useakiss is offline useakiss Post #1  July 14,2010, 10:12am
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I originally posted this in another thread as a response and then realized it deserved its own thread and it was hijacking, so I'm fixing that...

Anway, this just happened to me and I'm still of mixed feelings about it. I was out of the dating game for years after an extremely painful breakup, and I'm so used to being alone that I really have trouble telling where the line is and when I should just ignore behavior or cut and run. Maybe you can tell me if I let this go on too long, or if I didn't give him enough of a chance, or whatever?

I met him through POF and in total we dated for over two months but got serious very early on. We did a lot of things together, mainly going out to eat and little weekend events like ren faires and festivals, etc.

Early on he asked me if I'd be interested in on a weekend trip out-of-state for an event we were both interested in. I was enthusiastic and started arranging my work schedule to accomodate. Then suddenly he said that his son's schedule had changed and that he'd have to come along. And then hours later he said it was cancelled. I was disappointed but understood and didn't think anything more about it until halfway into that Saturday when I got a text from him announcing he'd gone anyway, alone. It didn't even occur to him that I might be a bit hurt by that.

This sort of last-minute thing would happen regularly--we'd make plans for something together, and then suddenly, without consulting with me, his son would be part of the equation and we'd be scrambling time-wise. For obvious reasons this would instantly changes the chemistry of the event for us. I don't have kids and typically don't date guys who do, but I was willing to try in this case because I thought he might be worth it, and he'd said he only had his son two weekends a month, but I was becoming frustrated because I was barely getting the chance to know HIM. To me, a lot of these incidents could have been avoided if he'd just bothered to ASK about his son's schedule ahead of time, rather than always reacting the last minute. In the two months we dated, he ended up dragging his son along to numberous events we enjoyed as adults but the kid hated, but he was determined to still "have fun." Well, there's nothing more fun than a disgruntled and bored 9-year-old boy. :^(

Another flag: He would regularly text me while driving, often at night. Eventually I texted him back and said "Stop texting and driving!" and his response was "Yes dear," as if I'd regularly nagged him about this incredibly dangerous behavior. That irked me but I let it go. However, as time went on I started becoming more and more frightened when he drove because he was a terrible driver, was always distracted and fiddling with some gadget to show off. The fact he did all this with his son in the car also worried me. I would also regularly have to tell the kid to put his seatbelt on, and he wasn't even mine.

Another flag I chose to ignore was the fact he was in active reserve in the National Guard and had to give them one weekend a month as well. He told me up front that there was little likelihood of his being called up because he was getting out and going into contract work--so I decided to give it a shot. However, two months later he decided to volunteer for a year-long tour in Afghanistan (purely for the money), and he informed me via a text at 10:00 pm! I was furious and got little sleep, and then stewed over it all the next day, meanwhile ignoring his random texts about trivial things as if nothing had happened. That night I finally called him and told him I was very upset. His first response was "Now what did I do?" This was the first time I'd ever said anything negative to him, but he sounded as if I'd regularly exploded at him. That made me stop short and I thought, "Dude, I am NOT your ex-wife!" I went on to say that I was mad that he thought freakin' TEXTING me this news was appropriate. He honestly didn't get why this bothered me, and then started him-hawing about how it wasn't a done-deal yet and that things could change, and besides, it would only be for a year and we still had months before he would be deployed. And besides, we could still Skype...

Now, we'd only been dating for two months, and I could probably have counted on my hands the number of deep phone calls we'd shared, whereas I'd gotten hundreds of texts within the first week. I thought it was insane that he felt a year would just fly by and that Skype would be sufficient, when he barely called now! And meanwhile what, exactly, was I supposed to do for that year--just sit on my hands and wait for him to come back and maybe keep dating me?

By this time I was definitely having second thoughts about our whole relationship and questioned the point of continuing to date him when I knew about this seperation coming up, but still cared about him and kept telling myself that no relationship would be easy and that I'd just have to learn to adjust.

A BIG red flag suddenly flew when he did the "oh, by the way, my son is coming along" trick a week before a big 4-day camping trip we'd planned for a month with a bunch of my friends, all adults without children. This was the first time he even mentioned his son might come along, and this would absolutely change the entire nature of the camping trip--never mind the logistics since we only had one tent. I'd been hoping that weekend would finally be my chance to get him alone for a length of time, and it would be compromised now.

He lived only a few minutes away, and yet it seemed as if I only got to see him one or twice a week, and on the odd weekend when he didn't have all those other obligations. We only spent actual nights together twice in all that time, which I found incredibly frustrating. He never seemed happy just hanging out spending the evening watching a show--we always had to be going out, and if we couldn't go out, I didn't hear from him. I'd ask what he'd done the night before and he'd say he'd watched a show he knew I liked, but it never seemed to occur to him that I'd maybe like to watch WITH him.

The last straw was when the free weekend was coming up and I asked him if he'd like to get together. His response was that he had a stack of bills he had to handle. And that was it. I'd lost out to a stack of bills that would take, what, a couple of hours at the most?

I had a heart-to-heart with my friend about all this and they all said it was time to cut things off, and do it before the camping trip in a few days! So that's what I did... I SHOULD have just texted him and told him it was over so he got a taste of what it's like, but I had more courage and called him to do it properly. It wasn't easy and I still wonder if he really understood why I'd had it, but I just couldn't deal with always being the afterthought in his plans. I didn't expect to be his main priority, but I did have to be ONE of them. I wanted real companionship, not just somebody to sit with if I wanted to try a restaurant or fool around with occasionally when I could fit it in my schedule, which was what this had become.

Sorry for the long story--I needed to vent because this just happened two weeks ago and I haven't been on here since we started dating. Ugh.
 
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DancingFool is offline DancingFool Post #2  July 14,2010, 10:33am
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I think that you made the right decision to end things primarily because you two have highly incompatible personalities.
 
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Sassafras54 is offline Sassafras54 — Advice Official Moderator Post #3  July 14,2010, 10:35am
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I saw it on the other thread before you deleted it and same thing here: *mwah* for one who could use a kiss.
 
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NYCpigeon is offline NYCpigeon Post #4  July 14,2010, 10:52am
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You did the right thing. He was treating you like an afterthought, a convenient filler. Maybe now is the time to evaluate what you really want in an SO, and better ways to detect bad behavior earlier on.

And yes, when something doesn't sit right with you, you should say so and discuss it. And if he does not like for you to have an opinion and speak up for yourself, then you should let him go.
 
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Gr8Guyn2008 is offline Gr8Guyn2008 Post #5  July 14,2010, 11:20am
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It seems that you were an afterthought in his life. You did well getting rid of this loser. There are plenty of good guys out there. Find one that is interested in you and not one that sees you as convenient when it suits him.
 
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ami1uwant is offline ami1uwant Post #6  July 14,2010, 11:51am
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You made the right decision...

Some advice...you need to talk about these things and not let them pass because this frustration builds up.

IF you considered yourself a couple and he decided to get deployed voluntarily without talking to you that is a MAJOR issue with any serious relationships. You dont make decisions like that. That is somethiing he should have at least talked to you about. This is different if he was under orders to deploy which is always possible with Reserve/guard.

The other red flag was with his child. Children need structure and it seems he is bullwhiped by his ex who uses Dad to dump his son on when she calls.

Most single parents are not like that. Sure one or two times there is a schedule change..that can happen..but there comes a point when it becomes difficult. He should have said to his ex that this is not his weekend to have his son and that he willl be out of town..end of story.

With his travel for work...as someone who travels for work..that can happen where you have something scheduled and then its canceled at the last minute only to see it rescheduled for a slightly different time.

With my job a senior official was planning a visit the end of June and it was something that was set in mid May so everyone arranged their schedules for it. Last minute the visit was canceled and postponed to tomorrow....but now many people cant be here because of already long planned meetings.

The only reliable travel for work related events is when attending a conference in specialty because those dates are set a few years in advance and everything has been arranged so the only thing that would stop it is a natural disaster.
 
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D_Lion is offline D_Lion Post #7  July 14,2010, 3:18pm
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I would say this sounds like a clear case of you having made the right decision.

It is not clear from your story if you tried to negotiate these behavior, or craft reasonable work-arounds for them, however - which might have been effective.

***

For myself, most of my life has had unpredictable intrusions for myself and some of my partners;

- Not knowing until Friday if weekend work would be available or required.
- Unpredictable evening work.
- University assignments / papers to complete.
- All manner of random problems with houses / family, etc.

How I worked around this issue was that I don't make any sort of plans in advance at all.

In general I would make arrangements for the coming weekend on Friday afternoon. So, it wouldn't bother me is my partner wasn't available.

Now, the total quantity and quality of time are important, of course.
 
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annother is offline annother Post #8  July 14,2010, 5:58pm
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Yes, you made the right decision.

The fact that his plans changed wouldn't bother me so much as the off-hand manner in which he presented it to you. Very inconsiderate.
 
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