A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:My boyfriend and I are in our mid forties and we have each been married (and divorced) once. He for over 10 years...me for over 5 years. We have been dating for a year and a half. We talk about marriage. We talk about where we will live. We talk about cars big enough for all of the kids. That kind of stuff. It's nice to talk about those things and it makes me happy as I have always wanted to get married again after a bad marriage and after a bad experience in the past where I dated a man that I was crazy in love with and he strung me along until he met the right woman (turns out I was just a space filler) and immediately married her. Anyway, I am very serious about this guy. Problem is...he's crazy busy. I mean CRAZY busy. And just plain crazy. Lots of people are busy, but the difference is that this guy is also unorganized and has this thing for focusing in on the minor little details of everything while the huge gigantic picture goes unnoticed. For example, he will need to, say, paint his kitchen. While getting ready to paint he will notice that the toaster on the counter is sitting a little lopsided. In turning the toaster over to see what the problem is, he will notice that one of the little rubber feet is missing. He will spend an hour scouring the place for it. While scouring, he gets distracted by 10 other trivial tasks. He will then drive 10 miles to the hardware store for a new thingy, but the thingy on his toaster is black and they only sell white. It drives him crazy that it doesn't match, but buys it anyway in an effort to complete this task. Gets home and goes online to find the thingy in black because he's already ticked off by the unmatchiness of it all. Can't find credit card to place order. Goes to find credit card, session times out. Can't find original website. Finds new website for rubber thingy, but place also sells super heavy duty velcro tape that he also needs for a different project...spends 45 minutes researching such tape and deciding on color even though tape will not show under any circumstances. Finally places order, chooses rush shipping, pays 16.95 extra for it because he can't wait. Gets done and realizes that he has spent those whole day doing a whole bunch of nothing and never even came close to painting the kitchen. I call to see how his day is at the end of all of this and he is yelling into the phone about how nothing ever goes right for him and how all he wants is to get ONE THING accomplished and he can't and now here I am calling! I don't think he means to make me feel bad that my call is just the straw that broke the camels back, but I do feel bad. Makes me not want to call, so mostly I let him call me. Sometimes he gets mad that I don't call him, but I don't because I never know what kind of craziness is going on NOW! By the way, after the overnight delivery of the had-to have-it-right-now rubber things and velcro, he will not install either for a month and a half because he has no time! Most of the time I don't say anything about the craziness, but every once in a while it gets to me and I say something. He is unaware of how many times I bite my tongue...which is A LOT...so he assumes that I bitch about everything that bugs me 100% of the time when in reality, I only say something maybe 1% of the time, and when I do it's nicely, like "Honey you've seemed in a bad mood this week". Well, that sets him off like crazy yelling about how nobody else ever thinks he's in a bad mood so how could I? And how my negativity sets him back in terms of wanting to take our relationship to the next level. He makes it seem like "Well, I was just getting ready to propose to you, but now I'm not sure how you feel about me so now we're back to square one". Am I being punished here? Are these just excuses to not move forward in a relationship by blaming the fact that we do not move forward on MY negativity about him? Does he need medication for ADD or anxiety? How do I deal with this? Should I or should I just walk away? I love him a lot. I really make a point of being mature and reasonable now that I have a wonderful second chance at a happy relationship, but my boyfriend takes things to extremes. When he gets mad at me for my 'negativity', he yells, then won't speak, loses his desire to get anything done, goes to bed and sleeps whenever he can, and then when he starts to feel better, blames me for all the time he wasted doing nothing. Help!
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female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (20 September 2012):
 YOu said:
" While getting ready to paint he will notice that the toaster on the counter is sitting a little lopsided. In turning the toaster over to see what the problem is, he will notice that one of the little rubber feet is missing. He will spend an hour scouring the place for it. While scouring, he gets distracted by 10 other trivial tasks. He will then drive 10 miles to the hardware store for a new thingy, but the thingy on his toaster is black and they only sell white. "
Has he had an ADHD work up....
that's me! I'm so ADHD it's nuts.
A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (20 September 2012):
 I don't think he is stalling on purpose, consciously. Like, not as if he says to himself : OK, I need to string this woman along, so I'll come up with some excuse to be mad at her.
This is just the neurotic way he malfunctions. Don't you see a parallel between you and the toaster thing ?.... Same as ,in his fumbling yet rigid perfectionism ,he can't stand having a toaster with 3 black thingies and a white one, it makes him sick.... so he cannot stand to have a less than perfect future wife, one who , once in a blue moon, complains, criticizes or anyway implies he could do or be something different.
Are you sure you want to marry such a dysfunctional individual ? I suppose that, at your age and experience , you'll have found out that no, just " love " is never enough for happily ever after... and this is just a glimpse of the infernal life you'd have to live with him. You say yourself that 99 percent of times you bite your tongue, and this 1 percent of times that you try to voice your comments, not even your objections,- is enough to create big trouble...you'd be walking all your life on eggshells . And the way he handles conflict ,like a 4 years old ? Yelling first, then pouting and taking a nap... ? Why do you want to go through all this again and again ?...
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A
female
reader, Ciar  +, writes (20 September 2012):
 'Are these just excuses to not move forward in a relationship by blaming the fact that we do not move forward on MY negativity about him?' That is precisely what they are.
Your boyfriend has some deeply entrenched issues that need addressing, and medication is no solution. It just masks the symptoms.
I don't believe he's stalling due to lack of love, but because he's afraid of being overwhelmed by a relationship, as he is already easily overwhelmed by everything else. And/or he has a picture in his mind of how perfect he wants his life to be before he does move forward. You've seen how he 'handles' painting a kitchen. His desire for absolute perfection is a reflection of his desire for absolute control.
You already find life with him very difficult and you don't even live with him ('his kitchen'). He isn't reliable and he blames you for everything that goes wrong.
He's actually doing you a favour by stalling. He's giving you a chance to see this relationship and your future in a different light.
I think you should just walk away.
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A
female
reader, Basschick  +, writes (20 September 2012):
 OMG he has ADD really bad. He proably needs to be on medications. It's not you sweetie, trust me. It's him. It's all him. But good luck convincing him of this. If he doesn't see the problem, he won't be willing to get help and you will have to deal with his weirdness. My husband is a little like this too, but probably not to this degree. OMG I don't know if I could deal with that level. And what works for me, may not work for you. Sometimes I just have to push him and that means a bit of whining, bitching, and sometimes arguing to get him to finish the damn project. I've found in my situation, if I'm too nice nothing gets done without all the side-tracks. You may have to turn in to a bitch to straighten him out. My husband has gotten much, much better. But I'm not sure that would work in your case.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (20 September 2012): He has what they call nervous activity syndrome. He needs to be constantly busy, that what makes him feel fulfilled. He never stops, he is like a squerell that runs in her carousel. He is disorganized, because there is really no particular purpose in what he wants to do. He does it just to occupy himself.
I know this kind of people.unfortunately there is no cure. He will blame you, because he is mad at himself. The only help he cN get is from professional physotherepaist who will explain to him what's going.
With this kind of people is very difficult to live together. I understand you want to have a family, but imagine yourself beinwith someone like him in one house every single day of your life.
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