It’s Already a Relationship but he wants to Wait a Couple Months for the Title

Oh man, alexandria and you are really asking this question? You are totally wasting your time and in avery bad way since you want a loyal partner and have kids. But you chose a guy already past kids, who is not faithfull, does not want to commit, but likes to keep you hanging and openly tells you he doesnt think he can be monogamous plus has another Gf for a year (i do think its odd though she e-mails you so i dont think its that open on her side). Can we shake you until you become sane again? This guy has done nothing to deserve you except being on his best behaviour first few months. After that he turned out to be a frog and youre still in total denial. I guess there will be no loving partner and kids in your future. And he will also not be in it since he is a lying player

You’re kidding, right?!
Please tell me you’re kidding…

I don’t really need to be bashed here. I’m coming on here sharing my personal life and being vulnerable.

And im not even saying something you dont agree with. Your mind agrees. Your heart just wont follow yet. Talk to people you care about and see what they say

Hypothetical question. What is something, that if he did, you would undoubtedly be able to leave him?

You need to go into dating strong nowadays, have a I-don’t-care attitude until exclusivity. I’m so mad reading your post as you don’t deserve to be treated like this. I’m all for girl power and I have zero respect for f-boys.

There’s no point going round in circles here. He’s not going to commit to you I’m sure, and if he were to in November, what’s to say he won’t cheat on you later on.

Be the dumper instead of being dumped, trust me you’ll feel more superior later on, especially for a f-boy.

I agree with what the ladies here have said. You have to snap out of this. What strikes me about your posts is that you know this guy is toxic. You are well aware of the dynamic here, it’s not like you’re fooling yourself. And yet you still claim to love him. Realistically you only dated a couple of months before his true colors emerged. That’s not even enough time to really fall in love with someone. You were still in the infatuation/honeymoon stage when this all fell apart.

I would suggest you change the narrative that you are telling yourself. You feel undervalued by this guy even though he’s clearly trash and is not deserving of your loyalty and love. This is a victim mindset. Why are you giving him this power over you? He isn’t even capable of recognizing and appreciating your value, from the sound of it. He’s garbage and a f*ckboy as you are well aware. He’s the kind of guy who hooks up with women on a business trip (women that already have a boyfriend, even). So expecting him to appreciate you is not realistic.

I also suggest you stop telling yourself you’re in love with him. You’re not. Infatuated, yes, but no guy you’ve dated for a couple of months deserves this level of devotion.

He’s stringing you along (probably for the ego boost) and has no intention of being a faithful, monogamous boyfriend to you. If he wanted that, he would have been doing it this whole time already. The whole “I’ll decide in November” line is bullsh!t. He’s already decided. You’re barking up the wrong tree if you expect this guy to change.

It’s commonly said on this site that you have to watch a guy’s actions more than his words during the first months of dating. This guy talked a good game, he said everything you wanted to hear, but his behavior completely contradicted everything he said. You have to believe a guy’s behavior over his words for the first 3-4 months of dating especially. All the talk about moving in together, marriage, kids, introducing you to his family– it’s meaningless, because his behavior is showing who he truly is. You have to believe his behavior.

Really if you can shift your mindset on this, I think you can snap out of this pretty quickly, because it’s so obvious this guy is a piece of sh!t. I really encourage you to try.

I value all of this advice for sure. I even agree with a lot of it. His behavior, however has not been all bad. In fact it’s been the opposite which is what got me hooked in the first place. He was so different and a breath of fresh air in comparison to so many men out there.

He followed through on his word, made effort to consistently communicate (still does), is very affectionate and loving, openly communicates how he feels about me, attempts to resolve issues and apologizes for his mistakes, and works hard at making effort to actually “date” me by taking me places and spending 4-5 days a week together. It’s almost as if we (as he’s said) part time live together.

He has made this “time frame” more about the difficulties going on in his life and let me tell you, he has a pile of them. Currently his businesses are being investigated by the SEC. If came about 3 months into us dating which was exactly the time frame I was contacted by other females. Since his businesses are on pause until that is done,he’s not doing as well as he would like to be financially. He is much better off than most people in the world financially, but not at the level he’s always been at. He also has 2 other open court cases (not involving his work) that aren’t my place to say the details about, but he’s kind of a wreck about it all. He naturally didn’t want to open up about this until he felt comfortable about it with me. I appreciated his honesty when he did because it’s obviously pretty embarrassing, but everyone’s life right now with COVID and work and family and emotionally is kind of chaotic. I pride myself on being someone who does not judge and my life isn’t in the best spot either. So, he confides in me about literally every aspect of my life and knows I’m there to advise, comfort him, and support him with no judgement. He even has 3 kids and an ex wife that he’s managing and juggling issues with. His oldest daughter is having behavioral issues (shes 12) and he’s had to change his schedule with them from an 80-20% custody split (his ex wife does not work so he has only had them every other weekend) to now having them every other weekend AND M-W. He asked me if i could give him my every other weekend (when he doesn’t have the kids) and Th+ Fri. This was a conversation just a few days ago. I was under the assumption based on conversations that he had STOPPED talking on dating sites so I agreed. Thinking it was just us and i was giving him time to get his personal and business affairs in order.

He made this “around November” time frame about when he thinks his mind will be in a better place about his life in general. Told me that he will be able to give me his full energy toward our relationship to worship me and be devoted to me, but that right now nothing is extremely serious for him and that he never expected to fall hard for me so he doesn’t know how to proceed but knows he doesn’t want to lose me. He tells me he truly loves me and begs me to hang in for a couple more months so that we can “have the chance” we deserve. In me being an understanding person about his life, I had agreed to do that UNTIL i found out that that also included him chatting up other women. He only hooked up physically with ONE other woman (the one who has a bf and clearly doesn’t take her own relationship seriously). The others never moved to meeting them in person but were chats via bumble and text. ALL of which I’ve made clear make me feel disrespected and uncomfortable investing more emotionally toward him if he thinks that’s ok.

He tells me because we have not exclusively committed to each other that he isn’t technically “cheating” or being “unfaithful”, but then my response has been that our relationship in every other aspect has graduated to a serious and exclusive relationship. So this is what i mean by saying “it’s already a relationship”…. he just took back the title we had for the first 3 months. Also, I realize from the outside looking in it’s a pretty logical decision. It appears he wants his cake and to eat it too. I don’t really agree this is a bed IVE made for myself. I went along with a dating situation that I thought was normal until all this stuff came out within the last few weeks. It’s been a lot of emotional upheaval and i HAVE left. 3 diff times.

When i leave, he shows up to my house with flowers and asks if we can work it out. Pulls and tugs on the emotional ties we already have developed and it really isn’t as easy as many of you are making it seem or a simple “light switch on/off” solution. This may have only been a few months time frame but because we’ve spent so many days together consecutively every week it FEELS like it’s been much much longer and is much much deeper of a connection therefore this isn’t just an up and run situation.

As of the most recent discussion (2 days ago in person) he has promised to not date other women while he works his life out and then we can talk about commitment and exclusivity at the 6 month marker (November). I have a ton of emotions here. Anger and resentment that I feel I’m being taken advantage of and for granted. Then love and connection to the relationship we HAVE developed. I am by no means giving excuses for his behavior, it frankly disgusts me. I’m simply providing more background details to the evolution of our relationship and that his actions have never really been like this. It’s sort of a feeling of …. perfection in a connection to … wait what just happened?!

What I have told myself is to try to slowly detach myself from him by spending time with other men. I don’t really have a desire to do so since I’m genuinely in love (not infatuated – I’m 33 i know what love is) but more as a distraction. To create a bit of a distance from my emotions related to him to reevaluate if this is really who I want for myself. And in the meantime, I still feel like i need to give myself the 2 months so i can say I’ve given it my absolute ALL and if he can’t give me exclusivity then… i am forced to leave. But there’s a part of me that feels he’s being genuine when he tells me he just needs a couple more months to get his own life and affairs in order before he can give me everything i deserve.

Relationships are really hard and I have purposely taken a while since my last relationship to allow myself to open up to others. My last relationship was 3 years and we lived together. It was REALLY hard getting over it and moving past it, but I’m 100% fine about it now. However it took me about a year and a half to let go of it all. So i took 4 years in between of not making any commitments to anyone while dating to make sure I was ready. This man has been the first person I’ve allowed my walls down for and it isn’t really something you can just easily reel back in.

ANON i really appreciate that approach, I’ll definitely do that. Documenting feelings and situations as I go would be very self reflective. Thank you.

I have asked him about that. Saying what if you fall in love with someone else and he said “it wasn’t about an emotional connection” and “that would never happen”. Then he promised he wouldn’t do what he’s been doing (talking to other women) but i obviously have a hard time believing that because i went into his phone.

I just feel like it’s all about indulging for him. He drinks more than he ever has, smokes weed every day (he started bc he broke is back a year ago and uses it for pain), and openly admits he self medicates because of his life issues. I think sex and women factor into his indulgences so he can convince himself with women who don’t know his life obstacles that he is someone he’s not right now. I don’t think he had intention of the other women getting serious and said most guys go into it thinking just about casual sex and that the nature of our relationship is serious and different. But that as a whole he can’t commit to ANYone right now but that once he is able to he wouldn’t want anyone but me.

So basically the definition of emotionally unavailable, but he went into it saying and showing me the complete opposite. My fear is if i leave, he’ll pick another woman and replace me with her and that will be who he commits to. I’ve had a few men in my past do exactly that and no one can describe to you the blame and hurt that brings you seeing someone you desperately wanted that commitment and exclusivity with giving it to someone else. And everyone can tell me “it has nothing to do with me” and everything to do with him … which may be true. But in the females mind that’s emotionally attached and as a human being in general it’s giant hit to my ego and self esteem. It makes you feel like you aren’t worthy of someone committing to you.

I know i have so much to offer and have given all of it to him thus far. I think fear of going through the same hurt I’ve been through in my past is really another wall placed in front of me that I’m not able to address or get past. It feels like ANYone you date now a days has so much baggage and whether i deal with HIS issues or someone else’s…. it doesn’t really tend to ever turn out much different for me. Even if i dedicate years to the relationship.

My last relationship I was cheated on in the last year (of 3 years) and when I finally agreed to move my things across the country to live with him again (he moved to Boston from CA for work) and uproot my life here in CA …. i spent money and time preparing to move my life there and left my job …. all to be stood up at the airport and left (ghosted) after a 3 year relationship. It feels MOST men I meet or love don’t have respect for me in return. Regardless of how much i give or understand or love. It took me 4 years of being single to be ready for THIS relationship… so even if i decided to leave him now…. i don’t really have much faith I’ll meet anyone better.

My heart goes out to you. I understand this awful Möbius strip of misery.

Years ago, I got involved with a man who is well-known in my town and well-liked. He is very sexy and charming and even seems humble at first. But boy does he do a number on women, every single on of his exes, including me. He seemed to genuinely love me and care about me….when he wanted. He cannot be faithful and he is a narcissist to the highest degree. Not a malignant narcissist, but a narcissist nonetheless.

I really fell for him and when our relationship fell apart, I didn’t think I would ever get over it. It messed me up. I thought there was something about me that was disposable and unlovable, or I wasn’t special enough.

Eventually I got a little better, then briefly dated more jerks because I had no standards. After a while, I gave up. Then I started to enjoy my own company. Then, I decided to give a friend of mine a chance, a nice and cute fellow who I’d known for a while. He liked me for years but he wasn’t what I imagined for myself.

It is the happiest, healthiest relationship I have ever known. He is considerate and kind, he is affectionate without being cloying, he is communicative without being clingy, he is reliable and helpful and respectful and he is also hilarious. Early on, I broke up with him because…well I don’t even remember why at this point, but I didn’t expect to feel the amount of grief and loss I did during that period. Even during the breakup, he never berated me, yelled at me, or was manipulative, and I realized I loved him.

Recently we were talking about how awful the dating scene can be, and I said “Yeah, I hate not knowing where on the rotation I am.” He looked at me and said, “I can’t speak for your exes, but with me, YOU ARE the rotation.” It was beautiful.

Guys like your current fella are like drugs. We get addicted to them. They’re so bad for us but we can’t shake them. It really is an addiction.

But it’s possible to get past it. I realized that if my sexy narcissist ex came back and begged me to come back, I’d laugh in his face—the idea is preposterous to me now.

Know your self-worth, know you deserve better than this. You deserve to be treated with love and respect and kindness and patience and honesty. It will hurt to extricate yourself from this situation but it must be done in order for you to find the right man.

Ugh, sorry, one last thing

You state your fear that you will be replaced and the next woman he’s with will be the one he commits to.

There are a few problems with this—

First, he won’t commit. Guys like this do not commit.

Second, this guy is not a prize. He’s garbage.

Third, even if he said he is committed, would you believe him? He is not trustworthy.

Let this man go—you are only hurting yourself by staying.