Okay, this will take a while to explain. It might all resolve itself anyway, but I just need to get this off my chest more than anything.
I met a woman recently who is everything I've ever wanted. She is smart, energetic, passionate, fun to be around, open-minded, and so many more things besides. She is also the most beautiful woman I've ever met and certainly ever been with. She is stunning and I feel so proud to be able to walk hand-in-hand with her.
We have an amazing connection and I knew she was attracted to me from the first time we met. I have always been able to make her laugh, and I stimulate her intellectually, and I think that's a big part of the attraction for her. We talk for hours, we have such a laugh and engaging time together.
I've been waiting for someone like this all my life. I know it is wrong to stake too much in something too soon, but when it's right then you have to acknowledge it. I've dated lots of women, and I've never found the one that I really click with, and I'd just about given up hope. Except that I never give up because I'm not a quitter. And then she came into my life.
She has said so many nice things about me. Last time I was with her, she was telling me that she told someone she knew that I was “amazing”, and why she thought I was amazing. Just quite openly told me this. I know she loves spending time with me, I know she fancies me, I know there is something quite special there.
When I got together with her, she had been through a hard time. She has had a very successful career, without going into details, far more successful than mine until recently. But it just so happens that I found something that I'm good at in the last few years, and now I have a quite lucrative and even fairly exciting sounding career. I knew she was skint when I met her, and this didn't bother me in the slightest because I've been poor, and money really means very little to me, other than you need a bit to survive.
Now what you're all probably expecting here is...she's been taking advantage of me. Well, that's not the problem at all. Here's the problem.
For reasons that I won't go into, we've had a pretty emotional couple of weeks. Not with each other, just with some stuff that's happened to her. We have never said a cross word to each other. We just vibe with each other so well. She can tease me and I can tease her, and she is so tolerant. She has never tried to change me.
But the last time we were together, we had a really great time together, and I've never felt closer to her. Everything she said to me indicated that she felt the same way. But then today we were supposed to be meeting up again, and unfortunately her dogs ate her shoes she was going to wear, and she didn't have any money to buy some more, and this upset her. Suddenly she viewed her life as a total mess.
BTW I don't want to go into all the details of what has happened. But I should just mention that she lives quite a way away from me, and she has been mostly travelling to me. But this is purely because she wasn't happy with where she was living and has been in the process of moving house. I'm more than happy to travel to her.
So anyway, she phoned me up and said she isn't coming today, she said she doesn't want to feel dependent on me for money, she prides herself in her independence, and she needs to sort her life out. She was basically saying on the phone that she was considering stopping dating me. I was very calm, and I just explained to her that I know she's an independent woman, that she shouldn't feel bad about her personal circumstances, that she's been through a rough trot, that this can happen to anyone, and that I am 100% certain she will get on her feet in due course and ultimately get to where she needs to be. I also said that I will make the trip up to see her (which we were planning for next week anyway, as she's in her new home now) on a regular basis from now on.
I also told her briefly, without laying it on too thick, that I care about her a lot and I don't want to stop seeing her, and if she did just slide out of my life it would upset me (which is an understatement!). She seemed to appreciate this, particularly me telling that I cared about her, so I dropped the subject, had a bit of small talk, and then left her be and told her I'd call her on Saturday.
I mean, basically there is a massive gulf in income between us. Again, I can't go into all of the details, but she has no money and no job at the moment. But she's just been interviewed for a PA position with a very good salary. She is very smart, tonnes of skills and knowledge, she will get back on her feet, I am certain of this.
I can see this is probably just her being in an emotional state, and it possibly doesn't mean that much. But I don't want to lose her, and I especially don't want to lose her over something stupid like money. I've been as skint as it's possible to be in Britain, and now I would be viewed as middle-class and quite fortunate. I don't care about that, it means nothing to me. I don't mind helping her out while she gets on her feet, obviously if this continued indefinitely then I would be concerned and it would be unacceptable. But I have no concern about this whatsoever because I know that's not who she is. For three-quarters of our working lives, maybe more, she would have been the one subbing me!
I'm 40 years-old, I'm not getting any younger, I've never managed to have the sort of solid relationship that I wanted, perhaps partly because I won't sell myself short and be with someone just for the sake of it. This is not being with someone for the sake of it. This is a very special and hugely attractive woman, of whom I think the world.
Probably she is just in an emotional state because she has been through a lot of sh*t, and I mean A LOT. But I don't want to lose her. I don't want to split with her over this, when she loves being with me and I love being with her. All I've been able to think about today is the prospect of losing her, and I've been biting back the tears all day. I don't want to give in to them because if I do I will just sob and sob. If we split then I definitely won't even try to date for months, at least, because I know I will just compare other women to her, and they won't compare.
What should I do?