omega

He was an old dude haha he was at least 25 years older than I was! Can you imagine at your age being with a 23 yr old boy? Age is entirely relative - but a 25 yr age difference is a lot! That should have been a big red flag to me but I was so impressed by all his accomplishments and brilliance... Anyway, here are just a few simple questions and see how easy they are to answer. Hint: the 'correct' answer to all these questions, is "um, of COURSE, are you kidding me???"

1. Do you spend time together with mutual friends from HIS world - i.e., with his colleagues, other people from the university (or whatever)?

2. When he's invited to a black tie gala in honor of some great Nobel prize winner (or whatever crud he gets invited to) are you on his arm? Or does he give you the line about how much he hates such things and he isn't going to decide until the very last moment if he goes, and he gets so uncomfortable at these things that he just wants to go alone?

3. Have you met his children? Do they know (obviously know) that you are with their father in a relationship?

4. Do you spend time at his house - and is the house that he calls his house appropriate considering his station in life? (A house with antiques, not a bachelor apartment.)

I went through this too. The truth is, you are worthwhile anyway. With or without him, you are the same amount of worthwhile. You've written fifteen paragraphs and it's obvious you're an intelligent, sensitive, caring, loving, giving, nurturing woman who wants to believe in someone she respects and loves. There should be more people like you in the world. That has nothing to do with him.

My AP (AP=affair partner, I thought I was in a relationship but it was an affair for him as I later discovered, I will use this acronym for him because he deserves it) was like that too. When we would talk, I would take notes and write down authors' names and titles. I had a reading list based off our chats. It was several pages long. I went on Amazon and ordered a whole pile of books and started reading them. Some of them were really good. He used to (predictably considering the age difference of about a century) call me "Lolita" and make other such references so I thought I should actually read Nabokov's Lolita, after all it's considered the best English-language novel of the 20th century. Not long after that I replied to one of his "Lolita" pet names by calling him Humbert Humbert (Lolita's ancient lover) and he had no idea what I was talking about. You can't read Lolita and not remember Humbert Humbert. It's not a forgettable name, for one thing. I had to explain that he was the narrator of the book that he was always referring to. He said "oh of course, senior moment." Yeah, whatever. I'm not saying he hasn't read a lot, but a lot of it is just smoke and mirrors too. He would send me poetry also - usually with no context. I would spend hours trying to figure out why he had sent each poem and what he was trying to tell me. I never got anywhere with that. I did discover some good poets that way, but I never got anywhere closer to understanding what on earth he was on about.

Ask yourself this: are you living WITH him, or are you living as a satellite to him?

I wouldn't doubt that his dark moments are real. I still believe that my AP was in fact mentally disturbed, and there is plenty of darkness to go around among the mentally disturbed. But the issue is HOW he handles them (is he getting actual real in-the-world psychological help that even a person of borderline intelligence should know about? or is he full of convincing reasons why he's a rare exception to the magical world of drugs and therapy?) Does he use these darker moments to manipulate his relationship with you so that he controls what he gets out of it and leaves you in a role of "giving everything, when allowed to give; put on ice when not allowed to"?

Being with a brilliant man is like an intellectual orgasm. I know. Been there, had lots of them. It's a hard drug. It was not easy to drop in my case - in my case, it took having someone basically pry my eyes open with a crowbar before I could see what was really happening.

We could be talking about the same man. Except in my case, he wasn't American (I am) and I spoke his language really well as a second language, which was how we initially hit it off. So he would come up with these puns - he would do like 10-20 puns in a row, it would become a game of language oneupmanship, who can make the most clever reply, who can make the most esoteric reference or use the most arcane language, who will 'win this round'? It was FUN. I enjoyed that a lot. If I'm fair with myself, I usually won - but I never gave myself credit, I always felt like I was chasing after his gallivanting intellect. Like my lines were substandard and his were a display of pure genius. In retrospect, it wasn't like that. I doubt any of that would have been possible if we weren't basically on the same intellectual level the whole time, which I suspect is the same in your case. The degrees, the bibliography, the named chairs or whatever the hell he gets off on in his world, is probably fooling you into thinking that you are chasing after his intellect like I thought I was. And even if you are - you're obviously keeping his interest so you're not far behind. (I beat myself up a lot less about it than you may be tempted to because he was so much older, it was less stressful to compete with him because the obvious assumption was of course he knows more / is better, at his age.)

It is extremely likely that the reason you couldn't understand/assimilate what he was saying is that he was saying things that were nonsensical. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! (Seriously -- consider it.)

I don't want to say something like "no one should ever marry a depressed man" because that's terrible. TONS of people have depression. But there is a huge difference between a depressed man who goes to therapy and is working with a psychiatrist to get medicated properly so he can function as best as he can; and a depressed man who revels in his own depression like a pig in mud. The first is a candidate for a relationship. The second isn't ready to be in a relationship with another person - he needs to get right with himself before he can be with another person. How can you be happy WITH him? The million dollar question. I suspect that a person who cannot be happy with himself cannot be in a relationship with a person who is also happy with him. I suspect, I don't know.

IF he gets treatment, IF he continues treatment. People who have clinical depression usually have it forever - with treatment they can lead normal lives, but without it? Not ready for prime time as they say.

This was the hardest part for me. I'm a relatively intelligent individual and yet I ignored the five hundred huge red flashing lightbulbs going off in front of my face for FIVE YEARS because I thought I would NEVER find another man like him in my whole life. I didn't think it; I was certain. Ultimately I discovered, to my relief/ecstasy, that, well, I found a better one - but also, it was just a dream. He wasn't all the things I made him out to be. Maybe he was some of them, some of the time. But what "us" really meant was that I was tied to a man who could never be happy, never be "present" on all levels, who would never be "mine" (and admitted it openly - I was the one with the problem accepting it), and who nurtured his own misery like a prize orchid.

You haven't told him because he has you walking on eggshells with him. You're afraid to say the wrong thing to push him deeper into depression or just simply to push him further from you (longer periods of time between contact). Does that sound right? If it is, consider that you may have become addicted to this man. I know, it sounds wacky - but it's not that hard to become 'addicted' to a man/relationship when they provide us with things that we attach a ridiculously high value to, but those things are given sporadically, never enough, and along with a lot of pain too. I sometimes compared what I was feeling to a heroin addict lying in a dirty gutter somewhere taking a hit - everything about the situation was objectively bad, and yet I was getting something I found immensely valuable, that was hard to get, and unreliable, but put me over the moon when I got it - but it was sucking me dry in every way, especially emotionally.

We're talking about two different men (oh lord I hope so hahaha!) and there is no way to know how similar or dissimilar they may be. But I will say this much: you are way ahead of where I was. Many times I thought about finding a forum like this one, or some other, and posting about what was going on - but I knew that I wouldn't be able to make anyone else understand (1) how in love I was and how perfect he was and how I'd never find anyone like him and (2) how my situation was so incredibly unique and special because he was so amazing. I knew I wouldn't get "good" advice because no one would really grasp how perfect he was. The fact that you are able not only to ask for advice but to read it with an open mind means you are not nearly as far gone as I was. If I had received a reply like what I wrote to you up above, I would have given at least 20 reasons why my AP was nothing like that (and yet that was exactly what he was).

My AP was a tortured soul with a brilliant mind. That's okay. But until he gets professional help (he could start by asking his wife hahahaha) he isn't ready to be in a relationship with another person. I suspect that - regardless of how much of what he is feeding you is sincere - your guy is probably also not ready to be in a healthy relationship with another person. I am 99% sure that if you asked him, he'd probably agree. But I wouldn't be surprised if you're terrified to ask him.