Common things that keep people unmarried

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll add a reason I see to the pot….dating men who are married. I’ve got two friends who spent year with men who were “separated” only for the guys to return to their wife and kids. It puzzled me how they could spend their best years on a guy who isn’t even available to get married?

That's simple. Your friends who are ok with dating married people have poor boundaries and minimal ethics. They aren't looking at the relationships they are in as an important defining characteristics of who they are. It's just something they do to scratch an itch or for what they perceive as the benefits to themselves.

They aren't really looking beyond where they are at any given moment. Can I get something I want or need right now from this man, do I have any better options? If no better options and he fulfills the needs of the moment, they might future fake themselves and friends to justify it, but that's just a fantasy to deal with any shred of remaining guilt or self respect they might have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm married but I relate to many of the previous posts. I was the single friend who panicked and ran away every time a guy showed interest in me. Even if I had previously considered the possibility of dating him before, once he expresses interest, the situation suddenly feels suffocating, and I would come up with endless nitpicky reasons why I couldn't date him.

I realized I would end up alone forever if I continued down my path, so I did a lot of self-reflection and ended up dating my now-husband. I was surprised a handsome, nice, smart, and successful guy like him was single. He was nerdy and super awkward on our initial dates. So much so that I assumed he'd never had a girlfriend. It turns out he's had multiple long-term girlfriends and is in fact just very awkward. We connected over a shared nerdy interest. After kids, I discover that in addition to the ADHD I already knew about, he likely has mild ASD. The nerdy interest is actually a hyperinterest. Chaos ensues and I almost divorce him. Later on, someone on the spectrum casually suggests that I have mild ASD. I'm not 100% convinced about myself, but I realize both my parents have mild ASD. Our marriage works now with a lot of effort on his part. Most of the time, it's great.

Can anyone explain this behavior? All the people I know who are married were not afflicted by it. What explains the freak-out in response to a guy catching feelings for you? Is it like Mark Twain who said he wouldn’t want to join any club that would have him as a member? (i.e., you are hyperaware of your supposed unworthiness so there must be something wrong with a person who thinks otherwise? Or is it that you instantly feel that you would be settling because he wants you more than you want him, and therefore you are more desirable than he is, and therefore he’s clearly not good enough for you. I think the latter is the answer. But maybe some other dynamic is at play.

I wrote the long post a couple pages ago about my friends like this. I think it comes down to fear

1) fear that their life will change
2) fear of letting someone in
3) fear of being rejected

They are very entrenched in their lives, very in their niche interests/groups etc. They are gossipy and obsessed with picking apart others, not just romantic interests, because (IMO) they are insecure about themselves and are constantly looking to put others down to avoid self reflection. One of them had a lot of childhood trauma, and one still lives with her parents (at like, 38). They basically just never stopped acting like teenagers, but the older and more mature the rest of us got, the bigger the divide. But truly I think it all just came down to a mixture of fear and insecurity. Which is sad.

There is a thing call anxious- avoidant attachment. It can come from having been raised by really engulfing, suffocating parents. You fear losing yourself in a relationship. I was so avoidant that when I met my husband he would travel a lot and he would call me every night from where he was and it would freak me out like “why is he calling me?” It kind of scared me. And I was almost thirty!