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Relationships

He says he doesnt know whether he wants to be with me anymore

108 replies

TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 08:21

And it feels like everything has just been ripped from me.
He says he still loves me and was trying to comfort me but insists that he "doesn't know where his head's at" and his "head is really messed up right now" and that he doesn't know what he wants.
There was a week of feeling very distanced preceding this but before that everything was fine.
We were the strongest couple I knew and he is my best friend. All I want is him to comfort me but obviously that's not going to happen.
We've been living together for 3 years and share everything including a dog.
Our whole future is planned together, everything, so I feel so completely lost and empty. Everything I think of has changed because our lives so completely revolved around one another.
I just want to curl up and die because there is nothing left.
If he did leave me I would die because I can't see how it could be any worse than this

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2cats2many · 08/01/2013 08:24

Sorry to say this, but do you think there's someone else? There often is in these situations.

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 08:26

I genuinely think that he's displacing his study stress (DL Open uni), money stress, job dissatisfaction, turning 26 (which he's been really funny about), etc onto our relationship as its what he can control.
He hung out with his old mates on NYE that he hadn't seen in ages and they are much younger and he viewed them as being "free" I think.

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 08:27

There isn't someone else. I know him well enough for that one. He wouldn't do that

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maleview70 · 08/01/2013 08:32

Unfortunately there will be plenty of women who have said the same.

Often a man saying he doesn't know where his head is at is often the man saying "someone else has turned my head and now I don't know where my head it at"

Don't rule it out.... Espeicially if you could not see this coming.

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melika · 08/01/2013 08:35

Ask him outright, what happened NYE.
Because I get the feeling something did.

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 08:37

Unless he's been skipping days off work to see his fancy woman then I can't see it. He works in an all-male warehouse and comes straight home.
Trust me - no OW

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 08/01/2013 08:39

"If he did leave me I would die because I can't see how it could be any worse than this "

Him staying with a 'messed up head' etc is actually worse than him leaving. I'm sorry you've had a shock but you have to wake up to how cruel this selfish man is being. Telling someone you don't know if you love them any more ... but continuing to stick around tormenting them... is quite the most nasty thing anyone can do to someone else. The emotional equivalent of 'don't call us, we'll call you'. As for there being someone else.... We all think we know our partners well ... right up to the point where we find out we don't know them at all.

I doubt you'll do this but I'll say it anyway. Tell him to get out and sort out his 'messed up head' on someone else's time. You are not some dog waiting for their master to give them the whistle.... you are a vaulable human being and you do not deserve this treatment. Good luck

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 08/01/2013 08:40

"He works in an all-male warehouse and comes straight home."

There are more ways to carry on an affair than in the sack. Internet and texting means people can pursue affairs and withdraw from relationships without meeting the other person at all.

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melika · 08/01/2013 08:41

No I don't mean OW, maybe he feels hemmed in by his settled life and feels he wants to be single with his mates again. I'd start a contingency plan now and see how he feels to be rejected.

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 08:42

I have asked him, before this happened on NYD. I think his shock in me not trusting him has bought this on. Made him start thinking.
Stupid of me really to put myself in the firing line of his dissatisfaction after being with his friends by being all jealous. Ironically, I wasn't being jealous because of that (I know he never would cheat) but because I was jealous of him going out when I had to work

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 08:43

He has always been the clingy, commitment one... This kind of thing doesn't happen surely?

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melika · 08/01/2013 08:43

Ps, don't make excuses for him in your head.

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 08/01/2013 08:49

Now you're blaming yourself for simply asking a reasonable question? Hmm If his connection to you is so weak that being asked 'did anything happen on NYE?' gets his back up, puts him on the defensive and he withdraws affection..... then there's not much to it.

I worry about your self-esteem that you are so willing to accept this is all your fault, or it's the fault of money/job/turning 26, or it's the fault of his friends for being young and single...... all the time not entertaining that this is his responsibility at all. Keep making excuses for someone like that and, sadly, that's the way to get yourself manipulated and exploited.

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Sugarice · 08/01/2013 08:49

Don't start to imagine you're at fault.

I'm sorry you're in this position. Sad

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 08:55

I'm trying not to make excuses for him.
I just want to understand.
We were the envy of other couples, he is so supportive, so loving, I could tell him anything and we had the same goals in life.
He is genuinely the kindest man i know.
People don't just change after 3 years - there must be something I can do to help him - I know he didn't mean to hurt me. He is not exactly feeling great himself, I think he just needs support?

He tells me he's certain he loves me but just that he's unsure of what he wants for the future - in everything. All that he's said smacks of someone who's having a bit of a mid-twenties crisis

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 08:56

Read that over and didn't mean it to sound so pathetic, sorry. I mean it though

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 08/01/2013 09:04

"People don't just change after 3 years - there must be something I can do to help him - I know he didn't mean to hurt me. He is not exactly feeling great himself, I think he just needs support?"

You don't want him to change, you want to be able to help him, you don't want him to delberately hurt you.... that's what you need to understand. Sadly, people (especially young men between the ages of 20 and 30) do change and they don't always become hurtful and nasty because they are having personal problems or a 'crisis'. Sometimes you have to take them entirely on face value whether you like it or not.

And then what about your need for support? Aren't you entitled to be given some respect, consideration and the truth? Or are you just some non-entity that should stand there like an Aunt Sally while he throws insults at you like not knowing if he loves you or not?

You are sounding pathetic, I'm sorry. This is a critical point in your relationship and you can't afford to take a weak position.

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Alibabaandthe40nappies · 08/01/2013 09:09

It may well be a mid-twenties crisis, but that doesn't mean that he will 'get better' and decide to recommit to you. People change a lot in their twenties, especially men - women as a rule of thumb tend to have done more emotional growing up sooner and be more sure of who they are and what they want. In general.

Believe what he is telling you, and start thinking about your future without him. You must be young too?

But I completely agree with Cogito. Get some self-respect here. Don't just hang around waiting for him to decide your future. I would ask him to leave for a couple of days and get some space, and then you might be able to think more clearly.

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 09:13

Thank you so much for your advice and I really appreciate it. Please don't think I'm not taking it in because I am - I'm just saying what I'm thinking.

If this is a crisis for him, it's surely not going to fix our relationship by running away?

I'm not arguing, I'm trying to figure out what to do. Sorry.

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Alibabaandthe40nappies · 08/01/2013 09:18

But you have to accept that it might not be fixable - or that maybe from his perspective it doesn't need fixing.

There could be an OW, people fit in affairs all over the place.

His mates could have been ribbing him about being 'settled' and 'under the thumb' and he isn't mature enough to tell them to wind their necks in and has been influenced and decided he wants to be free and single.

Maybe you have just grown up differently over the time you have been together but you haven't realised yet and he didn't realise until now.

He is under no obligation to stay with you - I don't mean to be harsh in saying that, but it is true.

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 08/01/2013 09:23

Running away? Who's running away? Sending someone away is saying 'I am valuable, worthwhile and secure enough in myself as an individual that I reject someone who does not find me equally valuable'.

You're currently in a very weak position because you think this is your fault, you don't seem to see that he's being cruel/fickle/immature and you can't imagine life solo. Sending him away, even if it is temporary, puts you in a stronger position and, whether you subsequently stay together or split up, you will always benefit from having defended your self-respect.

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badinage · 08/01/2013 09:23

So what's the timescale for all this?

Are you saying that he was distant in the week before NYE and then pulled the 'I don't know what I want' stunt the day after (i.e New Years Day)?

Or that he went out NYE and was distant for the past week and has only just come out with this?

You're right. People don't just suddenly change after 3 years, or 10, 20 or 30.

Unless they've met someone else.

Then, you'd be amazed at how swift a transformation can be.

If you're a regular on this site, you'll also know that despite the smoking gun and only one suspect holding it, shock and disbelief makes people look for every implausible alternative explanation rather than the most obvious one.

His 'being 26' crisis is yours.

Cherchez la femme.

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izzyizin · 08/01/2013 09:42

Is there a particular reason why you didn't spend NYE together?

Cutting loose with his mates may have made him long for the freedom he had before he settled down with you, or he may have had his head turned by an ow that night or on some earlier occasion.

Either way, you can't make anyone stay with you if they want to be elsewhere, honey, and all you can do is let him go. Don't plead with him to return and don't sit around pining - get out there and have some fun yourself.

Btw, unless you do something incredibly stupid, you're not going to die if he doesn't come back and you'll soon come to realise that a man who doesn't make good on promises and plans you've made together isn't worth having.

It occurs to me there's something familiar about your OP. Have you posted about him before?

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TheSeventhHorcrux · 08/01/2013 09:48

Not posted on Relationships before.

Was pig-headed and ridiculous enough to think that I'd never need to.

I've been working away all week since NYE, came back to this yesterday evening. He has been distant (as distant as someone can be over the phone) for about 4 days and said this pretty much because I forced him to by coming back and asking whether he wanted me back because he was being so strange.

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baremadness · 08/01/2013 09:48

You need to back off and start planning a GOOD life without him. He may well be having a crisis and if he is he will come running back. Just dont hang around waiting for it to happen. if it is meant to be it will, but you cant make it.

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