What does she want?!

[AskingQuestions]

We met in January. She’s 37. I am 49. Worked in the same organization and she said she wouldn’t sleep with somebody in hierarchy, so we were just coffee buddies. Also she had a boyfriend in Europe and says our age difference “makes it out of the question” that we become a couple. (Her parents had a big age difference and her father died when she was very young.) We both left our jobs in July. I’d pushed her to sleep with me for months, and she agreed to meet me in another country for a romantic weekend (she was at a conference there). Just before we left our jobs she told me “knowing how much you’re in love with me, I wouldn’t have agreed to meet you there if I wasn’t interested in exploring a relationship.” Agreed in advance that whatever happened we would stay friends. (Anyway she had a boyfriend in France.) We met. An incredible weekend. She had the first orgasms in her life, she told me, and it freaked her out. She ended the weekend by saying “there can never be a relationship between us. You’re too old.” She flew off & away. She’s independently wealthy and her job keeps her in Europe. Months ago we had tentatively agreed that she would come visit me in New York for ten days and work on a project together this September. There’s something of a professional justification for this, but she could easily do it as on online collaboration from afar. (She’s in London.) She just called me up, now wants to come spend three weeks at my apartment, but has new boyfriend she just met in Europe, she says, and doesn’t want to lie to him. She wants to stay at my apartment for three weeks, “strictly platonically” because “we get along so well.” But I am “too old” for her, and “no relationship can ever be possible!” What does this woman want? She now seems to be cheating on two separate boyfriends with me.. or not.. can’t tell.. do they even exist? She told me once that a friend told her she has commitment-phobia, possibly relating to her dad’s early death. She also has a history of promiscuity. What is the deal with this woman??

[April Masini]

You’re asking the wrong question. The one you want to be asking is, [i]What do [b]you[/b] want? [/i]

She’s taken the male role away from you, and it’s time for you to get it back! Decide if you want to date her or not — and under what circumstances.

If you want to date her, monogamously then tell her you’re not interested playing back up boyfriend — or even friend zone friend. I bet she doesn’t get many no’s from men! If she’s only interested in having the upper hand, then you’re not going to be happy — but if she’s looking for a man who’s stronger than she is…this is your chance to show her you’re that guy.

Let me know how things go, and please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url]http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001113133958[/url].

[AskingQuestions]

Thanks for this.. It really got me thinking!

Interestingly, she just called me a couple of hours ago from South Africa, where she’s on a business trip, and reiterated that she would be staying at my apartment platonically — otherwise she wouldn’t be coming — but when I demurred, she said, “I really have a headache right now and can’t talk on the phone”. So I told her I was really not happy with the platonic bit. She said (nicely but firmly) “It’s non-negotiable. I don’t want to lie to my new boyfriend. I have to go” and said good-bye. An hour later I got an automatic email from her with her itinerary visiting me in New York.. (meaning she immediately bought the ticket after our phone call so I couldn’t change my mind. She knew perfectly well the platonic thing was not assured!) I really wonder whether she’s just using me for sex & companionship; she’s very attractive and pretty much chooses the man she wants. She’s told me repeatedly if I weren’t so much older than her we would be the perfect couple.

Since she’s coming now for sure, I think I will take your advice, and take her at her word, and not have sex with her (!) It will be interesting to see how she reacts. I am sure she doesn’t expect that.

[April Masini]

You misunderstood my advice. 😳 Let me try it again, but I’m going to be a little harder on you to try and get this point across — I”m not trying to hurt your feelings, just make things clear:

She’s taken your power away by telling you the way things are. This is not a healthy relationship. It’s a power trip — and you’re the little person in it. My advice is that YOU have to literally man up and tell her she can’t come to visit you [i]at all[/i]. Not having sex with her will never work. You have to maintain clear boundaries with her and you have to be crystal clear. So, tell her she’s not welcome under the circumstances — and that’s non-negotiable. Then change the locks and don’t let her in.

Any woman who tells you the terms of the relationship are [b]“non-negotiable”[/b] 🙄 isn’t interested in you as a person and is lacking empathy and respect for you — and probably for loads of other people in her life. 😳 This isn’t a good woman for you (or anyone). You can’t trust her because you already know she lies (to her boyfriends). Her dynamic is to use men either by lying or powering over them. She realizes she can power over you so she doesn’t have to lie. The other men won’t stand for the powering over them, so instead, she lies. She doesn’t care about other peoples’ feelings, but worse…. [i]you’re letting yourself be treated this way.[/i] Go to Target or your local drug store immediately and buy a doormat and duct tape it to your forehead because she’s going to be walking all over you if you don’t stop this pattern now.

I hope this helps! Good luck — and let me know how things go.

Follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url]http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001113133958[/url]. 😀

[AskingQuestions]

Hmmmm… I do see your point. You may actually be right.. [i]I think — in fact — you might be[/i]. It’s a little bit more complicated than that, however. I am only a doormat with her in one sense. I see her as a woman who could easily just hang out in London and party with her friends but she chooses to come here to the US to be with me, at great expense in time and money to herself.

Why is she using me a doormat when she has more accessible and cheaper doormats galore in London and elsewhere? Couldn’t another explanation be possible — that she likes me but doesn’t have any decent relationship patterns to model a relationship upon? She doesn’t need me for money, professional reasons, or any other reason I can think of except sex and companionship. She clearly has had a succession of lousy lovers. (Partly I think because she traditionally sees sex as just hooking up for a brief fling in between projects. We both work short-term international projects and are almost never in the same place in the world longer than four months.)

The first time she climaxed she told me, shocked, that she must really trust me because that had never happened before to her with anybody.. And I actually do believe her — I saw how surprised she was by it. It was as if she didn’t want it to happen.. but it did.. [i]and it was so unexpected that she doesn’t know how to deal with it.
[/i]
I am very successful, both in my professional life and with people. She knows very well that within the bounds of realism I have my choice of partners. (Partly because I am successful and attractive, but partly due to the the nature of my international profession.) Unfortunately she’s my choice just because of how well we get along. She’s very uncomfortable with the fact that I only divorced my wife last year. She’s had a bad experience with a divorced man in the past — she felt used, I think.

[i]So I have to think about the total rejection, close the door and lock it thing. It would be nice if there were a middle way.[/i] I have to say, however, I like the tough love nature of your advice. You’re very realistic and I am glad I found your site. Thank you.

[AskingQuestions]

I’ve been thinking about this all day… and trying to figure it out. This is a woman who by her own admission:

— Has commitment problems, a history of promiscuity, and a history of “never trusting men.” When I’ve discussed it with her it seems to be related her father dying when she was fifteen. He was the perfect father, apparently; he died tragically of cancer. She loved him very much. The family were immigrants in a new country. It was very tough on her when he died. I think she closed up on men after that. Admits her first sexual experience in college “was a disaster.” With time she started to go out with men, and became, in the end, promiscuous. (Far more experience than I’ve ever had.) She is now an extremely attractive and a successful professional. Men flock to her.

— She told me once — when we were “just friends” that she “loves the feeling of power that sexuality gives [her] over men.” I replied to her that she was a control freak; she laughed and agreed. I told her that she used relations with a lot of men to protect her when any individual man wouldn’t commit to her. She quietly said “there’s some truth to that” and immediately changed the subject. Another time she described, laughing, taking a test of her personality type. The psychologist was very distressed with the results, she said, laughing, and said to her “you really have trust issues!”

What I don’t understand is why she is seeking me out, chasing me around the world, and wanting to stay with me for weeks after telling me that she could never have a relationship with me, and after telling me that she just started a relationship with somebody else — just weeks after sleeping with me (!) Am I answering my own question here, by implication?

Sorry to beat this subject to death. I just find it so perplexing. The idea that I am just a doormat seems a bit definitively denigrating. I am a pretty successful, handsome guy in my own right — and she knows it, she knows the kind of women who are chasing after me. Is this just a power play, nothing more? What’s in it for her?

[April Masini]

She’s using you to feel like she’s in control. 😳

If you’re looking for a healthy relationship, this isn’t it.

[jade]

No disrespect intended, but one wonders why you seem rather intent on inviting chaos and drama into your life? 😯 Or is it that you are unconsciously (consciously?) choosing someone who is so clearly unavailable because you aren’t yet ready for a real two-way relationship? One that isn’t already challenged by distance and emotional unavailability? 😕

Drama is exciting. Until it isn’t. We can’t really change others. It seems like you are hoping she will change: you are making a case in your own mind that you will be the one to make a difference in her life based on her
orgasmic history and, as a result, this situation will work.

Of course, you are free to play the scenario out. Just promise to learn from it. Save April’s response and re-read it in six months.

[AskingQuestions]

Jade & April,

So much of what you say is true.. It’s just that she’s so sweet & so psychologically interesting & her international background is so similar to my own..

I will keep this post in mind when she comes in ten days. April’s suggestion of not letting her come to visit me[i] at all[/i] is “the nuclear option;” it ends any possibility of future contact. That’s a problem for me. I[i] do[/i] wish there were a[i] less final[/i] way to deal with this sort of challenge — what I’d call a “measure short of war” to make her realize that she’s sending out hopelessly mixed messages to me and that she needs to get her message straight. Why on Earth is she coming to visit me for weeks when she’s told me she doesn’t want a relationship with me?? [i]That’s just bizarre.[/i]. She should spend the time with her new boyfriend..(!) She seems like a lost soul. I take your point that I am “[i]inviting chaos into my life[/i]” — and am a fool to do so. But I also have a project this spring I really want to do with her — a big project — and she’s the perfect person to do it with me. On some level the sex was a mistake as it crossed the professional/personal boundary..

I will fight back. I will not have sex with her, not play her games. Deal with her professionally. Make her sleep in the guest bed. Put things back on the non-sexual level. That’s not that big a deal for me. As cute as she is, there are others who are less stressful — although less psychologically interesting. Doubtless I will look back in three weeks and wonder if I should have just followed your advice.

[April Masini]

There seems to be more misunderstanding. 😳 My advice that you not allow her to visit you is a way of taking back your power. When YOU want to ask her out on a date, then you do it on your terms instead of letting her walk all over you. That’s the best way for a guy to win a girl over — by asking her out on dates, and winning her over. This woman isn’t interested in that — and frankly, I don’t think that you’re interested in a healthy relationship. I think you’re looking for amusement — and I’m not one to pass judgment on that. Just don’t pretend that this is a healthy relationship — or ever will be. 😉 Your idea of keeping her as a platonic houseguest, when she is clearly bent on having sex with you, so that you don’t cross professional boundaries any more 😯 is delusional.

Sorry — I’m here to help people get into and maintain healthy relationships, but since you clearly don’t want one, I can’t help you! 😳

[AskingQuestions]

April, you’re probably right. I will see. It’s easy to give advice; difficult to take it.

[jade]

There is a real element of game-playing here. Why not just take up chess? You appear amused by it all in your email. Well and good for now. But continuing on and telling yourself all of the rationalizations in your previous email (if I tell her no,the relationship will be over, project in the spring, blah, blah, blah), well people can get hurt, the most of which is you. 😕

Have you ever heard the phrase, hurt people hurt people?

[April Masini]

I have to agree with[b] jade[/b]. Game playing is best left to Milton Bradley and Hasboro. 😉

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