Starting Over
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Since it's slow, another non-clicky
We seem to have an influx of reports from women who are dealing with someone who "doesn't get it". So let's share, what's your worst experience with someone who fits this description?
Mine would probably be XH, but that's mainly because of control issues. He still, to this day, doesn't really understand that we'll never be together. I guess divorcing him wasn't convincing enough.
GC dude is running a close second. I'm not sure how many times I need to break things off with him before he'll realize I am not interested. Which is hilarious and exhausting at the same time, considering we only went on one date. I've wasted less energy letting someone down who I dated for multiple weeks or months.
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Re: Since it's slow, another non-clicky
XH didn't get it. He asked my mom, at the divorce hearing, if I would reconsider. After the divorce he kept asking me to meet up and go out with him again. His death threats last month make me think he's finally getting the idea that it's never going to happen
There was a man I met at a bar over the summer who texted me for 4 months inviting me to games and events (he is a college coach) even though I told him after the first text that I wasn't ready to date and we never saw each other in person aside from the night we met. Turns out he's married with a kid and was still bugging me!
Haha, I was casually seeing this guy that I thought was great, but I let him know that I wasn't in a place where i'd want anything like a boyfriend. We'd just go for lunch or a beer or something and that was fun. He asked me to be more specific about what I wanted, and here's how it played out:
Me: Well, I am still sorting out what I want in life. I really value my alone time, and doing my own thing. I have fun with you, but I definitely need space.
Him: OK. What are you doing tomorrow night?
When I turned him down for that...
Him: Well I play hockey the next night, but I really wanna see you, why dont you come watch hockey and then we can have dinner after?
Gee, thanks for listening to what I said about space.
Wow! Maybe it's just me but I feel like there's something deeper going on with the men who just won't let go. I mean, of couse we're all great and wonderful but really what does it say about them when they won't listen to the not-so-subtle hints. A lot of times I think that behavior screams either "rebound" or "control freak".
My aunt also doesn't get it. She doesn't get how I could divorce my husband, "a good black man" and start dating a white guy. She believes that I am being a traitor and that it is better to settle for any decent black man even if you're not happy than to date outside your race. I basically told her that it wasn't up for discussion and we haven't talked much since that conversation.
The worst part of it all is that she's totally okay with her son (and other men) dating non-black women, but thinks that all black women must be loyal to black men and it's better to be single than for a black woman to try and find love elsewhere. Thankfully the rest of my family is very accepting of my new relationship.
Thankfully, I've dealt with a lot of sane people. The worst I've come is a guy who emailed me novellas about why I should date him. I had never even looked at this guy's profile, but he spent 700 words telling me how he's not a loser (when, yeah, he was). He kept at it for a few days, and then I blocked him. It was super creepy.
Before that, I had a couple of guys stalk me in high school. One was an XBF (who dumped me but I wouldn't take him back), and another was just a random dude who had convinced himself that I was his dream girl. My parents contacted the school administration about the latter guy. He left me alone after that. What really wore on me was that the two guys stalked me at the same time, though independent of each other. XBF kept tabs on me to "protect me" and random guy just thought my single status meant I'd automatically date him.
ETA: There is one phenomenon that is a constant throughout my dating life. I call them the I'm Not Into Yous. I'll go out with a guy, but I'm not feeling it. After the date, I won't contact him, and he won't contact me either. I breathe a sigh of relief and assume we're on the same page, so I go about my business. A few weeks later they contact me to tell me that they're just not into me. Ummmm, whut? Is a gentle blow-off too subtle for these guys? Or do they "get it" but play stupid because I hurt their feelings? It's the oddest thing.
There was a guy from eHarmony that wanted to start communication last week...I thought "meh, why not" as he met most of my criteria. We emailed back and forth about twice. But then I noticed his A. lack of spell check. B. over abundant use of
and C. didn't talk in complete sentences...only talked...like this...every email...the whole email. While I'm Ok with the occasional smiley face and use of ellipsis, too much just makes you look uannoying.
It was enough to bother me and turn me off. He emailed me his number. I chose to ignore. The next night, he emailed me again...thinking we should talk. Then...he emailed me again the following night...again with the ...dot dot dot.
Dude. Take the hint. I'm not into you. While you seemed nice, you're now turning from nice into 'stalkerish". I'm glad I listened to my instincts and chose to not communicate further.
X really didn't get it. Talk about denial! After he was arrested I told him I had no desire to be with him and that I did not and would not trust him ever again.
After being sentenced he was "surprised" that I filed for divorce. He was hurt that I wasn't "honest" with him AND he didn't understand why I didn't want him seeing DD or being a part of her life!!!! Um HELLO! You are a convicted pedophile... IDIOT!
My mom was great in so many ways during the first few months of my X's arrest, but for a long time she didn't get how much stress I had on my shoulders as a new mom going through everything I had going on. She was really brutal to me about BFing. I made it 2.5 months, but then my milk dried up due to stress. I honestly tried so hard to make it last longer and was pretty upset when I had to use formula. She told me it was my choice to FF and that she thought I was hurting my child by being selfish. She actually told me in therapy that she thought less of me for it... She has since apologized and I know she was going through a lot too... but it still stings to remember that day.
My STBXH refuse to share what was bothering him about me during our marriage and keeps saying over and over that it would not make any differences and I cannot change me for him nor would he want me to. He left me no room to work on our marriage.
The thing that bothers me is that he is such an introvert and does not share much so many never know what he is thinking. He is always calm via is behavior. What bugs me is that he says we have a communication issue and my deafness makes it hard for him to talk to me. I speak very well and a great lip reader. I don't buy that excuse one bit but he definitely says it?s my fault on the communication end.
But then again, I deal with this issues with others like co-workers and the general public but in a different way. They keep clamoring that I speak so well and I talk so well so I must hear something. I learned to speak to meet people halfway. Speaking does not replace hearing loss, speaking and hearing are 2 completely different functions. People in general just don't get this, it gets frustrating. They get all bugged eyed if I have to request them to write out a word or a name if I can't catch it. (I don't do well lip-reading names in a global company and numbers are also hard for me to lip-read no matter how hard I try). Some also assume that I will ask for a repeat if I miss anything in a group discussion, unfortunately, I am not always aware I am missing anything.
My mother doesn't get it. Today is the two-year anniversary of my husband's death, and when I called my mother today just to touch base with her I mentioned it. Her response was along the lines of, "Oh, I'm sorry I forgot. I was going to stop by (my brother's gravesite) but I didn't feel up to it today." Which began the recitation of the latest round of ill and aches and pains. Now, I totally understand that losing her son (my brother died about 5 years ago after a very long battle with Alzheimer's) is a devastating loss for her. And at 82 I know she's frail and infirm. But please, can my grief be mine for today?
I sound really bitchy saying that out loud.