I am a never married 41 year old woman, who is in a relationship of 4 years to a 47 year old never married man. We have no children. We just got engaged this year. I was kind of pushing for this and was ectatic to get a ring and proposal.Now, I am getting cold feet about the upcoming marriage. He is a very independent man and I am afraid he will not share his total life with me, as in being with me at home, talking and being affectionate, not in a sexual way, but just by being close.We have good sexual chemistry, but he has never been an old fashioned boyfriend giving me flowers and going dancing with me. I am thinking we are not compatible.Our communication is good, when we were just talking general life talk. But when we talk serious expectation issues, he does not see a problem at all.My idea of marriage is about changing your whole life around. His idea is just gaining a travel partner and having good sex.Help!!!!
It appears that you have expectations for your relationship that don’t jive with your fiance’s. You have what’s called molar conflicts. This is a fancy way of saying your intimacy needs don’t match.He’s very independent and seems to want to spend more time apart than you do. You want a lot of romance, flowers, dancing, and time together connecting emotionally, all of which seems unimportant to him.More than anything, I get a sense that this man isn’t interested in being responsive to you. In fact, he’s rather dismissive of your wishes and says that he doesn’t see a problem at all. What he doesn’t get is the fact that if you have a problem, so does he!What he should be saying to you is, ‘Honey if dancing and flowers is meaningful to you, then I’ll respond to your wishes. ‘ So, yes, on the surface you are incompatible in that your likes are very different.Use my online consult Are We Compatible, to find out just how matches or mismatched you are. Not being exactly compatible in terms of your need for romance and emotional communication, wouldn’t be a deal breaker if you had a partner who wants to collaborate with you.So, what I think is the more pressing issue here is his unyielding, unresponsive attitude to you. I would explain to him that for a relationship to work, both partners have to be as responsive as possible to each other. This means that even if romance, dancing, flowers, and emotional communication isn’t high on his list, it is high on yours. So if he wants to make a relationship work with you, he must be willing to give in this areas.Likwise you must commit to do the same for him after you put his foot to the fire. If the man is dismissive, tell him and then put your foot down and say that it’s unacceptable that he dismiss your feelings. If he is unwilling to look at his behavior and modify, then you are in for misery with this man.After the ‘rubber meets the road’ discussion, you will be much clearer on how to proceed. If he’s responsive, great. If he isn’t , then you have three choices: accept him as he is, which it doesn’t sound like you can do, move on, or stay with him and be miserable.Let me know what happens.
