Q Dear Miss Abigail:
I have been dating a girl who I love for two years, on June 5th, 1999. She was frustrated with our relationship, we have never fought, or argued, I feel as if she is my soul mate, we can talk for hours, but obviously I never talked about the steps of our relationship. I am a professional golfer trying to get on tour. I have always seem to put my goals first, but I always tried to make as much time as possible for her. I was teaching golf at a golf course, bartending part time, coaching a high school golf team, and I have joint custody of my son, who I love, I have never been married. She says I have too much on my plate, she loves me, but feels as if she is holding me back, I realize that I would rather be with her than playing golf on tour, I told her this (after the fact), but after she sat me down after a golf tournament, and told me she loved me but, she thinks that we should see other people, but she said she still wanted to date me as well. I have rented the basement of my parent’s house, for three years, saving money. She lives an hour away, she just bought her own home, and I bought her a dog and built her a deck onto her house, she did pay for most of the cost of the deck, but I always drove to see her, every other weekend, and Sundays, Mondays, or Wednesday. I noticed something was wrong when she, her girlfriend and I went to the beach for Memorial Day, and I had a tournament on Tuesday, I kept pushing her about leaving early on Monday so I could get home to drive four hours to my tournament on Tuesday. I felt as if something was realy wrong, and had a feeling I had been selfish. Then that weekend I was given the news. I wanted to marry the girl, but I guess its too late. I have talked to her maybe six times, we have emailed each other every week, and I have seen her twice, once for lunch to return somthing, the other was to take her out for her birthday four weeks ago, we had a great time, she called me four times in two days there after, but she failed to call me on my birthday, until 5 days later, last week and apologized, she said she had every intention but, with her new job, her cousin coming into town, and her car breaking down, then she emailed me this past Sunday, apologizing again, and asked general questions, said she was swamped, it was short, and she didn’t put title or salutation, it was just a short paragraph. My parents move out of state next week and I had to find a new apartment, I want to move closer to her, but I don’t think that will solve anything? I feel as if I am being strung along, am I? Should I continue to pursue? Should I give her her space and to get her stuff organized? Is she seeing someone else? I need to get my stuff organized. She has supported me tremendously, and I was four months late with a gift last year for her b-day, and for our two-year anniversary, I couldn’t pay for dinner, because of some kind of credit card error, but I did reimburse her, the next day? I used all my money for golf tournaments and had very little left? I think she was worried that I was going to fall back on her, and I was financially unstable, I’m thirty-one, I lived at home three years only to pursue my career, but I wanted to spend more time with her than practice. She is also thirty-one, I don’t think she wants to hurt me, but I think slow pain is worse than quick. Should I give her space and time to get over the bitterness she feels? Her friends, my friends and her co-workers believe that we were meant to be, but I should leave it alone! A friend from work, of hers, called me out of the blue, he was given all her projects, because she was leaving and starting a new job. He talked to her and he believes that she really loves me, but doesn’t want to be the reason I stop playing golf, I love to teach golf, and coach, but celebrity is not always what its cracked up to be. Her co-worker wanted me to come up and have a beer sometime, he’s new to the area, and does not know many people. She keeps telling me that it takes time for re-direction, and she can’t help feeling the way she does. She says she doesn’t feel all warm and fuzzy right now. She hasn’t emailed me back since Sunday. I probably should leave things alone, and if she wants me she will make the effort. I have written to her and told her how I feel, I kind of understand how she feels, I thought we communicated well but I guess not, maybe someone else is showing her interest, who is more stable? Maybe she is so sweet that she is trying to get out slowly? She the type of girl who likes to keep on moving, and I became coposetic in the relationship, I don’t always say the right things until its too late… Sorry this is not a short question. I felt I needed to give some background. What should I be doing, and is it over? I don’t have a problem dating, I just wake up ever morning and she is on my mind, I have never had this happen with anyone else before. She and I would talk everyday, on the phone. Is there always a second chance or did I miss the boat? When a woman shuts that door, can it ever be reopened? And once there is a break in a relationship, does it ever become better, if you get back together? Brutal truth?
Signed,
GQTYCOON
A Dear GQTYCOON:
I was going to make this week a lesson in the art of brevity in writing questions to advice columnists, but didn’t have enough room left on the page to adequately cover the topic. Instead, here’s a short thought from Dr. Albert Ellis’s Sex and the Single Man on the ever-changing path that love leads us down. I’m not sure if it answers your questions (what were they again?) but it can’t hurt. And that’s the brutal truth.
1963: Love’s Tendency to Change
Intense heterosexual love ~ whether we like to admit it or not ~ in the vast majority of instances is subject to inevitable change; and most of the time its intensity eventually fades or dies. That passionate love fluctuates and ebbs, and that it usually does so within a few years of its inception, is as incontrovertible as the fact that it actually exists, and that it brings immense satisfaction to numerous persons. Yet, sadly enough, the mores of our society demand that the fiction of love’s immortality be universally fostered, and that most of use be led to believe that, when love is ‘truly’ experienced, it never changes, lasts for the lifetime of the lovers, and it is even ‘immortal.’
Source: Ellis, Albert. Sex and the Single Man. New York: Lyle Stuart, 1963.
~ p. 84 ~