The bloke I like is afraid to leave his current girlfriend

[Chrysanthemums]

This is a weird one, I know. But I have a very good male friend with whom I go back years and years.

There's always been a 'thing' between us, but usually one or the other has been seeing someone else and nothing's really happened.

Recently it seems we'd both like to try and make a proper go of it. We've been talking a lot and getting on well, doing a few things together etc. Nothing that crosses the friendship boundary, though - I won't countenance that kind of thing, I enjoy his friendship but if he isn't ree, that's all it'll be. However, we have vaguely hinted at the being together thing, and in this context he said something the other day which made me a bit confused.

We were having quite an emotive conversation and he suddenly said 'I think I'm worried because my last girlfriend, her ex husband was real trouble, it was awful' so I said 'Oh, (confused frown) are you worried about [so and so, my ex boyfriend]?' and he said 'No, not about him'. and I didn't work out what he meant.

Suddenly today it struck me, that he meant his current girlfriend. I think he did, anyway. He only sees her sporadically as she's not local, and he's told me about her quite a lot in the past - she has a tendency to freak out completely if he so much as talks to another woman. One time a few years ago I rang his house, and spoke to her as she was staying for a few days, and she took a message (something about a favour I'd promised to do) but later he told me she had gone bonkers about the phone call. I was really embarrassed but a bit that he should choose to go out with someone obviously a bit odd/ insanely jealous. There were apparently other indications of this kind of oddness - nothing to do with me but similar kind of issues.

So what I think he means is that if he were to break up with her, and start seeing me, she would cause trouble somehow - which frankly I'm not too impressed with as an excuse, and it puts me right off really - there are exceptions of course but I don't see how there would be any need for that kind of thing. Surely if she started to harrass him/us, he/we could just go to the police?

I'm thinking maybe he just was using it as an excuse, which is even worse. Either way it isn't looking hopeful,is it? I feel quite cross - if he really wanted to be with me, he wouldn't let a bonkers girlfriend stand in the way, would he?

Just wanted to vent really, sorry, and thanks if you have read this far. It seems like yet another hopeful sounding man isn't going to be any good.

[ChocHobNob]

Yes many relationships probably do overlap, but IMO that doesn't make it right. Would you like to know that you wasted weeks, months possibly years of your life on a man who was just too chicken to end it with you so decided to string two women along at the same time. Sex isn't the issue. It's getting involved altogether for me. I just feel if you let him lead you both along, then you are kind of giving him the green light to do it and it might end up being you hurt in the long run, if it turns out this current girlfriend is actually a lovely person, who he loves and has no intention whatsoever of leaving. Why waste one moment of your time on a man like that? x

[Chrysanthemums]

Good question.

I suppose someone who was that keen on me, once, is quite interesting - I've not been adored like that, and I wondered if it meant I could be happy with someone, by having a relationship that they really wanted rather than my usual thing in the past of going for someone who didn't really like me or make any commitment. I suppose it seems like a new departure, to say yes, Ok, to someone who really liked me. According to someone who knew us both, he was utterly mad about me - though I didn't quite understand this at the time. I like the idea of being madly fancied. even though it would seem this time it is by a bit of a twonk.

That's what he;'s for, I suppose...and I do enjoy spending time with him, I really do. He's gentle and kind and thoughtful. I feel nice and safe around him, looked after if you like. He was always very respectful.

Those are the reasons I like him. It's probably not quite enough is it. Plus his continuing confusing behaviour has almost driven me to distraction now. I am that close to giving up.

[Chrysanthemums]

Sorry, Choc yes you're right. Maybe she is great and he won't leave her - probably a lucky escape for me.

Maybe all those years ago he only liked me so much because i was with someone else, and now I'm free he is scared.

I guess I won't know. I wish he would have some counselling and let me come and watch

[ninah]

he sounds like an utter wanker, how horrible to be gf to a man who is feeding this kind of line to ow

[Chrysanthemums]

Yes it isn't very nice is it.

The only thing I can think of, is he has a lot of resentment against his mother - apparently she preferred his brother. So maybe going out with serial older women (we are talking 60's here) and having this kind of mental dialogue with himself about how awful they are, is kind of symptomatic of those issues...in which case I'd be a departure for him and possibly exempt. It's not nice, but then perhaps she has issues as well which she is taking out on him...I don't know. I probably have my own issues about the men I choose.

oh God, it's probably just a huge mistake to go out with anyone that dysfunctional.

How do you find someone who isn't? Even the blokes I've thought were great, sorted, sensible types have all turned out to be weird in some way, dysfunctional in some way - including my own father, whom I've always considered the nicest sort of man you can get, but I was recently told by my mum that he used to tell her she was ugly and have a go at her when they were young.

I can't imagine that now. Seems no one is perfect.

[Chrysanthemums]

I forgot to say, his previous girlfriend (before we first met) was also very much older, she died of a brain haemorrhage, he said he had really loved her and was afraid of having another relationship until he met me.

This is really interesting isn't it, actually.

[Chrysanthemums]

Dittany - thanks. The relationship I was in was uncommitted - the bloke was awful to me and I was naive and in love. Pathetic I know, I haven't forgiven myself - but he was trying to be a proper boyfriend and be nice to me, knowing that the guy I was with wasn't. So it wasn't a happy thing he was trying to stop iyswim.

We are both very screwed up obv

[MoChan]

I know this move. He is messing with you. He may not actually be consciously doing it. He may genuinely think he's in a difficult situation, but if he does, he's playing games with himself. But the fact is, if he were really doing the decent thing, he would be a) straight with you and b) straight with her. Let him go.

I had this, with more than one person, several, in fact. "I want you" eyes for years, whilst I was with someone else. Encouraging me to end it. Suddenly finding reasons to not want me, when I became single. Suddenly desperately in love again once I was in another relationship...

Forget him.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Run a mile from this tosser. He's a classic mindfucker, no one understands him becuase he;s so fucking special, etc etc etc, his current girlfriend is probably 'mental' because he has been messing her about for years.

Ok to be really really generous, it is possible for a person (of any gender) to be in an abusive relationship and only find the strength to dump the abuser when a nice potential new partner comes along. But your knobber mate doesn't even live with the woman he's threatening to dump, so it's not like she's got him chained to her bed or too intimidated to leave the house.

[Chrysanthemums]

Now you say that, SGB and Mochan, I do feel like he is playing games with me. It's been going on for ages. I suppose i have been feeling guilty because I wouldn't go out with him years ago, then wanted him later when I was single - by which time his feelings had been hurt and thus the guilt.

So I have let him keep me dangling on a string all this time, out of a sense of debt - maybe he thought I was treating him badly, way back when, though to me it was always fairly clear that I liked him as a friend and nothing else. I had to write the letter in the end just to get it through to him that I wasn't interested.

This is all probably part of my questioning my own feelings and instincts. It's come full circle. I think it is probably time to put it to rest. I needn't worry, because I am always the one to make contact nowadays so if I stay away I doubt he will follow it up.

[Chrysanthemums]

Thanks everyone for helping me sort through this. It's a little bit clearer now. Sadder, but clearer.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Never mind, Chrysanths. Better to realise now that he's a knobber than to only work it out when he's got you PG and fucked off with your mate (and told her that you are a mad cow who trapped him into parenthood...)

[Chrysanthemums]

Yes, exactly.

There are decent blokes out there, yes?

[MoChan]

Of course there are... though it may not seem the case when you're in your kind of situation!

[Chrysanthemums]

Thanks

I think I have been putting up with his ridiculous behaviour for ages because I felt like he might have been a better choice than my other partners since. And he was using the fact I felt guilty about refusing him before, to take advantage of the fact I liked him and keep me sroking his ego (though thankfully nothing else) whilst maintaining his current relationship. None of this was anything I had to give him, I could have just walked away but kept clinging on because he was giving me hopeful signals.

How crap of me to accept that and behave like that. I guess it's more important to me than I thought to have a relationship, even if it's not even a relationship, just the hope of one.

I'm not going to make contact with him again, at all. I know that's the end of it. He's not worth the trouble and I'm getting so little out of it.

Thanks once again, I really needed to get this down and figure it out properly. Onwards and upwards...

[MoChan]

Don't call yourself crap.

What you did... it's an easy thing to do, especially if you sort of fall into it, and nothing's cut and dried... and then one day, you suddenly wake up and think "how did that happen..?" Well, I know that was the case with me.

It doesn't mean that you're weak, or stupid, so don't be down on yourself about it. The fact that you even felt guilty, cared about the fact that you might have hurt him, shows that you are a kind person who has been taken advantage of. At the start, he really targeted you, made you feel as though it was your fault that life wasn't happening how he wanted it to, and it wasn't your fault.

He was the bad guy, not you. Be nice to yourself.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Oh it's very very common to let yourself get a bit messed around by people like this. That;s because they are GOOD AT IT. It;s what they do. Often they have a fairly hefty share of sexual magnetism (though having that isn;t necessarily an indication of a bad person).
But once you;ve encountered the behaviour pattern a time or two, you will start recognising it, and once you know what these people are up to, they can't hurt you.
SOunds like your instincts are pretty good in that you queried his behaviour and asked MN decided to bin his arse.