LTR with lack of common interests?

[MisterAl]

Uh-oh, I ****ed up. I dropped my girl's IL to single digits. We've been together for over a year.

I guess I'm looking for advice ranging from "buck it up kiddo, you'll do better" to "here's the obvious solution you've missed because you're upset."

My girl is that unusual non-psycho, not-fat, non-slut girl-next-door Flexible Giver that treated me right all the time, gets along with my whole family and never fights with me. I've been the aloof, eccentric weird-ass that frustrated her but made it up with a nice smile and much more.

Three months ago she told me that she decided I was the one she wanted for the rest of her life and we should start planning a wedding. This was even well after I lost a well-paid job that I still haven't been able to replace as I eat store-brand spaghetti every night and wonder how to pay the mortgage. I shrugged it off and suggested we wait until I work again and have money. She really wanted me to tell her that she was the one and only forever.

While our lack of common interests has not been a problem for me as I am an independent person, she wished I would jog with her everyday and go to bed with her early at 10PM every night among other things. Her parents are her ideal model marriage and they are joined at the hip and never spend time apart. I need lots of alone time for my interests and small online business.

Last week she told me she wanted to spend two months apart citing that we have little in common. She was crying and too upset to actually break up with me and instead made me dinner and took me swimming at a nearby pond.

Part of me wants to enjoy dating other women again. The rest of me is not happy about this, and knows that pretty, low-maintenance Flexible Givers with zero issues and no baggage are rare, and ones with 95% IL in me out of the starting gate like this one are mythical.

My Reality Factor tells me this is over. I had expected her to try to break up over this issue. We haven't spoken in the four days since and I'm giving her lots of space. Any thoughts?

 

[WaterTiger]

MisterAl,

It all comes down to the pure simple truth. You don't want to be married ands she does. I also want to praise you for NOT saying that she is your one and only when you really don't feel that way.

It's slowly dawning on her that you don't want to get married, and that's why she finding all these odd reasons to break up. (Having "nothing in common" is a lame ass excuse. My parents have almost nothing in common and they've been very happily married for 45 years!)

If you aren't ready to get married, break up with her. She's wasting your time for dating other women. You're wasting her time in finding a man who wants to get married and start a family. Will you find another like her in the future? Who knows? But it's not fair to expect her to wait for a few years till YOU are ready. And it's not fair for you to jump into a marriage that you aren't ready for.

 

[Doppler4000]

Why in the world would you want to want to have an LTR, let alone marry, someone that you have very little in common with? One could ask the same question to this women you're talking about. It makes no sense.

 

[dietzcoi]

Read your post again!

SHE decided SHE wanted to get married to you!

Who wears the pants in this relationship?

She is not a flexible giver. She is a controller who treats her "pet" very well... and you are the pet!!!

Dietzcoi

 

[MisterAl]

In the interest of keeping the story short I made it confusing.

My problem is that she no longer wants to get married. She has changed her mind.

Three months ago she didn't just "decide" for us to get married. I misstated that somehow. She still had high IL in me and was looking for me to say or do something that meant I had planned for her in my future. Even though we had been together for almost a year I rarely said anything about it and had left her in the dark. She had given me a "I want to be be you for the rest of my life, why don't I get the feeling I'm in your future?" kind of plea. I've been reluctant to commit to anything until I get my career restarted.

As far as not having anything in common, I mean our activities and hobbies. Our values, ideals and lifestyles are quite similar as are the ways we want to raise children. The difference is that she needs her mate to participate in her interests, mostly athletic, and I need time alone for my non-athletic interests.

She likes to get up early and go for a jog. I like to listen to the radio, fix breakfast and walk into the home office and get some work done. On a weekend afternoon she wants to go for a hike nearby while I'd rather drive a hundred miles someplace to shoot photographs. The problem is that while I think it's fine to do all this alone, she doesn't.

Her bio-alarm-clock has been clanging loudly and I ignored it.

I'm looking for advice, whether keeping distance for a while or trying to reassure her is the right way to get her back. I think her IL has dropped unrecoverably low.

 

[dietzcoi]

I still do not understand why you want her back, given what you have stated in two posts.

The obvious way to get her back is to propose marriage. It is obvious this is what she wants, and she is playing hard to get to get what she wants! She is playing you like a fiddle!

You are too close to the situation to see it. She HAS made up her mind, and your choices are to play along or break it off.

If you knuckle under, you will live your life on HER agenda. Count on it! Get ready for early morning jogs!

I think your head tells you to move on and your heart feels bad about it. Follow your head!

Dietzcoi

 

[MisterAl]

I don't know, but you all are giving me decent advice to consider.

The update is that she did break up with me two days ago with the "we need to spend time apart" line. She said that she doesn't see how we could ever be happily married. I doubt that she's looking for my proposal right now, even though she would have gladly taken it two months ago!

My heart was devastated and I'm grieving. I really did want her to stay!

I still see her as throwing away something that is 95% decent because I don't want to jog with her. In our 30s when we would both like to raise a family soon this seems short-sighted.

There are other factors. I've been depressed about my job search lately and didn't see much of her for a couple weeks in August because she was visiting family. Hell, she even said a month ago that if she was wearing my ring I would have been able to go with her. (BTW, her family adores me and is upset about this breakup, so I don't suspect their negative influence.)

Anything could have happened. Things seemed OK before August, but this is an overreaction. When she broke up with me she complained that I don't show enough enthusiasm for our activities, which sounds strange. I tend to be quiet and don't often jump up and down with joy, but isn't that normal for guys? She's always had gay and AFC guy-friends, maybe her expectations of men are unrealistic. I think I failed a lot of her tests last month.

She had been dwelling on a couple of my negative points, "unenthusiastic" and unlikely to jog, and evidently has forgotten all the good stuff. Three weeks ago she cried in my car while we were visiting a touristy place she had wanted to see. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong then, but this week she told me she was crying then because she was deciding to break up.

I want her back. OK, yes, it's oneitis. But she's got over a year's worth of history of being wonderful to me before last month. I haven't contacted her in the two days since.

On the brighter side I've already got a red-headed date prospect that says she DOES like to do the things I do, so here's to hoping she's not a flaker!

 

[PuertoRican_Lover]

you have different personalities - she wants interaction and you want solitude - not compatible in the long term. Eventually she'll look for someone who is more in line with her likes and leave you! The only thing stopping her is her age and her desire to have a family. Eventuallly she'll get bored with your non-interacting lifestyle and may want to seperate! She still wants you but she wants you to make a decision now and not wait much longer. The ball is in your court!

If she wants company for jogging then get her a dog!!Jogging is not an activity that needs sharing!!

You obviously want to see other women who may complement your quiet nature better than she - one who is less demanding on your time. I think the problem has to do with different incompatible personalities and natures and not ia lack of common interests!!

 

[bp1974]

Just because you have different interests and different styles of leisure activity doesn't mean you can't be happily married. What I'm getting here though is that you both assume that you can't negotiate and compromise in oredr fo you both to get your needs met, so it's better to break off now.

You need some alone time at the weekends and in the mornings, whereas she needs some together time. Who's to say you can't talk it out and come to a deal, where sometimes you both do her thing, and sometimes you both do yours. You'd be doing each other a favour in learning how to be both together and apart, and you'd be getting the times you both need for yourselves.

A relationship doesn't just happen, it needs effort on both your parts and a lot of communication, which at the moment has broken down but doesn't appear to be unrecoverable.

If you could envision a future where you were able to have enough alone time to suit you, would you marry this girl?

 

[Crank_It_Up]

she sees your relationship as too one sided...if she's wrong, it's up to you to convince her otherwise, if she's right, let her go.