Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
Here is a Woman far beyond her years (pity old boy did not see that)
I broke up with my boyfriend of 4 years this past Thursday night. 2 days before that, I learned the devestating truth that he still felt unsure about anything concerning us getting married.
I see other people suggesting that you stick it out, so I came back to the OP and want to focus on this first couple of sentences.
Does he want to marry you, but he's just not ready to make that leap or is he not sure he wants to marry you? There is a big difference, IMO.
If it is the former, then I agree with those saying stick it out. If it is the latter, then I think the choice you made was the right one.
I've seen many a friend hang on for 5-10 years b/c their man kept saying he wasn't sure he wanted to get married. One of them - her boyfriend broke up with her after about 10 years and within a year was married to another woman...and within the first year of marriage they were pregnant. My friend was devastated b/c she had wanted to get married and have children so badly...and felt like she basically wasted 10 years of her life waiting for her BF to be "ready". When, in reality, she just wasn't the woman he wanted to marry, apparently.
I'm not saying that is the case here, I'm just saying it DOES happen.
I definitely felt like that some years back when my wife and I were still dating. I found that keeping our relationship together instead of breaking up was the best thing I could have done.I talked with him over the phone yesterday to hopefully clear up some things. I believe he and I are both still as confused as we ever were.
Twice I asked him about what you asked me, both questions...and twice I received replies that basically amounted to, "I don't know" or "I'm not sure". We talked a long time, and he cried (I did too a little) and confessed a lot of things to me. He feels like he needs to figure out who he is...he wants to be a man who keeps his word and sticks with whatever he says or sets out to do (he specifically named praying with purpose regularly, and regular Bible reading and listening to what the Lord has to say to him), and stop just floating through life. He feels he's been floating for a very long time.
I guess he feels like he doesn't know what his purpose is, maybe?
Help please, anyone
He asked me to pray for him in some specific areas, and that's all I know to do right now. I'm still at the point (hasn't even been 2 weeks) where I hope the relationship can be saved. But I'm not sure what's going to happen. Hate to think I could lose him forever, but it's very likely it's already headed in that direction
I respect WWC and since he has walked this walk, I encourage you to consider his advice.
HoweverI would also encourage you to make sure that you respect your own desires and wishes, too. Losing him is not ideal, but neither is living indefinitely in limbo.
I think praying for the specific things for him is a great start. I also think encouraging him in any way that you can when endeavors to do new things to discover his purpose in life is a good thing.
But, he needs to agree to be candid and forthright with you about where he is at with regards to the relationship at regular intervals (every 3-6 months, maybe?). You don't want to devote years to helping him find himself and then find out at the end that his end goals are not the same as yours. KWIM?
I guess what I'm trying to say (in 10,000 words or less) is to proceed with caution and guard your heart if you decide to stick by him in this process of finding himself.
Hi SomethingBeautiful...
Reading your post was like reading my own diary from 20 years ago :-( This might get a little long, but I want to tell you how the next two decades unfolded for me because my husband was saying all that same exact stuff before we married.
In my case, I was 25 and my boyfriend and I had been together for 5 years. He was damaged emotionally from a very difficult childhood which included abandonment of his family by his father while he was still a toddler, then further issues involving his brothers and mother while growning up. But he was a good hearted man and said he strongly believed in marriage and family as absolute committments based on how he saw himself and his family hurt by his own father. I felt the same but mostly because my family is very close with lifelong marriages throughout, and very few divorces anywhere in extended family. My boyfriend was very scared of making that committment himself, though, as he had mostly broken, dysfunctional relationships throughout his family. After we were together for five years and he was still scared to get married, I told him that I loved him very much and this wasn't an "ultimatum", but I wanted a family and children someday and we should go our separate ways if he still wasn't sure he wanted to get married. He said he loved me but still wasn't sure and that he agreed we should break up... it was agony for me but it seemed the best decision. We did so and had no contact for several months until he learned I was dating another man (I believed the break was forever and had completely moved on with my life, nursing my heartache privately, no contact with him or his family, or even our old friends together). After he discovered I was dating, he came back and proposed immediately, said he had been praying about it and really believed at that point that God meant us to get married. I believed him and was very happy.... we got married the next year when I was 26.... we had two daughters within the first 3 years... and then I wasn't happy ever again :-(
He never got over his committment phobia, seemed to be overwhelmed at family responsibilities, regular working at a married relationship.... and then he just "uncommitted" emotionally. He was still there going to work every day, and he loved our children, but he lived emotionally every day holding himself above our relationship as if he were still sitting on the fence trying to decide whether we should stay together or not. He completely shut down the emotional and physical aspects of our marriage, would rarely discuss it at all, and then just paid lip service to marriage counseling twice throughout the next several years. It was a nightmare. But he was a sweet, considerate "roommate", we had children who were very happy and he was a great father... I couldn't blow up our family just because I was so deeply miserable.
After almost 20 years of marriage, he said he couldn't stand hurting me anymore, didn't think he really loved me and asked for a divorce. More agony seeing my family disintegrate for good, my children confused and suffering, and I still couldn't get him to really talk about any of the reasons for it.... he really didn't know himself, just knew he was always miserable and scared.
After about 6 months of filing for divorce, pain and desperation trying to get him to talk to couselors and finally getting him to talk to our pastor, he came back and said he didn't think we tried hard enough to save our family and was willing to try again. Well, by then I had read several books about emotionally unavailable men, comittment-phobic men, and the reasons they have difficulty, etc.... A great deal of this all is related to how he grew up. We are now going through a marriage restoration program through a local church and it is helping a lot. I think he is finally actually committed in his heart to our marriage and family after 20 long years.... but there is a lot of damage and pain and work ahead to try to start over again. Our family is worth it, though, and all I can do is to keep trying to go forward and lean on God and try to follow His will for marriages and families. I do believe that He is helping immensely and I have hope like never before that someday I will actually experience a happy, stable, secure-feeling marriage.
Anyways.... I don't know what type of family history your boyfriend has, but after you have been together for 4 years it is making me wonder if he also came from a broken or dysfunctional family somehow that makes him deeply afraid of committment. If so, I'm not saying don't get married if he changes his mind.... just be very careful moving forward, go through some very good pre-marital counseling, and please, please don't have children together if you feel like he starts putting up emotional walls in between you even after saying he is ready to commit or you are married.
I'll be praying for you that your future is easier and happier than mine was... I can't regret the decisions I made because I have two amazing daughers I cherish, but my life has been such a painful and lonely one up until now :-(
God Bless both of you in whatever decisions or future you decide on....
I'll try to expand here.You guys are quite helpful, thanks.
WalksWithChrist, may I ask you expand upon what you said?
FaithPrevails, I know what you mean. Today, all I know to do is pray for him. I also sent him an inspirational text. There is a pastor of a church around where we live who will send you a text daily if you text him the code. This was an old one I'd saved on my phone, but I thought it might help my ex-bf. Plus in the very recent past (while we were still a couple) he'd asked if I'd send him one from time to time, he liked them.
I thought my limit was the night we broke up, but I guess I haven't truly reached it yet. But I think the separation while keeping in contact occasionally rather than daily will help me realize that.
Niffer, I think in time, if he doesn't come around, I'll be able to say that. Besides this indecisiveness, he's everything I could've desired and needed in a man. And he always said that about me as a woman. I won't wait around forever. My grandma actually suggested getting a single family friend who's probably about 8-10 years older to take me out, and just "happen" to go somewhere my ex would see us. My "date" would know what was going on the whole time too. Don't know if I'll do that, just gonna have to see. If anything ever stirred my ex up though, it was competition, like you mentioned. He wouldn't make any ugly comments or act immature, but it was evident he didn't love it if a guy someplace flirted with me or eyed me the wrong way/too long. There were never EVER any trust issues between us regarding those things, and we never cheated on one another or anything like that. Guess it's natural to be just a tad possessive of the one you love dearly.
You're welcome and I hope things turn out well either way.Thank you for your expansion and hope, WalksWithChrist. I still have hope that things will turn around. He and I just have this "click" that would be dumb to give up. He's talked about it/commented on it many times himself. BUT also, I'm not going to just sit around and dwell on things. I'm trying to prepare myself for the fact that things may not change- I believe that's necessary.
He does not know this, but tomorrow he and I will lay eyes on each other for the first time in over 2 weeks when my mom and I go to church. We go to the same church, and for the past 2 Sundays I was not comfortable enough to go. I decided though that I want to go tomorrow, and like my mom said, church is neutral ground, and will require little, if any, one-on-one conversation with him. I'll let you all know how it goes.
By the way, I doubt I'll do the date thing either!
Any updates??
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?