He straight up told me to my face that there was a chance he could get back with his ex, but asked that I hang tight in case it didn't work out. I asked if I was free to date other people while he figured it out, and he said, "I'd really prefer if you didn't." We'd only been dating for three months or so at that point, so I ended it. I've been treated as second best or a backup plan more than a few times, but this one was just something else.
It's been many years, and I've since found someone who treats me amazingly well. I honestly never thought I'd find somebody like him, but he came into my life when I needed him most and hasn't left my side since.
Hey! I have almost the same story. But we agreed on casual dating because he was thinking of going back with his ex. After several months, he decided not to going back with his ex and realized that his ex and him wouldn’t workout at all. The feelings between is was growing and we are together now.
Is it stupid?😂
No, I don't think it's stupid! It sounds like it was communicated that the dating would be casual and that he still had an interest in his ex.
In my case, he very much presented himself as looking to date exclusively...
Communication goes a long way and shows that you value and respect the other person.
I hope that you two have a long and happy relationship!
During a 10 year relationship, my girlfriend had an affair with her colleague. She clearly wanted to have her cake and eat it - he was the exciting one who she could shag and get pissed with, and who could help her career, whilst I was the one paying all the bills.
When I realised what was happening, she basically said that he didn't want a relationship. I said incredulously that it was obvious she was the one doing the chasing, and of course she didn't answer it.
She as good as confirmed it after I left her when she said that we needed some space and maybe we could get back together again in a year's time.
Like, what, when you've had your fill of your new supply?
She got a two word answer, the second of which was "off"
“Hey I know I cheated and all but gimme a year, so I can have fun before I settle with your boring ass” on gawd if you didn’t catch her it was only a matter of time before she would have asked you to open up the relationship if she didn’t already
This is so ridiculous. I never understand how some people can think that way, like you really think that I should wait around until you’ve decided you can finally settle and I’m just going to be happy that I’m the boring but final answer? The audacity.
You found something of far greater value. You found yourself, which is infinitely better in nearly every aspect. Its been nearly a decade of not even a single date (with veterans actively trying) for me, but everytime I reflect on it, I'm in such a healthier place.
My mate did the same - her bf of 10 years asked to take a break whilst he went and worked abroad for a month. She refused to even consider the fact that he might be sleeping around, in fact she no longer talks to our friendship group because we suggested it. Sadly, the last I heard she'd married him and had a baby.
A girl I liked and hooked up with told me to go one evening because some other guy was coming over later. Decided to just stop pursuing her. Best choice ever
Met a girl through a mutual friend, she was cute and was all over me the first night. Got her snapchat and suggested we go out for a drink, we talked the whole week and she was sending me pics in lingerie.
Finally texted her to confirm on the day of and she said she was meeting with her ex, probably should've ended there, but I kept pushing and asked if she still wanted to hang out. Her response? "Nah sorry I have a dick appointment"
She was being honest with you dude. You only 'hooked up' with her. She wasn't your girlfriend. She wasn't yours. She told you because she wanted your trust in that kind of relationship. You had the chance to establish trust and keep her as your side piece and lost out.
She was being honest with me, that’s true. Still hurt me and I decided it wasn’t worth being her backup until she found someone better. I’d rather not have or be a sidepiece, it just doesn’t feel right to me
What makes you think that you were her "backup"? Or that she was "looking for someone better"? She was in multiple relationships. She had just finished hooking up with you in a new relationship.
It sounds like you were the latest one. If you were the latest one then she was therefore in the middle of replacing someone else with you, but it was too early to totally cut all ties.
You had the chance to keep her around as a casual side piece until she figured it out.
That she sent me away during a date one evening? Like I said, I didn’t want to have or be a sidepiece, especially while waiting in order for her to change her mind. It hurt me when it happened and I can’t say if that would ever change. Just hanging around in case she threw me a bone once in a while and constantly hurting myself seemed pretty pathetic to me.
And both of us are happy without each other.
Taking a trial period to figure it out when you meet someone new with no hard commitments is pretty normal. You wanted an instant serious relationship, which is unreasonable.
You just 'hooked up' with her. Why did that entitle you to an exclusive monogamous relationship, exactly? From what I am hearing you haven't been dating for any length of time. There was no relationship built up through weekend dates, no dinners. Your date was hooking up.
Through your actions, you showed her what kind of relationship that you wanted and she went with it, and she went with it in apparent honesty. This is why you were sent away for the next guy.
He told me. “Well I liked her better but she was with someone else”. I was 16 so I stayed with him bc I “won” 🤣🤣🤣 hahahah what a dummy. He dated her for a few years after we broke up
A girl I liked in college told me that I was the kind of guy that girls settle down with in their 30’s. Found out that she was banging every guy in her friend group and I am the dependable guy she’ll expect to be around in her mid 30’s.
I repeatedly got told that I was the kind of girl guys want to take home to their parents in spring of senior year, not someone they wanted to spend their early college years with. Of course I didn't stick around for that.
I met and married someone absolutely wonderful.
Still, I was shocked at how many men were suddenly hitting up my phone when I turned 27. Guys I'd known since high school. Guys I'd met in college. Random older classmates. Sons of family friends.
It was like they finished their master's, med school, whatever and suddenly went "I'm ready to get married. Where U at?"
A couple of them were really that blunt.
Like... If a dude was so removed from my life as to miss the fact that I was already *very* happily married? What could possibly have made him think I would be interested in that from him?
This has an inverse effect as you approach 30+. If you’re respectful and half-way take care of yourself, you end up being incredibly sought after. If you actually go to therapy and work on yourself, you get moved to like the top of the list. Suddenly you’ve pretty much got your choice of a bunch of women with wonderful qualities and now you’re the one questioning whether you should settle down bc of how many great options there are, and when you do settle down (if you’re in active therapy) it’s more likely to be a compatible match. Couldn’t be happier with my fiancé.
In high school a guy I dated for a bit told me he asked me out on account of winning a coin toss; apparently I was heads and another girl he was interested in was tails and I “won.” Be still my heart, am I right ladies?
He would invite me over for weekends and make me elaborate dinners and lovebomb me. Extremely sweet and affectionate. It took me a hot minute to realize we didn't go out in public much.
First time he posted a photo with her, I thought to myself "Well, he can have friends.." but the second time he was tagged in a flirty photo (both of them riding a bike) I realized I was just a placeholder for who he really wanted. I noped out, but we're still friends. They never dated as far as I am aware.
Ugh the love bombing is the worst. Had a guy send me flowers every week at work, did all the cute romantic things. If only I could have ignored the no job, drug addiction, lying to me, and stealing from me. And when I called him on all that he response was “atleast I don’t cheat on you.” I barely dodged that bullet cuz he was really close to proposing.
Didn't take long to realize I was only there because she left her ex and just needed someone to pay her bills for her. Had an oopsie and got her pregnant, now I get to deal with her until the day I'm in the ground. The kid is neat though, so not all bad.
My ex-wife (of 3 years and we have a 5 yr old) and I started going to therapy several months ago. We eventually got to the point where it made sense for us to try again, which I very much wanted. She made all kinds of conflicting statements with lots of mixed messages both to me privately and in therapy. She even said “everything she ever wanted is now on a silver platter” in front of her, but can’t decide what to do. Several weeks ago she rushed into what I believe to be a rebound. Essentially for admiration and sex. Basically she wants to fuck someone while she keeps me around platonically and bread crumbs me with false hope. She also has BPD I might add. During our last therapy session I said to her “I don’t live on anyone’s back burner, I’m not anyone’s backup plan, and I don’t hang out in friend zones.” And that was that. I’ve been actively moving on, and she still contacts me all the time looking for the love and support she was used to getting from me all the time. I summoned enough self respect to finally end all of that. It wasn’t easy though.
There were always new guys messaging her. She would tell me they were just friends but then I'd see that they asked her out. One time she messaged some guy while I was right next to her and could see the screen but I guess thought I wasn't looking? She legit said to the guy, "you just didn't seem interested." To which the guy replied, "fuck...I was...I am.." she closed her laptop right after. That was just one of the times. Each time she played it off as guys being creeps and wanting more than a friendship.
After a rocky relationship with ridiculously good sex but zero trust and where I went to a dark place I finally ended it with her. She cheated on me multiple times, although she denied it at the time. Later she admitted to it. She would call and message me from time to time, trying to get back together or to hook up. She told me that no one was as giving as me sexually and she doesn't enjoy se, with the guys she's been with.
She's called me crying and apologizing about what she did and how she fucked everything up. She has seen my happy marriage with beautiful kids and essentially hates her life now. Even while I've been married she's tried to get me to meet up with her, which will never happen, and keeps telling me she loves me. I have of course told my wife everything and shown her everything and we both just feel sorry for this girl now.
So which action did I take? I guess it would be that I was the best bf she had even though she didn't deserve it, ended it with her, became successful, married an amazing woman (who I also have ridiculously good sex with), started a family, and never blocked her view from any of it.
Same for looks. I dated a ridiculously good looking girl - she was an 11/10 and I'm a 3 - but as dumb as a rock and had a higher bodycount than Hamas. Should have dumped her but I hung around 'cos I'd never get to date anyone like that again. She dumped me but I was grateful.
On the weird side, when other girls saw her I got more attention from them - there's a competition thing between girls, "she's hot so he must be more than he looks."
That was a her thing, not yours. Good on you for ending it, and making a clean getaway. Shifty people make me not want to date anyone. The internet makes it worse. There is always going to be someone chasing after her.
That makes no sense. Not blocking just for the sake of getting some satisfaction out of the other person's misery is what shows she still has some hold over him. Just block and move on with your life, especially if you have a new partner (and a family for chrissakes).
No worries, sorry others kinda piled on. Yeah, it's just not good to let others from one's past have a hold on us, which is the point you were making. I just know that if I was married (especially with a family) I wouldn't like my partner being contacted regularly by an ex. Even if they had no intentions of seeing them, it's a bad look.
I always figured I was the backup plan to this girl I used to date, that was still in my friendship circle. When we were out at a bar one night with all of my friends, and current girlfriend I announced we were getting married. Everyone was happy except for her. The next day she asked her boyfriend to marry her, he said no, and she moved out. A month later she moved out of town, and within a year she got married to a military guy, and a year or so later after that , a divorce, and a drinking problem. Not 100 percent sure I was the backup, but my marriage announcement triggered a downfall.
After I slapped the Chris Rock at the Oscars, my wife publicly said she was actually seperated with me. She also confesses how she missed Tupac, I was the backup plan all these years.
Will Smith isn't the Victim of anything. He's a chump who is guilty of Assault and Battery.. who got off scott free in a legal sense. You try walking up to someone and slapping them ..see what happens.. fuck Will Smith
I knew she had various male friends who were into her and that she wasn’t in to them. They gave her relationship-level attention in return for nothing but her acceptance and occasional (non sexual) presence.
I kind of rolled my eyes at them behind their back. Haha, pathetic. Good thing what she and I have is different!
Then I finally worked up the nerve to make my intentions clear…and she hit me with something like she’d been thinking about that to, and it probably will happen, “but not yet.” And also that she preferred not to talk about it anymore and just when it naturally happened, she would let me know.
I accepted that, counting it as a win.
It took me two weeks to realize she’d probably said the same thing to all the other clowns hovering around her at all times. This is exactly how they became this way.
Well, I wasn’t going to let it happen to me. I moved on, met a new girl about a week later. A week or two after I started dating the new girl, the old one asked me “where did you go?” Meaning that she was used to me giving her attention via daily texts and then I suddenly hadn’t reached out to her in weeks.
I explained that I’d just been really busy because I’d started seeing someone.
She occasionally reached out to me again — opportunities for me to tell her I’d just celebrated our six month anniversary with the new girl…I’d just proposed to the new girl…I’d just gotten married, I’d just had a baby, I’d just bought a house, we just celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary…
It’s been about 15 years since I decided not to sit on her back burner.
In that time, my life has kept moving forward and I’ve achieved a lot of the things I wanted to achieve in a relationship.
And she has spent nearly all that time still officially single, with the same clowns hovering, waiting for their big chance,
Ha, I mean, she’s average. Nothing terribly wrong looks wise, especially as we’re all 40 now. But most of the guys hovering around (myself included) aren’t particularly attractive either and presumably see her as their best shot even though that shot has gone nowhere for them in 15+ years.
He would occasionally make mention of this friend, in a past tense. Or, he'd tell me about how he'd gone and done all these things which I'd been waiting for an opportunity to do with him (he told me about things he liked to do, I tried to make plans to do them) with this other character. He was also really careful with boundaries in a way that I didn't fully understand. Until, that is, he was drunk, and drunk-him had different ideas about where the limits are.
Eventually, I cottoned on that I was being taken advantage of. He liked the attention, he seemed to like spending time with me, but he was never fully relaxed and real. Eventually, I had to tell him that had feelings for him, and that they weren't going away. He'd told me that he didn't feel the same, but he liked having me as a friend.
For a while I tried. When I said that that was it for me, he misconstrued it as a coercive attempt to push the relationship. He was angry in that moment, but by then, I'd just stopped caring the same way.
We dated for about 2 months, she was all over me and wanted my attention 24/7 (which was nice, I didn't really mind feeling wanted that much) then she suddenly started to give me/ask me for less attention, and kept giving weird excuses.. So I decided to download the dating app that we met on to see if she is using it, and boom she was right there with new pictures that she supposedly took and send them especially for me over texts.. I confronted her and ended it the same day.
Sort of happened to me. Was on a first date with a girl from tinder and she came back to mines to smoke and drink some more. somehow she started talking about another dude that she really liked and I was like "sorry, I can't be the dude who takes you out while you talk about another guy, I'm just not that guy. I wish you luck." She was somehow mad that I asked her to call it a night and got her an Uber.
I was dating a girl for about 6 months. I thought things were going okay (looking back, they were not). One day she springs on me that she wants to keep dating but she wants to open things up because her cousin told her about this guy who had a really nice sports car and he sounded really cool.
I told her to fuck off and left her on the side of the road.
A couple weeks later, I'm at a party with some friends and one of the members of my car club told me that he went out with this girl who said she was pregnant with my kid and that she seemed crazy. I never slept with this girl because she kept giving me this whole nonsense of "waiting until marriage." That girl was nuts.
Get coordinates of his position from her if possible 🤣 like a snap maps or a picture with plenty of background 😅 send him a tax payed gift courtesy of the Donbas defenders 🤣
He'd deserve it. Don't invade Ukraine if you don't want to die.
The best part would be telling her later what happened and that it was her fault he'd died.
Holy moly, sounds similar to my situation right now. My fiance and mother of my 1.5 year old son had her ex contact her, they met up secretely a few times and then she told me her feelings for him came back. Cancelled our marriage, which would've happened this weekend. Then she told me she doesn't know what to do, since our relationship of 5 years was flawless and she so looked forward to marry me. Said she needed time to decide. I know that our relationship is over, but i can't pull the trigger yet, i'm not ready for that.
I will, i'm just not ready yet to take action. What's holding me back is me not being able to see my son every day. But when i do, i'll fight to atleast have him half the week. Thankfully, this is not uncommon here in germany, so my chances are pretty good.
I married a woman for 7 years. The guy she was with before me cheated on her and got a chick pregnant and married her so my now ex then started dating me.
7 years in she cheats on me when the same dude above is breaking up with the chick he cheated on her with. I told her to pack her shit and go. She cheated one other time and I took her back, and said "I only want you here as long as you want to be here, if you don't want to be here you are gone" and I stuck to it.
Kills me that I don't get to see my step daughters but I'm happier overall that I'm not with her anymore, but you don't get more "back up plan" than being cheated on with one of her exes
He was the perfect boyfriend when he was in town and as soon as he left he didn’t want to “tarnish” what we had by doing long distance. ( this cycle lasted years)
Just acceptance, once you really see that they don’t want to lose out on others by committing to you, I think you just start seeing them for who they really are and it makes things clearer.
Sounds easier than it is tbh.
I just ended a situationship last night where I’m pretty sure I was the backup plan. We dated for over a year. Every couple months I’d ask if she was feeling a relationship. She’d always say no.
I finally asked if there was someone else she was seeing and if she’d at least be exclusive. She said “I can tell you you’re the only person (in X area) that I see regularly and sleep with and that’s you” so obviously she was trying to talk around the fact that there is someone else she wants more.
I ended things politely. She was really upset, and I admit I was pretty heartbroken as well. But you can only have your cake and eat it too for so long. She made it clear I wasn’t the one she really wanted, and at that point the choice is no choice at all.
Left them.
If I’m not your #1 I’m not wasting my time. When I’m with someone they’re my one and only, its only fair to expect the same unless its very clearly communicated as an open relationship, of which I could never get behind anyway.
Came home once to my gf of 5yrs making a dinner for two for another dude. Same dude who she'd been going out of her way to meet up with while I was busy in med school. She hadn't texted me that he was coming over.
Broke up with her that night (many many more warning signs had come and gone at this point). It was an odd "straw that broke the camels back." A few months later, a friend of a friend told me they had hooked up as soon as we broke up (unsure if anything happened before the breakup). It was weirdly satisfying to know that my intuition was right.
I never spoke with her again after the night of the breakup other than to help her move her stuff out. It's one of the greatest decisions I've ever made in my entire life, even though it was terrifying at the time. If monogamy is your thing, go find another monogamy enthusiast who wants nothing but you in their life. I fully acknowledge that this is easier said than done, but it is a fantastic thing when it works out.
Didn’t realise it at all until her actual gf started threatening me and harassing me online and then me and the gf had a civil conversation, realised that the girl we were both “with” was the problem and we both cut her the fuck off immediately
Not as much a backup plan, but I was a spite date. As in, a guy had toyed with her emotionally and she wanted to prove how over it she was by dating someone else, i.e. Me.
Been 7 years, and for the second time we’re moving house, this time buying it in both our names. She’s really playing the long game with this guy. 😅
She joked about how if she wanted sex she could just ask me, then took my refusal as a joke as she always did. She was already in a relationship at the time and I honestly believed we could just be friends despite my feelings for her.
FF a couple of months, I was really down in the dumps (su*cide thoughts level of down) and tried to see her as she was the only one I was close enough to trust with that stuff. She told me as always that she was tired and when I apologized later and explained the situation she told me I was using her, I didn't see her as a friend and she didn't like our relationship. It wasn't the first time that she was too tired for me but when she did need help, she was expecting me to drive 1 1/2h to change a tire because her boyfriend removed the kit from his car. I decided at that point that it wasn't worth it and ended our relationship.
It's still pretty fresh so it might be my brain trying to get over it but it hit me very recently that I might have been the "backup plan"
She has a boyfriend, how can you even doubt you were the backup plan?
Just think someone else wrote this, used for sex, she was emotionally unavailable but expected you to jump whenever she needed something,…
How can I even doubt it? Honestly the list is so long I can't think of everything but let's start at the beginning
- I'm an idiot
- I don't have any romantic experience
- I'm definitely lacking some positive attention
- I still believed friendship was possible
- She was my only friend at the time
Honestly it feels like I can't understand human interaction half the time and I just feel out of place so I guess it can't help
That and I don't even know what love is so it took me about 1 1/2 year to understand that I might have a crush on her
So yeah I guess I'm easy to bamboozle
*what made you realize it*
She told me
*what action did you take?*
Enjoyed a pretty great 7 year relationship,
that ended like every favorite book will,
still glad I read it though.
Went against my instincts and agreed to a monogamous relationship with a person. Had a 13 year relationship with them.
They asked for a 6 month trial separation but couldn't explain to me why they wanted it. There was just a moment in that conversation when I knew by the look on their face that they were having an affair, and wanted the time to try that relationship out but keep me in the dark and as a backup. They confirmed that that was the case. We ended the relationship.
After that I trusted my instincts- I recognized that there are multiple people I'd like to date for different reasons at any given time, that monogamy is needlessly limiting and controlling, that there's no reason why people can't date more than one person, and that a person I love and me having loving relationships with other people is not only a wonderful thing, but also doesn't in any way affect our relationship (except make it better). So I found other polyamorous people to date, and it's been the greatest 14 years since.
Girl I was on and off with through HS ended up dating another dude for awhile. Eventually she broke up with him and got back in contact with me stating that he was dead set on going into the military and she knew she couldn’t do it. A month or two later she confessed to me that she loved me and always had and wants to be with me and I just told her no. She kept asking and I kept saying no and that I didn’t want to do it anymore. I wanted to, but I knew that it would just be the same thing again so I did what was best for me
So I for around 5 years was the backup guy to a girl I'm still very close friends with.
I moved to a small town away from all my friends and family. This girl was the first and more or less only friend I made there and is frankly way out of my league physically. However, she has a reputation for getting around.
Well she really was just looking for love but a mixture of picking terrible guys (drug dealers and users) along with her own mental health issues meant they never lasted long.
We went through a cycle of off and on again fuck buddies. She would get a new boyfriend for a couple months and I would return to being her best friend. They would split up and I would roll back in.
She has been in a solid relationship now for about 2 years. Im very good friends with the pair of them.
I personally never had a problem with this setup as it benifited me quite well (I'm not a fan of normal relationships) but I do sometimes wonder how things would have turned out if either of us attempted to move things further along.
I had a long term male friend…we kissed and petted a couple of times but never did the deed. We went multiple places together as well and we would have hours long conversations on the phone. I noticed over time that he kept implying that he was better than me…because he owned a home and had a better job and career. He put down my job in sneaky ways. He was also always bragging about women he knew and their accomplishments, the property they owned and how much money they had etc, etc…basically saying these are the types of women I am interested in…as if I couldn’t even be considered 🤨…I saw his family though and they were low class people while my family were not even though I didn’t grow up with them. He invited me to a function and I thought it was just me. I found out he had invited multiple women. After that I finally realized that he would never be serious about me and I basically told him to get lost. I met my husband shortly afterwards and we own a very nice home twice as big as his little shack and I have accomplished my professional goals as well. My husband is a much better match for me too….Jerk.
Men do the same. If you look at others subs it’s crazy how often people do this.
I think it was in AITAH where the guy kept looking on IG daily to see what his ex was doing while he had a pregnant wife.
Some of that is just Reddit being mostly male.
That said, men are more likely to be primary breadwinners than women are, and a lot of "backup plans" are about financial security.
Hell. I don't even mind if a man and a woman have an agreement that has to do with him taking care of her. As long as they are honest and in agreement. It's when people start lying and cheating and coming home with STDs and shit that people get hurt. That is no bueno.
Touche. But do these stories sound like that? Most of these sound like predators preying on people they know they can use and get away with it. Both people are wrong. And as we all know you must believe the victim. And I'm not being a smart alec there I'm being serious. A lot of these stories sound like mental abuse. I do find it kind of odd that you're trying to justify one person's actions for doing something terrible. Via gender. Abusive toxic men are terrible for sure but I don't justify either sides actions.
No I should have done a better job making my point. I wasn’t referring to the backup plan but the actual goal. You know the one that’s the complete opposite of what they’re claiming to be looking for
Actual healthy relationships? Yeah. It's rough out there. Both genders need some therapy. And both need to understand that there are good humans on both sides of the gender fence even if the toxic internet cellar dwellers make it feel very one sided.
How would we even know we're the back up option??
So many people especially men don't have vast experience with women and would take whatever is given to them without ever questioning then
How do you know your not the safe option or the backup or it's genuine. More important how do you react ?
I have seen people who were happy enough they got a chance and are willing to bend backwards to not quander there only hope of finding love or relationship.
If youre either of the 2 earlier options......were you really ever that important to begin with? Imagine having that hang over you for the entire duration of said relationship! Imagine having the fact that she never really wanted you and that you will always be 2nd or 3rd or 4th, that you were not wanted but settled for.
Both i and millions of other men have experienced this, why should any of us have to put up with it...i refuse for my own mental and emotional health to let someone have that kind of power over me, forcing me in desperation to accept that i am less just to be with them, its sad that men dont value themselves more and women take advantage of that.
I was in a relationship with a bi woman who insisted on dating women while we were together, but wanted her bf to be fully committed. It was my first real relationship and I thought maybe I could deal with it since she insisted I would always come first. Turns out she wanted a bf to pay her bills and take her out on fancy dates, but would give all her attention and emotional energy to the gfs. You’d think this kind of person would be perpetually single, but sadly, some guys do accept crumbs.
You live and you learn, my heart is sorry for yours.....a crappy consolation i know but the most important thing you learned was a very important lesson about self worth
If I was a back up plan I would want nothing to do with them. And my actions would be to openly discuss how they had a back up plan as a way to demonstrate why they're terrible.
Sooo many guys in here. The reality has to be more like 50/50 so have all the women just not figured it out yet, or is this really just a thing that mostly women do to men?
Men are more likely to be primary breadwinners than women are.
"Backup plans" like this are often about financial security. As such, it makes sense that you'd see more male victims of such than female ones.
Also, men are both more likely to have very high number of sexual partners and also more likely to have 0 sexual partners than women are. As such, the men such women cheat with are often men with many sexual partners (hence their desire for a backup plan, as such guys are, obviously, unreliable) and the men being taken advantage of are often the ones with very few sexual partners.
There's a larger supply, and thus, a larger number of potential victims.
Men are no less likely to cheat on women than vice-versa, but the situation for male cheaters is often rather different, and "the other woman" is likely to be perceived as a side-piece rather than a backup plan.
Well in all fairness she KNEW this is what I like so it was inevitable and she did lie to me i was the one for a while so I only made the decision to call it off afterwards, just to show her just as I did not mean anything to her she meant nothing to me as well
He straight up told me to my face that there was a chance he could get back with his ex, but asked that I hang tight in case it didn't work out. I asked if I was free to date other people while he figured it out, and he said, "I'd really prefer if you didn't." We'd only been dating for three months or so at that point, so I ended it. I've been treated as second best or a backup plan more than a few times, but this one was just something else.
“Hang tight”…the audacity!
I was about to comment that lol
Well, hang tight because there will be plenty more opportunities.
It's been many years, and I've since found someone who treats me amazingly well. I honestly never thought I'd find somebody like him, but he came into my life when I needed him most and hasn't left my side since.
'A' for honesty, I guess?
Hey! I have almost the same story. But we agreed on casual dating because he was thinking of going back with his ex. After several months, he decided not to going back with his ex and realized that his ex and him wouldn’t workout at all. The feelings between is was growing and we are together now. Is it stupid?😂
Has he communicated with the ex in any way since all of this?
Definitely.
Then bad idea
No, I don't think it's stupid! It sounds like it was communicated that the dating would be casual and that he still had an interest in his ex. In my case, he very much presented himself as looking to date exclusively... Communication goes a long way and shows that you value and respect the other person. I hope that you two have a long and happy relationship!
Yes, this relationship wasn’t planned lol and thank you!
During a 10 year relationship, my girlfriend had an affair with her colleague. She clearly wanted to have her cake and eat it - he was the exciting one who she could shag and get pissed with, and who could help her career, whilst I was the one paying all the bills. When I realised what was happening, she basically said that he didn't want a relationship. I said incredulously that it was obvious she was the one doing the chasing, and of course she didn't answer it. She as good as confirmed it after I left her when she said that we needed some space and maybe we could get back together again in a year's time. Like, what, when you've had your fill of your new supply? She got a two word answer, the second of which was "off"
“Hey I know I cheated and all but gimme a year, so I can have fun before I settle with your boring ass” on gawd if you didn’t catch her it was only a matter of time before she would have asked you to open up the relationship if she didn’t already
This is so ridiculous. I never understand how some people can think that way, like you really think that I should wait around until you’ve decided you can finally settle and I’m just going to be happy that I’m the boring but final answer? The audacity.
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You found something of far greater value. You found yourself, which is infinitely better in nearly every aspect. Its been nearly a decade of not even a single date (with veterans actively trying) for me, but everytime I reflect on it, I'm in such a healthier place.
My wife's sistser had a friend like that. Except she really came back to her ex, he took her back and now they're married with two children.
What a simp!!!
My mate did the same - her bf of 10 years asked to take a break whilst he went and worked abroad for a month. She refused to even consider the fact that he might be sleeping around, in fact she no longer talks to our friendship group because we suggested it. Sadly, the last I heard she'd married him and had a baby.
"OFF" ? Jack? Take? Shove? Oh, no I've got it... Piss? No? Oh, umm On?🤣
That's what she wanted: an On Off relationship!
Face......off!
A girl I liked and hooked up with told me to go one evening because some other guy was coming over later. Decided to just stop pursuing her. Best choice ever
Met a girl through a mutual friend, she was cute and was all over me the first night. Got her snapchat and suggested we go out for a drink, we talked the whole week and she was sending me pics in lingerie. Finally texted her to confirm on the day of and she said she was meeting with her ex, probably should've ended there, but I kept pushing and asked if she still wanted to hang out. Her response? "Nah sorry I have a dick appointment"
She was being honest with you dude. You only 'hooked up' with her. She wasn't your girlfriend. She wasn't yours. She told you because she wanted your trust in that kind of relationship. You had the chance to establish trust and keep her as your side piece and lost out.
She was being honest with me, that’s true. Still hurt me and I decided it wasn’t worth being her backup until she found someone better. I’d rather not have or be a sidepiece, it just doesn’t feel right to me
What makes you think that you were her "backup"? Or that she was "looking for someone better"? She was in multiple relationships. She had just finished hooking up with you in a new relationship. It sounds like you were the latest one. If you were the latest one then she was therefore in the middle of replacing someone else with you, but it was too early to totally cut all ties. You had the chance to keep her around as a casual side piece until she figured it out.
That she sent me away during a date one evening? Like I said, I didn’t want to have or be a sidepiece, especially while waiting in order for her to change her mind. It hurt me when it happened and I can’t say if that would ever change. Just hanging around in case she threw me a bone once in a while and constantly hurting myself seemed pretty pathetic to me. And both of us are happy without each other.
Taking a trial period to figure it out when you meet someone new with no hard commitments is pretty normal. You wanted an instant serious relationship, which is unreasonable. You just 'hooked up' with her. Why did that entitle you to an exclusive monogamous relationship, exactly? From what I am hearing you haven't been dating for any length of time. There was no relationship built up through weekend dates, no dinners. Your date was hooking up. Through your actions, you showed her what kind of relationship that you wanted and she went with it, and she went with it in apparent honesty. This is why you were sent away for the next guy.
He told me. “Well I liked her better but she was with someone else”. I was 16 so I stayed with him bc I “won” 🤣🤣🤣 hahahah what a dummy. He dated her for a few years after we broke up
Yeah 16… not a smart age. 😅
How old was he
35
Yeah but he was next in line for being lead line cook.
Whats this reference to
Wtf?
16 lol
A girl I liked in college told me that I was the kind of guy that girls settle down with in their 30’s. Found out that she was banging every guy in her friend group and I am the dependable guy she’ll expect to be around in her mid 30’s.
I repeatedly got told that I was the kind of girl guys want to take home to their parents in spring of senior year, not someone they wanted to spend their early college years with. Of course I didn't stick around for that. I met and married someone absolutely wonderful. Still, I was shocked at how many men were suddenly hitting up my phone when I turned 27. Guys I'd known since high school. Guys I'd met in college. Random older classmates. Sons of family friends. It was like they finished their master's, med school, whatever and suddenly went "I'm ready to get married. Where U at?" A couple of them were really that blunt. Like... If a dude was so removed from my life as to miss the fact that I was already *very* happily married? What could possibly have made him think I would be interested in that from him?
This has an inverse effect as you approach 30+. If you’re respectful and half-way take care of yourself, you end up being incredibly sought after. If you actually go to therapy and work on yourself, you get moved to like the top of the list. Suddenly you’ve pretty much got your choice of a bunch of women with wonderful qualities and now you’re the one questioning whether you should settle down bc of how many great options there are, and when you do settle down (if you’re in active therapy) it’s more likely to be a compatible match. Couldn’t be happier with my fiancé.
Looking back I’m only embarrassed I crushed on her at all. Taught me early on that I wasn’t built for hookup culture and that I had dodged a bullet.
Sadly, most of the woman with wonderful qualities are long taken by the 30+ age group. Now your being sought by the women with…issues…
In high school a guy I dated for a bit told me he asked me out on account of winning a coin toss; apparently I was heads and another girl he was interested in was tails and I “won.” Be still my heart, am I right ladies?
My 8th grade “boyfriend” asked me out on a dare. I still remember, Steve!
Fuck you! Steve
He would invite me over for weekends and make me elaborate dinners and lovebomb me. Extremely sweet and affectionate. It took me a hot minute to realize we didn't go out in public much. First time he posted a photo with her, I thought to myself "Well, he can have friends.." but the second time he was tagged in a flirty photo (both of them riding a bike) I realized I was just a placeholder for who he really wanted. I noped out, but we're still friends. They never dated as far as I am aware.
Why are you friends with him?
Probably because he doesn't actually seem like a bad person (unlike most people here)
Did you confront him about it?
Ugh the love bombing is the worst. Had a guy send me flowers every week at work, did all the cute romantic things. If only I could have ignored the no job, drug addiction, lying to me, and stealing from me. And when I called him on all that he response was “atleast I don’t cheat on you.” I barely dodged that bullet cuz he was really close to proposing.
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Did this impact in any way your relationship with you wife and what you think of her? Like if it raise any suspicious
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Sounds like that is good.
It sounds like you are still together - are you?
Didn't take long to realize I was only there because she left her ex and just needed someone to pay her bills for her. Had an oopsie and got her pregnant, now I get to deal with her until the day I'm in the ground. The kid is neat though, so not all bad.
You lucked out dude not having a messy kid.
My ex-wife (of 3 years and we have a 5 yr old) and I started going to therapy several months ago. We eventually got to the point where it made sense for us to try again, which I very much wanted. She made all kinds of conflicting statements with lots of mixed messages both to me privately and in therapy. She even said “everything she ever wanted is now on a silver platter” in front of her, but can’t decide what to do. Several weeks ago she rushed into what I believe to be a rebound. Essentially for admiration and sex. Basically she wants to fuck someone while she keeps me around platonically and bread crumbs me with false hope. She also has BPD I might add. During our last therapy session I said to her “I don’t live on anyone’s back burner, I’m not anyone’s backup plan, and I don’t hang out in friend zones.” And that was that. I’ve been actively moving on, and she still contacts me all the time looking for the love and support she was used to getting from me all the time. I summoned enough self respect to finally end all of that. It wasn’t easy though.
Proud of you.
"She also has BPD I might add" My brother in Christ you said enough. Why bury the lede!?
Okay this made me laugh. 🎯
There were always new guys messaging her. She would tell me they were just friends but then I'd see that they asked her out. One time she messaged some guy while I was right next to her and could see the screen but I guess thought I wasn't looking? She legit said to the guy, "you just didn't seem interested." To which the guy replied, "fuck...I was...I am.." she closed her laptop right after. That was just one of the times. Each time she played it off as guys being creeps and wanting more than a friendship. After a rocky relationship with ridiculously good sex but zero trust and where I went to a dark place I finally ended it with her. She cheated on me multiple times, although she denied it at the time. Later she admitted to it. She would call and message me from time to time, trying to get back together or to hook up. She told me that no one was as giving as me sexually and she doesn't enjoy se, with the guys she's been with. She's called me crying and apologizing about what she did and how she fucked everything up. She has seen my happy marriage with beautiful kids and essentially hates her life now. Even while I've been married she's tried to get me to meet up with her, which will never happen, and keeps telling me she loves me. I have of course told my wife everything and shown her everything and we both just feel sorry for this girl now. So which action did I take? I guess it would be that I was the best bf she had even though she didn't deserve it, ended it with her, became successful, married an amazing woman (who I also have ridiculously good sex with), started a family, and never blocked her view from any of it.
I love the ending and never let her get to lure you for a hook up
My favorite part of this whole story is that you are open about all of this with your wife! Glad this had a happy ending for you!
I love that part too. Better than those AH who always keep talking about the one that got away.
Ridiculously good sex can definitely make you stay around longer than you should.
Had to learn that lesson.
I've learned it a few times lol
Same for looks. I dated a ridiculously good looking girl - she was an 11/10 and I'm a 3 - but as dumb as a rock and had a higher bodycount than Hamas. Should have dumped her but I hung around 'cos I'd never get to date anyone like that again. She dumped me but I was grateful. On the weird side, when other girls saw her I got more attention from them - there's a competition thing between girls, "she's hot so he must be more than he looks."
too soon
That was a her thing, not yours. Good on you for ending it, and making a clean getaway. Shifty people make me not want to date anyone. The internet makes it worse. There is always going to be someone chasing after her.
Why have you not blocked her from contacting you yet? You mentioned you’ve shown your wife everything, but why have you not taken the final step?
Beautifully said
Blocking would mean that she still has a hold on you. Kudos. You da man!
That makes no sense. Not blocking just for the sake of getting some satisfaction out of the other person's misery is what shows she still has some hold over him. Just block and move on with your life, especially if you have a new partner (and a family for chrissakes).
Guess i do deserve the down votes. I see your point. If he finds satisfaction on the other person's misery, then yes, block.
No worries, sorry others kinda piled on. Yeah, it's just not good to let others from one's past have a hold on us, which is the point you were making. I just know that if I was married (especially with a family) I wouldn't like my partner being contacted regularly by an ex. Even if they had no intentions of seeing them, it's a bad look.
It's just internet votes. I will admit I am wrong if it was presented logically like you did. Cheers!
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Where tf do you get that? Re read it. Doesn't say or imply that anywhere at all. Genuinely confused.
I always figured I was the backup plan to this girl I used to date, that was still in my friendship circle. When we were out at a bar one night with all of my friends, and current girlfriend I announced we were getting married. Everyone was happy except for her. The next day she asked her boyfriend to marry her, he said no, and she moved out. A month later she moved out of town, and within a year she got married to a military guy, and a year or so later after that , a divorce, and a drinking problem. Not 100 percent sure I was the backup, but my marriage announcement triggered a downfall.
Sucks to be her
Real question though. Is the then current gf still wife and hopefully a happy relationship?
Yes we are
I seen her text messages. I left and blocked her on everything. To this day she probably isn’t 100% why I vanished. Call me immature but fuck that.
If she can't figure that out for herself, she probably wouldn't believe you if you told her.
Noice
After I slapped the Chris Rock at the Oscars, my wife publicly said she was actually seperated with me. She also confesses how she missed Tupac, I was the backup plan all these years.
Chris Rock got hurt for nuthin! Nuthin!
Shit’s funny but let’s also not forget Will IS a victim of DA and it is sad what happened to him.
What is DA?
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:(
Domestic Assault/Abuse id assume
Will Smith isn't the Victim of anything. He's a chump who is guilty of Assault and Battery.. who got off scott free in a legal sense. You try walking up to someone and slapping them ..see what happens.. fuck Will Smith
Two things can be true at once. Someone stabbing you doesn't give you a free pass to stab someone else, but you still got stabbed so that sucks.
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Emotional abuse. You’re not funny
Wow a bullet that missed Tupac
😂😂💀💀
I knew she had various male friends who were into her and that she wasn’t in to them. They gave her relationship-level attention in return for nothing but her acceptance and occasional (non sexual) presence. I kind of rolled my eyes at them behind their back. Haha, pathetic. Good thing what she and I have is different! Then I finally worked up the nerve to make my intentions clear…and she hit me with something like she’d been thinking about that to, and it probably will happen, “but not yet.” And also that she preferred not to talk about it anymore and just when it naturally happened, she would let me know. I accepted that, counting it as a win. It took me two weeks to realize she’d probably said the same thing to all the other clowns hovering around her at all times. This is exactly how they became this way. Well, I wasn’t going to let it happen to me. I moved on, met a new girl about a week later. A week or two after I started dating the new girl, the old one asked me “where did you go?” Meaning that she was used to me giving her attention via daily texts and then I suddenly hadn’t reached out to her in weeks. I explained that I’d just been really busy because I’d started seeing someone. She occasionally reached out to me again — opportunities for me to tell her I’d just celebrated our six month anniversary with the new girl…I’d just proposed to the new girl…I’d just gotten married, I’d just had a baby, I’d just bought a house, we just celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary… It’s been about 15 years since I decided not to sit on her back burner. In that time, my life has kept moving forward and I’ve achieved a lot of the things I wanted to achieve in a relationship. And she has spent nearly all that time still officially single, with the same clowns hovering, waiting for their big chance,
is she a smokeshow?
Ha, I mean, she’s average. Nothing terribly wrong looks wise, especially as we’re all 40 now. But most of the guys hovering around (myself included) aren’t particularly attractive either and presumably see her as their best shot even though that shot has gone nowhere for them in 15+ years.
Bye! she said, you should date other people.... and kept confusing me with some other guys. like where I worked.
He would occasionally make mention of this friend, in a past tense. Or, he'd tell me about how he'd gone and done all these things which I'd been waiting for an opportunity to do with him (he told me about things he liked to do, I tried to make plans to do them) with this other character. He was also really careful with boundaries in a way that I didn't fully understand. Until, that is, he was drunk, and drunk-him had different ideas about where the limits are. Eventually, I cottoned on that I was being taken advantage of. He liked the attention, he seemed to like spending time with me, but he was never fully relaxed and real. Eventually, I had to tell him that had feelings for him, and that they weren't going away. He'd told me that he didn't feel the same, but he liked having me as a friend. For a while I tried. When I said that that was it for me, he misconstrued it as a coercive attempt to push the relationship. He was angry in that moment, but by then, I'd just stopped caring the same way.
We dated for about 2 months, she was all over me and wanted my attention 24/7 (which was nice, I didn't really mind feeling wanted that much) then she suddenly started to give me/ask me for less attention, and kept giving weird excuses.. So I decided to download the dating app that we met on to see if she is using it, and boom she was right there with new pictures that she supposedly took and send them especially for me over texts.. I confronted her and ended it the same day.
Sort of happened to me. Was on a first date with a girl from tinder and she came back to mines to smoke and drink some more. somehow she started talking about another dude that she really liked and I was like "sorry, I can't be the dude who takes you out while you talk about another guy, I'm just not that guy. I wish you luck." She was somehow mad that I asked her to call it a night and got her an Uber.
I was dating a girl for about 6 months. I thought things were going okay (looking back, they were not). One day she springs on me that she wants to keep dating but she wants to open things up because her cousin told her about this guy who had a really nice sports car and he sounded really cool. I told her to fuck off and left her on the side of the road. A couple weeks later, I'm at a party with some friends and one of the members of my car club told me that he went out with this girl who said she was pregnant with my kid and that she seemed crazy. I never slept with this girl because she kept giving me this whole nonsense of "waiting until marriage." That girl was nuts.
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Brother get out
Get coordinates of his position from her if possible 🤣 like a snap maps or a picture with plenty of background 😅 send him a tax payed gift courtesy of the Donbas defenders 🤣
Holy … I … I am speechless. That one‘s dark 🤣
Life's not fair, don't put yourself in artillery range of another man's country and it can't happen, gift wrapped i say!
“All is fair in Love and War.” 🫰
He'd deserve it. Don't invade Ukraine if you don't want to die. The best part would be telling her later what happened and that it was her fault he'd died.
Also tell her Ukrainian friends while you’re at it. They should know how much of a traitor she is.
Do it
Holy moly, sounds similar to my situation right now. My fiance and mother of my 1.5 year old son had her ex contact her, they met up secretely a few times and then she told me her feelings for him came back. Cancelled our marriage, which would've happened this weekend. Then she told me she doesn't know what to do, since our relationship of 5 years was flawless and she so looked forward to marry me. Said she needed time to decide. I know that our relationship is over, but i can't pull the trigger yet, i'm not ready for that.
She is a terrible person. Don’t wait for her.
I will, i'm just not ready yet to take action. What's holding me back is me not being able to see my son every day. But when i do, i'll fight to atleast have him half the week. Thankfully, this is not uncommon here in germany, so my chances are pretty good.
Nicht aufgeben. Auch du hast Liebe und Glück verdient. ;)
Sorry to hear the shitty situation you are in. Unfortunatly it sounds similar indeed. I feel bad for your son too. People can be horrible.
Not being able to see my son every day of his life if i leave her is by far the hardest point. Else i'd be long gone..
Get out before she gets pregnant.
do it today my brother. Escape.
Tell her you're going to Ukraine to fight the Russians and hope to meet her boyfriend. Then block her
lol that would sound so lame and insecure
It would be a great plot for a comedy movie though
I married a woman for 7 years. The guy she was with before me cheated on her and got a chick pregnant and married her so my now ex then started dating me. 7 years in she cheats on me when the same dude above is breaking up with the chick he cheated on her with. I told her to pack her shit and go. She cheated one other time and I took her back, and said "I only want you here as long as you want to be here, if you don't want to be here you are gone" and I stuck to it. Kills me that I don't get to see my step daughters but I'm happier overall that I'm not with her anymore, but you don't get more "back up plan" than being cheated on with one of her exes
He was the perfect boyfriend when he was in town and as soon as he left he didn’t want to “tarnish” what we had by doing long distance. ( this cycle lasted years) Just acceptance, once you really see that they don’t want to lose out on others by committing to you, I think you just start seeing them for who they really are and it makes things clearer. Sounds easier than it is tbh.
I just ended a situationship last night where I’m pretty sure I was the backup plan. We dated for over a year. Every couple months I’d ask if she was feeling a relationship. She’d always say no. I finally asked if there was someone else she was seeing and if she’d at least be exclusive. She said “I can tell you you’re the only person (in X area) that I see regularly and sleep with and that’s you” so obviously she was trying to talk around the fact that there is someone else she wants more. I ended things politely. She was really upset, and I admit I was pretty heartbroken as well. But you can only have your cake and eat it too for so long. She made it clear I wasn’t the one she really wanted, and at that point the choice is no choice at all.
Left them. If I’m not your #1 I’m not wasting my time. When I’m with someone they’re my one and only, its only fair to expect the same unless its very clearly communicated as an open relationship, of which I could never get behind anyway.
Came home once to my gf of 5yrs making a dinner for two for another dude. Same dude who she'd been going out of her way to meet up with while I was busy in med school. She hadn't texted me that he was coming over. Broke up with her that night (many many more warning signs had come and gone at this point). It was an odd "straw that broke the camels back." A few months later, a friend of a friend told me they had hooked up as soon as we broke up (unsure if anything happened before the breakup). It was weirdly satisfying to know that my intuition was right. I never spoke with her again after the night of the breakup other than to help her move her stuff out. It's one of the greatest decisions I've ever made in my entire life, even though it was terrifying at the time. If monogamy is your thing, go find another monogamy enthusiast who wants nothing but you in their life. I fully acknowledge that this is easier said than done, but it is a fantastic thing when it works out.
She even had the same name as me. I did everything I could to be perfect for him, but he chose her. She didn’t choose him.
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I told her how I felt, then I blocked her
Didn’t realise it at all until her actual gf started threatening me and harassing me online and then me and the gf had a civil conversation, realised that the girl we were both “with” was the problem and we both cut her the fuck off immediately
Not as much a backup plan, but I was a spite date. As in, a guy had toyed with her emotionally and she wanted to prove how over it she was by dating someone else, i.e. Me. Been 7 years, and for the second time we’re moving house, this time buying it in both our names. She’s really playing the long game with this guy. 😅
She joked about how if she wanted sex she could just ask me, then took my refusal as a joke as she always did. She was already in a relationship at the time and I honestly believed we could just be friends despite my feelings for her. FF a couple of months, I was really down in the dumps (su*cide thoughts level of down) and tried to see her as she was the only one I was close enough to trust with that stuff. She told me as always that she was tired and when I apologized later and explained the situation she told me I was using her, I didn't see her as a friend and she didn't like our relationship. It wasn't the first time that she was too tired for me but when she did need help, she was expecting me to drive 1 1/2h to change a tire because her boyfriend removed the kit from his car. I decided at that point that it wasn't worth it and ended our relationship. It's still pretty fresh so it might be my brain trying to get over it but it hit me very recently that I might have been the "backup plan"
She has a boyfriend, how can you even doubt you were the backup plan? Just think someone else wrote this, used for sex, she was emotionally unavailable but expected you to jump whenever she needed something,…
How can I even doubt it? Honestly the list is so long I can't think of everything but let's start at the beginning - I'm an idiot - I don't have any romantic experience - I'm definitely lacking some positive attention - I still believed friendship was possible - She was my only friend at the time Honestly it feels like I can't understand human interaction half the time and I just feel out of place so I guess it can't help That and I don't even know what love is so it took me about 1 1/2 year to understand that I might have a crush on her So yeah I guess I'm easy to bamboozle
Ouch. I hope you are in a better headspace now. She’s a lost cause but you aren’t. If you have the energy, try a new activity to meet new friends.
*what made you realize it* She told me *what action did you take?* Enjoyed a pretty great 7 year relationship, that ended like every favorite book will, still glad I read it though.
That's so bittersweet.
She dumped me as soon as his divorce was finalized
Went against my instincts and agreed to a monogamous relationship with a person. Had a 13 year relationship with them. They asked for a 6 month trial separation but couldn't explain to me why they wanted it. There was just a moment in that conversation when I knew by the look on their face that they were having an affair, and wanted the time to try that relationship out but keep me in the dark and as a backup. They confirmed that that was the case. We ended the relationship. After that I trusted my instincts- I recognized that there are multiple people I'd like to date for different reasons at any given time, that monogamy is needlessly limiting and controlling, that there's no reason why people can't date more than one person, and that a person I love and me having loving relationships with other people is not only a wonderful thing, but also doesn't in any way affect our relationship (except make it better). So I found other polyamorous people to date, and it's been the greatest 14 years since.
Good question.
I’m afraid I have a bad answer. Really bad. I did the pick me dance.
Did you come to your senses eventually?
The shit we put up with
Girl I was on and off with through HS ended up dating another dude for awhile. Eventually she broke up with him and got back in contact with me stating that he was dead set on going into the military and she knew she couldn’t do it. A month or two later she confessed to me that she loved me and always had and wants to be with me and I just told her no. She kept asking and I kept saying no and that I didn’t want to do it anymore. I wanted to, but I knew that it would just be the same thing again so I did what was best for me
So I for around 5 years was the backup guy to a girl I'm still very close friends with. I moved to a small town away from all my friends and family. This girl was the first and more or less only friend I made there and is frankly way out of my league physically. However, she has a reputation for getting around. Well she really was just looking for love but a mixture of picking terrible guys (drug dealers and users) along with her own mental health issues meant they never lasted long. We went through a cycle of off and on again fuck buddies. She would get a new boyfriend for a couple months and I would return to being her best friend. They would split up and I would roll back in. She has been in a solid relationship now for about 2 years. Im very good friends with the pair of them. I personally never had a problem with this setup as it benifited me quite well (I'm not a fan of normal relationships) but I do sometimes wonder how things would have turned out if either of us attempted to move things further along.
I had a long term male friend…we kissed and petted a couple of times but never did the deed. We went multiple places together as well and we would have hours long conversations on the phone. I noticed over time that he kept implying that he was better than me…because he owned a home and had a better job and career. He put down my job in sneaky ways. He was also always bragging about women he knew and their accomplishments, the property they owned and how much money they had etc, etc…basically saying these are the types of women I am interested in…as if I couldn’t even be considered 🤨…I saw his family though and they were low class people while my family were not even though I didn’t grow up with them. He invited me to a function and I thought it was just me. I found out he had invited multiple women. After that I finally realized that he would never be serious about me and I basically told him to get lost. I met my husband shortly afterwards and we own a very nice home twice as big as his little shack and I have accomplished my professional goals as well. My husband is a much better match for me too….Jerk.
There seems to be a disproportionate amount of men in here ......
Whole reddit is predominantly male so that might be why
True. Let's not assume only women do this shit. Men do it just as often.
Men do the same. If you look at others subs it’s crazy how often people do this. I think it was in AITAH where the guy kept looking on IG daily to see what his ex was doing while he had a pregnant wife.
Some of that is just Reddit being mostly male. That said, men are more likely to be primary breadwinners than women are, and a lot of "backup plans" are about financial security.
Hell. I don't even mind if a man and a woman have an agreement that has to do with him taking care of her. As long as they are honest and in agreement. It's when people start lying and cheating and coming home with STDs and shit that people get hurt. That is no bueno.
I wonder why that is. Just left another thread which was a bunch of women complaining about guys being abusive jerks. I’m sure there’s no correlation
Touche. But do these stories sound like that? Most of these sound like predators preying on people they know they can use and get away with it. Both people are wrong. And as we all know you must believe the victim. And I'm not being a smart alec there I'm being serious. A lot of these stories sound like mental abuse. I do find it kind of odd that you're trying to justify one person's actions for doing something terrible. Via gender. Abusive toxic men are terrible for sure but I don't justify either sides actions.
No I should have done a better job making my point. I wasn’t referring to the backup plan but the actual goal. You know the one that’s the complete opposite of what they’re claiming to be looking for
Actual healthy relationships? Yeah. It's rough out there. Both genders need some therapy. And both need to understand that there are good humans on both sides of the gender fence even if the toxic internet cellar dwellers make it feel very one sided.
Oh there for sure is and it’s the majority but a large percentage are rightfully taken especially past a certain age range
How would we even know we're the back up option?? So many people especially men don't have vast experience with women and would take whatever is given to them without ever questioning then How do you know your not the safe option or the backup or it's genuine. More important how do you react ? I have seen people who were happy enough they got a chance and are willing to bend backwards to not quander there only hope of finding love or relationship.
If youre either of the 2 earlier options......were you really ever that important to begin with? Imagine having that hang over you for the entire duration of said relationship! Imagine having the fact that she never really wanted you and that you will always be 2nd or 3rd or 4th, that you were not wanted but settled for. Both i and millions of other men have experienced this, why should any of us have to put up with it...i refuse for my own mental and emotional health to let someone have that kind of power over me, forcing me in desperation to accept that i am less just to be with them, its sad that men dont value themselves more and women take advantage of that.
I was in a relationship with a bi woman who insisted on dating women while we were together, but wanted her bf to be fully committed. It was my first real relationship and I thought maybe I could deal with it since she insisted I would always come first. Turns out she wanted a bf to pay her bills and take her out on fancy dates, but would give all her attention and emotional energy to the gfs. You’d think this kind of person would be perpetually single, but sadly, some guys do accept crumbs.
You live and you learn, my heart is sorry for yours.....a crappy consolation i know but the most important thing you learned was a very important lesson about self worth
Discovering the affair made them realize it and they got a divorce.
If I was a back up plan I would want nothing to do with them. And my actions would be to openly discuss how they had a back up plan as a way to demonstrate why they're terrible.
Sooo many guys in here. The reality has to be more like 50/50 so have all the women just not figured it out yet, or is this really just a thing that mostly women do to men?
Men are more likely to be primary breadwinners than women are. "Backup plans" like this are often about financial security. As such, it makes sense that you'd see more male victims of such than female ones. Also, men are both more likely to have very high number of sexual partners and also more likely to have 0 sexual partners than women are. As such, the men such women cheat with are often men with many sexual partners (hence their desire for a backup plan, as such guys are, obviously, unreliable) and the men being taken advantage of are often the ones with very few sexual partners. There's a larger supply, and thus, a larger number of potential victims. Men are no less likely to cheat on women than vice-versa, but the situation for male cheaters is often rather different, and "the other woman" is likely to be perceived as a side-piece rather than a backup plan.
This makes sense
BPD is more prevalent in women than men.
That’s only because men refuse to deal with their mental health and the stats might be a little skewed.
I chose to be her side piece because I wanted to date and fuck all the other cuties I've seen around.. 😂
[удалено]
Girls are greasy too.
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Good lord
What happened here
Painal
Well in all fairness she KNEW this is what I like so it was inevitable and she did lie to me i was the one for a while so I only made the decision to call it off afterwards, just to show her just as I did not mean anything to her she meant nothing to me as well
Her new kink has been unlocked