Son dumped by gf -update

[OneGreenPoster]

Some posters said I should update with what happened, That thread is now full.
Things have escalated a bit and it looks like he'll have to move a lot sooner.
Not much else to say on the matter.
I didn't think the last thread would get so much interest, thanks for all the advice though

Quite. Some people may think 3 years is not long but what information don’t you have after dating and living together for 3 years? Then you move on to the next relationship and they’re not sure after 3 years either and next thing you know you’re in your 40s and it’s too late to have children and you’ve wasted your youth on men who wouldn’t commit!

Her second post says Should obviously say he hasn't proposed. She didn't use the word typo but I assumed that was what happened. It was a mistake.

It does seem odd that some people are interpreting a person wanting to marry their live in partner means they must have met someone else? Illogical as Mr Spock would say.

In the real world three years is a perfectly respectable time to be seriously discussing your future and has always been seen as normal. Only on MN is it looked at as barely more than a fling.

What do you think the “something deeper” could be here?

If the OP’s son goes out over Christmas or New Year and gets with someone will that be a distraction to get over the relationship or will it be proof that he never really loved her anyway.

It is interesting to see the lenses through which a woman’s actions are viewed so as to always be wrong. Stay in the relationship and you’re weak and pathetic; end the relationship and you are cold/never really loved; and if you are the dumped one then who’d ever want you anyway.

I think you may be projecting with the “her head has been turned” narrative. She seems to me to have behaved in an open hearted and honest way throughout the relationship, and OP’s son took that for granted, and didn’t appreciate it at all.
I think she deserved better, and my guess is she is clearing the pitch to allow better in her life sometimes in 2026. I get a total of zero vibes that there is someone in the wings, convenient as that would be for OP.

It's so common, these guys think they can just coast

Especially if - as here - they have mummy in their ear, telling them "she might struggle to meet anyone else"

There's nothing new about mums thinking their much loved lads are something special, but disrespecting other women in order to back up the point doesn't seem terribly healthy

Yes it doesn't sound like a sudden conversation. More like she was asking if they had a future together, he was avoiding the conversation for some reason or other, she asked him outright. He said he wasn't going to discuss it, it wasn't good enough for her, so she left. It was obviously on her mind that he wasn't really committed to the relationship and in her mind, she got her answer. If he was committed to her, why not say?

I know quite a few people who probably wish they had done what op has done at her age. Instead of which they wasted precious time on men who just weren’t committed to them. I know a guy from from uni days who stayed with a woman for years and years without fully committing. When she was getting too old for kids he left to marry a lovely young woman with whom he had several children and a great marriage. It was painful to watch the first woman growing older and more disillusioned as she finally realised what was on the cards.

Depends on the wider context, and whether the conversation he reported to his mother reflected the conversation they actually had. I doubt this was the only issue she had with the relationship, or the only conversation she’d at least attempted to have.

I have a friend that also received a panic proposal from an ex that thought she wanted to marry him. She didn’t. She mentioned his lack of desire to marry as one example of a general lack of drive, along with a lack of desire to improve his career prospects, to go on holiday, or to do just about anything that necessitated effort on his part. Instead of hearing ‘I need to sort my life out and do something with it’, he heard ‘she wants to get married!’.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the conversation OP’s son and his ex had was similar. A man you find attractive when you’re 24 isn’t necessarily going to be the same man you find attractive at 27, especially if he’s spent the majority of the time stagnating on your couch.

Leaving a relationship doesn’t require having someone else lined up in advance. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she now wants to enjoy being free and single for a while.

I’m imagining the GF as the Jennifer aniston character in that film the Break Up and ops son is Vince Vaughn. She carries the whole relationship then can go no further with it and walks away.

I know its bad to bottle things up, and lovely that OPs son can share things with his Mum but as a partner I wouldn't feel attracted to a man of 30 that gave his parents a blow by blow account of our relationship breakdown then came accompanied by his Dad to collect his things from my home...I wouldn't relish the prospect of a MIL that felt the inclination to phone up and meddle either.

Perhaps the OPs son has over-shared on occasions in the past ...its not a good look and as a partner id feel my privacy had been invaded.

Yup, that almost happened to me. Bastard "Peter Pan" men who won't commit but like the easy life of stringing a woman along.

I applaud the ex-girlfriend - I wish I'd had her foresight!

What? or she may have just found her spine. Good for her.

Yep. Me too .

I agree. Also in OPs original post, she months ago asked not for a proposal but if he wanted to marry her.. and what his timeline was. She didnt impose hers.

He said he wasnt doing anything as silly as having a timeline. She just patiently waited, despite being sad about it for "months" he made no attempt to propose or discuss what he wanted in terms of a future and when. She didnt give an ultimatum. It just got to a point where the not knowing if theyd ever get married was untenable. And ended it.

Hes absolutely entitled to feel how he did about marriage, hes entitled to not have a timeline. Shes entitled to decide that makes them incompatible and leave. And the person you quoted suggesting she could have had another conversation.. and said what? Other than actually pressurising him? Or giving him an ultimatum? And inevitably feeling rejected again?

Its sad hes sad. But sounds like she wasnt as happy as he was.

I suspect that wasn’t the first conversation they had about general life plans, or gf realised she was more ambitious than him in life generally.

By the age of 24 or younger, she’s got herself a flat (mortgaged? Rented?) and has been living there. Maybe she realised that bf isn’t quite as switched on and forward thinking as her. Was he saving for the future etc?

You have very fertile imagination and lack of reading comprehension. I didn't talk about endlessly calling and texting for weeks. I meant asking for another chance, asking for clarifications, etc. PLENTY OF PEOPLE DO THAT!
I also said that the young man should have controlled himself for the sake of his OWN self-respect and that is what I teach my boys.
I bet when your exes broke up with you, you didn't just dissapeared into the atmosphere. What a hypocrite!
I pity your kids if you even have any for having such a judgemental mother and raising them the same.

The OP didn't say how much he begged, she literally posted one day about him being dumped and the next that the woman blocked him. It couldn't have been so bad. Some people block extremely fast and for not so many reasons. Again, I'm not saying that it was a good thing to do for him, but I rarely heard about a person just dissapearing right away into the atmosphere after being dumped.

Can OP come back to those of us who think that OP is the son?

Second post on first thread just says "Should obviously say he hasn't proposed".
(Well of course he hasn't - if he had we wouldn't be here would we.)
Maybe the OP meant to type "Headline should obviously say HE hasn't proposed"

This is what I'm thinking. She is way ahead of him in terms of planning and carrying out the plans. By 24 she was way ahead of where he is at when he's 30.

Yea, like nobody every tried to convince the ex to come back. He only did it for one day based on OP's posts, not the end of the world. Plenty of women here are so hard core on this, but I'm sure all of you already tried to beg an ex not to break up or at least, asked him to talk!

Nope.

I totally understand that she would be turned off by his texts if she's over him (i.e. she had time to think it through and was prepared unlike him). But if he was under the impression that there was a way to correct his mistake, texting for one or two days, maybe asking to talk is the normal thing that many exes do and is within normal limits. I am baffled with the hypocrisy of the posters here! At the end, nobody can (or should want) to force the other to return, but some reaction is understandable.
I hope that this guy works on himself, learns to control his emotions, gets better self-esteem and attracts a better woman!

Ah I see. I didn't interpret that poorly worded comment as referring at all to the "I" who posted.