Icky Dumped

Posted by fxckfeelings on February 27, 2014

Dating is one of those painful, hard-to-control activities, like losing weight and fighting cancer, where the only way not to feel like a total failure is not to have to do it at all. For daters, success means landing a good partner, but, until that happens, you will probably find yourself being too passive about letting go of a bad partner and/or feeling rejected when it doesn’t work out, or being too sensitive to hurting bad candidates, even with good reason. Instead of letting the dating process get you down, review your standards for dating honestly and safely. Then, when things don’t work out, you’ll do what’s best for you and your non-partner, and achieve a little success, even if the struggle continues.
–Dr. Lastname

I’m almost 40 and I’ve never had a relationship. I’ve been in love three times, but none of these relationships were ‘real’ relationships. Love number 1 was when I was in my 20’s I was seeing a guy for 10 years, on and off, but our relationship never got off the ground (no real dates or romance, just drunken hook ups every weekend). He turned out to be gay, so no major surprise there I suppose. Number 2 was a close friend who asked me to wait for him while he got through the pressures of work and nursing a parent through a fatal illness. After waiting two years, and still hopelessly in love with him, he told me he changed his mind and didn’t want to get together with me. Finally, love number 3 is a childhood friend of mine who I reconnected with a few years ago and who has liked me for years. He wanted a relationship with me but I wanted to wait because I was still a bit burned from number 2. We remained friends however and over time our friendship deepened and grew and I started to see him as more than a good friend, but when I told him I was interested in more than just a casual hook up, he disappeared! I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I can’t seem to move past the casual into a real relationship with someone. I was sexually abused as a child and I’ve had psychotherapy to address that, then again after the gay ex-“boyfriend.” Basically I’ve been in therapy for about 12 years. I’m really at the end of my tether now because something must be causing me to choose men that cannot commit and I really want to be in love, married and with children and time is running away from me now. I don’t date lots of men and I’ve never been one for one night stands. The one thing all three “boyfriends” had in common was I was friends with them first and my feelings developed into a deeper love from there so I know it could be years before I meet someone and fall in love again seeing as I’m the type of girl that needs this basis of friendship to build on. I’ve tried dating agencies for the past year and I haven’t had any luck, plus I socialize every weekend and I have no problem meeting and chatting to guys, it’s just none of them interest me too much. My goal is to change this pattern.

Being unlucky, be it in love or business or the lottery, always feels personal, but never really is. Bad luck can happen to anyone, no matter how old you are, what you deserve, and how gay your ex might be.

You have lots to offer and, from what you’ve said, weren’t too far off the mark in the people you chose for love or how you behaved with them. Unfortunately, dating guys is always like playing musical chairs with a substantial chairs shortage. The sad news about the birds and bees is that human females often have to deal with the inverse suitable male-to-female ratio that bees have. Even then, it’s lonely being queen.

The good news then is that you’re wrong, because you have had several meaningful relationships. Sure, they were near misses, but don’t disrespect yourself. You were steady, you got to know them, and you were a good friend. There’s nothing you could do with the fact that one was gay and two had cold feet which were, most likely, made of permafrost and not just cold for you.

What’s missing here is not an inability to have relationships, but probably an inability to escape bad relationships, likely due to an overly gentle approach to sizing up a guy’s capacity to commit. Regardless of how nice or loving he is, you know by now that many guys lack the capacity to commit, hence the shortage of chairs. You might have prevented some disappointment, reached your conclusions faster, and opened your dance-card by examining your boyfriends’ past history more closely, avoiding alcohol, and requiring them to state clearly whether they’re looking for commitment.

I assume that your 12 years of therapy is a testimonial to your therapist’s supportiveness, but ask yourself whether your therapist is just a good ear, or also a good coach who can look over your shoulder and help you do rapid screening and aggressive selecting. If not, add such a coach to your team and train yourself to do what’s necessary. Alternatively, find a good matchmaker, or at least shell out for one of the better dating websites. Though they’re expensive, they do a lot of that work for you.

You’ve got all the skills and internal qualities you need, except, perhaps, the toughness to do rapid screening and, when you see red flags, decisive rejecting. Given your awareness of time and your wish to find a partner, however, you’re ready to learn and, once you do, you’ll have a much better chance of finding the partner you deserve.

You can’t improve bad luck, but with an improved reaction time to bad matches, you’ll have much better results.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like my romantic life is a waste, but I know what I offer, and the break-ups were never my fault. I will become tougher and more discriminating, even if it’s not my style, because I believe it’s worthwhile and I’m on a mission that requires it.”

I’ve never thought of myself as a mean person, but if I’m dating someone and it becomes clear at a certain point that it wouldn’t be good for me or my partner to let it continue, I end it for both of our sakes. I’ve started to doubt myself, however, after this guy I dated for three weeks went into a major depression after I dumped him. I wasn’t mean about it, but I thought he was too passive and sensitive for me in the long run, so I told him I really liked him, but we weren’t quite right for each other. Next thing I knew, he had unfriended me on Facebook and I heard from some friends that he had to be hospitalized after a suicide attempt. My goal is to figure out whether there’s something wrong with my dating technique and whether I could have been more gentle.

Dating, like driving, drinking, and almost everything else in life other than sitting in an armchair and writing advice, isn’t always safe, even when done properly. It’s always dangerous, so don’t assume that your ex-boyfriend’s post-dump suicide attempt could have been avoided if you’d dropped him more gently or dated him more cautiously. Review the facts without assuming that his pain was necessarily related to mistakes and unsafe dating on your part.

I assume you have standards for safe dating which include not getting too affectionate too soon and avoiding someone who is too needy, or too sensitive to past breakups, or too uninvolved with the rest of his life. Of course, city life prevents you from knowing much in advance about the guys you date other than what they tell you, so, unless you have friends in common or live in a small town, it takes time to know whether someone is safe to date.

In this case, your instincts probably warned you that he isn’t safe, which is why you broke up with him. At some point, you may find out he has been prone to depression and over-attachment in the past and that this isn’t the first time he’s over-reacted to a breakup. You’ll also tend to screen dates more actively for depression and a history of relationship meltdowns.

As noted above, it’s unsafe not to dump possible partners, given that breakups hurt more the longer you wait, while waiting consumes time you can’t afford to waste. So, even when casualties occur, active intelligence-gathering and decisive dumping are necessary, so don’t let undeserved guilt make you hesitate.

Review your procedures if you must, but, unless you’re a soap opera vixen who preys on the weak, you should pat yourself on the back for stopping a sticky relationship just in time. Learn from this experience, stay patient, and keep up the active screening that’s a necessary part of dating as safely as possible.

STATEMENT:
“I hate the idea of causing pain, but feeling rejected is an unavoidable risk of dating, and dating is necessary and worthwhile. So I will continue to look for a good partner and be as quick as ever to screen out anyone who doesn’t seem right.”