This week, beautiful Kimberly writes to tell us about her (very) long term relationship with a man who just can't seem to commit to marriage with her.
Here's what she wrote:
I've been in a relationship for over 8 years. Well there's been a lot of stuff that has happened between us.
Today we aren't getting along at all. He lives with his mother and has a daughter who had kids. His daughter is 30 and the fathers of these kids will not have anything to do with the kids.
This guy has said he wants to marry me over the years and something always seem to happen to him that he won't marry me.
He acts like all he wants to do is be with his grandchildren and will make no time to build a relationship with us. There's nothing wrong with his daughter that she can't take care of her 2 kids but over the past 1.5 years we fight about this all the time.
I tell him he we need to have couple time also and he doesn't make the time for it.
It's wierd.
He wants me to be there for him but yet won't be here for me so I stopped being there for him and told him I need time with him without babysitting for his grandchildren also.
He doesn't listen.
It's the weirdest kind of thing of thing I've ever seen. It's like he's married to his daughter and every time I confront him about something he gets mad and won't talk to me.
I want a family and husband.
I'm 46 and he's 53. I'm tired of his behavior towards me when it comes to his daughter and grandkids. I can't understand why he acts this way. I try to help him financially and help him with getting help for his health problems and I don't feel he recpricates that for me.
Trust me I have tried to tell him how I feel and what I think about things.
He does have health problems but yet tells me he's sick all the time and I have to go to his house and he's babysitting a one and five year old. I'm just sick of it but care for him.
What should I do?
-Kimberly
My Response:
You have to decide what matters more to you, Kimberly.
That you’re sick of all this or that you care for him. If he doesn’t reciprocate, then he doesn’t reciprocate.
And it’s when you say, “Trust me, I have tried to tell him how I feel”, this concerns me the most. Because that tone says everything. You’ve tried, you’re so tired of trying and mostly tired of him not listening to you.
You’ve got a guy who’s trying to be a good guy for his kids and grandkids, and yet he’s living with his mother. You try to take care of him and help him financially and with his health. I hear you on all that.
Kimberly, I talk all the time about the litmus test for any course of action or inaction, being whether you yourself can actually live with that action or inaction.
I especially say that to you here.
You’re his nurse. You’re his attendant. You’re his financier. You’re his caretaker. You’re all these things to him but I’m having a hard time understanding what he is to you.
I’m so curious to know why you care so much about him. Is it because of him really? Or is it more about who or what he represents to you?
There are so many deeper things here you need to ask yourself. You need to know your own answers. You need to know your boundaries, your terms, your anything at this point.
It’s all him right now. He’s running the show.
You’re jumping in to provide whatever he needs, but what about you? You’re not paid for this role. You’re in a love relationship, not an employer/employee relationship. You’ve got to look deep here.
There’s a "why" that’s just screaming out at you to be recognized that’s going to explain a whole lot of other things, too. Don’t miss this opportunity to find out what that is and change this once and for all.
Something doesn’t just happen to someone so they can’t marry you. If they really want to marry you, they, not just you, figure out a way to still marry you.
Again, this is only if they want to.
But don’t you dare take this to mean that there’s something wrong with you that he doesn’t want to marry you! This guy is in so deep with so many things going on for him, there’s no way this is somehow all about you.
There are so many warning signs here, Kimberly, I’m not surprised you reached out to me. And yet while I’ve got perspective by not being emotionally attached to this man you’ve built some kind of a relationship with over the last eight years, I know this isn’t the case for you.
You’re invested.
You care.
That’s why I can’t stress enough knowing how to spot red flags early on, and most importantly, learning to trust ourselves to recognize them. This is so much harder to do eight years down the road after we’ve built a relationship with someone around so much potential.
You don’t have to go to his house. You don’t have to financially support him.
It’s not weird that you tell him you want couple time and he doesn’t do anything to make that time actually happen. It’s the reality of what he's showing you by his actions that you need to pay attention to.
It’s him showing you who he is every single day.
If you want a man who keeps dragging his heels on marrying you because of life circumstances he’s not choosing to overcome, if you want someone who’s more devoted to his daughter and her kids than you, if you want someone who’s got so much going on with his health and finances that he doesn’t have room for you unless you insert yourself financially and as his care giver, then you’re with the right man for you.
But if you can't find it anywhere within yourself to truly accept this man, your resentment towards him isn’t going to get any better.
Only you can answer your own question, Kimberly.
I’m pretty sure this wasn’t just one bad day when you wrote everything down here and decided to hit send.
Can you live with this reality, this person who so clearly lives life on his terms with such little regard or even comprehension of your own? That’s what you need to answer.
I hope this helps. Kow that I'm always here for you if you need me.
Love,
Jane
So how about you? I know you’ve got something to say to Kimberly. Tell her what she needs to hear in the comments below!
I search "He wants to marry me but...." and I ran into this blog which by the way ladies, your opinions and encouragement have encourage me. I do have a question though, in my case I have been with him for 3 years and have gotten close with his grown children and he has gotten close with my grown children but his son is 25, does not work and is in medical school full time. My boyfriend is caring for him and wants to support him until he is done. He just recently told me that it will take about 4 more years but that he really does not want to wait that long. He also spoke to my kids and his, along with his mother and told them that he wants to marry me. I'm confused because how do you talk about marriage, a ring, notify the family but your telling me that it may take 4 more years. Plus he also told me that he is concentrating on his job to make sure that he has the finances to support me. My question is, could he be stringing me along. He says all the right things but cannot even give me a time line or cannot make any promises. So if his son's graduation is delayed, does that mean more time on the table before he marries me. He won't give me a straight answer. Ladies, please help.
What do his actions say, Jenifer? That's the best place to look when you can't get the straight answers you're looking for. He could either be a detailed guy who wants to make sure he's got everything covered before marrying you, or he could be stalling for time. You know him best! After his actions, what does your gut intuition say? By 3 years, you should know him well enough by now to trust what you know in your own heart and soul!
Thank you Ella, Esperanza and everyone else for putting things in perspective. Bottom line, they can only play w/us if we let them. We women do have the power, strength and resiliency to say NEXT! No man is worth our disrespect or nonchalance. Like was said, if he doesn’t treat you right - walk away! Thank you, Jane for this community!
been there.....hard as it is you must gain your sanity back and leave for good on off relationships are always for ONE persons gain. its a game. he needs more time? GIVE IT TO HIM FOR GOOD. A woman who is strong enough will walk away....it took me 6 years to do just that. you involved in emotional unavailable man it WONT CHANGE it never does promises lies excuses etc it will break you down. WALK AWAY
6 years. We all have our limits, Esperanza. So glad you found yours! Thanks for stopping by to share your story. They all help!
Hi Kimberly, I really identified with your post and jane’s response and I was lucky that it only took me two years before I realised that my on again off again relationship was totally based on supplying the needs of my lover not of me. He could not commit not even to live together ever but was constantly saying he loved me....except of coursewhen I withdrew and then we’d be back on again because only then did he have the courage for the leap of faith ie. when I could not. We did this emotionally and physically crippling dance for over two years....But it did mean when I met a guy who clearly prioritised his 30 year old separated live in, financially supported daughter and her kids to the extent he could not go out for an evening with me without being labelled selfish by her that I bailed immediately so my message to you is we live and learn and each relationship is a growth experience not a wasted one...no one can tell us ...we have to see for ourselves and then we can act ....at that point we gain clarity. You will get there....hugs
So true, Cate. And only two years. The amount of time we wait for these men! But yes, look at what you've learned. We absolutely live and learn - and things tailor made for us because we won't learn them any other way! Thanks for sharing.
Hey,
I’m a kind hearted lady in a high roll at work I’m 33 years old and never been in a serious realationship, it’s all ways on and off we’re the guy gets distant or even disappears. I feel like I’m always the one who reaches out to the men In my life I feel before intimacy I always have them rapped around my fingers.. than it all changes I feel lost for words I change man like my under pants and just can’t seem to make it work or get it right.
Please help
Regards Rebecca
Let them reach out, Rebecca. Remember that you're the one doing the choosing, that they need to prove they're worthy of you and that can only happen by taking your time to get to know them well enough BEFORE being intimate with them. We can't think straight after intimacy. It triggers our deepest need for connection in ways we aren't even conscious of with someone we don't even really know. That's a recipe for disaster without even knowing any more details! Change this pattern and change your outcomes. We've been sold on the idea that we can change someone or bring them around by doing or being something we were never meant to be BEFORE they've ever earned the right to know us this way!
Because I've experienced something similar to your situation, Kimberly, it is occurring to me that this man appears to be married to his mother. And that his daughter is married to him. His daughter's children may end up married to his daughter, if the family pattern doesn't change. That is a unfortunate situation that you don't have to be part of, unless you want to.
The man I couldn't let go of, until he died 42 years after we met, was living in a VA hospital when he died. He had few belongings, but one of them was a photo of his mother and a note she wrote to him before she died. Once she died, he became homeless, along with several of his brothers (in their 40s) and nieces and nephews who lived in the same home as his mother and father. He didn't have any children. Finally, one of his younger more independent brothers let him live in a trailer on that younger brother's property until the man I put my life on hold for had a brainstem stroke and lived the last eight months of his life in the VA Hospital.
The man I let go of this year after a short non-relationship told me (the first time he asked me out for coffee) that his children were the most important thing in his life. He was telling me the truth. I was willing to make his children the second most important thing in our lives, secondary to our relationship, but it didn't work out that way. He is clearly married to his grown children. They ARE the most important thing in his life and have been since his marriage ended when they were children. I came to realize that he wanted me to be a devoted friend, a good listener, a nurse, a giving motherly woman. He saw my kindness. He saw that I loved him. He saw how I could be useful to him. He was not willing to talk things out. He shut me out if I asked for that.
But, to take the focus off of him and back on me, for the first time in my long life, I could not fall into that role I had always thought I had to play. I couldn't do it anymore because it was too painful. And that was when I found Jane's website and began to see that I am worthy of so much more than I ever dreamed in a relationship. I looked back at my patterns of relating to men that I had learned from my father and mother, despite the fact that I thought I had rebelled against my father and mother. I know how hard it is to give up hopes and dreams for a man who can't fulfill them. I couldn't do it for 42 years, but after learning what I have learned at Jane's website, I was able to let go of another unavailable man after 9 months. I was able to see that I was working to build a relationship alone. That was what I had done as a child with my parents. That was what I had done for 42 years. That is what I don't have to do anymore.
The decision to stay in this relationship or leave it behind is up to you, Kimberly. No one can make it for you. While you are making up your mind, this community of women can be a source of encouragement as you find out that you are worthy of love, no matter what. The only person we can change is ourselves. It's not easy, but it is possible, and my experience is that it is worth the effort.
This was so beautifully on point!
Absolutely.... we need these experiences to know who we really are. The journey is not wasted.... it gets us where we want to be and there we find what we need
I couldn't agree more, Cate. Never, ever a waste!
It sounds like you understand where she's coming from in ways she may not even understand, Ella. Thank you for your gift of sharing and understanding by going through what I'm sure you never would have wanted to be here sharing through all the pain you've carried with you. So glad you're free now, and free of ever being with someone like this again!
you wrote that so beautifully! THANK YOU! It gives me so much courage to think about my own situation. I've been dating a guy for 3 years, its's my longest relationship so far. And its absolutely going nowhere. This whole time I blamed myself and found a million excuses for him. His ex broke his heart, his father wasnt there for him, he always has bad luck etc. I'm doing everything for him, from listening to helping out financially. But if I'm being honest with myself.. he never asked me to do those things. Sometimes I wonder why I feel that thats my job. He is supposed to be my partner not my adopted child.. and why is it so difficult to let go of that type of person?
Because it has everything to do with us, Anaelle. It's not really about any "him"; only what he represents and mirrors back to us that we otherwise couldn't see! (As for why you feel that's your job - yes, I'd definitely take the time to wonder there!)