I'm sure this is not going to be new ground here on this forum but it is certainly new to me and i'm so upset, confused and have no idea where to turn for help.
I've been in a 4yr relationship with a wonderful woman and the first 3 1/2 years have been the best of my life and we are in our late 40s. Besides being a beautiful, attractive woman she was so appreciative of me and all the little things no other woman has bothered to recognize. She was always very attentive, highly attracted to me and we had a mutual fondness for each other very quickly which only grew stronger over time. The communication was very open and forthcoming - she never left me wondering how she felt about me or anything else for that matter. She did tell me early on that she had Adult ADD and at the time was taking some meds to help her focus at work. The only signs i really noticed that seem familiar with ADD (from my reading) is her poor organization and follow through with some things. She always intends to do something and is all excited about it, then it just slips through the cracks. Occasionally it had something to do with our relationship, but mostly other areas of her life. I've never felt closer to anybody in my life - we have the same interests, humor, lifestyle, family values etc..
Early on it was clear she wanted to get married. I'd been previously married (more than once) and it was not that important to me at the time. The longer our relationship went on, I could tell how important it was for her to feel a commitment and to have a ring to signify it and honestly I think the pressure from everybody wondering when this seemingly perfect couple would tie the knot.. and when she'd have a ring etc... She'd never been married and i knew she wanted the fairy tale romance.. and i wanted her to have it. As time went on - i just knew she was it for me, and realized I was letting past mistakes influence my perspective. I knew she was who i want to spend my entire life with and it was silly not to jump on board. I wanted us to live happily ever after and have her as my wife. I created a fairly large proposal scheme and asked her ot marry me last Summer. We don't live together but she was so happy and immediately started planning a wedding for later in the year or early next (2016) and we started talking about moving in together, which would be a relocation for her. There is one other significant detail i'm leaving out, but it could be very relevant. She had a third surgery over the holidays for a serious condition she has which left her with chronic pain and some other not-so-fun symptoms. She lost her job and her prognosis is uncertain. The first two were the begriming of last year (so we had gone through one before our engagement). During this time she's been on a variety of medications - some narcotic including (Valium). She's already weaned herself off everything besides a Valium occasionally - perhaps 3-5x week (that i'm aware).
Over the past few months i've noticed she has completely stopped talking about our marriage/engagement. When i bring up moving in together she has a long line of excuses most of which can be attributed to her medical condition and the timing etc.. While some of this is valid - I've told her i just want to start planning, we dont actually need to do anything until she's ready. Nevertheless it has provoked her in to being defensive, angry and still there is no discussion. It seems almost taboo to mention we are engaged.. and she's all but stopped referring to it. The million dollar question is "what has changed, have you had a change of heart, do you want to slow down - have I done something wrong, do you have cold feet"? I've asked every which way but Sunday. I get the same answer. NOTHING has changed. My feelings are the same, i still want to get married etc..etc.. Since i never see any change in behavior or emotions.. ive asked quite a bit and now it just makes her angry that i don't believe her and she is defensive claiming that she still acts the same.. etc..etc..
At first i thought it might be all the medications + pain, however, we'd been through this before last year and I didn't see the same type of behaviors. This time though, since we are engaged I started wondering if ADD and the "chase" being over had anything to do with what im seeing.
I feel that I am no longer important. She isn't making any effort (certainly not like the past 3 yrs) to make me feel loved or special. In other words, i feel like im in a relationship with somebody who looks like the love of my life, sounds like the love of my life.. but it is somebody I've never met before.
Can anybody provide some insight and thoughts about if/how ADD might explain any of this? It seems that 3+ years is a long time for "hyper-focus" to have gone on. From what little I know/read about it - it seems that ADD would have lasted a much shorter time before the excitement started to wane. I know i can't be THAT exciting to have enjoyed over 3 years of it. Does anybody think I would have seen a big change before now if the ADD was behind this drastic change? Is a contributing factor perhaps? Having a hard time (which is unusual with her) getting her to open up and discuss anything without it getting defensive. We've always been able to resolve issues rather easily until now, so this is new and i'm at a loss.
I love this woman with all my heart and feel that my entire future, my hopes and dreams are crumbling right before my eyes and i can't do anything to stop it. Worse you can imagine at my age I have one eye on the clock watching it tick down. It doesn't feel like I have "forever" to figure this out and help her (if i can) - help me understand and move on from here. I know somebody is going to ask me "what if this is just the way it is - what will you do"? I don't know. I really don't know. I can tell you that the uncertainty of her status, and this puzzle i feel she has given me to solve is not fun. And I don't think i can do that the rest of my life. We have to be able to talk about whatever it is - or it's futile.
Thank you in advance
If she has never married
Submitted by NowOrNever (not verified) on
If she has never married before, she's now in relational territory that she either rarely or never navigated before, between betrothal and marriage
Did she have good models of happy, reciprocal marriage in her upbringing? Sounds silly to ask, but does she know how to do living together, either before or after marriage?
Ed, you described yourself as not originally being as interested in marrying as she seemed, but you wanted to make her happy. Right now, are you wanting to marry?
If you and she used to be able to talk about things but recently she's not wanted to talk much about her lack of wanting to plan the marriage, there's something that is bothering her. I wouldnt presume her feelings have cooled about you. I'd start by believing her to be telling the truth about loving and wanting to be with you.
Only your fiancee can tell you what's going on. I can only try on her situation and tell you as a woman what might be upsetting me. But she's who she is, and I'm not her. So take this as just wanting to suggest to you that there are possibilities for more things than that she doesnt care about you or has now moved out of hyperfocus on you and on the new relation
You didnt mention whether or not her job was important to her personally. Women can be as psychically invested and dedicated to their jobs as men can be. It can be as disappointing or as big a hit to the ego and sense of self worth for women to lose a job as it is for men. If her health problems led to her being let go, or to her having to give up a job she wanted, at the age of 40, in this economy there's likely some upset in her about it, and there may be uncertainties. It doesnt have to be a fancy job with a big salary to get upset at job loss
second, although you and she made it through one operation, a second one is more than the same thing, second time around. For one thing, there was job loss. Some women, maybe more than a few, have their confidence in their femininity or womanhood take a hit, during long struggle with physical incapacitation. They may not have confidence, after multiple bouts of incapacitation, in their attractiveness. Try on the male version of that, and I think you'll see what I mean. But you see, we women are always supposed to look pretty, we're always supposed to look young. We are never supposed to look sick. The media and the cosmetics companies treat female body aging like a failure. We can get embarrassed when all that has to slip some because we're sick. You see these kinds of things would have to do with her, not with whether or not she loved you, only she can tell you, though. In the case of this kind of problem, if she has it, what she will need from you is not asking her if the relation is weakening, what she would need is signs that you find her attractive and cherish her.
A third possibility, to contribute to the idea that there are more possibilities than her ADD hyperfocus ending, is that she's in some emotional fatigue or depression over the job loss plus illness, and that's where her psychic energies need to go, to what's really weighing heavily on her. She may not be ready to talk yet. When I'm really under emotional siege by something that is pressing on my mind and heart hard, I dont have the same energy
...Ed, as I was adding to my post, Insee you answere my first questions. Thank you.
Thanks for the reply.
Submitted by Ed3692 on
Thanks for the reply.
Never married.
Her parents at 50yrs together and going strong. Grandparents whom she idolizes, both sizes married until widowed.
I wasn't interested in getting married period at first.. My previous marriages ended in divorce and left me not feeling so confident. I see clearly now I rushed in to bad choices. But as far as confidence in this relationship working out I was at 150% until just a few months ago.. and now I'm just confused. She is reassuing me that all is fine but i just am not seeing it (or feeling it) due to the behavior changes I'm seeing. I want this to work - but until I know what is going on I'm no longer 150%.
Really great advice / analysis
Submitted by Ed3692 on
Ed, just standing by her and
Submitted by NowOrNever (not verified) on
Ed, just standing by her and continuing to be with her, in your end of the relationship, doing it the good ways you do already, through her hard times will be a huge, huge bouquet of flowers to her.
I didn't read your original post as having any whining in it at all. You told the truth in it.
You know this may be entirely off topic, but as I read your original post and remembered my own worries at being in a lengthy illness, and what the challenges of the illness did to how I handled my relationships with other people, I remembered this bit of analysis from some survey of 350 women done by a women's magazine about what put them in the mood for lovemaking and what killed their mood for it.
Setting aside the situation in which the couple, or one of them, had been crabby or had a fight. Women don't do makeup sex very easily if they feel like they've been picked at, or done to, or there has been a fight and the situation hasn't been healed yet. But set that one aside; it's a no-brainer, from a woman's POV.
The three most frequent things that women themselves said helped affected their mood for lovemaking were
1) To feel safe
2) To feel desired
3) To feel rested.
I was astonished at the very high number of women in that survey of 350 women, who said, look I can't do acting out romance, in any way, if I'm stone tired. I went, aha! So! It's not that women are begging off using a false excuse that they're tired....they're TOO TIRED!
Those three are certainly true for me. And 3) is all tied up with illness. If someone is really sick, there is less energy to get things done: think, plan, get through the day, AND it takes much more time to do ordinary things. In other words, the workday....just getting through the day....takes more time, attention and energy if you're sick.
Hope any of that helps. No, you didn't sound whining to me at all. :) I can tell you from my life that it's a very big, wonderful thing, when my man does stand by me when I'm in my own hard times.
Good info
Submitted by Ed3692 on
I very much appreciate those thoughts and it does make a lot of sense!! I hate guesswork.. maybe a man characteristic. What's broke so i can fix it. Really trying hard to be more understanding - this helps
hyperfocus
Submitted by triedandtrue on
My fear
Submitted by Ed3692 on
This is definitely my fear. Although i take your comments in the spirit intended, it doesn't seem like a gift to think about losing somebody that has become so important to you and your children. Not at all.
Your children
Submitted by triedandtrue on
3 adults and 1 younger that
Submitted by Ed3692 on
3 adults and 1 younger that splits time. she's been a welcomed influence and very loved by all. I raised older ones on my own (not that it probably applies here). What are you thinking? P.S We do not live together yet.
siren song
Submitted by triedandtrue on
one size does't fit all
Submitted by Ed3692 on
I appreciate what you're saying and don't doubt for a second that this advice applies well to many situations. But respectfully you don't know me, my fiancee' or what type of person she is. We've only been together for a relatively short time, but i known her for quite a long time. Like me, she's not perfect - but I wouldn't have let her within a mile of my children if i wasn't sure about her character.
Her behavior toward "us" regarding interest and attention has definitely changed in to a person i feel like i've not encountered but she is a principled woman with good values.. that i know for a fact. I'm not being defensive - it is simply the way it is. I thought ADD might explain some or all of what I'm seeing now (and it may yet prove to be the reason - i don't know or I wouldn't have asked). She is also dealing with some severe health issues which has her on a variety of new meds, pain mgmt, little rest and loss of her normal quality of life as I eluded to. To say at this point she's bad news for me or my family is simply baseless and honestly a bit short-sighted. I'm sure thee are plenty of cases to support this - but one size doesn't fit all. Sorry.
You misunderstand me
Submitted by triedandtrue on
I can relate.....
Submitted by c ur self on
I was a widower age 50, w/as you say, "one eye on the clock" my wife was 46 with clinical levels of add (on adderall to be able to focus and work) and never married...much the same story line as your situation, but, we never considered moving in together....We've been married almost 8 years now and it's pretty much like you describe. So If I were you I would really step away long enough to take a breathe and see if this is what I really wanted for the rest of my life....It's very hard to make a rational decision when our emotions are so entangled...The fact you wrote this post should and will become a red flag for you...
At the end of the day just remember we are all individual's and there is a reason why my wife and your girl friend stayed single so long....(There own way of being accountable in life, and not wanting to entangle others in what they know is intrusive)....So my suggestion is to just believe what you see, and remember you have no power to make changes in anyone but yourself...
Blessings Ed....
C