Dear GirlShrink,
I have been dating this guy for four years, he broke things off with me and moved out of state after two years. I did not hear from him for eight months. He called one day out of the blue and we began where we left off. We continued to date for two more years,and he recently mentioned marriage and moving to the state he was now located. He asked me to discuss this with my four children, I did and my two youngest kids ages 10,and 11 were all for it but my two oldest kids ages 17 and 13 were dead set against it. He came down one weekend to spend some time with us and my two oldest kids were not very receptive to him. He called twice after this and now it’s been three months and he has’nt contacted me at all. I did contact him via web cam but he did not mention our relationship at all. I just want to know should I simply move on or do I ask him what went on.Thanks for any advise you can give me.
Dear Friend,I think the man you are dating is afraid of conflict. When he moved he figured a long distance relationship would be too much work, so he cut things off. When he noticed how your older children were acting towards him, again he ran from conflict and stopped all contact.
My problem with him is that there is always conflict in life, and you have to work through it in order to have any sort of meaningful relationships with anyone. Romantic. Family. Work. I think that if you had married him – he may have been an emotional bailer. Every time things got tough, he would emotionally check out — if not eventually physically leave. I think its probably a good idea that you have received two rather larger red flags to leave this man alone.
As far as contacting him for closure. I am all for that. Say what you have to say and allow him to defend his questionable behavior, but then walk away and move on.
