Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Boyfriend not being honest about settling down
DEAR CAROLYN: My boyfriend and I are very much in love and plan to settle down, marry and have kids someday.
However, his plans change all the time. One minute, he says we could move to a different country to study together, the next, he is saying he isn’t sure he wants that anymore. Or he could say something like, I should pursue my dreams and he should pursue his and we will meet up and settle down. At the moment, he is saying he isn’t sure of us traveling together anymore and I might have to go first and that he would come meet me.
Also, he isn’t ready to meet my parents because they are in a different city and he isn’t ready to come down.
All these excuses and patterns are making me think maybe he actually doesn’t plan to settle down with me, but then he talks about our future so passionately that I’m so convinced he really wants it. Also, he pushes me to be a better person in every area. Always saying things like he wants me to make habits with him that are impossible to replicate. Please help me, I really need your advice.
— Anonymous DEAR READER: You plan to settle down, marry him and have kids someday. He has no such plans. This isn’t something I’m telling you; it’s something you told me. You already know he’s not committed.
He just hasn’t told you himself because he’s too scattered to — or too content to have you on a string.
Nevertheless, you’re straining to hear anything to support a case for his being committed to you, and then focusing on that. It’s wishful waiting.
Please don’t do that to yourself. Cherry-picking data to support the conclusion you want may feel good in the short term, but it only postpones the truth — as it becomes progressively more painful to hear.
To know where you stand with people, always, you need to listen to all of what they say and note all of what they do, then weigh it accordingly.
Maybe you do indeed love each other, and your relationship’s uncertainty is in part a byproduct of being young and in flux.
But immaturity is its own problem, and neither of you is mature enough yet to see “he isn’t ready to meet my parents” is a dead giveaway, a “nope” in neon lights. Someone ready to commit wants to meet your people.
And you aren’t mature enough yet to hear the alarm bell: He “pushes me to be a better person”? He “wants me to make habits with him”? I have no idea what “impossible to replicate” means here, but I do know what it means when someone wants you to be better: It means you aren’t good enough as you are, and he’s the one to fix that.
No, no, no, no. No. Serious power imbalance there, a common precursor to even more serious control problems. Already, whether by manipulation or accident, you’re taking orders from his heart, not yours.
We aren’t who we might become. We are only who we are, right now, today. Always. Don’t trust yourself to anyone who isn’t thrilled with today’s version of you. Whether you want or need to be better is entirely up to you.