Is the answer blowing in the wind?

[NikB]

They are actually the same thing, to a degree. (I acknowledge I was not successful in carrying thru with the Game Over/Feet to the Fire plan.) The 'Feet to the Fire' is an extension of Game Over. I have to hold his feet to the fire and make sure he actually brings something to the table for ME, instead of the old 'game' of living with the status quo of him cake eating.

Hmm... I guess I misunderstood "Game Over" in that case.

I thought it was "I'm done dealing with your indecision, seeya. You want me, you come to me."

The "make sure he brings something to the table for me" isn't working. It hasn't worked for the past year+ and I doubt it's going to start working anytime soon. I don't think it'll even MAYBE start working until there's a threat he might lose you. When someone doesn't want to be in an R with you, or at least not a very committed/active one, demanding that they do MORE for you isn't going to work all that well.

If he's asking you "Trixi what can I do to make things better" that's one thing, but when it's "Trixi I'm not really sure I even want to be married to you" and the response is "Well that's fine but you better do XYZ for me..." it doesn't make sense, you know?

There is absolutely NOTHING that you can say to him that will stop the status quo or the cake eating. You can try, but until your actions and attitude change, he'll keep doing what he's doing. I truly believe the ONLY way to change this is through your actions.

So, I'm afraid if I walk away completely, he will forget about me and say "well, I didn't really want to lose her, but I'm not going to get too bummed out. I guess I'll just find someone else." On the face of it, I guess that's the "right" way to feel-- 'sucks to lose someone, but oh well...next!' but I have a hard time embracing that philosophy.

Ummm.... no, I don't think that's "right" at all and no way should you embrace it!! That is really, really sad in my opinion. I can't even imagine thinking that way. Unfortuanately, if that really IS how your H feels - you can't do anything about it.

Actually there are a couple of scary things about that train of thought. One is the "disposable-ness" of the person and the R, and the other is the "there has to be someone in my life" thing.

I do get what you're saying though. What sucks is that it pretty much falls under the "can't control it and can't control the other person" category.

Ok, here's another "admission". When he said that the dates/flings he had were when his head was 'in a bad place', that concerns me that he is trying to get his head 'in a good place' so that he can go have "better" dates and flings.

I didn't want to say it at the time because I figured you already had too much coming at you. But since you said it... this is exactly how I read it.

How long do you want to keep feeling like this? Like the "not quite good enough" person? It makes me so sad for you.

In fact, I often feel like I have learned to be a pretty awesome partner because of going thru this...

Agreed!! I just wish you loved and respected yourself enough to require the OTHER PERSON to be a good partner, too.