Relationship Help Forum: Rushing Into Things

This week our Relationship Help Forum story comes from *Alice (not her real name). Her true relationship crises deals with a situation a lot of people can relate to. She mistook a casual, rebound relationship for the real deal and paid for it with a lot of heartache and worry. I have a feeling this relationship was rushed into without much consideration, but my heart goes out to *Alice (all identifiable details have been removed).

You can read more true relationship crises stories on the Relationship Help Forum page.

Relationship help forum: rushing into things

Dear Anne,

I had been dating this guy for the past 2 and a half months before I decided to end it. During that time we got pretty close.

My reasoning for ending it is that I wasn’t sure that it was the right time for us to be having any kind of dating relationship. He told me from the beginning that he was going through a divorce and was trying to uphold his business; both of which were putting him under a lot of stress and that he’s not ready to be emotionally involved.

Going out with someone else

I became concerned when we were sleeping in the same bed together almost every night and nothing physical was happening. I never felt like he wanted to be affectionate. The other problem is that while I was contemplating ending things I went out with another guy for dinner, nothing happened but I figured it would be a way for me to see what else is out there before I decided anything.

I never told him about this, but did mention the next day that I wanted to keep things open to see other people. During our breakup conversation I slipped and told him about the other guy. He was livid!! He said he’s upset that I didn’t tell him before I went out with the other guy. He said his ex-wife’s dishonesty was what caused his divorce.

Apology accepted?

Since then we had been fighting and he didn’t want to even talk about it! I apologized to him in an email and he texted back saying he accepted it but to not bring it up again. I am really regretting that I did this. Now that a month has passed since this fight, I feel like if I had never gone out with that guy and had been more patient, things could have worked. I told him I made a mistake but he won’t forgive me.

He hasn’t called or anything for the past 3 weeks. I left one last facebook message a few days ago and he responded. He said he is okay with hanging out with me again and said he changed his number and left me his new one. Just wondering if I should call him or wait for him to call me or even bother with it anymore. I don’t think he’d lie to me about anything since he was very much into finding someone who is honest but I can’t help but wonder if this is really his intention or if he’s going to continue to ignore me.

Rushing into things: answer

Alice, I would be surprised if this man has put any real feelings into the ‘relationship.’ First of all, it’s only been two and a half months. Secondly, you two seemed to have jumped into it head first without giving it much thought at all. You said that you were DATING, which I suspect means a casual relationship in your mind. (It was your word). Yet, you two were ‘sleeping in the same bed every night.’

This set up seems to be the classic ‘rebound’ type situation. Both people are into it for some comfort just until they can stand on their own two feet. This type of relationship is not usually built to last, as both parties need it for selfish reasons.

Honest from the onset

He told you beforehand what his status was. Men and women who’re actively going through a divorce are never, ever looking for solid relationships. They’re just looking for comfort in their time of loneliness, sadness and need.

He wasn’t that into you to start with. When he found out that you went out to dinner with that other person, this just gave him the perfect reason to wean himself off the ‘thing’ you two had. That ‘thing’ could’ve been with anyone. It just happened to have been you. If what he says is true about his ex-wife, he will want nothing to do with you again. He’s not coming out of a relationship just to get back into one with EXACTLY the same problems.

You knew in your heart this was not meant to be

Don’t blame yourself. You went off because you knew in your heart that this man was not into you. Give up now and walk away. Why are you wasting time on this? It seems like a very foolish thing to do.

Added to all this, he’s obviously got issues he needs to deal with before he can have a healthy relationship with anyone. This may take years.