My boyfriend wants to "talk".

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I finally found someone and just everything has been so amazing, we see each other ALL the time and always doing something. If I spend the night and he is going to work, he always comes back in and says that he can't leave without kissing me goodbye. This morning I didn't get a kiss, didn't get a goodbye, nothing, he just left. So I noticed he forgot his phone so I stood at the door holding it and he waved.

There's a stop sign at his house so he was there and turned around and came back in and said that he wanted to "talk" which to me means "break up" but he was going to work and didn't have time. So I am sitting here stressing out so much and he says that it isn't breaking up.

We were hanging out with his friend last night and I am bad in groups of people. What I mean by bad is that I can't filter what I am saying or whatever. So he is upset because I said "too much" stuff last night that's supposed to be "private"...

I think you should try to give him the benefit of the doubt when he says he doesn't want to break up. If you keep insisting otherwise in your head, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ultimately, it sounds like his concern is that he feels that information about him was divulged without his consent, and he wants to lay down some additional "ground rules."

My advice: don't object to this. Apologize for the perceived breach of privacy and state your willingness to work with him to ensure that it won't happen again.

Look at it this way: he has shared things with you that are important to him(and likely some are somewhat shameful) because he cares about you a great deal. That sort of information needs to be recognized as special to just you two and off limits to others. Basically, when you give out that information, you are sharing parts of him with others that he only wants to share with you.

It's best to define the boundaries and stick with them when it comes to intimitae knowledge.

A couple of things about men that you could find useful:

First, every man has inside him a knight in a bright armor. All of them. And one of the easier ways to keep a man is to say 'I need you'.

Second, we need to focus in definite problems. Saying 'I need you' is good. Saying 'I need you to help me to fix the wardrobe' is better: we feel needed, we feel useful and we feel that we're solving actual problems. This is happiness for a man. Even if you could fix the wardrobe by yourself! We're good at lying at ourselves and feeling needed

On the other side, we hate long talks about feelings and how things are (unless we're aiming to some specific way to solve it).

Why I say all this? well, if you have long talks with him about how you feel and the problems of the lack of filtering... at the beginning this is OK. After some time any man could feel that this is going nowhere. So make him part of it, make him feel useful and make him feel that the whole thing is going somewhere. How? For example (just an idea, I'm sure you can find more of them) you could require his help, and use it in something tangible, like having secret codes for conversations. So when you're in a conversation with more people he can send you messages like 'slow down, you're telling too much' (with a gesture or with a key word). That can make him feel useful and needed, and can actually help you to improve your filtering.

Oh man, "we need to talk" is never good. I'll keep you in my thoughts, please let us know what happens. Good luck.

Good points there. But, how do you make a man feel needed when people have used him in the past?

You will always do it. He will have to learn how to signal you to stop. Hope all is well after the chat

Good question.

When a man has been used... well, then it's not about feeling needed, but about rewards. Men expect something in exchange. It could be sex, or support, or trust, or empathy, or intimacy... it's different for each one. When a man gives and gets no reward over and over, he loses faith. He just doesn't expect anything, doesn't care and doesn't have any motivation to be a better partner.

How do you fix that? Well, that's difficult to say. I would say that the best way is to take it slow, no rush, and to reward. And I say to reward, not to give. Women, often, treat good men like s**t when they're not interested and give a lot to men that don't worth. For us this behaviour would be described, being polite, as unfair and illogical. Not being that polite, probably the description would include the word 'b***h'. Several times. And this behaviour is one of the reasons we lose faith in women. Men, in general, we are very 'task-oriented'. We like to make efforts and to get rewards for it, that makes the world a logical and meaningful place. So, I would say that the best way to deal with a man that has been used is to reward generously when he does right (or at least does his best), that can make him slowly recover the faith that women are not arbitrary and illogical creatures. At least, not always

I don't agree about saying "I need you." Obviously it's different with different people, but that would scare me a bit.

Anyway, he could just want to talk about privacy etc, it's not necessarily a break-up. Wait and see what happens.


Stephen

I was talking about an established relationship with somebody you care for, not about a fling. I suppose that's clear. Moreover, sending this message doesn't mean to spell it out literally. There's more subtles ways to make somebody needed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=angi1vwUkQc[/youtube]

Seriously - how did things go? You okay?

If he says it is not breaking up, you have to take his word.

It could be about something else. Benefit of the doubt. Do not rush to judgement.

Maybe he just wants to have a serious talk, because he's upset. My BF and I have had a few conversations where I've done something bad (usually me, though he won't say it like that) and we need to talk about it seriously. It doesn't mean it's a break up, but it needs to be a serious talk where things are discussed in a rational way (without excuses, I hate no excuses when I'm wronnnng) and you guys need to come up with a resolution. Just talk about it, and please try not to use Autism as an excuse, just a reason. Like, if you've done something to upset somebody accidentally, your reason wasn't bad (you didn't know you did something to hurt somebody), but you still hurt somebody. *not sure if I'm making sense anymore*

Interesting. I find it very hard to give anything to men as shops are so full of gifts for women. How do you reward men, exactly, apart from sex?! Or are you saying it's only a reward in behaviour?

Mmm... honestly, don't know. Every man is different. And even same man, every moment is different. Of course sex is great. Gifts are great too, but it's far more difficult to find a gift for a man that for a woman. Perhaps a special dinner, perhaps no complainings if he goest to have some beers with his mates. Perhaps some appreciation. Think that women like to hear 'I love you' from their partner, but men, we prefer to hear something like 'You did it great, you were amazing'.

Remember when you were a teen: some dudes tried surely to seduce you, or to keep you happy in a relationship, and they did it real wrong. This is because when you are a teen you don't know very well the opposite sex, and we treat the othe sex as we would like to be treated (and seduced). Of course, that doesn't work, because men and women need different things. Men usually learn quick what a woman needs (otherwise they don't get a shag). Women, on the other hand, don't really need to know men very well to get a fling or a couple, so they don't have some real motivation to learn those differences. Not kidding, I have female friends in their 30s that have no clue about how men work.

But the good thing is: remember when you were a teen and any other teen tried to seduce you or to make you happy, and failed completelly? Well, this can give you some idea about what men like, because he tried to give to you what he liked to be given.

I didn't have any as a teen. Can anyone explain?!

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