Letters to the Editor
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Funny how we find ourselves in these situations
I've been in and out of a relationship that, well, let's just say "left something to be desired". He had "issues" and I made excuses for him, ya know, why it always had to be "his" rules and "his" convenience.
This was the guy who "thinks the sun shines out my ass" (thanks to Juno), but in so many ways it was so unfulfilling that didn't matter whether he thought that or not.
LW, you deserve a guy whose blinded by the brilliance of what shines out your ass. I'm being serious although it seems silly.
If he wants to see you, he should make an effort, from arranging a date to picking you up, to holding the chair for you and your favorite restaurant. Seems like you make all the arrangements and do all the traveling and preparation to see this man, and he can't be bothered to go the least bit out of his way. His way or the highway, he says.
That doesn't change, the whole my way/highway thing. I know from experience. Unless there are consequences (beyond whining and pouting) he will continue to expect you to jump through hoops at his convenience.
If he cares so little for you that he can't even at least make clear what his issues are here, this doesn't look like a keeper to me.
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This relationship just isn't working.
The lack of a key isn't too troubling in and of itself, depending on how long they've been together and how committed they are. What bugs me is that he hasn't really given her a straightforward answer about why he doesn't want her to have the key, and that he's giving such mixed signals. He doesn't want her to completely move back into her place, but he won't give her a key when lots of her stuff is at his house. That's totally unreasonable. It's a huge pain in the ass for LW to not completely live in one place or the other, especially if she needs access to her things when the boyfriend isn't at home. If the boyfriend doesn't want her to have a key, he should have no objections at all to her moving back into her own apartment. I personally think that LW should just inform him that since he's not giving her a key, she is moving back into her place. She needs to grow a spine and start calling some of the shots - especially if she's unhappy letting him call the shots. If he doesn't like that arrangement, he probably wasn't that excited about their relationship anyway. Harsh, but true. The no-key-for-you thing could just be a passive-aggressive way of telling her he's not really that interested.
LW needs to sit down with the boyfriend and have a good heart-to-heart talk about where each of them stands in this relationship. They're clearly not on the same page. It would be interesting to know how old they are and how long they've been together. My guess is that they haven't been together very long (guessing less than a year), but quickly started spending almost all their time together. They're probably also young - mid 20's at the most. The relationship seems to have moved along quickly, but without any clear discussion or understanding about what each person wants. Until they are able to define their relationship and goals, it's a very bad idea for LW to continue to invest all her time and energy into it. Besides, even people in a healthy relationship have their own hobbies and interests. My husband and I have an awesome relationship, but we don't spend every waking moment together.
The boyfriend needs to at least be honest with LW and tell her why he's not comfortable letting her have a key. If he thinks the relationship is just moving too fast, he needs to communicate that honestly with her. If he doesn't give a good reason, LW can take that as a sign that he's not willing to communicate with her. At the very least, they need to stop spending so much time together until they define their relationship.
My personal opinion is that this relationship is one-sided and will probably not last much longer.
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Hello, and welcome to Dating Limbo
The idea of this game is for the man to see how low the bar for his behavior can go. It usually starts small and with things that seem, on the surface, to be perfectly reasonable. He's fifteen minutes late? Well, crap happens. No big deal. Also no big deal when you pay for the second date, maybe even the third. That's equality, right?
The problem is that instead of seeing you as someone who is kind enough to cut people slack when crap happens, he sees you as a doormat and starts pushing his limits. It goes from fifteen minutes once in a while to an hour most of the time. You're expected to pay for things, but he isn't. You're expected to cook and clean for him, but he won't reciprocate. You're expected to initiate contact two times out of three. You're expected to live at his place, but without having your own key, and you're expected to continue to pay rent on an apartment he can't be bothered to visit. You're expected to sit on his front stoop with a bag full of groceries, waiting for him to get done at the gym.
I assume there are women out there who do this, too, but I'm straight. I have no personal experience of it. I'm also not saying that I catered to it, either, only that it's been tried. I'm an extremely frustrating person to play Dating Limbo with.
There's only one thing to do: dump with no contact. The reason for the no contact is that once they're dumped, they will "make an effort", raise the bar a little bit so you're not bending over backwards quite so much, which makes you think they've seen the light. The problem is that as soon as you walk under the new bar, guess what they do? Yup, they lower it again, right back to the point where it was two seconds before you broke up with them.
These guys aren't looking for a partner, they're looking for someone they can use. They might be really sweet about it, and they might see getting things out of you as you loving them, but that's the upshot of what they're looking for, and the only thing to do is to refuse to play.
They won't feel loved when you do this. They'll whine at you about how they're not your #1 priority. They'll accuse you of being manipulative, the pot calling the kettle black. They'll try to guilt-trip you with stories about horrible exes and whatnot. Remember that they chose those exes, even kept the exes around when things started to get rotten. There's a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with you.
It's a free country. They can try to guilt-trip you. You are under no obligation to take it personally. You are also not responsible for their rebound bitterness. A wannabe user who whines about feeling used needs therapy, not sympathy sex.
When someone goes into a relationship with the idea of seeing how much they can get away with, you'll never have a relationship with that person. They're not in it for a relationship, they're in it because they feel all warm and fuzzy from watching someone else do the limbo. It makes them feel good to put people down, which is why they get all horny about it. They don't get hard for women who don't bend over backwards. You're not human to them. You're a fetish object.
If he doesn't want to give you what you need in order to be comfortable spending that much time at his place, then you need to do what you need to do in order to feel comfortable without that key. This isn't spite, even though he may call it that, it's taking care of yourself. If he won't take care of you and won't let you take care of yourself, he has a fetish, and a nasty one. He's not in love. He just gets hard when you're in pain.