I have known this man for 25 years. I dated him before I got married to another man and he also married someone else. We both recently divorced our spouses, him in 2006 and me 2009. A friend told him I was divorced and he emailed me. We talked and emailed for about 6 months and then got together. It was a little awkward, but we had a great time after I relaxed. We got together again about a month later and it was great.
While I was still married, we talked several times a day. Now we talk about once a week and e-mail. My question is: How do I know if he has any serious thoughts about me? He gets very uncomfortable if I try to even ask how he feels. He said he is not sleeping with anyone but me and is happy by himself. One time when I asked, he said he considers me his companion and lover. What does that mean?
Another problem is that we live several states away, but there are no kids or reasons not to see each other. He said he will share real estate with someone, but no marriage and told me he is not ready to move where I am. Is it worth continuing this?
Your question is how do you know if he has any serious thoughts about you.
If this particular guy is not seeing anyone else and he’s content being with you as his lover and companion, I would say that means he’s as serious as he’s ready to be right now.
I’ve known a bunch of guys in their 30s, 40s and 50s who were divorced… they’ve shared their stories with me and it was really tough to hear. The toughest part of all of it was the pain I could see it still caused them, even after having a few years to heal.
Guys are OK with a relationship being simple. Actually no. Guys LOVE when relationships are simple. To us, the fact that we’re spending time with you and not doing something else means that you’re important to us. Now granted we know that women prefer to be told in different ways, but my point is that we don’t need the relationship to be “serious” to be important to us.
In other words, if a guy has been through a divorce, I have to imagine that it was torture for him to go through. Maybe not, but I have never met a guy who didn’t describe his divorce as one of the worst experiences of his life.
With that said, I would imagine that a guy who’s been divorced might really want to take things slow and just enjoy things being light and fun and easy for a while. “Serious” isn’t a fun word… so we aren’t exactly running towards it after going through something as serious as a divorce.
Plus, if you divorced in 2009, I have to imagine you might need more time to recuperate than you would like to think. I don’t want to make an assumption about what you’re experiencing, but it’s possible your guy just wants to take things nice and slow and easy, for now, just so that both of you can really have some time together before things get serious.
With that said, I think this guy really likes you a lot. A guy doesn’t just call a woman everyday unless she’s very special to him. So I would say there is certainly potential for this to turn into something more than it is now.
I would say if you like this guy and you’d like a more “serious” future with him, focus on spending really great time with him and DO NOT bring up the subject of how deeply he feels about you or how serious he is. Trust me, it can come back to bite you.
If you bring up the subject of how much he cares or becoming “serious”, then it puts pressure on him. AND it makes him reluctant to say anything because he’s afraid it might be taken the wrong way or that you might think he’s just saying it because it’s what you want to hear. Again, trust me on this, there are many ask a guy readers who later followed up to tell me that their guy finally came around once they dropped the subject for good.
I think you have a good shot of things working out well.
– eric charles
Written by Eric Charles
