Can Two Broken People Help Each Other Heal?

So I met this guy a few months ago. We met once and really hit it off. Chemistry was there in a BIG way. He's hot, funny, smart. His car wasn't running at the time - the day we met he had someone else's car. And for the following month or so, we'd talk and text and I would try to get him to come out and he'd repeatedly make excuses, one of which was, "When I get my car fixed," but I'M TELLING HIM I'LL PICK HIM UP!!!!

He's giving me excuses about his sick Mom. YES she's sick, but not so bad that she can't be alone all day that he's at work. Anyway, I got tired of what I considered mind games and told him that if/when he gets his ish together, and wanted to actually DO something, he should call me then.

Well due to the pandemic and ish I had going on I had to leave the state and retreat to take shelter with family. A week after I got here he tells me let's get together. I told him I'm 1200 miles away.

Fast forward another couple of weeks. He's hitting me up again, telling me I need to move back and we can get a place together. I can't even keep up with him. He's WEIRD. Off the beam my friend would say. There's no normal courtship ritual. I get text messages that say he needs a live-in secretary sex doll LMAO! Don't judge. He's not the psychopath he sounds like. He can't just say something normal like, "Hey, I really like you and I think this could be cool, maybe you should come down here and we'll see what happens." No. I get the secretary sex doll comment lol. I mean maybe he COULD say something normal but he also knows I appreciate the crazy ish he says.

But I know he also wants a monogamous relationship and he's been burned before. He's looking for someone to trust. "just... give me nothing to worry about so I can just come home and have you."

Now for the broken people part...

I KNOW I've got some self-work to do. I just did a paper on perfectionism, one of my problems. I'm working with a life-coach on some things. I have self-esteem issues and I KNOW I lie to myself. There are parts of myself and **** that I do that I know I want to change yet I often feel powerless to change them. Thing is, fvker sees right through it and he calls me on it and it can be exhausting and frustrating. And while he can be pretty dead-on, he has also been off and I told him that in a rather forceful way and he said, "You SEE! You can fix me!" And I'm sitting there like, "What are you talking about????" And he tells me that I can challenge him and bring it to his attention and I can help him get "recalibrated." I consider all of this Michael-speak. He also said the reason he was blowing me off was b/c he had no control of the situation without his car and no money to fix it at the time. Admitted to being in a month long panic attack sort of. My friend pointed out how dudes are hesitant to start a relationship when they don't feel they're at their best. That all makes sense NOW and I think it took a lot for him to admit to the feelings of anxiety that it was causing him even though he didn't do it THEN.

On the one hand, I think he can be amazing for me because of the way he brings to my attention the **** that I need to be mindful of - he's all about mindfulness. Metacognitive BS thinking about thoughts, ya know? I'm very good at burying my head in the sand and avoiding **** and I can see he's really not going to let me do that. He's not entirely delicate so that presents a challenge because he often makes me defensive. I'm an expert at that ****.

Besides calibration, what is he looking for? Basically fk him senseless and keep him motivated to get out there in the world to go to work and allow him to come home from work and fk me senseless again lol. Again, there's definitely more to it than that but trying to translate Michael-speak can be tough. I intuit a lot of what he says. It takes some doing to not get offended by the secretary sex doll comment and to hear the bit about keeping him motivated to get out there in the world each day. The unspoken to all of that being, "Just let me feel like a man and let me come home to you."

I know nobody can fix anyone else. And even though he said those words...TRUST ME he's not stupid. He knows I'm not going to fix him. There's this thing about helping each other.

So I guess I'm wondering if anyone can relate to what I'm saying because they experienced something similar. If anyone saw the movie Untamed Heart, I get a vibe like that. "He don't make sense. I don't make sense. Together, we make sense." I'm broken, he's broken, together we're stronger? Or are we just twice as weak?

All this DEEP talk about progressing into a relationship is new and I'm totally overthinking it but that's because I always overthink everything and I'm thinking about him too much.

Hmm, very interesting, YMIHere.

I'm just going to be honest with you. If you go and live with him, just so he can come home to you and have sex, it won't take long before you find yourself completely emotionally neglected. The guy, going by what you described here is only wanting his own needs met and I don't believe you'll be happy in that situation after about 2 weeks. He can't even say an ordinary nice thing to you by text or internet, so he'll be even worse in real life, ha!!

I do hope I'm wrong, though, as everyone deserves a happy relationship - if that's what they're looking for.

Anyway, thanks for sharing. Maybe someone else here may have a more positive thing to say, than me.

Honestly you two don’t even know each other or dated or became a couple. I am not sure why all this talk about living together and all this other strange stuff. He sounds like he likes to run his mouth and put people down. Doesn’t sound like a good choice of a partner to me.

In addition if you have to beg a man to see you, it’s never going to work. If a man wants to see you he will no matter what. He’d drive a rental car. Many people find other mean of transportation while car is in a auto shop and many people don’t even have a car and use public transportation, it doesn’t mean they can’t go on a date. It’s a convenient excuse. He isn’t very interested in actual relationship with you but it costs him nothing to run his mouth and confuse the heck out of you. It’s a bad sign that he needs to be begged to see you when you are near by but now he makes insane proposals when you are 1200 miles away.

I am glad you are working with a life coach.

When pandemics over I very much recommend therapy to work on building your self esteem and looking into roots of attraction to this type of guy so you can start attracting healthy potential partners who are into you for real, not just in words

Stay safe and good luck!

No 2 broken cannot heal each other.

Don't worry about him. He is obviously not truly interested in a relationship, and this isn't even resembling a relationship.

Instead of a life coach, what would help is therapy. I'm not sure why you have chosen a life coach instead, but you would benefit more from a therapist. If you are paying for life coaching, then you will probably pay less to see a therapist also.

I see now that I mistakenly thought you are very young and have no experience with men hence you thought this dude is “dream come true”. I see now that you did have relationships and marriages and there is a certain pattern in them not being healthy partners for serious commitment

I very much recommend therapy now as I see you might need help working on attraction to unhealthy or very much unavailable men. It could help you to break that pattern

You have had little chance to get to know this guy, and what you do know, what you have shared here, suggests that moving in with him is not a good idea.

This screams to me of immensely unhealthy. No one should need someone to motivate them in life. This is based on neediness. Two people shouldn’t be trying or wanting to fix each other. UNHEALTHY. I suggest going to therapy to solve personal issues- not through a relationship.

Great advice in this thread. I bolded what I felt was the obvious.

You don't know him at all and he's feeding you stories to get what he wants. He's also analyzing you so be careful. He sees your "weaknesses" and will mold you like clay.

I believe you when you say you're lying to yourself. You definitely are with this guy. How he's treating you is not "LMAO", in my opinion. We all want to feel sexy and be desired, and so he's playing this card. I don't believe his desires have anything to do with you, personally, and he'll tire of you very quickly. This is all a game. He's manipulating. Don't fall into the trap.

He can't say anything NORMAL lol. He does say nice things lol. I'm trying to think of a movie or TV character that he resembles so that people could understand his off-kilter sense of humor. It's DARK, let's put it that way. To be honest, if he was full of fluff I'd trust him LESS because I would definitely feel like he's up to something. I listen to the crazy **** he says to me and I think, "He's hot, smart and hilarious and somehow he's single..." and then I realize he is most definitely NOT everyone's cup of tea. For what it's worth I tell one of my best friends some of the crazy **** he's said to me and she's like, "DAMN HE'S GOT YOUR NUMBER!!!" AND she's happy that I found someone who seems so well suited to my personality.

It's really like his bark is worst than his bite. There is no bark and there is no bite. Just jokes which is the way to my heart. When he asked me what airport is closest to me I told him there are 2 and which one I prefer. He said something like "*****, WHEN I WANT YOUR OPINION I'LL ASK YOU FOR IT! (oh, so you prefer Providence?)" You have to hear that in your head like The Man Song lol. You ever heard that song? YouTube

I'm pursuing my Masters so I'm doing the learning and all that stuff and I have a mission that I'm intending to work on.

I wouldn't say he's not willing to do the work. I can see how you all would think that but that's only because I put a fraction of our conversations AND I put the bits that were most amusing to me. My perspective of it is this - and my life's mission that I'm working on has to do with uplifting and empowering people who didn't really get the best first shot at life, you know?

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. For him, paperwork is a weakness. Dealing with paperwork is not his thing. Helping his organization run like a top, is. Working crazy hours to make that happen, is. Me? I've been primarily an administrative professional. You want me to handle that and I can handle that. Piece of cake.

Also, despite what I wrote and how it has been interpreted by people here, you're talking about getting with people who are mentally and physically positive - he's up there in my eyes. Got some trust issues and is lonely and ready to hop back in the saddle after feeling like he was chewed up and spit out.

And this is why I told him to call me when he was ready to do something, but once he told me his feelings on the subject, it really was this coming clean sort of thing and I believe him. I'm not going to minimize and say that the anxiety that he felt about that sort of loss of control wasn't real. I know about ONE SMALL THING suddenly throwing the whole world off it's axis. I can understand feeling like, "Let me get this one thing under control before I take anything else on." I'm pretty sure a lot of people here can relate to that. I was really pissed before he came clean, but I believe him and I think it was brave of him to tell me that.

Therapists under my insurance around here SUCK. Life coach is awesome and also my sister's friend who needs to do hours for her CCE. We're sort of taking it out in trade as I'm a trained CPS facilitator and I'm helping her with some of her own things that she needs to handle using my tools.

This is probably the most useful response so far because it is true that he's analyzing. Just today we were having a discussion about when he was in sales. How he would read people to know how to approach them and so manipulation is a possibility. I'm the type to generally see the good in people...that's not true. I can just as easily find faults.

I know that using his secretary sex doll thing makes him seem like an asshole user. I used it as a reference as to how challenging it has been navigating communication with this man, but to be honest, it's not like I"m looking to change it. He has a twisted sense of humor. Today, I told him that I gave him a custom ring tone. He said he gave me one too, "your ringtone is the sound rabbits make in the slaughterhouse." That would offend most and yet cracks me up. So did him telling me where we were going to meet (this isn't where we met lol).

But I am definitely all doe-eyed and MAYBE, just MAYBE keeping my guard up a little and realizing that not everyone is honest, is something for me to take under consideration. My gut tells me he's sincere, but I have been fooled before so thank you.

I am exhausted and cant reply in a nice wordy way so...

Hes playing a game, push pull, He wants you as a plaything.. Be smart and walk away , block him on phone and all social media and talk to guys that truly do want to get to know you and is looking for a real relationship...

You deserve someone nice

Hi Christine,

Thank you for your input. Question for you. Would your opinion change if I told you that he DOESN'T say these things when we talk on the phone? I mean, YEAH, he talks dirty to me because we're 1200 miles away and hot for each other, but we also discuss the difficulties of making relationships work. Of dealing with someone else's quirks and how they can drive you crazy and how you have to learn to compromise. He's a Taurus. For anyone who follows astrology they tend to be very relationship-oriented.

I feel like everyone here latched on to his secretary sex doll comment and I guess I can see why. It's what I put out there. I put it out there to say that at first I had no idea where he was coming from. We talked pretty consistently until I had told him to not contact me until we could do something. So actually the FIRST text I got was we should get together this weekend and that's when I told him I had left the state. He told me I sucked for running.

The next text I got after that was he was going to buy me a car, put it in my name so that I could drive him to work every day. When I asked him where I was supposed to live he told me he'd buy a van and I could live in the back of it. I sat there like WTF???? I didn't pick up the phone immediately. Don't know if I picked up the phone at all. I just texted him asking what he was talking about. Did he get a DWI? By the way, my car got totaled right before I left Florida and he knew that because I had sent him a pic of it. At that time I didn't know which end was up and was still bitter about the runaround I felt I got in Florida and didn't engage too much. Pretty sure we did have a conversation where I showed how bitter I was and we went for another week or two without much communication. P.S. No DWI and his car is still running. THIS IS JUST HIS CRAZY WAY!

So chauffer didn't work and he comes at me wth secretary sex doll. It definitely got my attention. Again, WTF???? I was more ready to talk now. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM MY LIFE???"

"You should come back."
"I have no place to live down there and I can't afford a move right now."
"Let me bring you down for a weekend."

NOW the lines of communication were really open. I told him how I didn't appreciate the runaround and he apologized. Told me that it was really a bad time for him, the loss of control of no car, not having the money to fix it (much less a rental as someone suggested) and the anxiety that it was causing in his life. When I asked why I should even consider turning my life upside down to make this happen he said, "Am I not different this time around? Is this not better?"

As I read that last line I just typed, sure - someone could say he's improving his approach with me to get his way for nefarious reasons. If you WANT to see him as some master manipulator it's easy to do. OR, if you're a doe-eyed optimist like me, you can see him as someone who just opened up a little bit because he's trying to get closer because he WANTS a real relationship. Somewhere in this newly opened line of communication he had mentioned us getting a place together.

We do a lot of communicating by text and when he comes with these wacky things out of context - before I knew WTF was going on, it's perplexing but if anything, it got my attention. Sure he COULD HAVE made that first text say he's sorry and fessed up about the anxiety, but obviously, it's not his way. Now I know how to take his texts in the spirit of which they're sent.

He's vegetarian but I know he eats cheese. This morning I asked him if he likes eggs. He comes back, "Did I say eggs? I said cheese. Is an egg cheese? JESUS FKING CHRIST I'M GOING TO LOSE MY FKING MIND!!!!! No eggs." That's not an actual tirade. That's play.

So now that I feel I have better painted a more accurate picture of him so that MAYBE people would think he's less of an opportunist and more of someone searching for a soulmate I will ask again, has anyone had the experience of both being at places where you feel like you need help and the relationship helped each of you help each other? I'm seeing Joon and Sam making grilled cheese sandwiches at the end of Benny and Joon. Two wacky people making a go of it and will hopefully be better together. (Thankfully neither of us is as off the beam as Sam or Joon lol.)

I think you spend way too much energy and time analyzing someone you’ve met once and who is likely not going to be an excellent relationship partner. I doubt he is looking for a soulmate or is future love of your life. He sounds very much off.

I don’t think anyone is upset about sex doll comments as much as it’s just obvious this isn’t a healthy relationship prospect as you don’t even know him and anyone can pretty much say anything. You put too much trust in some empty words. I don’t know how old is this guy but if he can’t afford to fix his car or rent one he’s likely in no position to buy cars or vans or like he suggested supporting you while he works (not like he should but you are excited about his ridiculous suggestions). This ain’t happening. None is true

He sounds like a teen who just runs his mouth and hopes he gets some naive girls all giddy. That’s how some teens operate, they think that if they say the most nasty disrespectful things to a girl and make the most ridiculous suggestion, girls will be falling over. Nah. Eventually everyone grows up and adults don’t act this way.

Please work on your self esteem and self respect. Don’t allow some stranger make fun of you and degrade you. The guy says nasty things to you and finds pleasure in you falling for it. You can absolutely do better. Trust me. Ton of great men out there

I have not personally had the experience and again will tell you that it’s not healthy. This guy is whacko. He couldn’t even afford to fix his own car, then offers to buy you one so you can drive him to work everyday? .He does want a sex slave/personal secretary to drive him around, live with him and motivate him. Why you’re even entertaining this person seriously is difficult to understand.

He has no plans to do any of it. Like buy cars and move people in. He likes to say nonsense and feels good that she finds women who fall for it.

I spend a lot of time with teens and sadly many girls with low self esteem find it exciting when boys speak to them in degrading manner because somehow they get this idea that means that the boy likes her. In reality he is making fun of her and puts her down.

Eventually most girls build their self esteem up (often with some help) and boys grow up and start seeing the light and everyone learns that it doesn’t work this way and that’s not how good relationship really works.

That’s why I am confused on this whole story since both participants are grown up. I initially thought everyone is very young and inexperienced.

Yes, he seems like a big talker. I just don’t understand the appeal. There is nothing redeeming or even appealing about this guy.

Well just in your response to my advice....

He cant afford to fix his car? yet talks of buying you a car? van? Move you in? You met him once and he wasn't making time to spend with you, you tell him when he is ready to let you know.. Now hes yakking... Okay. The things he is saying is pretty ridiculous. I mean everyone has a different sense of humor and obviously you are interested in him. If you had been dating this guy for a few months then whats he talking about might be a possible thing, but you havent spend real time face to face ... Yes we can all learn alot about people by texting or talking on the phone but I fully believe you can't say you really know someone unless you have spent time together, in person.

If you want a fling? Go ahead with this fellow. Id bet my last dollar that's all he wants and hes probably said all of this to other women and might be talking to other women while hes trying to dazzle you...

Just be safe. Good luck

OMG!!! THE CAR WAS A JOKE!!! WAS THAT NOT CLEAR FROM EVERYTHING ELSE???? When he first said it for a second I thought he was serious because it came out of the blue which is why I asked about the DWI. I was never expecting him to buy me a car FOR ME TO LIVE IN and he's not running his mouth acting like he's big man on campus. WOW!

Seriously, I'm convinced this is why he's single lol. Everyone here is so offended when I talk about what he says, meanwhile, one of my closest friends of 25 years can't believe that I found a guy who suits me so well. To be honest, I'm less concerned that he's playing me and more concerned that our differences will make things difficult. He's fun but we have different approaches to life which may cause friction. He's a hard worker. Steady and reliable. I'm currently unemployed and in school, but even if I was working a regular job like I did when I worked for a big bank, I never wanted to be there. I'm working on creating a nonprofit. I'll never be rich and that's fine b/c while that would be nice, I want my life to be about making a difference. That's just ONE area where we differ. I have this issue with most people who think my goals are unrealistic. They're not. The reality is that MOST PEOPLE are too scared to follow their dreams which is why they're always hating on someone who is pursuing their own. They bought their house or they have kids and all this other stuff is scary and they want SECURITY. I'm willing to live on the edge and I can because I raised a perfectly functional son by myself who is out on his own supporting himself. This is my time to create the life I believe I was meant to live but enough about that.

Thanks. I suspect I need it but not for the reasons everyone else thinks I do lol.

Yikes. Underneath all this is an indication that you're still needing support/therapy that you're choosing to defend a person you don't know to a bunch of online strangers. Maybe you're just defending him to yourself. I suspect all this is due to the fact that you're physically attracted to him and he's making you "feel" sexy. There's a lot of red flags here.

What stood out to me was not about the sexy secretary bit. It was more about him asking you to move back 1200miles to LIVE with him, after only meeting him ONCE.

Careful what personal information you share with this guy. I bet money he'll use it against you one day.

He's emotionally unavailable and so are you. Can you be supportive of each other? No. You will feed off from each other, instead. If you start a relationship with toxicity, you're setting the tone of what expectations you have of it. Raise the bar!

I’m having trouble why you started this thread since you’re defending the guy so adamantly and you clearly want to be with him. Everyone here is pointing out red flags out of concern. If you want to be with him then do it and find out for yourself. No one is going to stop you. Sometimes we have to learn by doing.

I think you can pursue your dreams and make a difference. Many people do that. Not sure why you think others don’t do that. It’s common and not unusual.

How did the topic go from dating this guy to pursuing your dreams. Just like many other
People you can pursue your dream and be in a good relationship.

If this guy is a hard working and reliable and fully employed yet can’t afford the most basics like fixing a car or renting one, then he is not doing things right. Either lacks ambitions or spending money on something like perhaps substance addiction. Something just doesn’t add up with this guy especially since other men you pursued before were also deeply troubled. It never ended well and likely will not end well this time either. You can do better with help of a good therapist

I don’t believe anyone is offended. We are not the ones dating him. It’s just that we think you deserve better than this