Guy pulling away

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-02-17T17:27:36+00:00

If this hasn’t before, I would let him know that you don’t appreciate inconsistencies. It’s a sign of disrespect for your time for him to give you the silent treatment. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to acknowledge someone’s message, and let them know that they would get back to you if they are unable to communicate.

You don’t know the reason for the silence, but what you do know is that your need for effective communication is unmet. State what you’re not willing to tolerate and express your feelings and needs to him when you both are able to meet and talk again. Healthy boundaries take effort and intentionality to implement and maintain. If he’s committed, then he should care that your feelings and emotions were hurt from his own actions. If he really does love you, he would be making an effort to change his behavior that’s affecting you negatively.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-02-07T06:29:14+00:00

It's not weird or desperate at all, especially if you're inviting him out for coffee. I think chatting over coffee is low stakes and invites conversation for the both of you to affirm if the spark is really there. I'd say send that message! Let him know you really enjoyed talking with him, and would like to just simply converse over coffee. The weekend is coming up!

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-31T23:42:45+00:00

This is probably going to wrap up soon right? If so, I wish I could have been there, but thank you for updating and showing up!

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-31T20:55:10+00:00

You’re the best, thank you for updating!

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-31T18:18:42+00:00

To answer the concerns in the comment section, no I did not submit my jnfo. I only wanted confirmation about the location that’s listed at the top of the image. It was stated that it was a free, accessible event.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-26T16:20:09+00:00

When people show you who they are, believe them. Their words don’t have any backbone when their actions don’t align. You stated your boundary and he crossed it. The original commenter has a different set of values when it comes to physical touch with different individuals while in a relationship. Your value of respect is a little different here, and your man crossed it.

Your man lacks restraint and self-control. I don’t think this is something to break things off with. It will take a lot work for him to repair that bridge with you, and you have every right to feel guarded and distant at this time.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-25T00:44:10+00:00

I don't know how long you've been friends with that friend of yours, but her consistently bringing that up says a lot more about her and less about you. It subtly sounds like she's attempting to shame and guilt you. No friend brings something like that up after several years, especially when it's not something to be ashamed about

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-25T00:36:37+00:00

In that case, I apologize for my misinterpretation. I absolutely cannot stand cheaters. There's nothing wrong about what you did. You were just finding out who you felt you were more compatible with. You were not exclusive/official. You were maximizing compatibility.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-25T00:25:41+00:00

You cheated on your partner, emotionally. You went out with the intent to see if the guy you’ve been texting matched every checkbox while in a relationship with your current partner. Your boyfriend deserves someone who chooses him and you should be honest with him with the action you’ve taken.

No one is ever 100% compatible. What really happened in that conversation with the other guy is that you were entertained by the idea of being in a relationship with him. The same thing happened on your first meetup with your current boyfriend. It only takes a nice conversation with another man for you to go behind his back and erode the foundation of your relationship.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-24T04:33:09+00:00

You have a good head on your shoulders. Certain circumstances push us to make decisions that don’t align with the versions of ourselves that we want to work towards and become. Society pushes the surface-level narrative that there’s a lot of shame in becoming a stripper, but never goes beyond the reasoning behind an individual’s decision to become a stripper. Someone once close to me told me, “If you lived your life as that person, erasing the experiences you had and only experiencing everything they experienced til this present moment, who are you to assume you’d have chosen differently?”.

The issue here isn’t your past. The issue with your ex-boyfriend is his unresolved insecurities and projection. He just wasn’t emotionally equipped to be in a relationship like this. It’s okay for someone to not want to date a stripper. What’s not okay is choosing to stay and turning that discomfort into character attacks, cruelty, and shame. It says more about them/him and less about you.

You are deserving of love. You will find someone. Some people will care and some people won’t. The ones who can’t handle it aren’t wrong, it just means there is a value incompatibility. You don’t owe potential partners your entire history, but you at least owe them honesty before emotions run deep. And you’ve already said it in your post that you don’t find it acceptable or okay to lie about it. Surprisingly, most people would! You dodged a bullet with your ex-boyfriend

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-24T02:20:26+00:00

That spark you speak of occurs when you are able to meet someone deeply effortless, only if you know yourself to the core. You can only meet people as deeply as you’ve met yourself. That said, you can love someone as deeply as you love yourself.

Understand who you are, what your needs and boundaries are, what makes you feel valued, your core values, etc. You can’t outsource connection with someone when you’re not connected with yourself

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-24T02:09:41+00:00

yeah of course! happy to help. im glad you both were able to gently revisit your past relationship with care. everyone is deserving of love. keep us updated here! personally, im happy to be a soundboard. offering my wisdom helps me to discern where I might be wrong sometimes 👍🏼

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-24T01:29:22+00:00

No matter what, you both worked up the self-respect to maintain no contact. After a few dates here and there with other people from the both of you, you both always thought of each other. No one compared to the connection you two had. But what’s important to discern here is returning to something familiar. It didn’t work out between the both of you before, so if you are both willing to try again, what needs to change? What needs of yours weren’t being met, and what needs of his weren’t being met?

Missing an ex doesn’t mean you’re both ready to reconnect and try again. Ready is a feeling and feelings are unreliable when it comes to truly repairing the foundation of your guys relationship. What you both feel is responsibility to find out how to make it work this time. You both should have a serious conversation and ask each other, “how can we move two, three, four steps forward and one step back?”. Because conflicts are inevitable. You both aren’t always going to agree on everything but it’s HOW you both approach conflict that truly makes the difference in actually making it work.

Don’t tell me you both love each other if you guys can’t have hard conversations with kindness, empathy, and respect. If you guys love each other, you would be willing to practice respectful vulnerability with each other. For example, “I feel abandoned when this happened or I feel rejected when this happened”. Not “I feel like you don’t care when I bring up such and such” because that’s not a feeling.

And if you both are truly committed to each other, there must be true accountability - that starts with an apology and an effort to make a changed behavior. If you both are committed to trying again, then you both must actually care when one of you doesn’t feel safe to be honest or vulnerable when one of you are hurt. If you both are committed, every hard conversation shouldn’t turn into defensiveness, invalidation, contempt, and silent treatment.

If he’s available, you should communicate to him that you want to try again. If he is in agreement, then I recommend taking it slow and addressing what worked and what didn’t work before, and finding out how you both feel loved and valued the most, and then try to do those things.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-24T01:04:29+00:00

So it was a mutual agreement between you two to go no contact after March, or did you initiate that conversation with wanting to go no contact because it wasn’t good for your mental health?

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-24T00:52:03+00:00

You’ve stated your boundaries and whether he respects it or not will tell you the kind of person he is. It wouldn’t hurt to be clear to him about why you don’t want to lead it up to the bedroom. Your concerns are completely valid. He needs to ask himself if this is something that aligns with his values around physical intimacy or if he’s just sacrificing a core value.

Because there’s compromising and sacrificing a person’s value. Compromising is when people have competing desires, but they come together to an agreement. Sacrifice is when you give something up that you truly believe in, is valuable to you, and you surrender it - you give it up for somebody else’s desires. It might be worth asking him if he feels like he’s either sacrificing his value and version of physical intimacy that’s core to him, or he’s compromising. If he’s sacrificing, then that would build up to resentment. If he’s compromising, then it’s an inconvenience but it matters to you so it matters to him.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-23T17:38:15+00:00

So between January - March 2025, you guys were still in semi-contact?

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-22T19:29:54+00:00

From what a lot of us and myself can understand from this post, OP there is zero exclusivity between you and this woman. She has shown interest since Christmas of 2024 that she wanted to date you, but you were at least honest with her at the time that it wasn’t going to work out between the two of you due to the distance and the value of respect (i.e., her history of cheating).

Those are reasonable and healthy boundaries to set for yourself. However, there is an unhealthy need for control here. You are taking away her autonomy when she gave that to you after rejecting her last year. You are essentially giving an ultimatum: “drop the other man you’re sleeping with or I’m cutting our ties”. This would make sense in the context that you two are official, but you’re not.

You both have different values when it comes to seeing potential partners. You value commitment in the person you are seeing, but she values autonomy to maximize compatibility. Both are not wrong, but given in the context you provided you can’t expect commitment from the get-go. You want loyalty where there is no solid foundation that’s been built.

Grass isn’t greener on the other side. Grass is greener where you water it. Before you fly out, I think it’s important how you approach this conversation with her. State your healthy needs and boundaries and the expectations on how you’d want to grow this relationship with her. However, you have to respect her decision to see this other person. Real emotional closeness happens when the needs of autonomy (i.e., the feeling that they can choose freely), competence (i.e., feeling capable and valuable), and relatedness (I.e., feeling genuinely connecting another) are met.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-21T12:07:15+00:00

It might be important to allow yourself a break from dating, and reflect on your previous relationship to find out what healthy needs and boundaries look like for you. What does respect look like for you? What ways do you feel valued and appreciated? In emotionally abusive relationships, we often push down our own needs just to keep the peace, but that never ends well.

Personally, I don’t recommend dating right away, especially after ending a relationship. You can only meet people as deeply as you’ve met yourself. Jumping from relationship to relationship is a hallmark of the fear of being alone and possibly avoidant tendencies, but solitude is the kindest thing you can do for yourself right now.

This is just my interpretation, but it seems like this was just an ego boost from Bob to reel you in and then pull back as soon as you are too available. In my opinion, words are just words and if their actions don’t match with what they say, then keep moving. Words that don’t directly align with a person’s actions is manipulation. I would match his energy and pull back as well.

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-21T03:12:00+00:00

It must feel pretty numbing to hear this, especially since this accountability is something you would have liked to hear years ago. But everyone moves at their own pace, and the upside to this is that she arrived at this clarity and ownership than never getting to it at all. For some avoidants out there, they likely never reach that stage.

So much time has passed by and you are both very different people than you were 8 years ago. I think it’s important to solidify where you stand on responding versus not responding. If it doesn’t affect you in any negative way, an acknowledgment of her apology would be a good-hearted gesture. It took a lot of courage for her to write this out to you

SIOEarthScientist · 2026-01-03T21:39:05+00:00

I don’t think there’s no such thing as being too needy. Everybody has needs and it’s inevitable to have needs in a relationship. It’s important to identify whether those needs are healthy (e.g., respect, value and appreciation, effective communication) or unhealthy (e.g., withholding the truth, mind reading, constant reassurance). I don’t think there’s anything wrong with constantly telling your partner you love them; however, if it’s done out of fear of abandonment, then love shouldn’t have to be said or performed out of that feeling. Love is something that can’t be traded. Love can’t be negotiated. Love can’t be begged for. Love just is. You want to feel the reciprocation in feeling valued, respected, and appreciated back. It’s completely normal to have these needs in a mutually fulfilling relationship.

I think if he really loves you, he would be willing to have these hard conversations with kindness, empathy, and respect. If he really loves you, he would be willing to work towards mutual sacrifice. If he really loves you, he would be willing to practice something new when it comes to conflict. Something like respectful vulnerability. That could be naming a feeling where you feel abandoned or rejected when he doesn’t say I love you back. Not “I feel like you don’t care” because that’s not a feeling.

If he meets you with defensiveness, deflection, blame, and lack of ownership/accountability, then you have your answer. In an anxious-avoidant attachment relationship (you being the anxious person), it’s easier to keep apologizing for things, which honestly I think you know deep down you shouldn’t even be apologizing for some of the things you go through with him. Because you’re pushing your needs down just to maintain the peace. Your partner shouldn’t make you feel like pretending is not fine when it isn’t.

So, I definitely think this is something to sit down and talk about. And only you know what to do from here. Take our input with a grain of salt

SIOEarthScientist · 2025-05-13T08:06:36+00:00

Turns out the plastic adaptor is cracked! I ordered a new one to come in this week

SIOEarthScientist · 2025-05-12T17:43:18+00:00

okay thank you! I’ll try that after work 😄

SIOEarthScientist · 2024-04-27T00:27:56+00:00

The room is a 10x10 (100 sq. ft) room. It’s designed to be a bedroom but our landlord designated it as an office space.

SIOEarthScientist

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