A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Is it possible for a guy to just need time to mature, to get to the point where he's ready to be in a real relationship? Or is it the case that, if the right girl comes along, he'll be ready?I dated a guy for a long time. Eventually, we broke up. We were just never in the same place as far as how serious we wanted to be. I was ready for the whole "sharing holidays, planning the future" and he was content just being together and leaving plans for later. There were other complications, but for now let's assume they're no longer relevant. Fast forward a year. After several months of no contact, we're back in touch, discussing the possibility of getting back together.This guy is my best friend, and I know that I'm his. He's the love of my life. My only real reason for not being with him, in the past and now, is that I simply don't know whether he loves me enough. And I think I deserve to end up w/ someone who's as sure that I'm the girl for them as I am that they're the guy for me. I don't know for sure yet whether he's going to tell me he wants to try again; we're long distance for a few more months, so it made sense to just take some time to think things through.But here's the question: even if he does tell me he's ready to do this for real this time, can I believe him? Is it even possible that he just wasn't ready before - that he was too immature? (That's what he told me when he first called me after months of no contact - that he hadn't been ready for a real relationship before, but that now he was.) We started dating when he was 23 - I was his first real relationship, his first love, his first lots of things. Now he's 27, and in our time apart, he's had a chance to date other people. Is it possible that he could be ready for something now that he wasn't ready for before?I worry that the problem is just me - that I'm just not the girl for him, and that he'll convince himself I am b/c he's so desperate not to lose me. I'm really important to him, and giving me up would be unbelievably hard for him. Would a guy be able to convince himself a girl was the one for him, even if she wasn't, just to avoid the pain of losing a girl who was really great, but just not what he wanted?I probably should've just waited until he and I had actually talked this through and I had more than a hypothetical, but I'm a girl - this is what's on my mind. And I wanted to hear what ppl thought.
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, LazyGuy  +, writes (29 July 2008):
 Whose need? Is it your need that he matures or does he have a need to mature for himself?
Because from your post, you want him to mature for your sake. Unlikely to happen. After all, you aren't going to loosen up for his sake are you?
Women like you seem to have trouble understanding motivation. Motivation happens not because someone else wants you to do something but because YOU want to do something.
So again, who wants him to mature?
If he is the one who wants to mature for his OWN sake, not just as an attempt to please you, then things have a change. If he is just saying he is willing to change for your sake, then no, it probably won't work.
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