My (30F) boyfriend (29M) and I have been dating for the last 18 months. I have never loved someone more than I have loved him. He and I discussed our future during our one year anniversary and we both agreed that we wanted to get married one day and start a family.
He has been married before and the divorce was extremely traumatic (she had been cheating on him for months and he found out six weeks after getting married). He’s never really dealt with the trauma from that relationship. I’ve encouraged him to work through it and consider therapy while I continued to be supportive and patient. I understand everyone has baggage and he was worth it to me. I love him.
The last two months though, he was acting weird. He was very distant, difficult to spend time with because he was always busy, and didn’t really seem to be as excited about me and our relationship. I asked him what was wrong and he kept saying nothing, he was just very busy. We started fighting a lot and even went as far as to go to couples counseling to work on our relationship.
After the first session, the therapist gave him the homework of being honest with me even if it’s scary and I was given the homework of being calm and listening to him when he tells me something (which I do anyway, he just had PTSD from his last marriage). This weekend he finally told me what has been on his mind — he doesn’t know if he wants to get married. Not just to me but ever.
That hurt me so much to hear and it was difficult staying calm because it felt like he was telling me he had one foot out the door when I’ve been fully invested in our future. His reason was because he didn’t want another marriage to fail and he was acting differently to me because he was feeling unsure and like he might be wasting my time. He wanted to talk about it at the second couples therapy session. Instead, I broke up with him the day after he told me what he was thinking.
I’m really struggling and concerned I made a huge mistake. On one hand, I love him dearly and a future and life with him is something I want. I feel like I did the opposite of what the therapist asked and reacted too quickly. On the other hand, I worry that he never would have been able to decide he wants to get married and I was fooling myself by trying to stay with him. The weeks leading up to this, he was truly mean to me (not making plans, not returning my phone call, complaining when I try and include him because he’s so busy he never gets to relax, just not feeling like a priority or important to him in general) and our relationship has always suffered from his avoidant attachment style which has gotten better since we’ve been together but is still very much the cause of a lot of our issues.
I could really use some advice/support/anything. Spiraling that I just made a decision that I am going to regret for the rest of my life.
TLDR; boyfriend told me he’s not sure if he ever wants to get married so I ended things and am now afraid I made a mistake or acted too hastily.
14 comments
The question is, would you have been happy if you had a lifetime relationship without marriage, or was marriage a key part of your future plans?
If you would have been content to be unmarried but together, then you made a mistake.
If you really want marriage as one of your life goals, then you made the right choice. It doesn’t sound like you were ever secretive about this; the problem was that he wasn’t sure if he wanted marriage, and he concealed that from you. It was unfair of him, if he knew he never wanted to marry, to hide it from you, if he knew you really did want marriage.
As Smokey Robinson used to say, people can change, they always do. He probably needs time and re-assurance and may well be he doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings and/or is still learning how to cope with them. Maybe he felt under pressure to commit to your aspirations. It’s not easy. Time is a healer but time needs time and if you made that call only thing you can do is not dwell on what could be…that along with hindsight, is the story of all our lives.
I think you made the right decision for a couple of reasons. First, marriage is important to you, and it is valid to value it. Second, your boyfriend’s response to stress/personal trauma is to be mean to you for weeks. If his explanation did not include an apology for that behavior and a plan for how to change it in the future, how could you count on building a life with him through future disagreements?
I think you did the right thing. Marriage, like kids, career etc are very objective goals. There’s no grey area in whether you and him align in those places.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting or not wanting to get married. But both you need to be with someone who wants those things respectively. If he thinks he wants to work in his unresolved issues, then he should do that alone and not hold you back.
>I feel like I did the opposite of what the therapist asked and reacted too quickly
I dont think so. The therapist asked you to *listen* to him when he talks. And you *listened* to him when he told you he didn’t want the same things as you.
at this point right or wrong is kind of irrelevant. We can only make the best choice based on the information we have , as nobody can predict the future its serves no purpose to worry about the what if.
There are a few topics that I believe people should just know what they want or at the very least be very open to its possibility and kids is one of it. While the “marriage” is debatable honestly i never cared for the whole wedding thing, I only cared about having a wife to be my partner for a lifetime.
At 29 year old hes had years upon years to make up his mind about marriage/kids. If he still doesn’t know, its likely he knows, he just doesn’t want to tell you. By not telling you, hes just stringing you along wasting your time for his own selfish desire.
I think you made the right decision. Neither of you are on the same page. You want marriage and he doesn’t. Forcing him into marriage is not a good idea, especially given his trauma surrounding that. That is a sure fire recipe for disaster. He needs to seek therapy for these issues on his own and process his trauma and fears. Until then, it’s better to not continue investing in this relationship.
I think you made the right call. Honestly, I don’t think that a relationship that needs couples counseling so early on is going to be worth the trouble. I definitely think couples counseling is a good thing, but to need it so soon? He needs to work on himself and his ability to be honest with future partners. You need to not waste your time.
It may have been a good idea to talk about it at the second session, but if you knew in your gut he wasn’t going to change his mind then breaking up right then was a good move. That really sucks, OP. Sorry your partner got your hopes up when he knew he had unresolved trauma. That is a recipe for disaster and it’s better he admitted it now and not after proposing or marrying you.
Stay strong. You made the right decision – the only decision, actually. And go no contact. You love him too much to be friendly right now. Tell your friends not to mention him & don’t check his SM. Focus forward. Self care all the way.
Once the pressure’s off, he might start missing you and come running back, likely without figuring out what the fuck he really wants. If you don’t want a repeat of this scenario again, do not take him back unless he’s done the work.
I think it depends on how long ago the divorce was. If this happened when he was 18 if he was going to get over it and want to get married again it would have happened by now. If he was 28 it’s still all pretty fresh and I think most people would feel they never want to be married again for a while.
I do also think you didn’t give therapy a real chance. You just started going and while he lived up to his end of the bargain, you already did not.
I think you made the right call… and ***not*** just because of the potential incompatibility about marriage. That could potentially be worked through. I think what’s even more important, and what is not worth trying to work through, is that he has such a severe avoidant attachment style that he was mean to you and blowing you off ***for months*** just because the relationship had been going on long enough to feel serious. That type of unhealthy attachment style most likely stemmed from his childhood (not recently developed because of his divorce) and is not just going to go away. He’d continue putting you through *so* much misery, off and on, if you tried to stay with him. It’s not worth it to put yourself through that meat grinder.
>I was given the homework of being calm and listening to him when he tells me something (**which I do anyway**, he just had PTSD from his last marriage).
​
>He wanted to talk about it at the second couples therapy session. Instead, I broke up with him the day after he told me what he was thinking
I don’t know that any further comment is necessary. It’s pretty clear not only that your therapist gave you that homework for a reason, but that you *completely* ignored it.
It’s entirely likely that with some patience and some work he could have overcome the emotional trauma of his previous marriage and married you. Maybe not, but now you’ll never know.
Nope you didn’t make a mistake.. you know what you want. Don’t compromise for someone else.. If he wants and loves you he will be back. Right now just work on yourself and peel your energy off of him and let him be.. Write a list of what you want in a partner and then that person will find you.. don’t settle when it means the rest of your life or it will be another failed relationship with much more pain…
You made the right call.
You don’t have to date somebody for the decision they might make in the future. You can date somebody for what they are right now, what they’re saying right now.
If on the first date, he said he wasn’t ever going to get married, you would have stopped seeing him at that point.
On the other hand if he said he could see himself getting married then that’s the reason to stay with him and see where he goes.
But if one year later, he changed his mind, and he knows how important being married was to you, then you’re within your right to end the relationship right then and there.