More to the point, he rushed her to an intimate standing–“you are the love of my life” and all that, after two weeks!
Again, I’d be shocked and surprised and feel uncomfortable if that type of thing followed the exchange of just a couple of general messages about work or hobbies, without deep probing, and in fact I’d be creeped off and I’d cut it right there (and I’ve done that). But if it came after two weeks of deep, heavy, intense and bonding conversations day by day for several long hours, then I’d understand that somewhat, even if I didn’t feel the same (just because the feelings aren’t symmetrical doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong on either side).
Also, we don’t really know how the relationship developed. We know the words he blurted out seemingly like a silly boy but we don’t know how it went before and after. His asking for patience while not being warm and outgoing does seem to suggest trying to reserve the opportunity but take it at a slow pace once there is the certainty that it won’t be pulled like a rug from under his feet. Somewhat pathological but understandable in light of being wounded.
There is no reason that he, too, should not be told that it is time to take a step back and exercise some patience himself.
In my impression, he isn’t really doing anything impatient other than his declarations. He reassures her that yes, she’s the love of his life but at the same time he’s freshly out of a particularly emotionally disturbing break-up, so it will take time for him to be fully emotionally available or capable. In essence, want the full-blown emotional relationship in a while but can’t yet be a cheerful and outgoing companion right now yet.
She doesn’t have to tell him to get lost entirely, but she ought to tell him they need to put their relationship on a far less exclusive footing.
Apart from the fact that we seem to be in agreement on that, it’s not clear to me as to which one of them wants a more committed or closer relationship than they have now.
Also, I wouldn’t focus on exclusivity but rather how committed or how close the relationship is right now on its own merit. You already know my opinion about the notion of a non-exclusive romantic relationship (for our other readers, in essence, almost as bad as communism
).
He is causing her a lot of anxiety
Erm, the fact that she’s experiencing anxiety, even legitimately, doesn’t mean that he’s causing it, at least in a sense that we could attribute to him along with the blame. We’re basically talking about two people reacting to each other’s behaviour here and each of them being hurt.
and there isn’t a single reason in the world that their relationship ought to revolve around “patience” for his emotions and not for hers.
And vice versa! Both of them are experiencing strong emotional reactions. Patience needs to be mutual. In contrast, in our little debate here, I think each of us is rooting for the respective sex. I probably defend the guy too much while you and some other posters seem to be on the female side (guy’s gotta be supportive and understanding towards the woman without having the right to hope for the same from her side).
There’s nothing here to suggest that he refuses to have patience for her emotions or expects only his emotions to count and not hers. If that were so, he would be telling her it’s her problem not his (like a good dark and handome male jerk does), rather than apologising and asking for her patience. In fact, being quick to apologise and accept the blame but at the same time seeking justification to prevent her from assigning the blame squarely on his shoulders might be the sign of a huge fear of rejection.
I certainly apologised for a lot of things that were mutual fault or nobody’s fault or even the woman’s fault when I struggled with that fear after a series of bad relationships or rather non-relationships, and I too cited excuses because it felt wrong to have to be the one to apologise and I wanted to justify myself or vindicate my character or prevent her from padding the tab, or just simply validate my feelings that I was vainly hoping for the woman to have a little compassion on, forget the logical reasons.
But that type of apologising does get you nowhere. At any rate, one is more apologetic with people one is (pathologically) afraid of losing. While jerks will sometimes desperately distribute the blame anywhere but on themselves and try to win your pity with their grovelling self-flagellating apologies when they actually get caught red handed, they will normally try to make you think the problem is with you, not with them. Varies from jerk to jerk, obviously, but this is my overall impression.
Also, don’t take it against him that he actually accepted that he did wrong, and apologised–instead of acting like the modern ideal of an assertive person and basically shoving her off with a line he learnt from a psychologist during an assertiveness training, and suggesting she’s imagining things and should deal with her emotions on her own. That of itself is IMHO pathological and psychologists have been and are still grooming us this way to the detriment of normal human interactions.
