slowhand
New Member
Hi Gents,
I joined this forum because I have a problem but I'm not sure if this (or anywhere else) is the proper place to ask for help. Well, here goes.
I got engaged a couple of months ago. I'll call her "Peg" just to save our privacy. Peg an I have had a relationship since 2006. We made just about every mistake a couple can make, ranging from the silly to the disgusting to behavior too shameful to admit to anyone but one's self. I had a drinking problem (I finally sobered up). She had a kid by another man during a break-up with me.
Peg and I were previously in very-long-term relationships with someone who couldn't commit. Both of us made ourselves available to each other out of loneliness, hurt, and desperation, at a low point in each of our lives. Peg and I had known each other for three years before that, but only as mere acquaintances who had no interest in each other.
Our relationship has been troubled. We never committed to each other, and up until a very short time ago, we cheated on each other constantly with our other long-term lovers. We both still deny, deny, deny to each other except in so much as the kid or yeast infections betray the truth.
The relationship between Peg and me got more serious after her long-term boyfriend came home and kicked her out. Before then, Peg and her significant other cheated on each other when he was away for business trips (which eventually became a defacto separation). I cheated on my significant other too, who had been cheating on me from the start. For me and Peg, our other relationships weren't going anywhere, and both of the hopeless relationships had a pretense of fidelity that doomed those relationships with lies. But the worst thing was that we lied to ourselves that those other relationships were enough for now, or as good as we could get, or whatever we had to tell ourselves to get through the day.
Neither of us are players. Peg and I are both scared and lonely and use sex for tension release, and cheating as revenge. Yes we're stupid and make stupid mistakes that we know better than to do. We're common people with low incomes and no resources to buy our way into a sham happiness.
The economy was hard on us. I lost my business and went back to college. We used to live in Sacramento, but I went back to school at UCLA so now Peg and I are separate in much the same way she was with her former LTR. She's a temp who works on call, averaging about 5 hours a week. Her job is her lifeline -- the only thing that gets Peg out of the house and keeps her sane. Peg has no real skills, so she can't find anything no matter how much she looks. I'm "overqualified" and can't get taken seriously for low-level managerial positions that I AM qualified for without a degree. So I live in a mini-dorm with other students, and she lives far away with her mother and various no-good relatives who won't ever leave.
I'm estranged from my family, but her family has always been a meddling, troublemaking, interfering bunch who are near-idiots on the IQ scale, have a slew of behavioral problems and/or mental illnesses, and are in and out of trouble with the law. The only hope is to get Peg and her kid to move out of Sacramento and here to Los Angeles. That way, both Peg and I will be a long way away from former lovers and a long way away from her family. We could forgive the mistakes of the past and look forward to building a better future together.
We're both scared to go forward. We never had any money and the future looks scary. We argue all the time. We make each other insecure in the relationship. But through it all, we developed a love for each other. We're scared to death of losing each other. We both want children together, we both want to get married, but it's never, never, never the right time.
The closer I get to her, the further our relationship moves forward, the worse she treats me. I can't go on with the cheating and lies. Not from myself. Not from her. So I demand better behavior from me, which I can and do perform, and from her, which she takes as a cue to act even more deplorably. She's afraid. There's enough hurting in our past and in our present to give her substantial doubts about our future.
I can see that the closer I get to her, the more that I let loose the A.F.C. within every man that we all despise. My behavior isn't helping us.
Sure, if she truly can't take those last few, important steps to say "I do" and pack up her stuff, I don't want it to be because I subconsciously wrecked it at the last moment. The relationship has been going on too long, and lasted through too many bad patches, to go backwards to dating, and watch her hook up with other men. I can't do it anymore. I'll say and do anything I have to do to help her commit to me, if that's what she truly wants.
REPEAT: I'LL SAY AND DO ANYTHING TO GET HER
The tension level is as bad as it's ever been. I've got to reduce the tension and increase the lightness of spirit. By all means, I must wipe out the feeling that choosing to be with me might temporarily be the least-bad alternative that she can always abort later if only she keeps looking around and making feelers to former lovers.
Gents, it's crunch time. I need your help. Please. Give it your hardest, coldest assessment, and give it to me straight.
I joined this forum because I have a problem but I'm not sure if this (or anywhere else) is the proper place to ask for help. Well, here goes.
I got engaged a couple of months ago. I'll call her "Peg" just to save our privacy. Peg an I have had a relationship since 2006. We made just about every mistake a couple can make, ranging from the silly to the disgusting to behavior too shameful to admit to anyone but one's self. I had a drinking problem (I finally sobered up). She had a kid by another man during a break-up with me.
Peg and I were previously in very-long-term relationships with someone who couldn't commit. Both of us made ourselves available to each other out of loneliness, hurt, and desperation, at a low point in each of our lives. Peg and I had known each other for three years before that, but only as mere acquaintances who had no interest in each other.
Our relationship has been troubled. We never committed to each other, and up until a very short time ago, we cheated on each other constantly with our other long-term lovers. We both still deny, deny, deny to each other except in so much as the kid or yeast infections betray the truth.
The relationship between Peg and me got more serious after her long-term boyfriend came home and kicked her out. Before then, Peg and her significant other cheated on each other when he was away for business trips (which eventually became a defacto separation). I cheated on my significant other too, who had been cheating on me from the start. For me and Peg, our other relationships weren't going anywhere, and both of the hopeless relationships had a pretense of fidelity that doomed those relationships with lies. But the worst thing was that we lied to ourselves that those other relationships were enough for now, or as good as we could get, or whatever we had to tell ourselves to get through the day.
Neither of us are players. Peg and I are both scared and lonely and use sex for tension release, and cheating as revenge. Yes we're stupid and make stupid mistakes that we know better than to do. We're common people with low incomes and no resources to buy our way into a sham happiness.
The economy was hard on us. I lost my business and went back to college. We used to live in Sacramento, but I went back to school at UCLA so now Peg and I are separate in much the same way she was with her former LTR. She's a temp who works on call, averaging about 5 hours a week. Her job is her lifeline -- the only thing that gets Peg out of the house and keeps her sane. Peg has no real skills, so she can't find anything no matter how much she looks. I'm "overqualified" and can't get taken seriously for low-level managerial positions that I AM qualified for without a degree. So I live in a mini-dorm with other students, and she lives far away with her mother and various no-good relatives who won't ever leave.
I'm estranged from my family, but her family has always been a meddling, troublemaking, interfering bunch who are near-idiots on the IQ scale, have a slew of behavioral problems and/or mental illnesses, and are in and out of trouble with the law. The only hope is to get Peg and her kid to move out of Sacramento and here to Los Angeles. That way, both Peg and I will be a long way away from former lovers and a long way away from her family. We could forgive the mistakes of the past and look forward to building a better future together.
We're both scared to go forward. We never had any money and the future looks scary. We argue all the time. We make each other insecure in the relationship. But through it all, we developed a love for each other. We're scared to death of losing each other. We both want children together, we both want to get married, but it's never, never, never the right time.
The closer I get to her, the further our relationship moves forward, the worse she treats me. I can't go on with the cheating and lies. Not from myself. Not from her. So I demand better behavior from me, which I can and do perform, and from her, which she takes as a cue to act even more deplorably. She's afraid. There's enough hurting in our past and in our present to give her substantial doubts about our future.
I can see that the closer I get to her, the more that I let loose the A.F.C. within every man that we all despise. My behavior isn't helping us.
Sure, if she truly can't take those last few, important steps to say "I do" and pack up her stuff, I don't want it to be because I subconsciously wrecked it at the last moment. The relationship has been going on too long, and lasted through too many bad patches, to go backwards to dating, and watch her hook up with other men. I can't do it anymore. I'll say and do anything I have to do to help her commit to me, if that's what she truly wants.
REPEAT: I'LL SAY AND DO ANYTHING TO GET HER
The tension level is as bad as it's ever been. I've got to reduce the tension and increase the lightness of spirit. By all means, I must wipe out the feeling that choosing to be with me might temporarily be the least-bad alternative that she can always abort later if only she keeps looking around and making feelers to former lovers.
Gents, it's crunch time. I need your help. Please. Give it your hardest, coldest assessment, and give it to me straight.
