Multicultural? Age gap? Social class? Faithful and non-faithful? What has caused my 3,5 years relationship to end? Please contribute

[Lilalli]

Relationship
start 04/07/2010 after being friends for two years
end 07/12/13 being through his mums cancer, his unemployment (i became the sole provider for both); his father’s hoarding; his brother statemented at school; supported him during university degree; dissertation; friends problems, many fights as I wanted to get engaged and him to meet my family and visit my country; his family avoided visiting us causing extra stress, but hi mother would put on FB that ‘our’ relationship was unhealthy.

Me
Catholic; 39; full time professional; part time Masters student; aiming at starting my family; gym goer and daily cyclist; leaving away from my original country for working purposes however close to family; conscientious; honest with though anxiety issues (explained below); constantly doing all I can to reduce problems for the relationship and perhaps be appreciated and included in my 30-month-BF (former from today) life family and friends circle.

He
Not faithful; 26; Masters pt student; no work; never visited my family or learned a word in my language; avoids at all costs maturity (made his mother buy him a sofabed when we moved in together so he can sleep there every night); very little affection; self-victimizing himself all the time; avoids looking after health problems; son of a end of spectrum Hoarder (his father was abandoned when he was a child and grew up in foster families and then developed such OCD); already showing signs of the mental illness but take an oblivious attitude towards the problem like does his father and mother.

Outcome
A terrible fight last night when he said he didnt love me anymore although he wrote a card two days ago saying the opposite. Was confronted and became nasty insulting me, I threw the content of my wine glass on him and he carried on abusing me I asked him to leave and he said ‘happily’ (he had just spent two days with his family and was saying that he was very tired at 8pm, but to leave he had the stamina???) I pulled his hair and really regret doing it.

Why do I still suffer? Is it my ego? I admit I thought I would marry him and start my family after 30 months and so much forgiveness behind us…Please help me as I cant concetrate anymore

 

[EasterJoy]

You are not describing the relationship you want. Don’t chase him. Allow yourself to grieve, but work on letting it go.

 

[Lilalli]

thank you for your reply. I can see you point and I think that harder to face the end of ‘us’ will be to face that in fact there was no ‘us’ to end, but an illusion that I fed for years fearing not being able to finally start my family.

Grief will be felt again. For the end of our story, for my inability to forgive and tolerate our differences and accept God’s will to my life. I really thought he was the one God had carefully put into my life.

Thank you for your support.It really means a lot at this moment. Thank you

God bless your soul.

 

[Elizium23]

Your suffering is partly due to your close involvement and cohabitation without the benefit of marriage. I am sorry to say it but you really need to evaluate your priorities as someone who professes to be a faithful Catholic. Next time, I suggest that you explore chastity and keep yourself separate, physically and financially, from your boyfriend until you have determined beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are compatible enough for marriage, and then do it.

 

[Xantippe]

I’m not really seeing any points of compatibility here. Also, do you notice that in your summary, the only positive things about him are that he is a warm male body? Other than that, there’s nothing that he is bringing to this relationship.

Work on you, seek counseling, and aim higher. It may be too late for you to have biological children of your own, but it is definitely not too late for you to have a happy marriage.

(By the way, I wouldn’t count it too much against any future boyfriend if he doesn’t want to learn your language. Native English speakers are famously non-linguistic.)

 

[SuperLuigi]

Relationship
start 04/07/2010 after being friends for two years
end 07/12/13 being through his mums cancer, his unemployment (i became the sole provider for both); his father’s hoarding; his brother statemented at school; supported him during university degree; dissertation; friends problems, many fights as I wanted to get engaged and him to meet my family and visit my country; his family avoided visiting us causing extra stress, but hi mother would put on FB that ‘our’ relationship was unhealthy.

Me
Catholic; 39; full time professional; part time Masters student; aiming at starting my family; gym goer and daily cyclist; leaving away from my original country for working purposes however close to family; conscientious; honest with though anxiety issues (explained below); constantly doing all I can to reduce problems for the relationship and perhaps be appreciated and included in my 30-month-BF (former from today) life family and friends circle.

He
Not faithful; 26; Masters pt student; no work; never visited my family or learned a word in my language; avoids at all costs maturity (made his mother buy him a sofabed when we moved in together so he can sleep there every night); very little affection; self-victimizing himself all the time; avoids looking after health problems; son of a end of spectrum Hoarder (his father was abandoned when he was a child and grew up in foster families and then developed such OCD); already showing signs of the mental illness but take an oblivious attitude towards the problem like does his father and mother.

Outcome
A terrible fight last night when he said he didnt love me anymore although he wrote a card two days ago saying the opposite. Was confronted and became nasty insulting me, I threw the content of my wine glass on him and he carried on abusing me I asked him to leave and he said ‘happily’ (he had just spent two days with his family and was saying that he was very tired at 8pm, but to leave he had the stamina???) I pulled his hair and really regret doing it.

Why do I still suffer? Is it my ego? I admit I thought I would marry him and start my family after 30 months and so much forgiveness behind us…Please help me as I cant concetrate anymore

First of all, whenever someone says “I’m tired” about this relationship stuff it means they don’t want to talk anymore at that time.

Second, I really hope there wasn’t some kind of VISA scam embedded in all of this.

Third, the reasons are pretty obvious to me. You don’t say much at all about social class, ethnic/national origin or race.

The bottom line is **this guy you are dating is not ready for a serious, healthy marriage type relationship. **Someone with OCD may not even be seeing the world the same way as you do.

It’s not that you can’t marry someone with OCD, it’s just that when a person denies it, things get difficult quick.

I could not possibly advise anyone to be in that situation.

Then there is that age difference. It’s a cold hard fact that an older woman dating a younger is problematic for a lot of reasons. First, as one article I read a while ago said, you’ve lived most of your life as an adult, he hasn’t. Second, some women who tell me when they get into these double-digit age younger relationships that it’s more like raising a son than anything else.

Cohabitation can really make all of this stuff worse.

My advice to you, as someone said, is** not to chase him**. I think the first step here would be to see if he was acting like that because he really doesn’t want to be with you and cannot express that. It’s the kind of behaviour I see mostly from teenage girls, but someone who is a male in his mid-twenties in the West with a mental illness is certainly capable of acting that way.

Now, if he does come back to you, you would have a decision to make. I can tell you that cohabitation is unlikely to help your chances at marriage and that if he doesn’t get help, these outbursts between you two are bound to happen again.

While I do understand you are hurting, the fact is you didn’t react all that well. I mean, pulling someone’s hair is abuse strictly speaking, and you may want to look at yourself a little.

I mean really, can you honestly handle a relationship with someone who is in denial about being sick? That’s rough, and please do not make the mistake of assuming that marriage will solve any of this.

It will not.

I also think you need to ask yourself why you were in a relationship with him and do that honestly, or you’re bound to make the mistakes again.

Was it because you liked being with someone that much younger who is so different from you? No one can blame you for liking the attention, but I can tell you those relationships are rarely fruitful.

It would be a good idea for you to go out with your friends and family and have some fun in the meantime.

 

[GEddie]

Even with none of the factors described in your header, relationships come to an end.

The life geometry just wasn’t there to sustain them.

Count it toward your Advent penance and let it go, IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Lilalli]

I do appreciate your suggestions and views but I may have not made myself very clear.

I love this man. I love him beyond differences, problems, aspirations, values and principles. I am as you said mature and have lived enough to gain autonomy over my emotional life. My relationship with him was purely uninterested. I loved him (its clear I still do), and did not want anything back. The family aim was a natural consequence that we seemed to be walking towards, but I never used him to achieve my goals. Otherwise, I really wanted to feed the love I had for him and full stop. I am saying that I was in love with this man beyond all conventions and expectations our modern society impose us. My feelings for him continuously battled against the debris of trivialities and residues from others frustrations who were always ready to criticize the differences rather than applauding the engagement of our souls and support us to overcome the differences by creating a stronger community around us. I never pushed anything. I allowed time to play its role and embraced all challenges humbly for the sake of our love. He and myself have issues, all of us have. But why should I undergo sacrifices to separate rather than sacrifice other traits for the sake of our love? Why separation is always the solution??Why?

 

[St_Francis]

What you describe has happened to many people to varying levels, so please don’t take what I am going to say to mean that you were cause of the break-up. You are probably a wonderul kind person who simply got caught up in something due to ignorance and ignoring the traditional and Catholic rules of courtship and marriage, which developed to avoid this type of situation and which have collapsed in our society. We are now given an idea of relationships which is unrealistic, and when we fall into the trap, we are hurt.

I think what caused your relationship to collapse is an inequality of commitment. You *gave *him the type of commitment that is generally reserved for marriage–sex and co-habitation, financial support, forgiveness of a lot of bad behavior. and you gave this *before *there was a marriage-level commitment on his part. As they say, why buy the cow when the milk is free?

So you were acting as if you were living a life which was not what was really there. You were not married, but you lived as if you were. He was unwilling or unable to be a proper husband, and yet you continued to behave as if he were.

You developed expectations which flew in the face of the reality which he presented to you: altho he refused to marry, you kept expecting it; altho he refused to engae at all with your family, you assumed that this would change.

In short, you had a relationship with someone who was really ghastly marriage material, you somehow thought that he would make a good husband for you, and now your illusory fantasy has been shown for what it is, just a figment of your imagination.

This is very painful–it’s like taking a huge chunk out of the foundation of one’s life. Now you have a lot of re-building to do. I think that discussing this with a good priest would be helpful to you. What would be best would be for you to fill that broken part of your life with God, and not worry so much about things you can’t control.

 

[ClearWater]

Relationship
start 04/07/2010 after being friends for two years
end 07/12/13 being through his mums cancer, his unemployment (i became the sole provider for both); his father’s hoarding; his brother statemented at school; supported him during university degree; dissertation; friends problems, many fights as I wanted to get engaged and him to meet my family and visit my country; his family avoided visiting us causing extra stress, but hi mother would put on FB that ‘our’ relationship was unhealthy.

Me
Catholic; 39; full time professional; part time Masters student; aiming at starting my family; gym goer and daily cyclist; leaving away from my original country for working purposes however close to family; conscientious; honest with though anxiety issues (explained below); constantly doing all I can to reduce problems for the relationship and perhaps be appreciated and included in my 30-month-BF (former from today) life family and friends circle.

He
Not faithful; 26; Masters pt student;** no work; never visited my family or learned a word in my language; avoids at all costs maturity** (made his mother buy him a sofabed when we moved in together so he can sleep there every night); very little affection; self-victimizing himself all the time; avoids looking after health problems; son of a end of spectrum Hoarder (his father was abandoned when he was a child and grew up in foster families and then developed such OCD); already showing signs of the mental illness but take an oblivious attitude towards the problem like does his father and mother.

Outcome
A terrible fight last night when he said he didnt love me anymore although he wrote a card two days ago saying the opposite. Was confronted and became nasty insulting me, **I threw the content of my wine glass on him and he carried on abusing me I asked him to leave and he said ‘happily’ **(he had just spent two days with his family and was saying that he was very tired at 8pm, but to leave he had the stamina???) I pulled his hair and really regret doing it.

Why do I still suffer? Is it my ego? I admit I thought I would marry him and start my family after 30 months and so much forgiveness behind us…Please help me as I cant concetrate anymore

I highlighted some of the issues that seemed like redflags to me, but I think there were more you probably didn’t mention which were as, if not more, important. You mentioned first thing that you were Catholic. You didn’t mention what faith he was. If you are Catholic, you are to be in a relationship with a fellow Catholic and not live together before marriage.

When we have sexual relations before marriage, oxytocin is released in the female, causing bonding. This is only supposed to happen within marriage. You really need to get out of this relationship. You’re mutually abusing each other. If this is happening before marriage, try to imagine what would be happening afterwards!

The oxytocin may be making you feel like he’s “the one” when it’s obvious, even to us from just what you’ve already said, that he’s not.

He insulted you. You responded by dumping a glass of wine on him. He responded by more abuse. Neither of you is handling this right. He was wrong to insult you. You were wrong to pour wine on him.

You mentioned culture, and yes culture can have something with compatibility. Age gap…likewise…social class…also. fidelity…also.

Really, counseling would probably be beneficial for you both, but even if he wouldn’t go, maybe you could to see why you want to stay in a relationship that’s clearly mutually abusive, why you want to get married, live like that, permanently.

 

[getysbg]

RUN, don’t walk, RUN and do it now. NOW! No trip down the aisle will change anything. Despite you loving him, you describe a life of misery and it will not change, only deepen.

 

[Lilalli]

Your suffering is partly due to your close involvement and cohabitation without the benefit of marriage. I am sorry to say it but you really need to evaluate your priorities as someone who professes to be a faithful Catholic. Next time, I suggest that you explore chastity and keep yourself separate, physically and financially, from your boyfriend until you have determined beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are compatible enough for marriage, and then do it.

I totally understand your point and I did follow my beliefs and values until the end of our second year, but the culture i live in has this norm of cohabiting before getting married. Believe me I didnt want this, but I sounded very weird when i mentioned getting engaged or planning things without undergoing such an experience by the people around us. I used to confess that to my parish priest and come home feeling guilty. It is hard to live totally alone. I have for many years but I thought that I was being too demanding…Love teaches to see beyond conventions…but you are right. I shouldnt have done it. And life has done it for me again. I am sorry, I am very sad.

 

[holyrood]

What is it you love about him? He sounds like a user and abuser. I confess I’m baffled by feelings of ‘love’ that are apparently occurring in a vacuum, with no apparent behavior on the part of the beloved to warrant being loved.

 

[Lilalli]

I highlighted some of the issues that seemed like redflags to me, but I think there were more you probably didn’t mention which were as, if not more, important. You mentioned first thing that you were Catholic. You didn’t mention what faith he was. If you are Catholic, you are to be in a relationship with a fellow Catholic and not live together before marriage.

When we have sexual relations before marriage, oxytocin is released in the female, causing bonding. This is only supposed to happen within marriage. You really need to get out of this relationship. You’re mutually abusing each other. If this is happening before marriage, try to imagine what would be happening afterwards!

The oxytocin may be making you feel like he’s “the one” when it’s obvious, even to us from just what you’ve already said, that he’s not.

He insulted you. You responded by dumping a glass of wine on him. He responded by more abuse. Neither of you is handling this right. He was wrong to insult you. You were wrong to pour wine on him.

You mentioned culture, and yes culture can have something with compatibility. Age gap…likewise…social class…also. fidelity…also.

Really, counseling would probably be beneficial for you both, but even if he wouldn’t go, maybe you could to see why you want to stay in a relationship that’s clearly mutually abusive, why you want to get married, live like that, permanently.

Thank you. I know that there are chemistry reactions happening when we bond, but I also know that bonding is methaphysical, so its quite naive to believe that we had been together for 30 moths only due to chemical reactions. nature is perfect but the mysteries of life are supremely more sophisticated than basic instinct reactions. Our story was beautiful until the stress of unemployment and his relocation from his family home started a few months ago. His mother suffered from cancer at the very start of our rapport and before that we had already undergone redundancy in the company we both worked when we first met. There has been many issues that I wiped off, worked on forgiveness aiming at our development as individuals, couple, and souls. I cant deny that his lack of interest in meeting my family or accepting my Catholic values are serious evidence that he does not really respect me for who I am. This realization hurts, but I need to control my ego, put my head down and accept this. I have never spoken to anyone in such terms and i can only thank you for showing me the other side. I dont know if I can find a help like that here. Faith is a sensitive issue for some and others seem it as superstition…But i will search for it. This website though has been very very helpful. What people here say is very true, but i cant help to think that my intentions were very good, so why did they lead me to this?? my heart was pure, it was.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I do appreciate your suggestions and views but I may have not made myself very clear.

I love this man. I love him beyond differences, problems, aspirations, values and principles. I am as you said mature and have lived enough to gain autonomy over my emotional life. My relationship with him was purely uninterested. I loved him (its clear I still do), and did not want anything back. The family aim was a natural consequence that we seemed to be walking towards, but I never used him to achieve my goals. Otherwise, I really wanted to feed the love I had for him and full stop. I am saying that I was in love with this man beyond all conventions and expectations our modern society impose us. My feelings for him continuously battled against the debris of trivialities and residues from others frustrations who were always ready to criticize the differences rather than applauding the engagement of our souls and support us to overcome the differences by creating a stronger community around us. I never pushed anything. I allowed time to play its role and embraced all challenges humbly for the sake of our love. He and myself have issues, all of us have. But why should I undergo sacrifices to separate rather than sacrifice other traits for the sake of our love? Why separation is always the solution??Why?

What I am telling you is that the situation will get not get better with time and that it is more likely to get worse.

You have made your feelings quite clear, but any relationship is a two way street.

I’m wondering if he just used this as an opening to leave a relationship he really didn’t want or if this was just another outburst.

You can be the most loving, caring person out there but what people have to realize, that just isn’t enough for a healthy relationship.

Relationships aren’t about how much you love someone no matter what they do to you. That’s how people get taken advantage of and end up being manipulated and controlled.

You need to look at this more from his end. Is he really even interested? That’s a fair question considering his illness and all these differences. Is he even ready for contemplating marriage with you?

Regarding any cohabitation situation in the moral sense, you’ll have to speak to your priest about that and how it affects you going to Communion.

The Western culture of cohabitation is not correct and like many other sexual situations, the worldly culture is misleading.

I’m actually curious why you two moved in together…did one of you have to twist the other’s arm or something like that?

 

[Lilalli]

You are right. I havent been to Communion for a while.And clearly it is been affecting my life.

We moved in together as a mutual agreement with support from his family (not mine because my family would not accept it under this conditions) to undertake our Masters degree at the same university. I am ashamed for having looked down the consequences of such a decision. My intentions as probably his were good, though my dedication to our rapport is as you said deeper and more meaningful as I have much bigger life luggage than he has.
I think I need to go back to the church which I hadnt been for weeks. I desperately need to confess and heal my spirit which is suffering. I must say that I went to the church many times and invited him to come with me. I even tied to get him joining the football team of the community, but he refused. His mother is Irish protestant and had clearly said on more than one occasion that she would be devastated should him convert. But his family does not practice faith. They actually mock me…

I need to see this separation as a chance for me to breath again and return to practice my faith actively as I did until it all started. Perhaps if we were a least engaged under the blessings of a priest, like wearing engagement rings, perhaps he would have taken the realtionship more seriously…maybe…

 

[EasterJoy]

I do appreciate your suggestions and views but I may have not made myself very clear.

I love this man. I love him beyond differences, problems, aspirations, values and principles. I am as you said mature and have lived enough to gain autonomy over my emotional life. My relationship with him was purely uninterested. I loved him (its clear I still do), and did not want anything back. The family aim was a natural consequence that we seemed to be walking towards, but I never used him to achieve my goals. Otherwise, I really wanted to feed the love I had for him and full stop. I am saying that I was in love with this man beyond all conventions and expectations our modern society impose us. My feelings for him continuously battled against the debris of trivialities and residues from others frustrations who were always ready to criticize the differences rather than applauding the engagement of our souls and support us to overcome the differences by creating a stronger community around us. I never pushed anything. I allowed time to play its role and embraced all challenges humbly for the sake of our love. He and myself have issues, all of us have. But why should I undergo sacrifices to separate rather than sacrifice other traits for the sake of our love? Why separation is always the solution??Why?

I do not doubt that you really loved him, but it is not a good idea to be “purely uninterested” when looking for a spouse. You must be interested in whether or not a prospective spouse will be able to fulfill the responsibilities of marriage; not just in general, but to you in particular. Why? Because it is wrong to choose someone for a vocation to which they are not suited. If you choose badly, it will not only be you who suffers. He will suffer, your children will suffer, and all of those your marriage ought to have been there to serve will suffer. Besides, a man does not achieve sanctity by entering into a marriage with a spouse who seeks to relieve him of the duties that will spur him to holiness. You can’t make up for a man being incapable of the duties of marriage any more than a bishop can make up for a candidate for the priesthood lacking the capacity for that vocation. So while it is laudatory to be willing to make up for a spouse’s shortcomings, it is wrong to presume that one spouse can fulfill the duties of both partners in a marriage. That simply will not work.

Let go because he is a poor candidate to make a solid marriage with you. It doesn’t matter if that is anyone’s “fault”, because most of the time it is not. There are very few people who would make a good spouse to just anyone else who is capable of the duties of marriage, any more than there are many people suited to the religious life who would have done well in any congregation.

Marriage is difficult enough when you choose well. If you fear you are choosing badly, keep looking…not just for your own welfare, but also for the welfare of the many.

 

[EasterJoy]

…Perhaps if we were a least engaged under the blessings of a priest, like wearing engagement rings, perhaps he would have taken the realtionship more seriously…maybe…

I don’t know of a priest who is going to give his blessing to cohabitation prior to marriage. Don’t do that again, either.

 

[Lilalli]

What is it you love about him? He sounds like a user and abuser. I confess I’m baffled by feelings of ‘love’ that are apparently occurring in a vacuum, with no apparent behavior on the part of the beloved to warrant being loved.

Ok, I love his sweetness and angelical smile. His heart is good but I think he is contaminated by his family and friends expectations when he goes down to visit them each two weeks. he hasnt been able to find employment and that has affected his self-confidence and self-esteem although I have FULLY supported him financially. He seems to love me but perhaps he is not ready for such an intense relationship. I like closeness and think of future. i embrace challanges eagerly as I know that they are designed to shape our character in our betterment. he was brought up with no faith, and television and football have been pastime. Since we met his life went through a radical change which he took willingly but now he seems to be less interested somehow. We moved together to undertake our Masters and I had to take a full time role too, so time become tight and as he does not work, he spends most of his days alone which does not help. I tell him to visit places, go to the gym, galleries, libraries, find a voluntary work but he does not listen to me…He is always tired and ready to return home but never have enthusiasm to live our couple’s life. He misses being near his family and friends and disregard the fact that we could possibly make that circle even stronger should we both dedicate ourselves to it. I repeatedly ask him to change his attitude and become more active in relation to us, but even last night after two days at his family house, he was already in his pijams at 8pm watching the television when I returned from university and had to do the shopping for us which I pay myself as he does not work at the moment. he never offered to give me a lift from the subway or even to help to carry the bags upstairs to flat when I came from the shop. i was still recovering from a nasty flu, but still kept focused on my goal. Working to pay the bills and studying to provide us a better future. Its been hard but it is temporary, i do say it to him… Shame, all that was supposed to bring us together has set us apart.

 

[EasterJoy]

Ok, I love his sweetness and angelical smile. His heart is good but I think he is contaminated by his family and friends expectations when he goes down to visit them each two weeks. he hasnt been able to find employment and that has affected his self-confidence and self-esteem although I have FULLY supported him financially. He seems to love me but perhaps he is not ready for such an intense relationship. I like closeness and think of future. i embrace challanges eagerly as I know that they are designed to shape our character in our betterment. he was brought up with no faith, and television and football have been pastime. Since we met his life went through a radical change which he took willingly but now he seems to be less interested somehow. We moved together to undertake our Masters and I had to take a full time role too, so time become tight and as he does not work, he spends most of his days alone which does not help. I tell him to visit places, go to the gym, galleries, libraries, find a voluntary work but he does not listen to me…He is always tired and ready to return home but never have enthusiasm to live our couple’s life. He misses being near his family and friends and disregard the fact that we could possibly make that circle even stronger should we both dedicate ourselves to it. I repeatedly ask him to change his attitude and become more active in relation to us, but even last night after two days at his family house, he was already in his pijams at 8pm watching the television when I returned from university and had to do the shopping for us which I pay myself as he does not work at the moment. he never offered to give me a lift from the subway or even to help to carry the bags upstairs to flat when I came from the shop. i was still recovering from a nasty flu, but still kept focused on my goal. Working to pay the bills and studying to provide us a better future. Its been hard but it is temporary, i do say it to him… Shame, all that was supposed to bring us together has set us apart.

Sweetness and an angelic smile? You aren’t describing anything coming from him that a ten-year-old could not do. Marriage requires two grown-ups who are well-matched in what they bring to the one life that they will share. If he has those things, he is not ready to give them. Let him go.

Reject shame. Shame says “you are not good enough…you are a failure as a human being.” You made some mistakes; so learn from them. Where you did wrong, repent and make amends where you can. Do not sink into shame or regret, though. The message of the Cross and Resurrection is redemption from those things. Renounce sins, look for a better way, look to be closer to the Lord, but do not let yourself be lured into shame. Shame is not a message from the Lord, but a message from the evil one.