| A
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes: How do you know when you are officially in a relationship? I'm new at this dating thing and don't quite understand. Is there a "talk" that you have so it's known as exclusive? Do I ask this question or wait for him to bring it up? If have been seeing someone for a couple of months now and I see him 3 or 4 times a week and he calls everyday. What do you think? Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2009): Everyone is different in how they expect a relationship to progress. My wife and I were both married for over 6 years and together for several more years to our only really serious partners of our lives at that point. We both got divorced in our early 30s and started dating. Neither one of us wanted things to get too serious for a long time, like years. We both were in favor of non-exclusivity for both ourselves and for the other person who we dated. She had an 18 month relationship with one guy and dated others during that time. Some of the guys who she dated before meeting me also dated others. I dated others while I dated her and at least one of those women was also dating someone else. We both felt that we needed to get to know multiple partners and not just jump into one relationship after years of being with someone exclusively.
We also believed that we should wait years before making a decision on having a current partner for a lifetime partner. We both felt that we needed to get to know several partners before making a decision. We felt that we jumped into our first marriages too soon without really knowing anyone except for our first spouses. The reason that we would date more than one person at a time is why should one of us give up on someone who we think might make a good permanent partner just to date someone else. Why not date both together. Of course, that is only fair if everyone knows the situation, meaning there is no cheating. Honesty is imperative in a situation like this, otherwise someone is using someone.
We both believe that what we did was the best for both of us. Neither one of us has ever been sorry who we chose for our permanent partner and we both believe that we found the best partner that we could have reasonably ever found. We have been married for over 23 years and together for over 30 years, 28 of which have been exclusively. We finally decided to live together after 4 years together and to get married after another 2 1/2 years. If we had demanded exclusivity then we would have not ended up together.
I also think that you should give this relationship more time to see where it goes. I personally don't believe that a couple of months is nearly enough time to start to think about a long term relationship with someone, especially for someone who is new to the dating game or has not been in the dating game for many years because of marriage or whatever. If you have ended a long time relationship and this is your first partner since then, I think you are moving too fast to demand exclusivity and in danger of just ending up in a rebound relationship. Perhaps this is the guy who you will eventually end up with, but moving too fast very well might make you decide for the wrong reasons, like fear of not finding someone else or needing the constant companionship with this guy. How can you know what other men are like if you jump at the first person you date after a long time being out of the dating game. It might work great, but I think that rebound relationships more often than not fail. Just my opinion though.
A
male
reader, sean sean  +, writes (13 June 2009):
you need to let him no today Or tommorow or now ! that you think you and him are officially together ! and he needs to be a man an man up to Tha fact that he started something ! he needs to finish it or keep striving tocome together as one. we as peoplle have harts and they don't need to played with ! stop playing games before some one gets in jail/ hurt / abused / neglected and create a bad reputation !
...............................
|
