I think he is the one. I've never felt anything like what we have.
With the priest - BF was surprised, gave him things to think about that he said he really hadn't before. That was back in....March I think.
I guess time will tell.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Let's see, I'm going to school. we go to trivia regularly. i am trying to get myself into a routine - but that isn't working very well because stuff keeps coming up. I manage our softball team. we have a lot of stuff that comes up - like concerts and what not. next week we have a concert and then the weekend will be bachelor/bachelorette parties for a couple we know that are getting married. busy busy
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
TMW - I want you to read a book calleh He's Scared She's Scared.
It's about Love Avoidants; and it sounds like your BF may be one.
His history with his mom suggests he may fall into this category: " Love Avoidants consciously (and greatly) fear intimacy because they believe that they will be drained, engulfed, and controlled by it. In childhood they were drained, engulfed, and controlled by somebody else’s:
Neediness Reality Existence
And they don’t want to go through that experience again.
Unconsciously: Love Avoidants fear being left at some level. The fear in adulthood stems from being abandoned as a child by the caregiver, since when a child is forced to nurture the parent, the parent abandons the child’s needs for nurture. Love Avoidants really want a relationship, but they also fear them: Since Love Avoidants usually had very little human contact in childhood that relieved the pain, fear, and emptiness of abandonment, they did not learn that a relationship can relieve these feelings. But this unconscious fear of being left draws Love Avoidants towards relationships, even though they have great difficulty making a commitment or connecting to their partner. "
without reading the book, in short - any advice on working with a love avoidant?
I don't know if that is necessarily what he is - he loves me, we live together, he talks about forever and everything just not the actual marriage aspect.
In his mind, currently, being married is no different than living together except that it is more expensive to walk away.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
As for "working with" a love avoidant - they have to want to work on it themselves, I think. I've dated several (before I read the book and realized that it kept happening because I myself was skittish about getting back into a real relationship after my divorce).
But the more typical pattern is that someone who is a love addict gets stuck on the love avoidant - so you have to take a look at that in yourself.
2 of the 3 guys I dated are pretty hopeless - I doubt they'll ever overcome their issues. The third one found love with his old childhood love; but I know he still keeps her at arms length too.
