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 Q
I am a college student. I met this guy who is 25.
At first we started off as good friends and then we became involved
sexually. After a few months, I began to fall in love with him and I
told him how I felt, but he never told me he loved me back until months
later. We were doing things together for a year and a half, but he
never wanted to be my boyfriend. He told me that going to that level
would change our relationship for the worst. He was very jealous and
would get mad when other guys on campus spoke to me or even looked at me.
I broke it off with him few months ago, and now he has a girlfriend.
What I want to know is why he would not commit to me in the year and a
half we spent together, but he committed to someone he knew for three
months??
A Thanks
for your question. You are asking a question that almost everyone
woman has asked herself at some time: Why did he commit to her, when he
wouldn't commit to me?!! Let's just begin with the reality that you
are not going to like the answer to this question. The fact that he
was with you for almost two years and only knew her for three months isn't the issue.
The issue is that for whatever reason, he did not want to be in a
committed relationship with you and he decided that he did want to be in
one with her. You don't know exactly what she does that he likes or
what it is that makes their relationship work, but there is something
about her or their relationship that makes him want to be in a committed
relationship with her. A
man deciding to commit to a woman isn't just about how long they dated.
That's where men have women fooled. Men who don't intend to commit
to women, string them along making them think that if they just keep
acting like girlfriends, over time they will eventually become
girlfriends. When in reality, the man probably knew all along that
he wasn't going to commit but making the woman think he might commit to
her is what keeps her acting like a girlfriend for much longer than she
would if he came out and told her that she didn't have a chance. Even
when a man tells a woman that he doesn't want her to be his girlfriend,
many women totally ignore what he said and stick around anyway (as if he
doesn't know what he wants!). Now why would any self-respecting
intelligent woman stick around even after a man tells her he doesn't want
her for a girlfriend? Sometimes for the physical intimacy, sometimes because she is already in love with him, or
sometimes because she is lonely. Usually she ignores what he
said because he does little things like your ex-boyfriend did to you like
acting jealous. As a woman you figure, well he wouldn't act jealous
if he didn't love me or want to be with me. That is only half right.
He acts jealous not because he loves you but because he doesn't want other
men around you. He wants you to exclusively be with him, but he
doesn't want to be exclusively with you (that's why he won't commit).
So he has to scare off any other guy that might offer you the relationship
you want and steal you away from him--then he could no longer have
his cake and eat it too.
Some men often mess women's
heads up using numerous excuses for why they won't commit only to turn
around and be willing to commit to someone else. It isn't that the
man is incapable of committing, it is just that he didn't want to be
committed to you. What he didn't want you to know was that it
doesn't necessarily take longer than three months to know if you want to
commit to someone--he wanted you to continue to think you had a chance for
a committed relationship when he knew that you didn't. In fact you said
that he told you that he didn't want to be your boyfriend and he didn't
want the relationship to go to the next level because it would change your
relationship for the worst. So he let you know he wasn't planning to
commit to you and you decided to stick it out with him anyway. Then
later on he found someone who he was willing to commit to so he did. How
the two of you women differ and what he likes about her enough to want to
make her his girlfriend, we don't know. One thing I can tell you
that I have heard straight from a man's mouth is that "what one woman
will put up with, another one won't." All that means is that he
can only do to you what you let him. You were willing to act like
his girlfriend even though you weren't--maybe this other woman made it
clear that she wasn't sticking around to be a friend with benefits and so
he stepped up his game. In order to keep some women you have to
commit to them, other women are willing to take whatever arrangement the
man is offering (but that obviously means that he feels no pressure to
give you what you want). From
the rest of your description it sounds like you fell in love with him but
he probably wasn't in love with you. Even though he eventually told
you he loved you, it sounds like the relationship was more casual and
perhaps physical in his mind, whereas you were much more emotionally
involved and committed than he was. As long as you were giving him
all of the attention and physical intimacy that he wanted without a
commitment, he didn't need to feel any pressure to commit to you and
prevent himself from dating other women. Don't
second guess your decision to cut him off, believing that he was ready to
settle down and that if you had stuck it out he would be with you instead
of her because he wouldn't. You made the right decision. This
guy was just stringing you along and you were smart enough to pick up on
his game and drop him off. Don't waste your time trying to figure
out what it is about her that made him decide to commit--it doesn't
matter. Focus your energy on understanding the lessons you learned
from this experience, meeting new people and moving on. You are only
20 years old so you have your whole life ahead of you. There is so
much love for you to look forward to so don't waste another minute
thinking about the past--just look forward to the future!
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Dr.
Michelle
Ask Dr. Michelle