Struggles of dating

[caroljm36]

“…Maybe you are not called to the vocation of marriage. Nothing wrong with that. I for one (not even an American citizen) appreciate you being able to contribute so much to the relief efforts. But it seems that you are taking a little too much personal pride in your work. Where is the humility?”

Hey, but he gets time and a half! For doing nothing!

 

[SMHW]

morning_star_27:

It seems I have found myself facing the same trials as I have a year ago, for I again went through break up with another girl. The two of us dated for a while (six months), until late August she decided she didn’t want to continue dating me. It ended very abruptly, almost without warning.

I find myself in a similar position as last year, have doubts about myself and in dating other women. I have confidence in knowing that this will only lead me to the one I will truly spend my life with, but I sometimes have doubt that I will.

I have a lot of mixed emotions as a result of our break-up. I want to try to continue things as friends, despite still having feelings for her, but she doesn’t want to carry any weight in the friendship. With all this confusion that I’m going through, I just need to have some perspective on how I can deal with this situation; the dating, the moving on, whether to pursue a friendship.

 

[ConcernCatholic]

morning_star_27:

It seems I have found myself facing the same trials as I have a year ago, for I again went through break up with another girl. The two of us dated for a while (six months), until late August she decided she didn’t want to continue dating me. It ended very abruptly, almost without warning.

I find myself in a similar position as last year, have doubts about myself and in dating other women. I have confidence in knowing that this will only lead me to the one I will truly spend my life with, but I sometimes have doubt that I will.

I have a lot of mixed emotions as a result of our break-up. I want to try to continue things as friends, despite still having feelings for her, but she doesn’t want to carry any weight in the friendship. With all this confusion that I’m going through, I just need to have some perspective on how I can deal with this situation; the dating, the moving on, whether to pursue a friendship.

Don’t beat yourself up over it. There are so many reasons that a woman can break up with a guy. Women can be fickle at times. I know I was fickle when I was dating. A long time after I broke up with a guy in high school, I ended up calling him to apologize for my behavior while we were dating. If she isn’t interested in persuing a friendship, let it be. My husband and I went out on a few dates and were getting too close too fast in my opinion so I told him I just wanted to be friends. He didn’t talk to me for quite a while. I ended up calling him to wish him a happy birthday a couple months later. We were cordial but I wouldn’t say we were friends. We eventually started dating exclusively and the rest is history. I would move on and let things happen as they may. During the period that we were just friends, we both dated other people and barely talked to each other. If we hadn’t had that time, we may have never been able to have the relationship that we have today.

 

[Prometheum_x]

This method may doom me to permanent singlehood, but I simply can’t imagine dating someone that I’m not already friends with. After all, if you don’t know someone, the initial period of dating is spent just getting to know them, anyway, so I figure I might as well just be friends to start and avoid the pressure that comes with a label such as “dating”. There’s no good reason to get into an exclusive relationship with someone you don’t know very well. That being the case – and perhaps this is the naivety of a 22 year old – I would want to be friends with whomever I date after we start dating, and I would see no reason why we would need to cease being friends if we ever stopped dating. There is a major difference between allowing for space in a relationship and ending it altogether.

A friend is, among other things, someone you love. If I broke up with someone, I would sure hope my friendship with them was not so shallow that I stopped loving them. Loving them might demand that I give them space, and that I let go of them in my heart and mind, but it doesn’t mean that I must renounce all connections to them.

It is true enough that trying to be friends with someone after a break up is just a clever way of trying to hold on to the relationship. This calls for an examination of ones heart. It is certainly right to ask God to help us examine our motives and to ask him for a greater purity of heart.