I've been dating this guy about 10 months. We are both almost 50 and neither of us has been married. Although he has some good relationship skills, he hasn't been in a romatic relationship for 20 years. He moved back in with his mother after college and has been there since. Now he has to take care of her because she has a broken hip.
His main activities has been hanging around a bunch of guys camping, watching sports, drinking beer and sometimes smoking pot. His friends are mostly married. One of his friend is a woman who is married. She's a foul mouthed heavy pot smoker with 2 kids. He's been hanging around with her since high school. He goes over there every week and has watched their kids grow up and vacation at the beach every year. I met twice and both times she didn't say a much to me even though she wanted to meet me. She has been angry at him because he no longer spends as much time when them.
This week he's at the beach with her and her husband and kids and I think another guy and his kid. I'm trying to be ok about it but I'm not. I'm not really happy that it bothers me and don't really understand why. I'd like to say he could go again next year but I don't think I'd be able to stay with him if he did and I'm not even sure why I feel that way. He often goes places with his friends and sometimes it seems like I am second fiddle to his friends though when he is at my house we don't do much and I get sick of him being around. Do you think it's a sign of another problem or am I just being silly.
His main activities has been hanging around a bunch of guys camping, watching sports, drinking beer and sometimes smoking pot. He often goes places with his friends and sometimes it seems like I am second fiddle to his friends though when he is at my house we don't do much and I get sick of him being around. Do you think it's a sign of another problem or am I just being silly.
I think that if you feel like a second fiddle and get sick of him being around you those are two valid reasons to reevaluate your relationship. After 10 months of dating.....I think you should know whether hanging out with a man who drinks beer, smokes pot, and makes you feel this way is worth hanging around with any longer. Signs of a problem YES are you silly NO.
Why would you want to be in a relationship with a man who does nothing but smoke pot and drink beer at the age 50? He can't really have many brain cells left!!!
Don't you think you deserve better? You must because you are not vacationing with all the drunks and druggies!!! Sorry to sound harsh, but WHY?????
I guess I always make it sound worse than it is. He has very nice qualities, a good job, makes dinner for me, gives me back massages all the time, likes being around me, very responsible, always calls and does what he says he's going to do etc....
It's just on his free time he does hang around guys watching sports and drinking beer though he doesn't get drunk and doesn't even like drinking just likes being around the guys watching the football games. He did smoke pot when he is younger and still does sometimes. He did play golf but doesn't now and works around the house and has to cook and clean for his mother. When he does go out it's with the guys and he does smoke pot sometimes.
I've dated alcoholics and I know he's not one but maybe it feels the same. All his friends are married and have kids and jobs. One of his friends kids just got accepted to harvard etc. It's not that they are all drunks but maybe because of my past that's how it feels. Now his woman friend, that's another story. She does smoke pot every day but also has a good job. I guess I like her the least especially since she seems to be the most screwed up.
We do have a good time most of the time but he lives over an hour away and spends the whole weekend with me. It's a small apartment and I think it gets to me sometimes. I think because he hasn't been in many relationships he's hard to talk to but he's generally a nice guy. He's more domistic than I am, always does the dishes and cleans my apartment sometimes when I'm teaching a class on Saturday.
I just wish he had done more with himself besides having his buddies. They do act like kids when they get together. The other guys have wives and families all these years, he just has them.
Did he ask you to go on vacation with them? I think I would feel second too if my boyfriend went on vacation and didn't ask me to go, unless he had a really good excuse for it. Feeling second fiddle is no fun.
Last edited by Diamond141; 08-21-2005 at 05:12 PM.
I had a 3 year break from the man I am currently engaged to. I ended up with a man just like yours, only about 30 years younger.
What ended up happening? Well, first off, sorry to say, you CAN judge a lot about a person through his friends. The girlies didn't like me because I was "stuck up" because I was well-educated, well-dressed, and had interests that didn't involve "chillin in the crib" "blazin dat herb" and whatever else. The guys were quite similar. Apparently "his girl/wifey/etc" (me) was a huge troublemaker because I didn't appreciate him disappearing without me for weeks on end doing heaven knows what with whom. No offense, but even if he is a sweetie at times, the devil has his tools of deception. And this man is NOT respecting you, from what I'm seeing. He sounds like he hasn't grown up.
Secondly, I've been raised by a stunningly beautiful, kind, well-liked woman, my mother, who got a full scholarship to NYU Graduate school and had impeccable grades all through her life. Her mom was a severe alcoholic who told her she was stupid and ugly and used to beat and starve her, and her father was a deadbeat who used to do similarly. Don't be so quick to judge the quality of a child by its parents (ie "the kid got accepted to Harvard") -- sometimes you'd be surprised how a gem of a child was raised by trash, and vice versa...how trash can be raised by upstanding parents.
Don't forget, there are serial murderers and rapists out there who had high-paying jobs and positions...it doesn't make them good people you'd want to associate yourself with.
Enjoying sports with a couple of beers and friends is not anything to worry about. Some might argue that you might be concerned if he DOESN'T have any interests or friends. The fact that all of his friends are married is not at all unusual since most people in their fifties are married.
What is disturbing is that he "lived with his mother after graduating from college and never married". He is 50 years old. Did he recently graduate and start living with his mother, or has he been living with her for 20+ years?
I don't know why, but men that live with their mothers for long periods of their adult life usually seem to have some indescribably odd quirkiness to them. They seem OK at first blush, but the more you know them, the more weirdness reveals itself. Of course, there are all kinds of practical reasons for people to live with their parents, but it is far from the norm for a man to not want to live on his own.
That would be the red-flag to me rather than sports watching and "couple of beers" drinking. His icky female friend who smokes pot everyday is not an attractive kind of associate, but you could naturally expect some jealousy from her.
Yes, it is not easy finding good mates at 50 years old. We feel for you there. Still, is it so difficult to find someone maybe just a little better? It is not right for us to judge having read just a few paragraphs of his/your background, but I have to ask if you don't have some more options available to you for partner selection.
He did ask me to go but I don't have much vacation and didn't want to spend it with her...
Yes, the fact that he lived with his mother for 20+ is odd. There was not practical reason except that he said it was easy. His father died when he was very young and his mother raise 6 kids and he was the youngest. Maybe he just felt he had to keep the house but I'm not sure. He seemed to have glumbed on to other people and this married woman and her kids in particular. I feel like he helped raised the kids and I feel like he's married to her in a weird way. He just called me and we've been fighting all weekend because he failed to call me Saturday night. Then he just told me he would call later tonight because the kids are taking him out to dinner. That just started everything all over again. THEY AREN'T HIS KIDS!
Yes, the fact that he never moved away is a problem underneath. I've been looking a long time and I think this is the best I could find! Men perfer younger women and all I get is the rejects. In his case he is far better than anybody I've dated in the last 10 or so years and I'm very attractive. Men have crushes on me all the time but often they are married. I also find it hard to deal with somebody's who has kids since I don't share the experience. I guess that's just it, he's the best I could find.
Yes, the fact that he never moved away is a problem underneath. I've been looking a long time and I think this is the best I could find! Men perfer younger women and all I get is the rejects. In his case he is far better than anybody I've dated in the last 10 or so years and I'm very attractive. Men have crushes on me all the time but often they are married. I also find it hard to deal with somebody's who has kids since I don't share the experience. I guess that's just it, he's the best I could find.
Well, he sounds absolutely icky; living with his mother all his life (except for a short time in college) and his curious relationships with others. Something tells me that if you stay with him and your relationship becomes even more intimate, you will be writing us about some of his bizarre behaviors, fetishes, and disorders.
Maybe you should start a thread on this forum "How can a mature woman meet good eligible men?" It is a timeless question. I can assure you that there is a demand for attractive mature women by men young and old, so don't give up hope. Maybe you are being geographically restrictive in your search?
Of course, loneliness sucks and I can understand you choosing Mr. Smudge over loneliness, but surely you can do better than this - surely.
Last edited by thghtsreal; 08-22-2005 at 10:41 AM.
If men weren't so fixated on younger women it wouldn't be so difficult for us "older women".
I've also gone out with plenty of men who didn't live with there mothers and have been married and out in the world, that have been much worse believe me. Maybe it says something about me or maybe it doesn't.
It's the same prejudice people have about people who haven't been married. It's not that there aren't problems because of it, but there are plenty of married people who cheat, beat their wives, drink too much, do drugs, on anti depressants but if somebody hasn't moved away from home or never been married as in my case, that seems to be the worse.
I'm not saying there aren't problems with him or me but I'm 50 and have gone out with tons of dates and heard all the horrible marriage stories for the husbands. I ended up thinking I had been better off single and maybe he was better off at home. He's actually pretty happy and often more than I am.
Ok, I'll get off my soap box....................it just got me thinking.
Maybe I answered my own question when I start thinking about all the screwed up divorced men I've dated this problem seems kind of trivial. Not that it's not a problem but maybe I have to keep it in perspective.
You can't compare screwed up divorced guys with this guy!!!!
Just because one is screwed up doesn't mean that BOTH of them aren't screwed up!!!
I didn't get married until I was 35. I would have run screaming into the night before I "settled" for a guy who had lived with his mother since college because it was "easier".
Do you know what that means???
1) YOU will end up living with him and his mother.
or
2) YOU will be doing everything for him that mom did that made it so "easy".
Don't settle. Please. There are tons of divorces out there that can be attributed to the results of "settling".
And re-read thghtsreal's posts because they say everything that I would have said if I'd gotten here first!!
Sorry but the divorced guys I've been out with are worse. Can't help it, that's what I've experienced. They compare you to their x-wife. I don't know how many guys have compared me to they x-wife. All they do is talk about their marriage. Then they have the kids every other weekend and they you hear about all those problems. I've had it with them. No I won't end up with his mother. Besides he does all the cleaning and cooking. He cooks for me all the time.
Jeez there sure are lots of ways to look at situations when you read about em here.But a 50 year old pot smoking loozer who probably goes to vacations in the Orient
is too far out of my mainstream for me to understand what he does for you.
Wow, I'm sorry to see that there are people here who are so against pot, when in reality smoking cigarettes and drinking cause much more serious societal problems. Trust me, people who know anything about pot (other than the blatant lies and distortions you see in commercials and ads) know that it's not a big deal AT ALL for people who use it, except for a tiny number of people, who would most likely still be bums or burnouts and use other drugs if not for pot. And not everyone that smokes pot is a loser; at least most of us know how to spell!
I think the main issues here have little to do with his drinking or pot use...it sounds like you're questioning whether you want to be with someone with the kinds of friends he has, who lives at home, and just wondering if he's the right guy for you overall. Do you have specific objections to his friends or is it more that you're jealous and threatened by him having other people who play a significant role in his life? I don't mean to be critical at all here; I've actually felt the same way about ex's friends and totally understand why you want to be the most important person and priority in his life. But healthy relationships are those in which people have outside friends and interests...so if you don't have any real problems with his friends, I'd try to let it go.
You might want to consider whether you are overreacting: again, not to be critical, but it sounds like you might be a little insecure and controlling, just going by things like you getting mad at him not calling one night, talking about those kids, and feeling like you couldn't stay with him if he went on vacation without you again. He did invite you to go along and is keeping in touch with you while gone...my instinct is that you might be blowing this out of proportion a bit. I'd think hard about your relationship as a whole and whether you're happy with him overall. If you are only with him because you don't think you can find a better boyfriend in your age range, you should probably move on, but if you like him and think he has redeeming qualities, then I'd suggest giving it some time and seeing how you feel once this whole vacation thing blows over.
Last edited by eaglesgirl37; 08-23-2005 at 06:10 AM.
Well, he sounds absolutely icky; living with his mother all his life (except for a short time in college) and his curious relationships with others. Something tells me that if you stay with him and your relationship becomes even more intimate, you will be writing us about some of his bizarre behaviors, fetishes, and disorders.
I am the sister of a man like this so I have seen this type of weirdness in action. My brother can't keep a decent woman long once she realizes that he is not going to change.
I think it's a combination of things, which it often is. Maybe some of it's me and some him. If he had been in more romantic relationships with other women, this friendship might not seem so weird to me.The way she reacted when he started dating me is what set it off. I felt like SHE was trying to control him by taking verbal shots at him, that he was unavailable and not around anymore even though he visits them every week.
I had dinner with her and her husband because SHE wanted to meet me and she basically drank too much didn't talk to me the whole night and talked about friends of theirs. I also when to a party at their house and I was called the "other women" by a friend as a joke and everybody laughed. I was "the other women" to the daughter who as also upset that he hasn't been around as much.
He still visited them every week and it all came to a head when he went to the beach with them. Before that I wasn't bothered by it. What can you expect when she's had him to herself for 20 years. Then their relationship began to seem weird to me. He thinks it's just because of how she's been acting and it most likely is.
Then I start to wonder about him again and why he hasn't dated much in the past. I am against pot because I think the people who smoke it often have bad social skills and it makes them apathetic. (which will start another discussion I'm sure) I used to think that's why he stayed at home and caused him to not to what to grow and change like others.
He has remained independent however, and not like other guys you would think of who stayed at home. Every now and then I have my doubts. I think that because I haven't been married or raised a family myself it has gotten very difficult to connect with divorced people. We have both been very busy and single for 30 years which means you've been living a very different kind of life than those who have been married. So in that respect I feel like I have few choices out there.
He does have many good qualities but after not being involved myself for such a long time, it gets very difficult. I often can't figure out if he's not right for me or if just hard for ME to commit to a relationship.
I hope this isn't too iky for you all, though I know what your talking about with men who stay home. He isn't like the ones your thinking about I don't believe.
