I’m going to start out by saying that none of what you are about to read is about anyone that you know online or anyone you’ve met or anyone I’ve talked about, so don’t start speculating that you know this person. I can guarantee that you don’t. Literally about 5 people I know have met this person and they don’t read my blog so… moving on.
I have a very close friend who is in a relationship. He met a girl about 6 months ago. He liked her and they kept in touch. He went to see her roughly once a month and then at the beginning of January they decided to step things up and see each other more often and see if they could turn things into more than what they previously were. One important thing I’ve left out is that she lives 3 hours away from him. (He just moved last weekend – prior to his move it was 8 hours)
I would like to see your honest opinions of what you’d do in his situation. What questions would you ask? Would you run? Would you stay and sort it out? What would you do? What advice do you have for him?
Buckle up, put on your crash helmet and hang on. Here we go….
He met her one night while traveling in a bar at a hotel he was staying in. They got chatting for hours and at the end of the night she gave him her number. He thought she was cute and the conversation was good so he kept in touch with her. The girl is married with two young children. She is estranged from her husband, but they’re not divorced. He’s moved out of the house, but I’m not sure when that happened.
My friend has been the one to drive back and forth to see her. He’s been the one who always seems to be going out of his way for her. (Each visit costs him $200 between his hotel room for the night and gas) She understandably can’t just up and leave to see him for the weekend because of her children. I wonder if this will always be the way. Even after she’s divorced will she be able to take the children out of the county where her and her husband lived? Divorce laws vary by county in the state she lives in. And they do NOT recognize legal separations. They’ve been keeping their relationship behind closed doors until she speaks with an attorney (this week) to find out the consequences if her husband does find out she has a boyfriend. The way I see it, since her state doesn’t recognize legal separations, it would probably be viewed as adultery. Could this possibly jeopardize her custody situation? I’m not sure. While we’re on the issue of her kids, how easy is it going to be for my friend to raise someone else’s kids? Will her ex-husband make it a living hell for him? My friend obviously can’t even meet these kids to see what they’re like. (Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand this, it’s not healthy for kids to meet everyone their Mom or Dad dates until it’s serious)
She seems to communicate with him most often by text messaging. Picking up the phone and calling him seems to be a foreign concept for her. He’ll send her a text at 7AM and he might hear back from her by 2 in the afternoon if he’s lucky. She’ll ask him to text her when he gets home after work so she can call him. He’ll send the text at 7:15PM and not hear back from her. She’s used the excuse over and over again that she fell asleep with her kids. That excuse is getting really old and tired…. This is the first month the two of them have been dating more seriously and she doesn’t seem to care about communicating with him. When she DOES communicate it’s always sweet, nice and flattering, it’s just getting her TO communicate that’s the problem. She’s asked him to let her know when he’s home from work so she can call, he’s passed up dinners to wait for her call that never comes. He really likes her and didn’t mind sacrificing some time with his buddies for her, but he DOES mind it when she couldn’t be bothered to call. She paints a really pretty picture with her words and flattery, but she doesn’t seem to back it up with actions. You know the old adage “Actions speak louder than words.” My friend is willing to drop everything and pick up that phone and make time for her whenever. Again, he’s going out of his way for her. But it’s getting to the point that he feels like he’s 10th or 12th on her list. I understand that her children are first, as they should be, but he should be right up there at the top with them. He doesn’t feel like he’s important to her because she’s not showing it…. He talked to her a few weeks ago that she needed to step up her communication skills and this is how it’s been since then.
Is she just playing head games with him?
Does she want to be chased?
Is that why her communications skills SUCK??
She seems to have a lot of time that’s unaccounted for.
What’s she doing that she can’t call or text him?
My friend mentioned to her at one point that he wanted to join the rest of the world and go out and get a laptop. He works with computers all day long so the last thing he wants to do when he gets home is play around on the computer. He’s been thinking about it though. When he told her this her response was “What, are you going to go and get a Facebook account too?” (and she wasn’t saying it in a joking way) She said that she likes that he’s not online. (I’m not sure if she’s worry he’ll cheat on her, catch her online, or be hit on by other women??) She did tell him that she has a MySpace that she rarely uses. What she failed to mention is that she does have a Facebook with a decent number of friends. We don’t know if she goes on it often, but isn’t it kind of hypocritical? I’m not saying she has a ton of friends – in fact she’s got nothing compared to me, but the point is it’s pretty shitty to make it clear she doesn’t want him on there when she is.
Every time they’ve met up since the night they met, they’ve met at a hotel in the town where she lives. They hang out there and don’t go out in public because they don’t want to run into her ex or someone that could tell him. So one weekend he went with her to a football game out of town. It’s the first time they were ever really in public together. She spent pretty much the whole game flirting and heckling a guy who was sitting in front of her. She ignored my friend. He almost walked out of the stadium and went home. When he finally confronted her about it, she didn’t understand why he was upset. That would have been a deal killer for me. Disrespect is a HUGE deal killer for me. For my friend it usually is too. This girl played it off that she didn’t think it was a big deal. The guy she was talking to was cheering for the other team and she was having fun. If it was me and I hadn’t seen my boyfriend in weeks, I would have spent the whole time talking to him because I hadn’t seen him in a couple weeks. But that would be me….I wonder how she’ll behave in public next time they go somewhere? I hope she learns from last time….
He made a comment on one visit that she could be cheating on him and he wouldn’t even know it because he lives so far away from her. Her response was “When would I have the time?” That sounded like a very evasive answer to me. My response would have been something like “I have you, I don’t want anyone else, and you’re the guy for me and the only one I want.”
A big concern that my friend has is that from what he sees this girl has never had an example of a healthy relationship in her life. Her Father left when she was young and her parents divorced. Her Mom remarried and got divorced again. She’ll even admit that she knew she was making a mistake the day she got married and referred to her marriage as “lust at first sight.” She’s never had a healthy relationship to model herself after…. This girl is 35 years old and loves to watch The Real World and Jersey Shore. Isn’t it time to get interested in something a little less juvenile? I have friends who watched Jersey Shore and asked if they can have that hour of their life back. My friends concern is that the more you watch crap like that on TV you get desensitized. You start to think that cheating and treating people like crap is ok and it’s a way of life. When he brought this up to her she told him to watch Sex In The City if he wanted to understand women. Seriously? I think a comment like that is the kiss of death for this girl. My friend is an old fashioned kind of guy. He’s got manners, morals, and values. He doesn’t treat women like objects. Is this guy watches that show, he’s going to think all girls are like Samantha who’s out getting laid with a different guy every night of the week. That is not what this guy wants to see. He doesn’t need to see Carrie go out with one guy and go to a bar and make out with another guy. Saying women are like what you see on Sex In The City is not the way to get to this guys heart. (And for the record I LOVE SITC, but I’d never tell a guy that’s what all women are like and what all women want!)
This girl is good to him face to face. She can carry on a great conversation when they’re together and she’s got his attention. Something about her made him notice her. The problem for her is that his attention is waning…. He went to see her last week and was going to lay a lot of these issues he has with her out on the table among others (YES there are OTHER issues on top of all these) but when he got there she had cooked him a nice dinner and brought it to the hotel, so he felt bad about coming into that with an ambush and didn’t bring it up. He also didn’t want to stress her out a couple days before she’s going to talk to an attorney because he realizes that talking to an attorney will be stressful enough. He cares about this girl quite a bit, he says they do have some stuff in common, but I feel like she just doesn’t know a thing about him. If she did she wouldn’t be behaving the way she is.
My friend is honestly one of the sweetest, nicest guys on God’s green Earth, but he’s the rebound guy. (She says she hasn’t dated anyone since her husband) He’s a great guy, he isn’t controlling, he thinks that both parties in a relationship should be making decisions together, but she seems to be wearing the pants and controlling where this relationship is going at the moment and in my friends words “No cat will ever walk this dog.”
As I’ve talked to him I’ve come up with tons of unanswered questions. Obviously my first one is security. My friend makes good money, has a house, nice car, a few expensive toys on the side… Could she just be looking for a soft place to land? A sugar Daddy to take care of her and her kids? Or does she really care about him because he’s a great guy and how he makes her feel? My friend puts his girl up on a pedestal. Since he started noticing all this stuff he’s knocked her down a bit, but he still treats her wonderfully through it all. He doesn’t want to become a doormat though.
Another concern is if he sticks it out with her somehow and then she gets her divorce will she leave him in the dust and ride off into the sunset with some other guy now that she’s free of her marriage?? Having been through a divorce myself I’ve explained to my friend that she will be a different woman after all is said and done. I know I went in one way and came out the other side much harder, less trusting, annoyed much easier….
I worry quite a bit about my friend. (Hence this being the longest blog I’ve ever written) There are questions sprinkled throughout this whole situation. I worry that if he breaks up with her though without getting some sort of closure will he forever wonder what would have happened if he stayed?
What are your honest opinions of what you’d do in his situation?
What questions would you ask?
Would you run?
Would you stay and sort it out?
What would you do?
What advice do you have for him?
Thank you for reading this! I know it was long winded and I REALLY appreciate it.
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