To be angry with DP and feel led up the garden path!?

[ErrorError]

Brief background: DP & I have been together 4 years, I'm on the implant and we had been discussing me getting it removed and TTC. All talks were going well...

Recently, he's been offered a new job which is about 50% more than what he's earning now, fabulous, I'm chuffed for him. But now he tells me he does not want to TTC because it will be a stressful time transitioning jobs. Plus, he's decided he wants a new computer and car first, and then maybe move house. He's also started putting other weird conditions on our relationship, e.g. apparently I need a better job (I work part-time) and me not trying for something better/full-time means I'm not as invested in our future.

AIBU to think that his excuses are complete bollocks, he is only interested in acquiring money and possessions, he may have not really wanted to TTC in the first place and was leading me on, and/or any job I get will never be good enough for him?

I am so close to giving up on the relationship, because I will not stand for emotional blackmail. I just need rational outside voices of reason to tell me whether or not this is a situation even worth resolving!

In a few months time, you are going to be away from your rural town and you will look back with a bit smile in your face and think "YES! why didn't I do this sooner?"

Are your friends still living in the city you've been talking about? Can you go and spend a few weeks with them, have a look around the job market and flat shares and start picturing your new independent life?

Thanks for putting that perspective on it Schmaltzing, I certainly don't want that to happen. Now I'm thinking a little clearer about things, it's also highlighted some of the niggling stuff that should have been warning signs. He doesn't like my cats and seems to have a problem with 2 of my best friends. Love is blind, what a goon I've been! Hah!

Or take the job in China. There'll be no better time in your life to bugger off overseas on an adventure.

Well, as I said earlier, if he really, truly loves you, then he won't end your relationship if you move away. If he would end your relationship because you move, then he doesn't really care, and you do not want to have a baby with a man who doesn't care.

Now, which is it, the china job or move to the city for a new career? (I vote china, sounds like the sort of adventure you need to clear your head)

Get on that plane!
Thank your lucky stars that you don't have a mortgage or dcs and get out there!

If I were you, I would take the job in China and tell him just TWO things:

"up yours"

Zachary I recently spent a week with a friend who lives in the city and I registered with a few agencies there. I've tried following them up but they're not good at responding to me. DP knew I was doing this, it was my first attempt to properly assert what I really wanted. He wasn't supportive at all. He thinks it was just a social visit. I think I will still apply for things there online, but can't consider moving until A) I decide definitively what to do about DP, and B) have a secure offer to go to. My friend who lives there said she could put me up til I got a flat. I had a great plan, but had just chickened out a bit thinking of the implications on my relationship.

You'll sacrifice your relationship if you move?

That's his fault. Move.

There'll be loads of opportunities to meet someone who respects your career choice and desire to have children. Stay in your admin job in Nowheresville and you'll eventually have less chance of getting the career - or relationship - you deserve.

Error, I may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, but to be honest you don't really sound that into him yourself. I'm sure there have been good times, but right from the first posts here you've been fairly clinically (not saying that in a pejorative way) considering the possibility of leaving him. Without saying that you lurve him so much, couldn't bear it, you can't imagine a future without him, or any of the other emotionally incontinent things I would probably say in similar circumstances . Not saying you wouldn't have a good cry if it happened, but it's telling that you don't find it difficult to contemplate leaving him, d'you see?

It's fine to be going out with someone and not be that into them if the whole thing is casual, obviously. But planning children and circumscribing your career? It all sounds totally mismatched. You do not sound like a couple about to move in together and have children. You do not (frankly) sound like a woman who is gagging to immediately have children at all costs either, it sounds like the career might equally be an option. Totally up to you which way you go, obviously, either might be right. But your current situation clearly isn't right.

In your shoes, I'd apply for a job in the city and tell him you are getting on with life without him. Explain that you aren't happy about him changing the goal posts after you had compromised so much already and that he should either stick with what was originally agreed or go your own ways.

Maybe you are right to an extent MadBusLady. Probably things have just come to a head and at this point it may be a relief if we split. That's not to say it wouldn't be one of the most difficult things ever. I know we love each other very much, just not sure if it's a case of the heart ruling the head. As like you say, on a practical level we are a mismatch. Not good at all if you don't even want to be in the same town.

And like others say, much less painful to do it now than if we did have DCs. I gave up everything I wanted to satisfy him so I don't know why I'm clinging on tbh. 4 years of false promises is quite exhausting. In fact, my Mum who never interfere's in any of my relationships, has started noticing and commenting on my unhappiness (I don't burden her with full details as she has her own problems), but when my mood starts rubbing off on my family, it concerns me.

Error - I did a very similar thing when I was left university. I was all set to save up to go travelling and instead I met a local boy, fell in love with him and the idea that we were going to have an amazing life together and for various reasons and mistakes on both side, it didn't happen.

Short version is that at one point we were very much in love. But I placed too much reliance on it all working out because I'd made a huge sacrifice. Therefore, the longer we were together, the harder it was to leave because I had to make missing out on travelling, living in London etc COUNT for something. Couldn't accept it had been for nothing.

At the moment, I'm happy. I feel like me again and am in the early days of a happy relationship having sorted out the rest of my life before getting with current man. I often feel sad and angry with the time I wasted but I console myself with the fact that I'm only 31.

I wish I'd done it at 26 though.

Please wake up tomorrow and do everything you want to do as if you were single. It won't be easy but it will be so much better. The problem isn't whether he's being selfish, it's the fact that you're completely sacrificing your hopes and dreams to be with him in some form or other and it's not worth it. It really, really isn't.

My friends and family spent the last 6 years trying to make me see the same and it got more difficult and more entangled to the point where I actually had an affair. I hate the person I turned into and the worst thing is that I had my doubts back when I was 21. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do but I did it anyway.

You're 26 - there is so much adventure to have without having to compromise anything.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with your first 2 paragraphs garageflower I don't want to believe that the last 4 years have been wasted, because I have missed opportunities for this man and I thought I needed to justify what I've missed by focusing on the relationship and our future. The future he represents now is not the same thing I wanted 4 years ago. As much as I'd love the stability and DC, I'm just not ready to settle and he is.

Still not sure exactly what I'll do and how yet though. Need long talks with DP first, cut the bullshit and get to the real issues. Now I'm thinking he probably thought my attempt to find work away was me abandoning him, and he got scared because he was ready for seriousness (house, DC etc) makes sense as he was the one suggesting the so-called better life. These are things I want but obviously not yet. Also ties in with wanting me to get a better job as well... because being part time is something I could get out of much more easily, whereas full time means a higher level of commitment. He's not a complete arse then, just an arse who's possibly scared to lose me (?) and doesn't know how to communicate this effectively.

I am qualified in a creative industry and there are no creative jobs here. Literally none. I work in admin.

I was in almost exactly the same position as you 11 years ago, same age, same length of relationship, slightly different circs but basically I had spent a year retraining to do something I had always dreamt of doing and in the process won an award, part of which was a work placement which could have opened up some major doors for me career-wise.

I didn't pursue it so I could stay with my now DH - we married 18 months later and have a lovely 8yo DD who I wouldn't change for the world but...

...it has been bloody, bloody hard. DH and I have very different views on things (although he encouraged me to go p/t before we married as we knew we'd TTC fairly soon afterwards I feel that now he would really prefer me to either work f/t or be a perfect Stepford wife whilst working 25+ hours per week ). Whilst I managed to find a job loosely related to what I trained in, I have never fulfilled my potential and am now a secretary. My job is not bad at all, but it's hardly what I dreamed of doing and there are still times when I struggle with feeling that I've wasted so much of my potential and get frustrated that I will probably never have the chance to change that.

I would think long and hard before tying yourself down to this man tbh.

He does sound rather self-focused, but I'd be hypocritical if I said I didn't relate a little bit.

I got a great promotion and payrose at 28 - there was no way I was ready to settle down and have kids then. I was pretty selfish back then, but I only had me to think about.

Cut your losses, move on and do your own thing.

Error you've very precisely described the "sunk cost error" that you find yourself in, how can you abandon something you've spent so much time pursuing? The past is the past and has no meaning except as it usefully informs decisions for the future, as lessons learned.

My guess is when you speak to your DP he will either laugh at your ambitions to better yourself by going to the city/panic at the thought of you leaving. A dime to a dollar he won't change his mind on the TTC, though, except as some infinitely moveable feast of sometime when.

Go to China!

take the job in china, call your friend this morning and start looking at flights!!

Go to the fuckjng China! if you don't!

I think it's a sign .

have you thought in the last 4 years you'd have such an opportunity. It will look great in your CV when you decide to come back.

As one very wise woman said on these boards- the only thing worse than wasting four years in a bad relationship is wasting four years and ONE MORE DAY in the bad relationship...

OP I don't want to believe that the last 4 years have been wasted
But they haven't been! You've grown in those years, you're finding out who you are; you'll look for different traits in your future partners, and some of the same.

There's nothing special about a relationship just because it's longstanding.

Move on, you've grown, he's grown, take what you've learnt and enjoy the rest of your life.