lizatola

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend.

As my thread title suggests, I am thinking of ending things with my bf. I love him. Actually, I love him dearly and am completely smitten with him.

Unfortunately, I don't feel that he loves me or is on the same page as I am. I honestly just don't want to drag someone along in a relationship and ask them to be on the same level as me. I want someone who is in love with me, not someone who loves me just enough to keep me around and is happy with the fact that I don't ask much of them emotionally. Because, the time will come when I will need more emotionally and I can already see that my man will not be able to deliver the goods.

The last conversation we had about 'us' was about 4 months ago where he basically said that it takes a long time for him to fall in love, that he is more reserved now after his divorce, and he wasn't always like this. Ok, red flag right there but I was willing to let it slide because I kept asking myself why.
Why commit to me and talk of a future together for years to come if you didn't love me? Why bring me into a role with your children, who you would protect with your life, where I can influence them and develop a bond with them if you didn't love me?

I was trying to make sense of it, and of course, I am in love with him so it's hard to think clearly and you hope that things will change or that the other person will at least try to catch up.

I know that he can live with us like this for a long time, which, again I don't understand. He is a good looking man, he 's courteous, gentle, caring, supportive, generous with his time, isn't a cheater and doesn't have any mental health issues or addictions. But, what I'm seeing is a man who was burned by his ex-wife, who couldn't understand why she would walk away from a family scenario just because her needs weren't being met and his attempts to fix it weren't enough. I'm seeing a man who is guarded and is giving me just a portion of himself. And, i have to decide if that is enough or if I need more.

Obviously, I have to talk to him again about this. I need to get my questions answered from the source without projection from my own twisted thinking. But, based on our past interactions, I can't imagine things will be much different. I'm becoming more edgy and I'm feeling myself pulling away from him in anticipation of the outcome that I fear, which is that he will admit he isn't capable of fully loving me (and most likely anyone anymore).
I could settle for what we have. I could enjoy our family situation and just continue to focus on my career and enjoy the fact that I have a warm body next to me, regular sex, a man who takes me out on dates still, a man who pulls his weight around the house, etc. But, I guess I want more. He doesn't have to meet all my emotional needs, but I can't let myself fall more in love with a man who isn't ready to be ALL in with me. All I see is heartache and pain all over again and I am getting resentful and ticked off at myself for choosing poorly once again.

I have no idea how things will unfold. I plan to enjoy the holidays with he and his kids and my son. We all had a lovely Thanksgiving honestly. I just wish I didn't love him as much as I do now. UGH. I'm so tired of working around other people's defense mechanism. I mean, damn, I've got to work through my own at this point, as well, I don't have time to try to read minds or interpret the fact that his actions say he loves me, but he just can't say the words. I mean, come on, what man can't say I love you to his woman after over a year and a half together? So freaking tired of relationships.