Dear Steve,
I’m a mid-40 year old woman and currently seeing a man I met online for almost a year. We met some time back, when we were both finalizing details of our divorces. We quickly fell in love. I was drinking – a lot – to numb the pain of the divorce. The drinking caused issues with our relationship, which led to our breakup. At the time, he was an excellent boyfriend and said he was very used to relationships and typically always in one. He did all the right things: nightly check-ins, weekends away, dates out with his friends, and we met each other's kids. It was all good. But my drinking ended it.
Fast forward five years. I've stopped drinking and have managed to get my life into a good, healthy place. I ran into him earlier this year and we began communicating again. Since then, we have been texting a lot and have seen each other a few times. We still have a great chemistry, and he is the kind of man I would like to end up with.
He told me recently that anytime I want to hook up, he'll be interested, but that he can't do anything more. He says he doesn’t want a relationship with anybody. He has a lot of people who need things from him and drain him, including his ex-wife, his kids, people at work. I think he can't handle any more people depending on him. I think the last few women he dated (me included) were sort of trainwrecks.
I want to be the easy-breezy one who says they can handle just dinner and hookups, but the truth is that when I see him, I just want to see more of him. What do I do?
Signed,
Wanting More