People keep proposing to me then changing their mind....!!!!

[MinnieMousers]

Little baffled here after two engagements to me have been broken and I wanted to know if anyone can help me understand.

I've been engaged twice.

The first one I was 19, he was 23 and we were together 4 years. Madly in love. He proposed, then a year after the engagement ended it saying he didn't love me any more.

The second one I was 32, he was 36 and we were together 4 years too. Again madly in love. He proposed, then a year after the engagement ended it saying he didn't love me any more.

I'm not a Runaway Bride or anything. Aside from these two men I have never loved anyone else and have only had a handful of semi long term relationships.

I've been through all the grieving and devastation but find myself feeling a bit paranoid that there's something wrong with me and that if I love someone again the same will happen to me.

I kind of understand the first guy as we were very young, but the second one is just really confusing.

In both cases / both relationships:

1. They were very good relationships -no fighting, no problems, getting on as well as when we first met, seen as extremely solid by friends and family, fantastic sex life still............ right until they ended. As in - there was no warning bells the relationships were in trouble.

1. The men chased / pursued me and seemed to have very intense sort of love for me (think Twilight Edward) so I found it very surprising that they both "stopped".

1. Physical attraction hadn't waned - in fact I know that both men still find me attractive and hit on me when I see them.

1. Both men were good guys. Not commitment-phobes or arseholes and were general slow, steady, thoughtful men who would not propose unless they were really serious

1. There was no other women involved.

I'm not stupid and I understand "things change" and the more someone gets to know you, or through life changes etc. that feelings can come and go but I thought overall that it worked like this:

a) If someone has proposed to you it has gone past the infatuation phase and they are fairly certain they want to spend the rest of their life with you after having gotten to know you intimately.

b) Something drastic should happen to pull them off that course that I would / should have been somehow aware of. Like for example a reduction in kisses or texts to say "I love you".

c) People aren't meant to just randomly stop loving people....are they?

I am really struggling with this to the point where I find myself genuinely sitting there wondering whether to try and turn gay to avoid being hurt like this again. I'm completely serious. It's that bad!

I just want to know what the mechanism is. Surely if you love someone very deeply / you are madly in love / you are getting on great / you are best friends / you fancy the pants off them / you think they are a fantastic person....then WHY would you propose to them and then change your mind?

I really do want to get married, but am scared of being engaged again. I am worried there's some sort of 4 year maximum a person can go out with me before they miraculously realise their mistake.

I know I never stopped loving either man, so don't really understand how / why they did.

Please help.

I have been single for two years now.

I'm reading all this and taking it in.

Someone paying £50 (15+ years ago at that) for a beer mat with your number on it so that someone else can't have it, immediately telling you and your parents that he's going to marry you, turning up at your house serenading you might seem very romantic to a 15 year old (or in a bad film starring jennifer Anniston), but it sounds incredibly worrying. Were your parents not horrified at this creepy yet insistent 19 year old turning up trying to get at their 15 year of daughter?

And you say that your previous fiancé pursued you in a similar way. Most of us would be really weirded out by such strange behaviour, not flattered. I'm with those posters who think it might be worth some counselling to investigate why you go for the creepy, overbearing Edward from twilight type of man rather than someone you can have a healthy relationship with. You deserve real love.

The perfect love that cannot be

Exactly. Its like Four Weddings where Hugh Grant and Andie Thingybob keep going back and forth before ending up together forever. But thats a romantic film, real life just doesnt work like that. In real life there are bills that need paying, smelly socks that need washing, toilets that need scrubbing, shopping that needs doing. 95% of real relationships are the dull boring minutiae of every day life with 5% of romance and lust, sad but true! It gets even worse when kids come along!

True love is seeing the true person someone is, seeing their faults and accepting them, seeing your own faults and trying to change them, its working through the hard times, the boring times, the times when you dont actually like each other very much and coming out the other end of those times stronger and with increased love and respect for each other. It isnt about adoration or "please please forgive me for forgetting you take sugar in your tea".

Sorry, my final point was that in his head this is a romantic film where you cannot be together but cannot bear to be apart. Bollocks. In reality he likes to think he is the great romantic hero because otherwise he would have to admit to being a flakey commitment-phobe .

You talk a lot about what these men have seemed to feel for you, and not much about what you felt for them. Yes, loss of adoration and all that is very very hurtful but I think you need to examine your response to them as people - what was it about these specific guys that you liked beyond the fact that they liked you (and floppy hair and guitar don't count as reasons to really LOVE someone long term).

I reckon it's your own self esteem at the core of this. Counselling might help you work out why you are a great person in your own right who doesn't need validation from an adoring man but can accept an ordinary relationship with a loving one as something she deserves.

The fact that you're even thinking in terms of "Edward from Twilight" suggests to me that you'repossibly somehow stuck in a teenage mindset with regard to relationships.

This would make sense if, as you say, you consider your first love as the love of your life and your relationship with the second man was more about trying to recapture that.

I think you need to be the real you. Perhaps therapy to help you discover you. I think the past abuse has led you to put a protective shell around yourself.

I think you have an image and subconsciously act the role of the girl to chase/adore.

And it's wonderful and you are no doubt lovely to them and all is lovely.

But it's not reality. I think they chase/adore then several years on are still waiting for the real you. They want healthy discussions where you don't agree but work things out, not begging. They want equal roles emotionally.

The problem with 'adoration' like this is that it puts you on a pedestal. And no-one can stay up on a pedestal forever. When you fall off, they go in search of the next fantasy pedestal woman.

You fall off when they find out that

• you fart

-you snore

• you have some funny little habit
• you do your hair differently
• you laugh and a bit of spit comes out of your mouth
• you drop a bit of food down you
• they notice you say one word a lot as a habit and it's irritating to them
• you throw up

-you have a cold with a snotty nose -anything else that shows you are a normal human being and not a fantasy princess

Lots of sensible comments on here. One thing I'm not sure has been mentioned - could it be that when you were engaged you became more confident, and that was what in the end they didn't like? Because a traumatised girl/young woman who feels like she needs all the adoration she can get is a very different prospect to a happy and confident woman who believes she is in a secure relationship for life.

I've seen this change in some of my friends who married, and it's amazing how the confidence can "glow" off women whose self-esteem was previously quite low. But for the type of men you've been having relationships with, instead of it making them love you more and be happy to have made you happy, it might have made them feel like their achey, needy, adoration fun was over.

Cor, a lot there. Valid points in a lot of cases, I do see this is all a problem and did come here for this criticism as I am clear the problem is probably me, but I in my defence I did give reasons I loved like these men.

Not just because they adored me and I need that. That helped. It's a nice feeling to be adored but that's not why.

I tend to trigger that response in all new relationships (I clearly see there MUST be something I am doing to make that happen) but it's not uncommon for people to tell me they love me within a month and I rarely fall in love BACK.

I am not sure what I am doing...maybe fitting into a role of dream woman? Not being myself?

But in both cases, we got on, great friendship, loved spending time together, could talk about anything, felt supported, respected them as human beings, loved who they were as people. My previous fiance I used to look at him and think he was the best human being I knew. I never stopped having fun being around him even if I was cleaning the toilet.

I'm not living in a fairycastle. These were real relationships and I was 100% the real me in both of them. In fact both these men are the only two people I have been so close to as to feel that free. I mostly keep myself very private and with these two I showed everything (including farts) and felt very loved beyond just being shaggable or telling a good anecdote.

Which made the pain a lot worse.

Elephants...no, I think the opposite. I think over time in both relationships I got less confident. I think I was more feisty and independent at the start and got a bit too attached. I think maybe I start off strong and confident and then they want to look after me, I let them, and then I am not as appealing.

I just thought real love went beyond that sort of thing a bit and maybe you came to the person and told them. I'm not really into game playing. If my fiance had been acting differently I'd have just told him.

Well in that case, I think you've just been unlucky. The recent fiance sounds like a dick - who goes from full on love to leaving you within 3 weeks?!! I don't believe it at all, it must have been brewing for ages and he was a very good actor. Either that or he's amazingly fickle. Either way, this pattern is (IMO) not really a thing. You've had other relationships, you say. What were they like?

Hmm, I think a normal range of other relationships. A good mix of ones I liked more than they liked me and vice versa. Dumped a few people, been dumped a few times. A few minor heartbreaks. A few unrequited crushes! I didn't really have the deep connection with any of the others and don't seem to attract a fixed type.

I know my most recent ex is a total dick. He educated me on how quickly someone can change their behavior when they don't want you anymore and maybe it is just a bad co-incidence but I walked away feeling like the girl people "think" they want to marry and then change their mind.

Most recent ex is talking about starting again and reconciling actually. Don;t worry, he can get stuffed.

I can't change him though and wanted to focus on me to try and attract a diferrent sort of person.

If trying to go for someone a bit less full on might help I could try that.

Maybe I do get a bit needy and dependent :( I will go and get some counselling. Someone told me attract stuff into our lives. If that's the case I want to resolve it.

I think there's just some psychological pull when someone you really love breaks an engagement and it takes you around 10 years to really get over it, and you finally meet someone you love just as much and for the first time in your life since 19 you think you're getting a second chance at someone you feel that way about.

Then they spend years telling you how disbelieving they are of the idiot who jilted you, and how much they love you, how you are the one, the person they looked for all their life blah, blah, blah and then they do the same thing.

Could well just be really bad luck. I know it happens to people.

It could be bad luck.

I know I was down on the 'adoring' thing, but that's when it's taken to an unhealthy extreme.

I have to say DP 'adores' me, he was full on very early, and it got me worried as a red flag. But we talked about it all, slowed things down (a bit, we moved in after 4 months which still has me shaking my head in disbelief even though it's been good), and it's a nice adoration that totally accepts all my faults and issues and problems and farting in bed. It's based on the real me, from day 1.

'I am not sure what I am doing...maybe fitting into a role of dream woman? Not being myself?'

Have a think about that. I wasn't out to impress anyone when I met him. For the first time in my life I didn't care too much about whether it worked or not, how to impress him/keep him, I was totally 100% myself, warts and all. It's nice to be adored, I know what you mean, as long as they are adoring the real you and not someone you or they are inventing.

And to put things in perspective, instead of thinking 2 failed engagements, these were 2 failed serious relationships. We've all had them. Some people a lot more than two. I don't think it makes a difference to your feelings and shock whether you were engaged, married, living together, whatever. You learn a few lessons from them, and move on.

"I can't change him though and wanted to focus on me to try and attract a diferrent sort of person."

Which is usually a totally laudable way of looking at things. My worry with you, is that you had a difficult childhood and might twist this "changing" into more blaming yourself for other people's actions. You can't make people be decent. You can't say you were wrong for falling in honest love with people who treated you well for four years, even if they ended the relationship. I take my hat off to you for being so open-hearted, even if it left you vulnerable.

I suppose when it comes to changing yourself, you need to think about whether there were any warning signs or aspects of the last relationship which, in retrospect, you were uncomfortable with. It's too easy to idealise past relationships with people you loved, IME. I'm particularly interested in why you got less confident as the relationships went along.

So can I just ask...presuming someone loves you deeply for who you are - they don't "just stop"?

If they "just stop" it's always due to a reason...like meeting someone else, like them seeing a side of you that doesn't fit with what they want? Or something else? OR that they never deeply loved you in the first place? they just liked you a lot / fancied you etc.?

I suppose what concerns me most really is this idea that people can stop loving you quickly for no reason you can understand.

Yes Elephants...in retrospect there were signs in the last relationship that with hindsight I can see. Didn't see at the time, but see now after a very long time thinking it over.

He never argued with me, ever. Not one time.

He was very committed but also NOT committed.

For example he wanted to move in very quickly and told everyone he loved me, but when he wrote his will made his parents executors.

He was quite selfish where it counted, and this took me AGES to see because he always SEEMED to be putting me first but subtly never did.

For example, this is what I mean.

If I wanted to go to a party he'd stay up till 4am to pick me up so I'd not need to get a train, or he'd bend over backwards helping my Mum put together an IKEA wardrobe without moaning, or he'd help me write work reports and stuff. Nothing was too much trouble. it was always "no problem babes, I love you".

BUT

He put his own needs first on a grander scale. Like if I needed money for something very important, like Christmas with my Dad who lives on the other side of the world....he would spend it on something less important - but always under the guise of being unselfish. For example a charity event where he'd need to book a hotel and buy equipment.

I know that sort of thing is very subtle but there are lots of occasions he was like that. It was impossible to get angry with him because he always had an altruistic explanation for everything.

With hindsight, he was the most clever manipulator I ever met. He managed to get what he wnated without me even noticing it was happening.

I do feel it retrospect that he was full of words of love, full of kisses and sex and made me feel desired and amazing and if I had a bad day he'd come home with gifts but I feel like if you looked at the bigger picture and took all that away it was all about him.

My first fiance was nothing like that. He had a completely diferrent personality.

I think you're still looking at it a bit wrong here. It isn't necessarily that you need to figure out what it is about you that makes the men you have relationships adore you to the extent that they declare love after 10 minutes. You need to figure out why you're attracted to the kinds of men who are all grand gestures and no substance. Once you understand that you should be able to make better choices.

If they "just stop" it's always due to a reason...like meeting someone else, like them seeing a side of you that doesn't fit with what they want? Or something else? OR that they never deeply loved you in the first place? they just liked you a lot / fancied you etc.?

There's not necessarily a reason. Sometimes relationships run their course, people change and find that the love doesn't change with them. There doesn't have to be someone else, nor does it have to be that they find something 'wrong' with their partner that they hadn't realised before, nor does it mean that there wasn't any love in the first place.

But, I still don't think you're asking the right questions here. It very much sounds like these two relationships in particular ended because the men you'd gotten involved with were not a good bet anyway. The real question is why you've been finding that so difficult to see. When you describe these relationships, you're still using really idealised language. You've started to notice that perhaps everything wasn't quite so rosy in the final relationship on this thread (but in quite minor ways). I suspect that with a bit of counselling you'd start to see more problems than you'd been admitting to yourself. And you'll also start to see that there isn't something wrong with you that means people will just stop loving you. You do just need to find the right sort of person who can love you properly and have the kind of very real but quite mundane (as life is always mundane) relationship people have been talking about on this thread.

It can be complicated.
In my last relationship I sort of suddenly realised that I wasn't keen on seeing the other person. It had become a chore rather than a pleasure, and I ended it.
I suppose it may take a while to develop awareness of those feelings, as you don't want to be hasty, nor want to hurt the other person.
I'd say that it's probably not that they suddenly stopped loving you, but rather that they left when they realised they didn't. Which is fair, IMO and much better than some other men (and women) I know who have been with their partners for ages but without really committing to them. Just wasting their time.

I think you are in danger of over analysing this. I had a broken engagement too (wedding called off two weeks before hand, about two and a half years ago).

I spent ages going round in circles questioning why. I still sometimes think about why all my friends have managed to settle down etc and I've not. However sometimes things just are and you just have to accept that to avoid driving yourself mad.

But you must go no contact with your recent ex. I took the view that if he didn't want to be married to me then he sure as hell wasn't getting the pleasure of my company at all. Plus to be honest, it was too painful.

It sucks. It's not the same as another break up, because of the humiliation factor. Also break ups and divorces are pretty common, whereas a broken engagement, less so. I have often felt like a bit of a freak. However don't let this fucker take you down.

I just struggle with the proposing bit. I reckon you're meant to be sure before you do that?

Well I think that's a reasonable assumption to make. However it doesn't take into account the fuckwittery of others.
His issue, doll, not yours.
My ex was picking out soppy verses for our order of service two days before he called it off, so I totally get the shock element. The feeling of the rug being pulled out.
You can go round in circles forever asking yourself why he did what he did, but I think you are unlikely to ever get a good answer. He probably doesn't know, never mind being able to tell you. So when I start to think this sort of stuff I remind myself that IT JUST DOESNT MATTER. I am where I am. It is what it is.
I really don't mean to sound harsh but a point comes where you can either sink into an abyss of 'what ifs' and 'if onlys' and 'whys' or decide that fuck him and his stupid wedding, you choose you and making the best of your life, even if that's tough at times.
Hope that makes sense.