[Fstdrvr]

Hi. I’ll start this story from the beginning. I met a girl (divorced two years due to ex having a 4 year affair and has one teenage child) back in May through an online dating site. We had a great first date. We both wanted to keep seeing each other and just have fun. Well, I fell in love with her and told her two months ago. She does not feel the same. She says that she likes me a lot, and “loves me in her own way” whatever the hell that means. We still only really get together on the weekends because that’s when the father has her kid. I’m getting very frustrated that she’s not in love with me that it’s causing a lot of problems in our relationship. I argue a lot with her about feelings I have of which, she gets angry at me for bringing these things up. Meanwhile from the beginning, she waited 5 weeks before sleeping with me, 5 months before I met her kid, and a month after that is when she introduced me to her whole family. This is why I’m confused and frustrated as to why she doesn’t want to talk about “feelings” when she’s making me think that she really wants a long term relationship with me. She claims that just about every guy in her life cheated on her which is why she’s still in man-hating mode. She also claims that she doesn’t “need” a man. All I want is to be happy with her. She does a lot of nice things for me, but she’s a very nice person…not necessarily doing things specially for me (in my opinion). She spent the holidays with me and some of my family, and I spent some time with hers. It seems that she’s on the right track with me, but she doesn’t say a word about anything but “I told you, I don’t want to be in love, can’t we just have fun?” This crap is driving me crazy. Sometimes I feel like I’m pissing in the wind here. It’s just not moving fast enough…certainly unlike any relationship I’ve ever had before.

[AskApril Masini]

It sounds like you have an incompatibility that’s keeping the relationship from working for you. When a lot of things do work, it’s a lot harder to see the one that isn’t working and realize it’s importance. For instance, you mentioned she’s in “man-hating” mode as a result of a series of betrayals by men in her life. That’s a tough one. Clearly, you can’t be with someone who’s a man hater, since you’re a man! In order to really process her failed relationships, it’s important for her (or anyone) to see her part in the cheating. I’m not blaming her, but cheating doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And if she’s not ready to to process and heal, she’s not ready for another relationship. When she tells you she just wants to have fun, but not love or commit — and you want the whole nine yards — you’re looking at an incompatibility. It’s great that she’s taken steps towards introducing you to her family, child and friends, but if she’s not in love with you and says she doesn’t want to be in love at a certain point you have to realize you’re in love with someone who doesn’t love you, and you want a marriage and family with someone who doesn’t trust the process or the institution. Instead of getting angry at her, it may be time to let her know that you really want to love and marry her one day, and if that’s not something she’s ready for rather than try and force her to be something she’s not, it would be good to know it and be able to move on. You’ll miss her — but you can’t meet your own goals with someone who has conflicting ones.

[Member]

Posts