First, I want to thank this forum for opening my eyes to male/female interactions, and through that, changing my perspective on myself. I found this place just over a year ago and the knowledge gained here has allowed me to change my life and I can’t thank everyone here enough. I am posting this because I learned so much over the last year from other member’s posts and maybe this can do the same for someone else. Writing it out here in black and white helped me to see the relationship is over, there’s no point in trying to resuscitate something that is terminal.
Long story short, I am 48 years old, divorced for 4 years, was married for 20. Spent the last 1.5 years in a relationship with a (now 30 year old) woman. The relationship was the best one I have had so far. She is attractive, cheerful, and willingly accepts the traditional gender roles. She cooks for me, does my laundry, etc. and I have always felt respected and that she looks up to me in the relationship. Got engaged after a year and we were supposed to get married in December. Since I have been married before (but avoided getting cleaned out because my ex wife and I made the same amount of money) and I have seen many men I work with get divorced and then been forced to pay alimony and child support I insisted on a pre-nup with her. I told her I needed a prenup before we got engaged 5 months ago and she has had the actual copy of it for 3 months.
Fast forward to last Friday. I wanted to get the pre-nup signed since we’re 90 days out from the wedding date. I ended up losing frame for the first time. I started shouting for a few seconds and visibly got upset. Then I stormed out. She called me the next day and told me she is just scared of the pre-nup and loves me more than anything. She also asked if I thought that we broke up when I stormed out and I answered honestly that I did think that. She asked me to come over and talk about it and I got more assurances of love and devotion from her over there when I went over and that continued through the week.
This Thursday we started talking about the pre-nup again and I could see her demeanor was harder. She basically said she very much wants to get married but she isn’t signing one. Even said that if I have to pack my stuff up and go I “should be civil about it and not disappear”. She’s never said things like that before. I asked her about that statement and she insisted that she didn’t want me to pack up and go that she was “just scared”. Keep in mind, the whole evening she is telling me how much she loves me and wants to get married (just without a pre-nup).
Next day I tried one last time to see if we could work it out. I went to see her and I even compromised on part of my retirement but she was adamant about another issue. It made me think that she was not looking for solutions at that point, just a reason to blow this up. I ended up losing frame again, got even more visibly upset than the first time, and left. I haven’t heard from her in two days which has never happened before.
Looking back at this I know losing frame was a major mistake and I did it twice. I also see now that when she thought I broke up with her, she sucked me back in, only so that she could basically be the one to reject me less than a week later. And her mentioning me packing up and leaving out of nowhere, I mean, that was a not very subtle hint that she was fine with me leaving and not coming back. What surprises me the most is that she has been super loving, attentive, and supportive the past few months and right up until the end. In 5 days she went from “I love you more than you’ll ever know” and “I can’t imagine my life without you” to “if you’re going to pack up and leave we should be civil about it” then radio silent.
At this point I know it’s over. I’m just shocked at how fast she turned. I also know that when a woman breaks up with you she has thought about it a hundred times before which makes me wonder when she really knew she was going to do this. Months ago maybe. They also don’t leave without a parachute so I would be surprised if she hasn’t been talking to other guys for some time now behind my back. I plan to go over there tomorrow after she is at work, get my stuff, leave her key and then go no contact. Since we were supposed to get married and now we aren’t, there’s really no place to go from here and no point in keeping in contact.
Major lessons learned:
1-Frame is really everything. You lose frame even once and they start to doubt you. Don’t argue with women, they are way better at eliciting emotional reactions than you are. Every time you argue with a woman you risk her provoking an emotional response from you. I won’t be doing that again.
2- I gave up a lot of myself in this relationship without realizing it. I stopped going to BJJ, I stopped seeing other women, I stopped talking to other women, I did not apply for certain career opportunities in our headquarters so I could be with her. So now when it’s over, I’m left trying to rebuild my life and get it back on track.
3- The medium is the message. As I have read on this forum countless times, watch what they do, not what they say. If something is important to people they will make time for it. She’s had that pre-nup for several months. If she really valued me and wanted to lock me down she would have signed it. It’s that simple.
4-No matter how well you get a long, how well she treats you, how much she says she loves you, or how much you love her, every woman is capable of turning on you with very little warning.
PS: I'm starting to see the wisdom in the predominant view here that marriage is a losing proposition. I'm not looking to put myself through this again.
Long story short, I am 48 years old, divorced for 4 years, was married for 20. Spent the last 1.5 years in a relationship with a (now 30 year old) woman. The relationship was the best one I have had so far. She is attractive, cheerful, and willingly accepts the traditional gender roles. She cooks for me, does my laundry, etc. and I have always felt respected and that she looks up to me in the relationship. Got engaged after a year and we were supposed to get married in December. Since I have been married before (but avoided getting cleaned out because my ex wife and I made the same amount of money) and I have seen many men I work with get divorced and then been forced to pay alimony and child support I insisted on a pre-nup with her. I told her I needed a prenup before we got engaged 5 months ago and she has had the actual copy of it for 3 months.
Fast forward to last Friday. I wanted to get the pre-nup signed since we’re 90 days out from the wedding date. I ended up losing frame for the first time. I started shouting for a few seconds and visibly got upset. Then I stormed out. She called me the next day and told me she is just scared of the pre-nup and loves me more than anything. She also asked if I thought that we broke up when I stormed out and I answered honestly that I did think that. She asked me to come over and talk about it and I got more assurances of love and devotion from her over there when I went over and that continued through the week.
This Thursday we started talking about the pre-nup again and I could see her demeanor was harder. She basically said she very much wants to get married but she isn’t signing one. Even said that if I have to pack my stuff up and go I “should be civil about it and not disappear”. She’s never said things like that before. I asked her about that statement and she insisted that she didn’t want me to pack up and go that she was “just scared”. Keep in mind, the whole evening she is telling me how much she loves me and wants to get married (just without a pre-nup).
Next day I tried one last time to see if we could work it out. I went to see her and I even compromised on part of my retirement but she was adamant about another issue. It made me think that she was not looking for solutions at that point, just a reason to blow this up. I ended up losing frame again, got even more visibly upset than the first time, and left. I haven’t heard from her in two days which has never happened before.
Looking back at this I know losing frame was a major mistake and I did it twice. I also see now that when she thought I broke up with her, she sucked me back in, only so that she could basically be the one to reject me less than a week later. And her mentioning me packing up and leaving out of nowhere, I mean, that was a not very subtle hint that she was fine with me leaving and not coming back. What surprises me the most is that she has been super loving, attentive, and supportive the past few months and right up until the end. In 5 days she went from “I love you more than you’ll ever know” and “I can’t imagine my life without you” to “if you’re going to pack up and leave we should be civil about it” then radio silent.
At this point I know it’s over. I’m just shocked at how fast she turned. I also know that when a woman breaks up with you she has thought about it a hundred times before which makes me wonder when she really knew she was going to do this. Months ago maybe. They also don’t leave without a parachute so I would be surprised if she hasn’t been talking to other guys for some time now behind my back. I plan to go over there tomorrow after she is at work, get my stuff, leave her key and then go no contact. Since we were supposed to get married and now we aren’t, there’s really no place to go from here and no point in keeping in contact.
Major lessons learned:
1-Frame is really everything. You lose frame even once and they start to doubt you. Don’t argue with women, they are way better at eliciting emotional reactions than you are. Every time you argue with a woman you risk her provoking an emotional response from you. I won’t be doing that again.
2- I gave up a lot of myself in this relationship without realizing it. I stopped going to BJJ, I stopped seeing other women, I stopped talking to other women, I did not apply for certain career opportunities in our headquarters so I could be with her. So now when it’s over, I’m left trying to rebuild my life and get it back on track.
3- The medium is the message. As I have read on this forum countless times, watch what they do, not what they say. If something is important to people they will make time for it. She’s had that pre-nup for several months. If she really valued me and wanted to lock me down she would have signed it. It’s that simple.
4-No matter how well you get a long, how well she treats you, how much she says she loves you, or how much you love her, every woman is capable of turning on you with very little warning.
PS: I'm starting to see the wisdom in the predominant view here that marriage is a losing proposition. I'm not looking to put myself through this again.
