Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Be the man I'd like to marry??

I think in taking up with Ex23 in revenge for Neil's SA I was somehow responding to the mantra

"be the whore you wish you're husband wasn't"


These past few days there has been a lot of pain, over something there shouldn't've been. For about six weeks I have been "No touch dating" (not at my instigation) a man who I have come to like a lot. He is, as well as being all the things on my latest "check list", financially secure. Frankly I wish he wasn't really or at least that he was only as secure as I. AKA "A battler" I absolutely hate that he can use his success, and my child, to write me off as a romantic possibility.

Read the story of our last date below, and perhaps you'll see why I have a new mantra


"Be the success you would (once) have liked to marry"

10/19/2010

By the time i arrived home I was feeling pretty uneasy. Eventually I plucked up courage to call on the pretext of thanking Him for the night. Pleasantries completed, he was about to hang up when I blurted out...

"John. Are we just friends?"


He had clearly been awaiting this call. And listened calmly as he told me the following.

  • His life is in too much of a state of flux to commit at the moment.

  • He doesn't want to rush into anything that would leave him with 'obligations'.

  • He is pretty secure in his life and could retire and doesn't want anyone or anything to jeopardize that.

  • He has found relationships with women who have kids of Connor's age rarely succeed.

  • In such relationships he has found that he has to assume second place or lower

There were some vague remarks about knights in shining armour. . And to my questions about
chemistry or if he found me attractive...his response was "I won't even go there .."


I cried after we hung up and again the next morning. But what really was the source of these tears? I genuinely liked him. I haven't lost his company, he is quite happy to be friends. Maybe I was fostering a dream? Maybe I am lonely or sexually frustrated. But the truth is in saying all that he made a judgement of me. i.e.


that I am more liability than asset and that I am not worth the risk.


My attractiveness or otherwise remained steadfastly, tactfully, unassesed leaving me paradoxically even more insecure, and needy like I had never been when I thought he liked me.

I truly, honestly, vehemently hate the place I am in right now. I work extremely hard, I have a good professional job. And yet I am a dating pariah on account of being "down at heel" in relation to single men of my own generation who have been more strategic and/or lucky in their choice of job and investments and ex-partners. No! I don't want a knight in shining armour! I don't want to be rescued! I want to make my own way in the world with a loving respectful partner at my side. When I stop spitting tacks I might puke, or cry. I'd've been better of procreating with a millionaire and taking him for everything he's got. Many women in my "posh" suburb are there purely on account of their rich husbands. I, unlike them, am a good, hardworking, solid woman of integrity.


But then I hear the first tiny voice... Did I see him as a way out? in some way? given my earlier post I knew perfectly well that it would not be easy to invite a man into my chaotic lifestyle, so why would this outcome surprise me? The last two comments I think were encompassed in point 3 of Neil's exit report. If you have a child it makes it harder to look after a man, and men like to be No1. Those last two points hurt because they are true. It is incidentally also true of married men, but they have obligations to their children.


In the earlier post I think it is paradoxically that it was connor's behaviour, my gritty self reliance and my assets rather than lack thereof that I saw as a barrier.

Then I hear the second little voice. Maybe he's just not that into you. If he really found you as mesmerising and "right" as you find him he would overcome those things.

Yes, and that is a topic for my next post. I have suddenly got a whole bunch of inspiration. Look forward to my writings on

  • Another offer to wait
  • Arbeit macht frei
  • The price of this child
  • Perfect single (parent) lifestyle

2 comments:

Bernadine said...

I hear that. I think I would feel judged too. And that's just icky. You've been through so much-- either he likes you and pays you the attention you deserve, or buh bye. It doesn't sound very respectful to me-- it feels lonely-- and like someone has judged you unworthy, too.

I have no idea if that's what he really means, but I'm sure that's how I would feel as well.

Ick.

You deserve better.

FI0NA said...

Thanks Bernie, just read this comment. So lovely to hear supportive remarks, and yes, I feel lonely.