Feeling sad

Hangouts Rants
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Hello everyone, I am new to this forum. I’m feeling really down and I’m just writing this to vent and release my frustration. I’m a male in my 50’s. I won’t get into details, but I was in a long time marriage, and my partner, who was half my life passed. It took me time to get through it. After this I didn’t want to get into another relationship, but loneliness pushed me into pursuing a possible relationship, but being out of the game for a long time, I didn’t even know where to start. So I turned to looking for someone online.

I met a few women, but none connected until I met Lilly. She is 10 years younger than me, beautiful, with an amazing personality and radiates positivity and happiness. Lilly was born in China and has been in the US for about 5 years. She is very straight forward and says whats on her mind, which I totally appreciate. She is also very passionate, loves kissing, hugging and holding. She is also very sexual, I don’t think I’ve experienced love making like this, even with my wife of almost 30 years. Each time we get together, it’s always new, and it’s like the first time, each time. I feel like a 20 year old again, I had no idea that at my age it could be like this. And she has asks for nothing in return except my company.

So you can imagine, I developed strong feelings for her. When I am away from her, I feel sad, incomplete. Even anxious. After being with her, I don’t even want to wash my clothes because of her smell being on them. I haven’t expressed this part to her in words, but the last time we were together I wanted to tell her how I felt and move our relationship up a notch, but during our conversation, she told me she wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, she had goals she wanted to accomplish first. As one can imagine, this was devastating to hear.

I’m the kind of person who doesn’t ask why. People make decisions, and I’m not one to question them, especially those related to relationships. Who am I to try and convince her and force her into an uncomfortable situation. So I just nodded my head and stayed quiet.

So here I am. I’m feeling sad, I’m feeling depressed. I’m sure I will get over it, but ultimately I don’t know what to do. When we are not together we text each other, I haven’t answered her text since yesterday, and not sure if I should, I’m thinking I should just move on. Or I could just keep the relationship sexual, but that will probably dig the loneliness hole deeper

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Hello, Thank you for making the time to share your struggles with us. That sounds really tough. It makes sense that you’re feeling that way.

Do you happen to know what goal she wants to accomplish first? Is there any way you can support her platonically until she’s ready?

Ultimately, if she doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you, it may be best for you to move on.

Wishing you well, I hope you are able to take the next step in life. Remember to be kind to yourself too

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Hello Rozumi, and thank you for reading about my current situation. I actually didn’t think anyone would read this or even reply, I wrote it more as an emotional venting process.

So I guess to answer your question, some brief background. She is 44 today, and was married in China in her 20’s. She shared some of her life story with me, and her ex husband was a control freak, and would constantly criticize and control her spending, to the point it was stifling and humiliating. I’m guessing that he also made her feel small. When she came to America, she studied to become a medical technician, and works for a big healthcare provider in California. She wants to become financially stable to the point she can never be held hostage to finances by anyone. So her past relationship paved her mindset, and she has trust issues, which I don’t blame her for even the slightest. If I were in her shoes and had her experiences, I would have the same trust issues. On top of that, I’ve only known her 6 months, and she seems to trust me, but probably not to the point that makes her 100 percent comfortable.

At this point she does want to have a relationship with me, but more the girlfriend/Boyfriend type like I had in HS or college. Being in my 50’s and previously married for almost 30 years, it’s very uncomfortable to go through this type of relationship again.

Anyway, I’ll figure it all out. I will continue to see her, and hopefully as she gains more trust in me, I can open up to her more. What’s the worst that can happen…she’ll stop seeing me and we can both move on

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Hey, first, I just want to say thank you for sharing so openly :folded_hands: I can only imagine that takes a lot of courage, especially when you’re navigating grief, vulnerability, and love all at once.

You’ve been through an immense loss - losing a partner after a long marriage is like losing a part of yourself. then, to step back into the world of dating after that, especially in a completely different world than before, shows so much strength. then finding someone like Lilly…someone who makes you feel alive, wanted, and connected again - it makes sense that your feelings grew deeply and quickly.

All your feelings are completely valid. you’re human. it’s not a weakness - it just means you’ve been through a lot, and it’s only natural to feel overwhelmed when strong emotions come up again

so what now? only you can answer that and decide. I’d gently suggest focusing on what helps you find balance, and letting that guide your next step :

  • If keeping things as they are only deepens the ache, it’s okay to ask whether this connection is helping you heal or holding you back. sometimes the kindest thing we can do for ourselves is to let go, even of something beautiful.

  • It’s also okay to take space\time and not respond right away. you don’t owe quick answers when your heart needs time.

  • If you choose to continue seeing her, it’s okay to take things at a pace that feels right for you both. Trust takes time to build, and sometimes it’s just about letting things unfold, even if it’s slow.

And remember :folded_hands: the way you love is rare. deep, kind, honest.
Someone out there will want to meet you in that space - even if she isn’t ready right now.

:heart_hands:

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Thank you for your very kind reply. Yes, “it’s a different world” is an understatement :slight_smile: When my wife and I first started seeing each other, I had a flip phone I only used in emergencies and I used a dial up modem to get to the internet.

I used to joke with her that if we ever got divorced God forbid, I would never re-marry because it was too much work and I would just find some young side action. But in reality I found out the hard way that there is no happiness in that. I feel sorry for people that decide by their own choice (or not by choice) to live single lives. At the very least I can say that I spent a good chunk of my life with the women I loved more than anything, those memories, even though make me sad, also brings some comfort. I don’t think there is another women out there that would even fill the shoes of what I had.

Thank you again for your kind words and advice. I’ll eventually figure it out

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Hi firstly, thank you for sharing it does sound like it must be really tough on you emotionally and it is really thoughtful of you to think of her and respect her decisions! Feelings are definitely difficult to manage and process, much less convey as well. How you feel doesn’t make you any less and all your emotions are valid! I can’t tell you what to do next but trust yourself and your heart! If you need someone to talk to or approach we are here to hear you out too!

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Thank you very much Sunrize for your support. Yes it can be tough because there are things you want to say, but can’t for obvious reasons

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I just wanted to give an update. I had to leave for Texas for an emergency, my company has an office in San Antonio. I’ll be gone all week and will be returning on Friday night. Lilly has been texting me how much she misses me. I’ve been working 12 hour days so don’t get much time to talk to her. I guess that’s a good sign :slight_smile:

I really miss her, I feel this pit in my stomach being away from her, which hits me at night when I go to bed. I keep waking up every night, I just can’t stop thinking about her. Thank God I am into my work right now which is keeping my mind busy

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Thank you for the update @user5696 I hope things are okay on your end and whatever is happening with work smoothens over soon! I am glad to hear that it seems like things are going well between you and Lilly too! Being so far apart must not be easy on you or her and it sounds like work has helped you manage these feelings a little which is good, but please do remember to take care of yourself okay! I’m sure Lilly would appreciate whatever time you have that you can spend talking to her too and hopefully things continue to go well for you two!!

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Thank you again @sunrize . It’s been super busy, I’ve been putting in 10 hour days. We message back and forth and I try to call her in the evening. Texas is on Central Time, so I’m 2 hours ahead, so by the time I have dinner, go for an evening walk, I usually get back to the hotel around 10:30 PM, which is 8:30 Pacific and I give her a call.

I learned something new today. I posted a pic of my rental car, which is a Tesla Model S Plaid, which for those that don’t know is an extremely high performance car, and she texted me this: 对一张图像比心

Apparently in Chinese it’s the heart symbol used by females to show they like something you showed them. Someone here who is Chinese can verify that. I think she did that on purpose to see if I would even bother to look it up :slight_smile:

I come back tomorrow evening, she will be picking me up from the airport. I really, really miss her

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hi @user5696,

Thank you for sharing your story, i have read through from the beginning. Meeting Lilly sounds like it has brought joy and excitement back into your life, which is wonderful. It is clear that you have strong feelings for her, and it is understandable to feel sad and anxious when you are apart.

Her honesty about not being ready for a serious relationship must have been hard to hear, especially when you were hoping to deepen your connection.

While it is important to honor her feelings and goals, just as you have been doing. At the same time, it is also crucial to take care of your own emotional well-being. If maintaining a purely sexual relationship feels like it might deepen your loneliness, it might be worth considering whether this arrangement is truly fulfilling for you.

As you continue to see Lilly, it might help to communicate openly about your feelings and needs. Yes, building trust takes time, but being honest about your emotions can help both of you understand each other better. May be try progressively opening up a little more every time both of you meet?

Ultimately, it is okay to take things one step at a time and give yourself grace as you figure out what feels right for you. Whether you decide to move on or continue seeing Lilly, it is important to prioritize your own happiness and well-being.

You have my well wishes! :smiley:

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Thank you very much @Rotovap for your input, it’s much appreciated. I’m writing this as I am getting ready to leave for the airport, please excuse the rushed reply. I’m going to probably stick it out, as I’ve been seeing her now for almost 7 months, and I don’t want to go back to the online scene and basically start over. I could probably also write a whole blog on the pitfalls of online dating, there are many. Companies like Match.com and others portray their sites as the “answer” but to find the right match you have to get past bots, fake accounts, scammers, flakes and outright mentally deranged individuals. It took me almost 1 year to meet 10 women, most of whom I would just rather stay single than be with. I may actually write about this experience to maybe help others get through all the pitfalls. For women it’s even worse, although she had hundreds of replies per day, as a man, I have to say, I’m embarrassed. The amount of lude comments and pictures is just crazy. She could have had 5 dates a day for the next 10 years, compared to my 10 in a year. Another story for another day.

As far as Lilly, I know I shouldn’t have done this, but I checked her online dating profile to see if she was still putting herself out there, and she turned her profile off :slight_smile: Either she is sick of the online scene like I am or she’s settled on me for the long term. I can only hope

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I wanted to give another update. Had a great weekend with Lilly, I decided to open up to her, what I mean by that was lay it all on the table. I don’t like to speak about past relationships, this was the case with my wife, I always denied I had any past relationships, and told her “baby, you are the only one” when she asked. She didn’t necessarily believe this, but if you can’t prove it, and I won’t admit to it, it never becomes an issue. But I felt it was necessary and made an exception in Lilly’s case because there was no other way to tell her the loss I felt and how she helped fill that loss. So here my fellow members, is the story I shared with Lilly.

The first time I laid eyes on my future wife, I was smitten. I was 19, and in college, and she sat in front of me in my political science class. Every time I saw her, my heartbeat jumped to about 1000 per minute, and my throat would close up. I believe that in this world, there is a person who was made for you. Some of us are lucky enough to meet them. But here I felt totally hopeless, I didn’t even know her name, and was terrified to approach her. I can’t even explain the hopelessness of the situation, I’m in love with a girl who doesn’t know my name, doesn’t know I exist, and I’m just way to scared to approach her.

So let me tell you a little bit about her. She’s 5ft 2, long brown tinted hair (her natural hair color was black) that I can only describe as wild 80’s teased hair. She would hold it in place with lots of hairspray. Slender build, and BEAUTIFUL. She loved oversized sweaters, and skirts.

How I finally met her is an interesting story. I ended up making friends with one of her friends who sat by me in class one day, and introduced me to my future wife. She had at the time teased hair that was hair sprayed into place, and I reached out and touched it and said something to the effect of “your hair is so cool”. That one statement, followed by my touch seemed to set off events and sparked a fire in her, which is why I believe with all my heart she was my soulmate. It turned something on in her. We began dating after that, it took me a whole month before I got the courage to kiss her, but I knew after that first kiss I couldn’t live without her.

I’m not going to share here how she passed, but I did with Lilly, and by the time the whole story was told, she was in tears, hugging me, consoling me and reassuring me. It really touched something in her and I did everything in my power not to cry. Telling the story opened up old sadness that had been stored deep for so long, but the therapy of telling it to someone who was so touched by it can’t be overstated

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Hi user5696, all your updates have been so interesting! So I just wanted to check in on how you’re doing, and how’s your time with lilly?

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Thank you very much @Rozumi , I’m happy you are showing interest in my updates. It’s a challenging time for both Lilly and I, economy is going in the crapper here and both of us are working long hours, so we haven’t been able to spend as much time with each other. Also the company I work for which is a Silicon Valley startup is going to be running out of money (our last funding was last summer) and we have enough cash to operate until August, which is putting me under a lot of stress. I may be looking for a job soon. I had an offer from a company in Southern California, which is about 400 miles away, which means I will have to move if I end up taking it, and I haven’t talked to Lilly yet about it, but I don’t think she’s going to pick up and leave with me if I take the job. I wouldn’t ask her to either, it wouldn’t be right. Long distance relationships generally don’t last very long. But we are not there yet, so fingers crossed

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Wanted to give another update. Yesterday was mothers day, and Lilly is a mother with a 20 year old daughter (who lives in China), so I took her out to a restaurant my wife used to love and we would frequent. It’s a South Indian restaurant, I thought it would be a change for her. They have a huge TV screen mounted on the wall that plays Indian music videos. Many of them are just laughably stupid to the point of being embarrassing. Lilly is pretty familiar with Indian music and movies, in China sometimes Bollywood movies do better at the box office than even in their home turf!

Anyway I’m just totally embarrassed and trying not to crack up at some of the just shear dumbness of some of the videos, when one pops on that catches my attention. It’s a music video with an unusually tall, young, good looking Indian guy. It’s very lighthearted, dude must be 7ft tall. The theme of the video is because of his height, people avoid him. His neighbors, people on the street, and girls. He has a sad look on his face, and he portrays his loneliness extremely well. Then in one scene he’s in an ice cream shop, and a cute girl is sitting in the booth next to him. He finishes his ice cream and looks like he wants more, and she shares the last of her ice cream, and there is a connection between them. Turns out she’s a short girl, so seeing them standing together is hilarious.

Then there is a montage of him with a big smile on his face. He’s walking with a smile, brushing his teeth with a smile, laying in bed sleepless with a smile, sitting at his desk at work with a smile, showing he’s in love. Then there are several montages of them together doing different things, including living together as a couple. And then out of nowhere, I suddenly started tearing up, to the point I had to hide my face so she wouldn’t see the tears coming down. She did notice it, and asked me if I was alright, and I explained it away as allergies. The lump in my throat that made it hard to talk was a little harder to play off. I had to excuse myself and go to the restroom where I let it all out.

Not sure why this happened, and why there was a sudden surge in emotion in me that made tears start to stream out, this was so unlike me

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hi @user5696 ,

Thank you for providing updates here :slight_smile:

On the topic of dating apps, I understand your concerns of them. The actual experience may not always be like what was advertised to us.

It sounded like you had a great weekend with Lilly. It was brave of you to share your past with Lilly. It is wonderful that Lilly was there to comfort and reassure you. It sounds like she really understood the significance of what you were sharing and was able to provide the support and empathy you needed in that moment.

In regard to your job and the new job offer, it is great that you are thinking about Lilly’s feelings and the potential challenges of a long-distance relationship. Before making any decisions, it might be helpful to have an open and honest conversation with Lilly about the situation. Sharing your concerns and discussing potential scenarios can help both of you understand each other’s perspectives and feelings. Even though long-distance relationships can be difficult, some couples do manage to make them work with good communication and mutual support. Remember to find moments to relax and practice self-care amidst all the uncertainty with your current job.

Finally, I want to say that the strong emotions you felt in that South Indian restaurant might be brought up by something which you have not fully processed before, and it is a sign of your emotional depth and sensitivity. This is especially the case when something touches on deep-seated feelings or memories (such as the special memories of your late wife). It is completely alright for a man to shed tears!

May your journey together with Lilly be filled with joy and deeper connections! :smiley:

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Sounds like a KC trap.

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I have no idea what a “KC trap” is, but if you are implying she’s in it for monetary gain, she’s had 7 months to make her move. I wouldn’t be worth the effort, my net worth is not that significant.

My intention in this is not to get re-married, I was already married 30 years, I’m looking for companionship, to somewhat fill the void my former wife left when she departed. I still have my looks, my health, and thankfully vitality, but those won’t last much longer, I probably have another 7 to 10 years on that front