Would you still believe in love if . . .

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Long, sad story - skip if not interested.

You're a handsome hunk, professionally successful, and used to bedding any woman you want. You know you're "different" but you've never heard of AS.

But while you can briefly charm the ladies initially, you struggle to maintain a relationship, so you are also used to romances ending badly. The length of time it takes mainly depends on how tolerant and patient the lady in question is. But they all leave, angry, disgusted, hurt, and driven half-insane, never to be heard from again. Except one, who has always loved you just for who you are. But you never ask her to stay, so she keeps leaving the country for extended periods of time.

So you find a lady who has also felt marginalized from the human race and is also used to unstable, turbulent relationships. She was addicted to heroin and crack, but she just completed rehab, and you admire her strength for overcoming her addiction. She's pretty and eager to get married quickly, so you go for it.

Then she wants kids. You don't, but get her pregnant anyway. Then she gets pregnant a second time without your consent. She complains that you don't make enough money, so you work harder to make more. She's never had a job or any particular interests, so she drinks. A lot, effectively replacing the drug addiction with alcohol. She complains that your beautiful, spacious house in a tony neighborhood isn't spacious or tony enough, so you move to a bigger house in a tonier neighborhood, despite that you liked where you were. You buy her a second home in the country, which you never have time to visit yourself because you're always at work. You begin paying private school tuition for the two kids, which costs the same as your college tuition at a private university. Each.

Eight years into the marriage, she's become a hostile alcoholic, nothing you do is right, no amount of money is enough, and you haven't had sex in years. She fights with you in front of the children and shrieks at you for leaving her alone with them when you travel on business. You take refuge in your morning and evening routines with the kids, whom you increasingly seek to protect from her rage and instability. She suspects you're having an affair, spies on your calls and email, and throws you out of your own house when she discovers a whiff of "evidence" that makes her imagination run wild. You've given up and are, in fact, screwing around, but not with "exception girl," whose career brought her back to town.

Although you panic, you're also relieved, and would have happily run off with exception girl if not for the kids. You're attached to them, feel guilty that you allowed them to exist in the first place, and scared about the harm your spouse might inflict on them. She begs you to come back, but you say no. You spend the next two years fighting viciously over money, property, custody, etc., until finally an agreement is reached and the divorce is finished. Believing the nightmare is over, you call exception girl, who still loves you no matter what.

You're now in your mid-40s and let this woman waste a decade of your life. She spent most of your earnings, and now you must fork over a large chunk of your income in alimony and child support. You get the kids two weekends a month, which goes ok for a few months. But that was just the eye of the hurricane. She holds them hostage and uses them as a weapon to harass you. She tells lies about you to anyone who will listen, including your own children. She's spun more and more out of control - drinking, raging, constantly making threats, using the money you pay her to spy on you and drag you back to court. She spends every waking moment finding ways to punish you for leaving her. You thought you'd be free after the divorce, but almost a year on, she controls your life even more than during the marriage.

You've spent two decades feeling victimized by women who leave for no apparent reason - but you married the worst of them all, and now you can't get rid of her. Your life is chaos, you're under incredible pressure, emotionally exhausted, and see no end in sight. You want peace and happiness but don't see how you'll ever get it. You realize you made terrible decisions that ruined your life. You want sex but no emotional involvement, which is easily obtained. You use condoms no matter what because you assume all women are lying and seek to trap and ruin you the same way. You're in Charlie Sheen mode: you don't pay women for sex, you pay them to leave. Your ex regularly threatens suicide, and has made attempts in the past. While you may understand that she is mentally ill, you're aware that you scramble women's brains, so you'll blame yourself if she ever actually does it.

Exception girl is hurt and confused because you've been telling her for years that you want her, but you've resisted acting on it, to protect her. Now you tell her to get lost and wish her the best. She tells you she's heartbroken and leaving town. You panic and call to ask when and where. She tells you and leaves you alone, but wonders why you care. She's been a loyal friend, done all she could to restore your faith in human nature, but realizes that it's hopeless, under these circumstances. She's tried to be a partner to someone who's never really had one. You're the only one she loves, but it's irrelevant to you.

So that's your situation. Would you still believe in love? Would you even care? What does exception girl mean to you?

That sounds like a big mess of stuff. Reads like a PSA promoting vasectomy and warning about the dangers of traditional relationships.
Would I still believe in love? I don't know, I'm not you, but I do believe that humans are capable of loving each other. However, I don't believe that all humans are cut out for long term monogamy (that's not to say that you necessarily aren't, but I believe that people are different and have different emotional and physical needs, and I've seen over and over again how people try to conform to society's standards only to crash and burn).

As for "Exception Girl", that description kind of says it all. If you really believe she's the exception, go to her. Respect her. Lay all your cards on the table, tell her your history and what you think the risks of being with you might be, why you're afraid, and tell her how exceptional she is. Then let her make up her own mind about whether or not she should be afraid of being with you (but don't push it - let her think about it for as long as she needs to). That way she'll know why you've been so hesitant, she'll know what the risks are, and she'll be able to make her own decision.
Honesty is the best policy. What is there to lose in opening up at this point?

I'm fairly sure "Exception Girl" is the poster or a friend seeing as she's a she.

No one can really tell you whats going on in his head unfortunately.
He will however, in all likeliness, so long as she is alive or he cares about his children be chained to his ex.


So to "Exception Girl"
For 20+ years he hasn't made a move and in fact has pushed you to the side, ignoring your advances for other women's.
Are you sure he isn't only interested in you now because he's at the bottom of the barrel?
How many chances have you missed waiting for him?
Are you sure he was worth all that you've given him, let alone more?

Just a few thinking points.

You only live once. It sounds like exception girl is the real thing. Growing old alone would suck. Besides, when you die, you leave this earth the same way you came in, with nothing. Hope it all woks out.

Hard to see truth, this man can't see it.
I think it's hard to believe if no-one you've tried with when the pain of the past relationships fuel your side of despair.
Considering the ex is that manipulative... I can't even see how she's not with anyone else who'd then turn round and take over from the man and giving it large.
Unfortunately, the children will copy the behaviour... because it's learnt.
Is it possible to do a DNA test? That way, if they aren't his... he should be free, right?

Oh, if you're the exception girl, that changes everything.
Basically, if you can, forget about this dude and move on. If you can't imagine yourself doing that, well, your other option is to confront him and basically make it clear you know he's got a lot of baggage and you're prepared to deal with it, but be aware that that's a difficult and potentially dangerous road and one not to be taken lightly; perhaps a road wisest not taken at all.

Exception Girl should still believe in love but should not believe married men who use the classic "my wife doesn't understand me, but you do" line or any variation of it (this is a variation). You got played. Leave and don't look back.

Correct, I am exception girl.

I agree.


He may well be at the bottom of the barrel. He has stayed in touch and explained these details to me over the last few years. But he thinks his situation is pretty normal, he has difficulty seeing the big picture, and he's not a good judge of character. (The drug addiction, and the race to the altar, should have been major red flags.) After the divorce was final, we thought we'd be free to rekindle things, but it turned out that the ex was just warming up. She still screams at him about me, and otherwise keeps him anxious, scared, and too exhausted to have an emotional relationship with anyone.

Prostitutes are predictable and safe: he is guaranteed a straightforward transaction, no different from getting a massage at the gym. No emotion, no expectations. I think it's revolting and see a man with no self-respect. But then, a man who lets a woman bully him daily for so many years hasn't had much self-respect for a long time. I am disgusted, but I try not to be angry with him. Whatever he's doing with whomever, he isn't doing with them what he'd do with me.


None, really. But my patience has run out and I have to get on with my life. With every fiber of my being, I hate to do it without him. But he told me that he's not conflicted at all about the path he's chosen. I think his concern for the kids is commendable. I also think it's futile, and that he's wasting even more of his life than he already has. I am just one more thing she has taken from him, but I don't know if he can see that.


Yes. I think he's amazing. But I value him more than he does.

I didn't get played, Janissy, although that is certainly how it felt for a while. One's emotional reactions are distinct from what the situation actually is. We both expected, reasonably, that his situation would settle down after the divorce. He is just as frustrated as I am that it didn't.


Thank you. I am the real thing, and I agree that you only live once. But so many years are already gone, and he believes he is trapped. Duty-bound to his kids. I also don't think he values love, because so many women have professed to love him, but (in his view) they never mean it in the long run. I am leaving because he sent me away. It is, paradoxically, the only way I can show him I love him, but I don't know if he can see that either.


I agree.


Unfortunately, there is no question about paternity. The perpetual conflict is causing the children to have behavioral problems. They are the innocents here, and shielding them is his single-minded focus. But he can't shield even himself, so all they see is a mother picking their father's bones clean. His only concern is with the harm that would come to them due to his absence - not with the harm being done by his presence. It's easy for him to tell me to let go and move on, but I don't think it occurs to him that taking his own advice is an option, one he should at least consider.

I don't think he wants to walk away from his children... and while this women has this grasp over him.
That's possibly why he can't leave them either, he cares for the kids... and while this women holds on to them and plays him like a fool... he wants to be commited to spending time with his kids.
Sounds like she ruined her life and feels like he should be part of her plans to make her feel like she's in control.
She says jump, he says how high... is it like that? Is he that gullable or is he just loyal... or perhaps trying to please the ex who doesn't give a damn about him but has the kids and calls the shots?

It's more than an issue of want. I don't think he's capable of it. His thinking is rigid, black-and-white, and there appear to be no other options. They are also his, as much as hers, so he's locked in a power struggle with her. He says he hates losing. It is easy to understand why he is flatly unwilling to throw in the towel, just because he made a few bad decisions a decade ago. The unfairness is unthinkable, the injustice intolerable. But I've been there. It can reach the point where it's walk away, or die. Forget the material losses, and just be grateful you still have your soul. I learned young that the only way to win is not to play the game. He's not there yet.


Yes, it is like that. Four years ago, he said if not for the kids, it would've been a no-brainer to leave her for me. He screwed around sort of so she would find out, because it was the only way he could think of to end it, without getting me involved. He didn't even regard her as family. So he definitely feels no loyalty to her. I don't think he even relates to the kids much anymore. Recently, what he's talked about most is the guilt he feels over them - guilt that his careless actions brought them into existence to begin with. He didn't really consider the consequences, and now he is stuck.

He is all screwed up about sexuality now. He's skeptical that I'm on the pill, even though he knows I always have been, because I've always been terrified of getting pregnant, same now as 15 years ago. We had a conversation in bed back then, when he asked what I would do if I accidentally got pregnant. He was relieved and touched when I said there was no way I would have an abortion, because I loved him. I knew accepting him that way made him feel more loved than anything else I could do, and I meant it. But we were in school, and there was no way I'd have let an unplanned pregnancy occur either. I didn't want to be a single mother and/or screw up my career and/or make him mad. That hasn't changed a bit, so his mistrust strikes me as insulting and ridiculous. He is the one who has changed, because he got pressured into the first and tricked into the second, by his own wife - someone he was supposed to be able to trust.

So he's not loyal, or gullible. I'd say that this woman has really messed up his head, and he's just trying to survive from one day to the next. Love is really not a priority, because it's not a familiar feeling to him. But he has been reluctant to let me go, and my sense is that an ember of hope still burns inside him. It is almost unbearable, but it's the same for me.

I would stop telling yourself what you want to hear and start looking at the reality of the situation. You are both getting older and nothing is progressing any faster. Even if he can be with you he can only offer you misery and attempts to please you unconditionally which will only be more stress to him, because it is what he has been conditioned to do for several years under an abusive spouse. This and him also being conditioned to please you in conversation will also lead to arguments out of boredom.

Invest your remaining years on someone else. People waste a lot of time on things and people because they feel they wasted enough and want something back. They think what they want is the person or the things but really it's just a return on all the time spent trying to get something to work or trying to get something at all.

Find someone who makes you just as happy without the baggage.

I agree with Vince, though I am a tenth grade graduate with no love/romantic experience or adult social skills.

JanuaryMan, I am looking at the reality of the situation. He has been ambiguous, all over the map, reluctant to let me go, and less than forthcoming about his situation. I finally lost my patience, learned some shocking information, and the conversation concluded as I expected. I was afraid he'd blame me for leaving, as he has in the past, so I felt I needed his permission. I wanted him to know it's not because I hate him, but because my life must go on.

The ex controls his life, but I've had it with the way she's controlled mine. I feel ashamed for him, I worry for him, I'm angry about all the lost years, I despair that he may not come out the other side of this in one piece. Clarity came only a month ago and I am in a grieving process. Cut me a little slack. My feelings are what they are and they will settle with time. I'm just trying to find a few positive thoughts to walk away with, and I'm doing that here rather than bothering him.

I don't disagree with you. I recognize when the line from "challenging" to "futile" has been crossed. If anyone needs the "don't try to recoup your investment" speech, it's him. He's an island, he works alone, in a vacuum. You have a healthy perspective and I wish very much that he was getting advice from you.

Sorry if I came across a bit stern. It's a shame you have had to experience and learn all this, and I hope you'll see a new light at the end of a tunnel. Your life must definitely go on and I think it's commendable you had the strength to press forward however painful.

He sounds like he could do with some help, but unfortunately it might be too late for him. Just remember that it is not too late for you

If he really wanted you he would risk it all. What's with the long post of the same story just put a link to the earlier one. Unrequited love may sound romantic in songs and books but it's not worth wasting your life away.

Thank you, JM. It's all good, I'm squared away. I have a full, busy life, and when I get where I'm going it will be even fuller and busier. No one made me happy the way he did, and I spent many years looking. I've been celibate for 3 years and it may be many more. If so, I'm ok with that. I don't believe it's too late for anyone (with a few exceptions, like his ex - it is definitely too late for her). But I worry about him, which is why I told the story from his point of view. I pray for him and the kids. Not much else I can do.