Please help me make a decision - would you continue relationship with someone your family didn't like? Possible depression/EA issues too...

[tigerbear]

Ok, I'll try to keep this as brief as possible - but this will still be long - sorry!
In a nutshell:

• I split up with my husband just over a year ago due to many issues - mainly him being dismissive of my/others opinions, arrogant in many ways, didn't make an effort with my family etc. We aren't divorced yet, but I recently moved out and bought a new place. We have a toddler together.
• I met someone new (online) and have been seeing him 8 months.

All has been very intense and we have both been very happy together - in many ways he is the opposite to my ex - is good with my daughter, very kind, sensitive and caring, very complimentary on how I look/what I wear and how I'm the most amazing person ever, etc, we seem to have a real connection and as cliched as it seems, we've both thought that we're soul mates (I KNOW how stupid that sounds!)

The problem: I went on holiday to visit my family (with my daughter) for 2 weeks and he came to visit for 2 days towards the end of this.
He's met my Mum and her partner once before, same with my Dad.
The 2 days were very awkward - he was introverted, defensive when asked any 'normal' questions like 'tell me about your job' etc, came across as not wanting to do everyday things (like play on the beach with my toddler as he 'doesn't like beaches' - he did do it, but expressed dismay initially), was scared/stressed by normal things (like choosing what he wanted for lunch when out with my parents).
The visit culminated in an awful journey back home with him and my mum and her partner, when he was IMO quite rude to my mum's partner.
I expressed how upset I was to my Mum afterwards and she (and everyone else in the family) feels that he is just like my ex.
We discussed small doubts she has had about him/I've had about the following:

• He is 48 (I'm 36) and has been out of work for quite a while (with a few bits of freelance over the past month or so. He's in severe financial trouble (may lose his flat if he can't pay the mortgage on it and has credit card up to the max as been paying the mortgage on this). My family are concerned about his work ethic/the reality of him still finding work in his chosen field, which is quite specific and has changed a lot over the past few years, to the point where he is being turned down for the majority of roles he goes for
• Is quite negative about lots of things = things he doesn't like, doesn't eat, doesn't do...
• Proposed last month (I said yes) - my Mum worries that he never committed to his long term partner
• Is admittedly a bit set in his ways after being single for a few years (had one long term relationship of over 20 years but never married or had children)
• Prefers his own company to that of others (I've never met any of his friends and when I invited him to meet mine he cancelled as said he was too tired). He has said in the past that he is scared that people will want to take something from him/shaft him as it's happened before. In the time we've known each other he's only met friends maybe 2-3 times and he spent Christmas alone
• Is not family oriented and I am - when he visits his own family he won't stay in their house and always stays in a hotel. He suggested staying in a hotel for one of the 2 nights we saw my family, rather than stay at my Mums place
• He has had a problem with drugs in the past
• Not sure whether to make a thing of this or not, but it did concern me slightly - we were talking once about putting on weight and he said something along the lines of 'don't get big, I don't like them big' Half joking, I asked if he would dump me if I put on a stone or two, and (not sure if he was joking) he said he might have to send me away for a while

This has become really long without me realising it - thanks if you've got this far! My family are all saying he's the same as my ex and I can't see that he's wrong for me, but up until before this visit happened, I WAS very happy with him - I felt a contentment I never felt with my ex, he looked after me and cared for me - cooking nice meals, thoughtful little things - while I've undergone a stressful time at work/had a house move.

In many ways we are very similar - slight social nervousness (although I am much more confident than him right now), prefer our own space, etc, although I'm unsure if he has more of a problem than he realises (re the awkwardness around others).

Do I continue? (I can't quite bring myself to end it with someone who has made me so happy over the past few months, seems to adore me and understand me, and who I've had so much fun with)...

Thanks for reading!!

Newboo - how and why did you end the relationship = what made you realise it was bad?

Newboo - have received it and sent one back, Thanks so much!

Hi Tiger, hope you are OK.

FWIW I think you have done the right thing.

Yes, it is hard to let someone down, and it is hard to give up the nice things in a relationship that you will miss, but until you actually marry someone, you are absolutely entitled to change your mind- you haven't been dishonest to him at any point- it is just that having seen him with your family, your feelings have changed towards him. This is your perrogative, and you would be doing him a disservice by continuing now that your feelings have changed.

I had a relationship prior to meeting DH when I was living abroad. My family never met him, but my best friend (who was working out there with me), did, and she thought he was not at all a good idea. I could hear what she was saying, but there were lots of good things about our relationship....

Anyway, I didn't take her (very good) advice and things went into a awful muddle. It became abusive and it made a real mess of me for some time.

Years later I can see that I should have got out of there a lot sooner, and what I should have been looking for was a relationship that had all the good things about that relationship, without any of the dodgy ones- in essence this is what I have with DH

Incidentally, I know a lot of what you have written could be taken either way eg, is he just shy or deliberately not making an effort in talking to my family, etc etc but for me, a person who would lie that 'he was spending a week helping at a charity delivering food to old folk which I obv thought was very sweet at the time - turns out he was actually working on behalf of a major retailer and getting paid for it' is NEVER going to be a keeper- mentally well people just don't need to lie like this.

It sounds like you gave it a really good go, but he has problems beyond your help. Keep your eyes peeled for someone with his good traits, without the obvious issues this one had.

I had his baby and we went to live in his godforsaken and all over the news land.

He was 'challenging' sometimes, increasingly controlling after over a year of total perfection before DS and living together for a number of years. arriving there with our 6m old baby, he flipped into the archetypal monster.

Took 3 years for me to escape.

What he put me through was beyond torture.

How was your bloke with waitresses? People 'lower' than him?

Trust me, it's good that last week happened.

May I tell you of my friend?

She met a man - wonderful chap, adored her, very sincere, gave her lovely thoughtful presents for no reason, romantic, took her to expensive restaurants, they saw eye to eye on everything. Oh, this guy was all she had ever wanted.

She introduced him to her family over lunch. He wasn't happy with the way conversation moved fast and furious, covering all sorts of things (her family are all deep thinkers, very intelligent, witty and fun). He took over the conversation and held court. He told her that her brother made him feel uncomfortable. He had a few things to say about each member of her family.

She married him; he'd swept her off her feet and she hardly had time to turn around and think.

The restaurants stopped. He didn't like eating out so she cooked. Every night. He didn't help clear up. That was her job. She saw less of her family because they made him feel uncomfortable (they didn't do anything he only needed to be reminded of their existence to be made to feel uncomfortable. It was because he didn't want her to have a past, or attachments, or any focus beyond him.). Gradually she was turned into a drudge. My lovely, funny, amazing friend whom I had known all my life became a non-person. She spends all her timeworried about what he might think, what he might do, walking on eggshells, trying to anticipate his needs.

She hardly sees anyone as he doesn't like it when she does. He's not violent - I wish he were - he just dominates her, and has made her his handmaiden. My friend, who had the whole of her life ahead of her. Who had got a place to do a PhD the US. She has done nothing but see to his needs, anticipate whatever might inconvenience him and remove it.

Her life is no life. She is a shadow.

Charming man, who was her soul mate. Seems to have - figuratively speaking - loved her to death.

Now I'm crying. I loved her so much. I miss her so dreadfully. I can't get her out. She doesn't believe she can cope without him. She doesn't believe she is capable of anything.

Please think very carefully about the red flags.

These things

• a short, intense relationship - making you feel special, the love of his life
• very early proposal
• declaration that you are his soul mate
• casual lying, almost for the sake of it
• his obsession when he was a child with slicing all of his soft toys open with knives (what other things like this might he have done? and what might it say about him?)
• serious financial problems (which are just about to be solved...he says)

.... have all been experienced, in some form, by women who have dated sociopaths. And had their lives wrecked by them.

That's quite apart from all the grim stuff in your OP.

Don't be disconcerted by the nice things he did. Sociopathic types are very good at doing nice things, better than normal perhaps, because it's all for show. It stops as soon as they've got what they want.

Please, pay heed to the wise ladies on this thread: do not go back.

Red flags all over the place with this one. I would have dumped him got just ONE of the things you've listed. You made the right choice tigerbear.

Jux :( So awful. Hope your friend breaks free one day.

Tigerbear, please don't doubt yourself you ave made th right decision. Might I suggest that you delete all of those loving texts and emails (just keep the shitty ones) and delete his phone number?

Tigerbear - you were right.

However, I do understand why you are having doubts. I imagine it's the same as me - it's because you dearly want it to be right and all the good stuff (if you ONLY remember that) seems to be enough for it to BE right.

It's not though. Honestly, eventually you will meet someone where you get loads of that good stuff and NONE of the bad - just very occasional moments where you smile and think "you daft bugger" - and you will wonder what on earth possessed you to try to make the bad stuff FIT. It doesn't fit does it? It really, really isn't how you want to live your life - and the good stuff won't make up for it, it won't, it doesn't and I think you know it deep down.

Thank you everyone for your advice and insight and sharing your stories. I've been wavering so much today - again thinking about all of the fun we had together, looking at his texts, listening to sad music (classic break up stuff!!) and wondering if I've done the right thing.

Just before I came online, I texted him to say thanks for the amazing times we had and that I'd been truthful every time I said I loved him (when we broke up the other night he said I must have been lying the whole time as he couldn't understand this crazy situation of me just changing my mind over an awkward visit to see my family)

I'm also confused as until that visit, I was very happy - the stuff I've listed sounds really bad written down, but didn't bother me on a day to day basis. As others have said on here, perhaps because I so desperately wanted to believe in the whole 'soulmates' type of relationship...

Minimisation Sweety. It happens to the best of us.

The soul mate thing. He lies to make you think he agrees. When you're properly caught he won't bother any more. He'll expect you to agree with him. Promises mean nothing and he'll treat you like an idiot for expecting them to. Then he'll get really hurt if you're upset that you've done things on the basis of those promises, which turned out to be things you wouldn't have done without those promises. For instance, my friend took a year off before going to do her PhD because her h needed to set some things in motion in order to go to the States with her. After a year in a soul-destroying job, saving money so not going out or doing anything, losing touch with many of her contacts in her field as a result, he had done nothing. Furthermore he had given up his job as it made him miserable. She didn't want him to be miserable, did she?

So, she couldn't afford to take them both to the States, and he'd done nothing about his Visa, and done nothing about those whatever-they-were which going to help him go there, so she didn't go. Because "she didn't want to leave him for years, did she?"

Then she became pg because he didn't like using condoms and she was allergic to the alternative contraceptions offered (some time ago - you youngsters have no idea how lucky you are ). So then she was well and truly trapped. He owned both her and the child. Sorry to go on. I am still really upset about it. He leeches off her, she doesn't see it. Sometimes she is angry at the waste of her life, but he cries and she falls for his emotional manipulation. His family are all adepts, so she drudges for all of them.

Don't waver, tigerbear. Live your life as fully as you possibly, possibly can. Squeeze every ounce of joy out of it.

You sound like you're wavering, texting him.....you don't
have to justify the decision or respond to his accusations. Non contact best.

Think you did the right thing, bet your family and friends do too.

A person with no friends who doesn't like people isn't a great relationship prospect in my eyes. Fine for fwb but as you found when you tried to involve him in the world outside you two, it's not good.

Breaking up is so hard but I think you've done the right thing. Fast forward a year and I imagine you'd be sat in with a miserablist wondering how it got so bad. Four months isn't long enough to recover from a bad relationship, maybe you need more time to heal.

Thanks for your comments.

Still wavering - one minute I think it's totally the right decision to split, the next I'm thinking I miss him, were things bad? Because as I mentioned before, 99% of the time we were together, it was amazing.
Can I really dismiss 8 months of happiness over that one visit with my family?

I guess what I'm most in deliberation over is do I tell him all of the other reasons why I've decided to split? At the moment he just thinks its because of the visit, and texted me earlier to say he thinks it's strange that all these months of happiness can explode so suddenly.
Would it be wrong not to have a proper face to face conversation about it?

I wouldn't meet him. You'll get sucked back in. People like this are so damn plausible. Then, you'll spend the rest of your relationship 'making up' for how you've treated him

He's bad news. Please, ignore, ignore, ignore.

Try not to waver, it won't do you any good in the long run. Block him in every way that you can, every media.

FWIW, I always knew, after I'd introduced a bf to my family, whether to continue to bother with him or dump him. My family were always right. They never said anything for or against. It was simply how well the bf fitted in. It was an unerring predictor of how well he really suited me.

You've made your decision, you don't need to explain it to him. You won't convince him to agree with you that it was a good decision because he doesn't want to agree with that - it's in his interests to try to convince you otherwise. No, definitely don't meet up, as he'll pile on the pressure and the charm and the guilt, and you don't need that. You're not getting back together, so what's to discuss - you've made the decision, he just has to live with it. I'd cut contact tbh.

Thank you again everyone, it's finally beginning to sink in that I've hopefully made the right decision.
Jux, that's so true re whether someone fits in with your family/what their impressions are of the man.

My family always had concerns about ex H but never said anything against him as they thought I was happy.
Same with this one, my mum had misgivings the first time she met him, but didn't say anything until I'd told her all the stuff I wrote in my original OP.

Ignore, ignore, ignore; delete his messages and emails, delete his number, block his calls, set up your email system to put any messages from him in a folder where you can delete them without reading them. Your OP and additional messages have given me the shivers. What a vile creep of a man. Years ago, I had a really nasty EA boyfriend, who managed to come very effectively between me and my family. I wish I'd listened to my instincts earlier on and not wasted the best part of three years on him. Please listen to the wise women on this thread.

This man thinks it's okay to spend a grand on clothes when he has debt problems. This man thinks your vagina's dirty. He doesn't need a conversation because everything you say will be wrong. All he wants to hear is that you've seen the light and want to get back with him in your bubble made for two. Drinking out of plastic glasses.