Seeing Deep Seated Issues

Being "friends" with a member of the opposite sex does NOT mean "Our relationship is limited to friendship because they are unavailable but if they became available I'd jump on that in a heartbeat because I long for them in my fantasy world."

Being friends means, your internal boundaries match your outside one and you are resolved with being platonic.

If the first paragraph is true, you are mindf*ucking yourself and operating in insecure insanity. Don't justify it with whatever gaslighting you're doing to yourself.

Forget about someone else's actions matching their words matching their emotions and values. Start with you.

You're not friends if you long for someone. You have mixed signals in yourself! And don't tell me you aren't "longing" because I am not concerned with what exactly the right word and description fits this. You don't need to parse it out because it's simply bullshit. It didn't work out over a year ago and he should be gone. You are playing games, at least with yourself. Wake up!

Btw... you frequently mention calling people out and that's what I'm doing here. I'm calling you out. I think you are ignoring a lot of what you should know by now (how long have we hammered the unavailable person piece on this forum???).

It can take a very long time to be emotionally available again after a 25 year marriage ends, even if you're a secure attacher. The difference for someone secure is they'd know they weren't ready and wouldn't fall into ambivalent or ambiguous situations. If they wanted a fun time with maybe a little open mindedness about where it could go, there simply wouldn't be confusion about it or talking about the relationship issues with other potential dates during the relationship.

This is when I said a couple weeks ago that I didn't think either of these options was your guy and why:

Sounds like "A" is hedging his bets. Now that you have this information, you can choose how to handle it. The one thing not acknowledged enough is the gap of "knowing better" and "doing better" So don't beat yourself up too much. I can really see how you are at least recognizing things for what they are, even if you aren't quite good at the second part yet. If you are not yet ready to end ties with A because you need to feel that connection, then "I don't have bandwidth for this connection right now, so I am going to take some space and I'll reach out later." Would be a really good first step. Also, give yourself some grace, even if it doesn't feel like that, there are a lot of fish in the sea. Maybe he'll sort himself out, maybe he won't, but the one thing you do know is you don't want to be stuck in a love/drama triangle with this women and him.

With A, it was more like my second to worse-case scenario.

Worst case would have been - I really like him and he is sticking with his current woman.

Mind you, under other circumstances I would have NEVER gone out with him in the first place. I really don't know how I even got here. Other than a) Having a hunch things aren't going well with current woman and meeting him now so that if things fall apart with them, at least we've met (and like my coach said, I did it when it would have been less terrifying for me). b) meeting him because we have known each other and talked for years and I was considering him a friend.

But the scenario is that he's not my guy and I got the sense I'm not his girl. And I really didn't need more "rejection" on top of things right now. This is probably where I need the most work and help.

So despite all the mess that this is . . . I can assure you, I'm not in the habit of going out with unavailable (at least in his sense) men. I never did. Only like emotionally unavailable ones who were truly single....

My takeaway is exactly what I feel I knew about him early on but that I wasn't really allowed to validate because I "hadn't met him." So in some ways now that I have, and those things are still factors, and I don't believe factors that are related to my anxiety/avoidance, I feel like I at least have regained some self-trust.

This is going to sound rather mean, but I believe he is a bit opportunistic, shrewd and a little cunning. I also got a more clear sense of something I was reacting to in his emails. That he's maybe on the spectrum in that way that is not emotionally generous or giving.

At the time when he and I were talking and he was single and a date was on the table, he was also simultaneously flying all over the country meeting people from the dating site we were on. That was not appealing to me. Way too terrifying to throw myself in the running like that. So I backed out. I know that I blamed all of it on my ambivalence, etc, but I don't think that's entirely accurate. And I think he's still doing it to a degree.

The end of his marriage was pretty blunt. She left -- they had a 5-min mediation over money. He did some soul searching but I don't see the emotion. He's a very sensitive-seeming, lovely, kind person but I don't know - he's on a mission for himself. He wants to retire, travel, he's figuring out his stuff with this woman (we didn't talk about it much, but I can tell - he mentioned something about trusting her b/c she married years back to get into this country).

It's really all the stuff I sensed about him from the getgo and I didn't want to waste my time but there is no justifiable reason that I can say "not for me," without that being a red flag for avoidance. So I didn't know how to justify it. That, combined with the scarcity of there not really being a ton of other options and him being a good fit "on paper," made me question and doubt myself. And I truly wish I hadn't. I truly wish I could give myself permission to go "not for me," and trust that and move on. That feels way more secure to me.

My dating coach says, "You can have your sixth sense/intuition but it's better to back it up with facts." And so now I've done that. And I'm drained and exhausted by the whole process. It makes me want to reflexively go into a cave for the next 6 months.

So that's that.

Thank you very much for this.

I don't think I'm in a love triangle. This was a one-time thing and I definitely would not have continued if he were still involved with her and we were to move ahead. But that is not the case now.

I think I just don't believe there are a lot of fish in the sea. I keep trying to renew my hope. And while I amazingly still have some, it dwindles. And I think the scarcity can lead me down not-great paths.

Unfortunately, the scarcity mentality is going to keep you making choices out of fear, and that means finding yourself attracted to men who are unavailable to you. It's not fair, but it's how this tends to work. It isn't that no man will be attracted to you, there's no options, or that you should settle -- those are all stories you're telling yourself. It's that the fear steers you towards men who make it a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the circle continues. But that's where you still need to work towards some shifts in yourself that are outside of and have nothing to do with dating, and I know that's where you get stuck in regards to finding a path forward.

I'm sorry your updates are overwhelming and frustrating for you and that making it to one date still drains so much energy. I hope not feeling like there's loose ends with guy A anymore, not having to wonder, and being proud of yourself for following through and learning your gut was correct and can be trusted, are enough to still have made this experience worthwhile!

Honestly…and just another consideration…but many single women don’t want a divorced man….and some probably don’t want to be a step mom.  So I don’t see a call out of no kids, never been married as gloating or no baggage….i see it as putting out as broad a net as possible.  Which brings up a very interesting question…do you see having a child as “baggage”?  No right or wrong answer…just something to be curious about.