Intentionally dating no relationship..

there is no bigger picture… if he wanted he would, trust me if a guy wants to be with you , in a relationship with you, he would be. He can still sleep with you, see you every week, text you everyday , but for some reason he cannot commit , but he is ok with that. Sorry to say but that is one big BS.
If the roles were reversed, I don’t know any guy who would stick through, he would just leave and find someone else, with no drama attached . Why we as women tend to get drawn to people who needs fixing ?
You are wasting your time, because by the time he is ready to commit , he will commit to someone else… and you might be surprised how soon this happens.
And of course he wants you to stick around because once is sorted his life out, he will leave you , but in the meantime he is going to enjoy your company with no commitment .

Octavia, it is possible that he will change his mind, but only when you leave and if you do decide to give him a chance , only settle for relationship not situationship.
But first you need to completely cut him off , if you stay in touch with him, keep seeing him etc nothing is going to change. He had a year to make you his girlfriend and he didn’t.

You’ve been “bearing with him” for over a year and that’s much longer than he should have expected from anyone.

Not trying to be harsh but have to point out the truth: a man who is genuinely emotionally mature and loves you wouldn’t expect a woman to hang around the way you have for so long without being in an official relationship. He’s being extremely selfish.

You’ve been accepting crumbs and he’s stringing you along with pretty words. I’m glad you decided to stop. “Dating intentionally” and “practically dating to marry” are both a bunch of BS to keep you hooked. He’s using you as an emotional crutch.

You’re now in a no-win situation. He’s grudgingly agreed to put the label on it, but almost certainly he’ll throw that back in your face someday – “I didn’t have a choice, you forced me!”

If he hasn’t gotten his sh*t together in more than a year it could be quite a while longer before he does. And also… hate to tell you, but men will usually dump the woman who supported them through tough times. He doesn’t want the reminder of those tough times in his face every day. He’ll go start fresh with someone new.

If it were me, I’d tell him thanks but it would be better until you can come to me of your own free will to ask me to be your girlfriend. Tell him to take 90 days to work on himself and his life and come back to you at that time with an update. And then go completely no contact. That gives you long enough to get yourself over him and moving forward with your life so you don’t care if he comes back around or not. And you don’t care if he does and isn’t offering anything real because his life hasn’t improved. If he wants you enough, he’ll do the work to pull himself out of the dumps and be worthy of you.

Also… I’d strongly suggest looking at yourself to understand why this kind of man would even be attractive to you and why you would accept this situation for so long when you know you want a real, committed relationship.

I Was attracted to him as he is kind, caring and a supportive person.
I’ve seen him and I know this stage of life hasn’t been too kind to him. He isn’t use to opening up and he did. Men silently suffer when it comes to mental health, they have a high suicide rates so I didn’t want to leave at his worst. He took a risk and was vulnerable and I didn’t want to throw it in his face because I want what I want right now.
When things are good, he is the sweetest person and puts me first. He does investing on the side and when it was going well I was the first person he thought of to treat. Actions can make you overlook the verbal title of a relationship. So that’s why I stuck around for a year. Also he was introducing me as he partner until our talk yesterday when he said he isn’t ready for a relationship but wants to continue until he is mentally capable of putting someone else other than himself first. So I’m now putting me first and leaving.

He’s had a rough two years. So you met him in the middle of this, is that right? He was already living at his mother’s?

I’m writing this for you and everyone here, because this is a common bind women get into.

Obviously we’re going to be attracted to men who present as kind, caring and supportive. But we have to look a lot deeper than that before we decide to date a man for the long haul, as in past three months. This man is like a bird with a broken wing, and we women as nurturers tend to want to care for wounded beings and nurse them back to health. It’s a very, very bad idea all the way around to do that with a man you want to have a romantic future with. It’s one thing if you met him in good times and things got tough. But men who are in hard times when you meet them are almost always better left to do the work to heal themselves. You can be a friend, of course. But when you turn into a carer and a therapist, you almost always ruin your chances of a real future with them.

I had to learn this the hard way more than once. You’ve gotta walk away from the fixer uppers and let them come back when they’re healthy.

You say he’s the sweetest person when things are good. Yeah, that’s not a notable accomplishment. Everyone is nice when things are good. If you want a long term future with someone, you want to know what they do when times are hard. Maddie made a lot of good points – this guy doesn’t handle bad times very well. Furthermore it’s extremely unfair to introduce you as his partner for so long and then after a year say, oh no, I’m not ready to be in a relationship.

The mistake you made – and that I’ve made and that we’ve all made – is you took him treating you in a way you believe is the way a man treats a GF to mean you were his GF. Read this site, it’s full of women who thought they were in a relationship because he was doing this that and the other, but it didn’t mean anything. Men can enjoy a woman’s company and do a lot for her and not have any intention of asking her to be his GF or more. We as women have to keep our eyes wide open and be willing to see the truth, not just what we want to see. We shouldn’t be sticking around because we feel sorry for a man. That’s not the basis for a healthy, two way relationship. Yes, men in some age groups have high suicide rates and yes he opened up to you and that’s no small thing. At the same time that doesn’t create an obligation to continue dating him. That’s where I would have said, I respect you’re going through a lot. Let’s table dating for now. Glad to be a friend. Think about it. Someone with this many issues can’t be available for a health romantic relationship , it’s impossible.

It feels kind of manipulative to me that when faced with you walking away he suddenly changes his tune… OK, OK, I’ll call you my GF since you insist. I’d personally would not trust anyone who did that going forward. This guy has a lot of problems and it’s incumbent on him to do the work to clear it all up. I don’t believe he’s doing it on purpose, but he does seem to be using you as a crutch. This is all set up for his benefit.

I had a couple of BFs like this, met them at a low point in their lives, and as soon as things improved it was hey thanks, gotta move on now. And I’ve seen that happen to friends as well. It’s almost like they’re embarrassed you saw them as less than the winner they always want to be and they have to run and put you behind them. And they also don’t respect you for putting up with the crap they dished out in their less than ideal state.

I had to sit down and come to terms with the fact that I was deliberately picking fixer uppers because I knew it wouldn’t work out and I had a fear of commitment. I also had to learn to look beyond just a nice guy veneer.

I hope this helps you Octavia and everyone else reading. I learned the hard way. Maybe you or someone will read this and it will spare them some pain.

Finally – I hope you’re prepared that he’s going to do his utmost to talk you out of walking away. He may even cry. Stay strong. You’ve done more than enough here and it’s time for you to find someone in a healthy place who is available as you deserve.

Typos + Autocorrect!! 😬😬
I meant : 🌟a man who knows what he’s got when he has you! 🌟💖🥰

AngieBaby, I had this happen with a new friend recently. I didn’t really understand her sudden offish behaviour but had a vague idea that it had to do with me seeing her at a terrible low point (not of her making) and the subsequent power dynamic/hierarchy that inadvertently seemed to develop as I helped her through it.

Her behaviour was mildly perplexing because the reason we first became friends was she was supercool and funny and I admired and respected her. I was fully ready to see her step up again into her best self again and had once again started to enjoy her company when she was back to her normal self. I just thought she was a cool person on the whole either way, and was happy for however she showed up. I saw her low point as a temporary blip, which anyone would experience if the same thing had happened to them.

But even afterwards when she’d gotten over it, something still felt a bit off, not as natural between us as before the incident/event when we were originally on a level. An invisible awkwardness seemed to be there under the surface. As if we’d gotten closer under false pretences, at least on her side.

I now understand from reading your post (and the other posters too) that she must be embarrassed by how she presented to me during that low point.

Thank you for explaining this, it helps a lot to understand this. I can’t say I wasn’t mildly perturbed and a little annoyed by her suddenly ignoring me at a couple of points. But I let it go because when I stopped paying her attention, she seemed to come find me and make extra efforts, as if she was trying to make up for ignoring me.

But now I can understand what’s really happening here, I can have more compassion for her.

Kind of the opposite effect to how she must want to be seen…

She’s gone awol currently, and I guess when she returns, I’ll just stop imagining we’re friends at all. No-one needs that even in the side-lines of their life. And it feels kind of icky too the more I think about it.

You’ve helped me understand her and what’s been happening much more deeply and clearly. Thank you! No more wasted energy wondering at those intermittent interactions!

There’s one thing I still don’t get though. I’ve had lots of my friends see me at awful low points over the years. But I value their friendship more because they helped me through it, and I work harder because I want them to see me as a winner and someone worthy of their respect. And also, well irrespective of them, who doesn’t want to do well and be happy in life?!

They’re the same with me.

That’s what friendship is isn’t it? You see each other through the ups and downs and it bonds you and brings you closer.

I want good people like that in my life, they’re a privilege to have and to know, they make everything better and richer and sunnier don’t they?

But what does this behaviour exemplified by “runners” if you like, say about them? Do they feel so flawed inside that they can’t bear anyone to have seen that? And they’d rather take what they had and lose good people than hang around with them?

Or is it more the case that, they never saw us as truly valuable in the first place or never really liked us in their heart of hearts? (Totally their prerogative of course, but not so healthy to hang around these people as even low level friends it seems.)