Bel asks: “I have been with my boyfriend for five years. When I met him I thought he’d make good relationship material because he went to church and seemed to take his work seriously, but five years on and we’re not even living together.
Since about two years in, we have been having a series of talks about the status of our relationship where I spell out what I need and he tells me he’s going to do it and then he doesn’t. I then finish it with him and he’s practically beating down my door begging for another chance and promising to do everything I want.
Five years on and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s all smoke and mirrors. I want to get married and have children. I want us to live together instead of him turning up late in the evening expecting dinner. He says he wants these things too but I feel like he presents obstacles. He always has lots of sh*t going on and his problems are always bigger than everyone else’s.
I’m sick of explaining what I want – Why doesn’t he seem to listen to me? Is he ever going to commit to me?”
Well I don’t think that this is about him having an inability to listen – this is about his inability to match his actions with his words.
This is also about you masking inaction in your relationship with talking. Whether you like it or not, you have talked your way to five years by also not matching your actions with your words.
Relationships do need communication but it needs to be about positive communication and it needs to have a purpose. While on the surface it appears that you expressing your needs has a purpose (you want him to do what you expect), it’s not actually achieving anything.
He no doubt has become programmed to expect that you will have one of your talks and he knows how to play the game.
When you tell him to beat it, he makes his empty promises and you take him back.
Why take him back when you know how it will play out? Do you really think that he’s going to miraculously change?
You can’t love and be committed for the both of you. He needs to take part too!
Unfortunately by sticking around you’ve set the tone and you’d have set a better tone if you’d told him to beat it and stuck to your guns.
You saw potential based on the fact that he appeared to be a churchgoer and committed to his work. At the end of the day, while they are nice characteristics to have, they are not a basis for choosing a partner.
Do you have any idea how many men go to church every week and then screw someone else behind their wives’ backs?
Many Mr Unavailables immerse themselves in their work as a way of keeping distant.
Does the fact that he’s so good at his job or committed to it actually mean anything in the grander scheme of things? No! Because at the end of the day, they are things that are benefitting anything other than you and your relationship.
You need to commit to you and your expectations, hence if he is not delivering what you expect and has a track record of over promising and under-delivering, I suggest that you deliver the final blow to your relationship, or expect to go through another five years of having ‘talks’ that don’t go anywhere.
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I agree with the advice here–it’s tough to find out after so long, but I just don’t know if this guy’s going to ever put his money where his mouth is. People who make excuses drive me bonkers.
Let’s have a ‘just suppose’ moment here. What would happen if you started living as if you were about to be married? If you expected to live together and expected him to act as a husband and co-parent? What if you really believed that it was happening, right now? Salesmen call this making the ‘assumed sale’ – act as if the sucker .. er, customer .. had already agreed to the sale and committed to buying. Instead of working to get the customer to agree to the sale, he assumes the sale and works on nailing down the related choices like color, dates for delivery, etc. The customer is often reluctant to appear indecisive (hey, if the salesman though he was buying the thing, he must have said he was!), so will go along with the salesman’s plan. Many times the customer gets so accustomed to the thought that he *must* have agreed, he gets comfortable with thinking he *did* buy it.
So. Just suppose you change your life, and *assume* he asked you to marry. Maybe pull this just after an intimate encounter, or an intoxicated evening. No, that would be mean and deceitful. Also trite, since it is done that was so often. But you didn’t hear that from me.
As of today you would have three main items on your life’s agenda, until the wedding. 1) Answer the question – is this a worthy guy? Honest, honorable, respectful, disciplined? Good with kids and small animals, a good co-parent prospect? 2) Build your home. Work out with the BF where you will be living, what arrangements need to be made, what family traditions from both sides will influence your home, how the money will be handled. 3) Redefine your self-image – be a wife, a mother-to-be, a companion, and if you are employed outside the home, a married employee.
Let’s wrap up this ‘let’s suppose’ moment now. My thinking is that facing the BF with the reality of commitment, he will have to face his own goals and desires. He may go along with you in a daze (but you have to resolve that before cohabiting or marrying), he may relax into the new life role and plans, or he may object and do anything from panic to run away to resist. But you would have moved off the rut you are in now. All it might take would be to begin living as if you had accepted his proposal.
I agree with NML that you made a fundamental mistake. But I think the mistake was when you told him what you wanted – and never, ever followed through. If you really wanted to be married, why would you accept anything less? When you make a demand, you have to accept the results – and correct something if your demand isn’t met. Sometimes the right thing is to give up the demand, sometimes you need to modify the demand, other times when you don’t get what you need, you have to intervene until you overcome obstacles and achieve your goals. What you did was make a demand, and accept non-answers.
Like any kid, he found that you had little discipline, little will to complete a task. You say what you want, and expect to be taken care of. And you don’t hold others to agreements. (You do honor your own agreements and honor your word, right?), So you taught him that communicating with you is different than many people expect. You will complain about little time together, complain about showing up late and wanting fed, and then you go ahead and accept the situation. (My ‘first rule of parenting’: Don’t reward bad behavior.)
Now you have to start detecting each failure, right away, every time he lets something slip. When you start respecting his word, he will, too – or you learn that he isn’t respectful, isn’t dependable, isn’t honorable. But then you would have to choose – adapt to whatever he is, or let him go, and give yourself a chance to grieve and heal over losing him (allow months to years), and find someone else.
It all depends on what you really, really want, and how much you are willing to do to get what you want.