. I find out he's never really even had a girlfriend before (cringe #2). I had been in two serious live-in relationships before, but never felt this way about someone. We discussed marriage then, and both expressed feelings that there was nobody else in the world for either of us and if either of us would ever get married, it would be to each other. I had never felt so close to someone and I know he hadn't either.

The short version of the next six months is that things with him and my mom got rough, work for him was harder to get than we thought and my grandparents in another state fell ill. I had a decision to move back to his home state with him, or go with my mother to help out her ill parents. Since this post is about him, you can guess what I picked.

Lived here in his home state about 3 months and he came down with an illness that caused a lot of financial stress and we couldn't afford the apartment he had gotten us. So, we moved in with HIS parents (cringe #3) That actually lasted about a year and a half and wasn't as bad as I thought. He got a great job that pays really well and I got a great job that pays moderatly well. Things were looking up, and we were saving a lot of our money. Again, his parents drove him nuts and we needed to be out on our own. Marriage was still talked about as somthing we were going to do as soon as the time felt right... mostly meaning out on our own and not living in his parents basement. So. We got our own apartment about six months ago.

It was heaven for the first 3 months, then the moodyness that he's always had came back with a vengence and he seemed very distant. My mom came to visit and that made it worse. After her visit, things were tense for about a week, but got back to normal. Then the marriage discussion comes back up. ....Here's where I need you males to let me know what the hell this means...

He tells me it's up to me when we get married. He says he feels, emotionally, like we've been married and the act of doing it is just formality and something we do to get the tax break and insurance (he has some, I don't...until 2 months from now) but basicly, just the paper, because the feelings are there and have been for a long time. "I consider us already married, and I hope you do too.." Of course I said that I do, because even though he's a moody jerk at times, I still very much in love with him. So, we decide that we should set a date, have a little very informal maybe even court house wedding and "get it out of the way". I tell this to my mother, clear across the country. She says, no big wedding.. you're getting a big honeymoon. She starts looking into setting us up with a vacation package for sometime in the next few weeks. I start asking him details about when, where, ect. and he basicly freaks out, saying someone else is planning out our stuff and that it's getting way too complicated. "Screw it, I don't even want to do it now." he says. My stomach gets that cold rock in it when he says stuff like that. So, he repeats that he doesn't want to get married in front of his mother and she says he's just messing around and being an ass. He just kind of half smiles and doesn't say too much. We get home that eveing and he says three very conflicting things. "We're not even going to do it now"

"It's up to you, just make sure it's what you want, not what your mom wants."

"Is the cat going to be the ring barer?" (sp?)

"I'm at least going to need some new slacks"

That was Sunday. It's now Thursday/very early Friday morning. All week, he's been cold, distant and just not himself. Not mean or anything (till tonight wheh he told me I was a pain in the butt and annoying for going to lie down with him) but the week has been pretty depressing for me. Up until tonight, we were going to sleep in each other's arms at night and barely talking during the day. We usually text message while we're at work.. he didn't answer my messages very much yesterday and not at all today. Pretty much, he's not acting like everythings okay, even though I finally asked him what was up over dinner tonight.

 

So, you people read stories like this a lot, I'm sure. What am I to think? How should I feel? Should I just quit talking about getting married? Should I tell him about some SIMPLE plans I've come up with? Should I get the hint that he really DOESN'T want to get married, when for the past two years, it's been a certainty that we were going to? Please help, an advice would really make me feel better.

 

I don't know what to do but cry some more.

[RecordProducer]

Dear Guest,

 

He obviously intended to marry you sooner or later, but now that you put him in a corner about it, he freaked out. When men haven't made the decision to get married NOW and plan everything together, they freak out when the women start making plans without them, especially if your mother is involved.

 

You should learn top listen to your mom without transmitting what she said to him. If you think your mom's idea was good, suggest it as yours. If not, don't mention it. Never involve your mom either in good or bad aspects in your marriage. This will only result in a bad relationship between him and your mom, you and your mom, and him and you. It's a 3-blade sword. No matter how close you are with your mom, he must never feel it on HIS skin. he must never think that your mom knows everything about your relationship, advises you, suggests things or listens to your complaints about him. No matter how tempted you are to tell him what your mom said, don't ever do it, not even for things like "My mom thinks we should paint this room beige." Keep your relationship with your mom as a secret, sacred refuge, hidden from everybody's eyes.

 

I think he wants to marry you, but since you've cornered him, he backed off. If you want someone to chase after you, you have to run. Tell him that the marriage thing is not on your priority list right now and you agree that nobody should be involved. You can even tell him that the big honeymoon was YOUR idea and your mom just said it was a nice one.

 

Men don't like women who depend on their mothers and don't know what they want themselves. I am sure you're not one of those cases, but that's how it might have appeared in his eyes.

 

Men also don't like to be forced to do things. They like to surprise you with a proposal. They religiously seek the right moment to propose. They hesitate, procrastinate, and negotiate with themselves in their heads. Before he proposes, he will go through all your fights, all the good and bad things in order to estimate whether you're the right one to marry or not. But you know what will win eventually since nobody is perfect? LOVE. If he truly loves you, he WILL propose to you sooner or later. If he doesn't love you with all his heart - you don't need him anyway.

 

My advice: sit back, relax, and wait for his proposal. But first let him know that you're not in a hurry to get married right now. The more laid-back you are about it the more he will be ready to marry you.

 

This is a woman with two cold-feet experiences (from my current husband) speaking.

 

If a long time passes by and he doesn't propose - leave him. If he loves you, he'll come around. It worked for me. Pushing him only resulted in him getting cold feet one day prior to the scheduled wedding.