My boyfriend wanted a family but not a relationship
Mary*, then 29, describes being dumped by her boyfriend Max*, then 22, after a weekend away, when he revealed his vision of the future involved having children, but not with her.
I’d first met Max at a friend’s birthday party. His shirt button had come off and, being handy, I offered to fix it with the needle and thread that I happened to have in my handbag. He didn’t take his shirt off, but I wanted him to. He was handsome, funny and had a slightly dangerous twinkle.
I had been single for a year and a half, after coming out of a relationship that defined most of my twenties. Max was also single, but living in a city far away. We didn’t actually kiss that night, but afterwards we kept messaging each other, sending photos, emails and texts. He made me laugh with his random descriptions of his meals and I started inviting him to other parties.
We met up a few times in London and finally, we kissed, but because of the distance and him being seven years younger than me, I was never quite sure where I stood, whether we were dating or something more casual. For fear of putting him off, I didn’t pluck up the courage to ask either.
During the short bursts of time we spent together, he rarely mentioned exes. Perhaps, I reasoned, this was because he was just younger than me and had fewer battle scars. Or maybe we were both making the effort not to talk too much about previous relationships, for fear of spoiling the beginning of this one.
A weekend camping together
A few months after meeting, we decided to go walking in the hills of North Wales. I say we’d decided, but it was me who suggested it. It was a long journey and an expensive trip, and it turned out he'd forgotten his wallet, but somehow, I didn’t mind. Or rather, I didn’t want to show that I minded. I was so eager to appear attractive that I consciously pushed down anything I worried would scare him off. Breezy, fun, low-maintenance – that’s the way I’d play it. Because, in some ways, that’s how I’d like to be.
I looked at his beautiful face and imagined what it might be like to wake up next to him every morning.
As we lay on the ground beside our rucksacks, against the green, velvet shoulder of the hill, staring up into the sky, I breathed in his smell. Surrounded by dry stone walls and rushing streams, we talked about important things – our families, work, university, loss, men and women, relationships. But always in vague terms, because I didn’t have the confidence or self-worth to ask directly: where was this going?
Over the weekend, we washed in rocky pools and cooked on a paraffin stove. We slept together in a small blue tent. I looked at his beautiful face and imagined what it might be like to wake up next to him every morning.
The big question
On the last day, we travelled home together on the same train for an hour. I felt a building pressure to ask the very thing that I’d been too afraid to broach all weekend – what was this? What did he want from me? As the landscape rolled past, I felt time trickling away. If I was going to ask, then I had to do it quickly. Our stop was coming up. My feet on my rucksack, I turned to him and found myself asking: "Do you want a girlfriend?"
I felt a building pressure to ask the very thing that I’d been too afraid to broach all weekend – what was this? What did he want from me?
I waited. The warm afternoon sun shone through the window and I felt the dry mud of the previous two days crackle to dust on my legs.
"I would like to be a dad. But I don’t want a girlfriend," came his baffling reply.
He was smiling, as though this were a simple, understandable response. But I was lost. What did he mean? To want a child but not a relationship? To spend a weekend of such romance together and to want only my present and none of my future?
The truth emerges
I was both too proud and too weak to do what I now wish I’d done. I didn’t ask him to explain. I didn’t demand an apology or force him to admit this was nonsense. I didn’t jump to my feet and throw his bag down the aisle. Instead, as the train pulled into his stop just minutes later, I smiled. A hard, unconvincing smile, perhaps, but a smile that let him off the hook. He left the train and, coming to the window beside me, he winked.
I was both too proud and too weak to do what I now wish I’d done. I didn’t ask him to explain. I didn’t demand an apology or force him to admit this was nonsense.
I was changing trains myself half an hour later, feeling bewildered, ashamed and angry. What had just happened? How had I got this so wrong? I walked, as though concussed, into a shop and stared for whole minutes at the crisps. Eventually, holding a bag of salt and vinegar, I started to cry.
This dumping, however, proved to be a turning point. It slowly dawned on me that I deserved better than this. I was a whole person, with a past and a heart and an innate worth equal to any other. After that single thought – and some significant time in therapy – the men I dated started to improve. They were kinder, more available and treated me better all-round.
A year later, I met a man with dark hair, wide shoulders and a beautiful jaw. Within weeks, he became my boyfriend. A year after that, I got pregnant. And now, seven years since we first met, as a family of three, we're happier than ever. I haven’t heard from Max for years but, in a funny way, I am grateful for what he gave me – a chance to start again and expect better.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
Read more: All of Yahoo UK's How I was dumped stories.
