Do men just forget quickly and move on?

I've only been in 2 relationships: one with my ex and the one I'm currently in so I can say much for men in general.

My ex and I dated for 18 months. He was perfectly healthy. No mental disorders, very smart guy, etc. We were studying abroad and were gonna go together. I brought up the idea but I guess he felt too much pressure from me and a few months into the idea, he said he wanted to go to a different city but same country. Really really HURT me. I took it very personally. To this day, 3 years later, I STILL don't know how I couldn't have taken that personally. Its like hey I need space i don't want to be in the same city as you. really?! So, i would have NEVER been able to move on from that. He ended up breaking up with me RIGHT when we both got to Spain in our separate cities in September. By December, his fb status changed to in a relationship but I know he was talking to her in september. Don't know when things got frisky between them or what but to me, he moved on quickly.

my best friends ex moved on pretty quick too. In my opinion, guys move on quickly. Forget? who knows. Move on, yes.

Thanks for your replies. I do know every situation is different as your stories have shown.
I guess because I was his first it might mean a bit more to him, he might not move on as quickly as if he had lots of other experiences.

rubytuesday77 wrote:Thanks for your replies. I do know every situation is different as your stories have shown.
I guess because I was his first it might mean a bit more to him, he might not move on as quickly as if he had lots of other experiences.

Hoping you will be okay ruby.

In your original post you wrote this started as a FWB relationship. While popularized and a thing-to-do, for whatever it is worth, it's just not something many of us can do without a deeper sense of attachment developing. There is nothing wrong with that either. Please be true to yourself going forward. We feel what we feel and many of us would feel similarly hurt if we entered in a relationship like this and it ended as it did for you.

Best wishes,

X

rubytuesday77


One thing I would like to add is if you have feelings for someone, you should never EVER hide them. We go through our lives and in too many instances (myself being a perpetrator of this) we do not let people know we like them and before you can blink, they are gone.
As a man, I can tell you that man's objective when they meet a woman can vary substantially. He may want a one-night-stand, relationship, or even to marry you, so please realize that it is impossible to categorize all men with forgetting and moving on quickly. There could be something going on on his end that he needs to figure out before getting serious.
We cannot read minds; I know you said you did not want to ask him, but this may be the only way to figure out if you two still have a chance. The man is supposed to be the dominant one in the relationship yes, but that does not mean you cannot pull the trigger yourself once and a while. Don't let him get away without telling him how you feel. You will never succeed if you do not try.

No, they do not.

However, this guy was never heavily invested to begin with so there really isn't much to forget on his part. He never wanted a romantic relationship with you, but you wanted one with him. You were using the power of sex to keep him around, but I guess it reached a point where that was no longer enough for him.

Kabuhi wrote:No, they do not.

However, this guy was never heavily invested to begin with so there really isn't much to forget on his part. He never wanted a romantic relationship with you, but you wanted one with him. You were using the power of sex to keep him around, but I guess it reached a point where that was no longer enough for him.

Distant Angel, I would like to contact him and tell him how I feel but my pride won't let me. I am afraid that he has forgotten me because he was never heavily invested to begin with. I would feel worse if I contacted him and he just said he wasn't interested.
Any contact would have to be initiated by him because then I would at least know I was on his mind.

I believe for men it's easy to hide thei feelings. But they will not forget the pain they had.

I still think about girlfriends from over a decade ago from time to time (facebook and boredom don't help in that department). But if your specifically talking about men moving on fast after a relationship than you shouldn't confuse getting emotionally involved with just sex, hanging out and hooking up.

For instance, i'm still pretty messed up about a relationship gone sour 4 months ago (and still have feelings for her) but in the mean time i had one very short relationship and hooked up with as many women as i could (not that much, but enough).

And if the man in questin DOES get totally emotionally involved it probably means he wasn't that much with the previous girlfriend.

On a side note though i don't think the process is that much different for women. But the difference being that women (if they are getting doubts, or decided to move on) start distancing themselves emotionally earlier on so at the moment the relationship does actually end, they are pretty sure it's over.

My personal experience is that men are NEVER 100% sure (disregarding incidents, deep hatred lol), also if they initiated the breakup, at some point they'll start to doubt themselves and that's also the moment that they put more effort in finding a 'replacement'. But like said, emotional involvement is not the same as sex.

nom0re wrote:I still think about girlfriends from over a decade ago from time to time (facebook and boredom don't help in that department). But if your specifically talking about men moving on fast after a relationship than you shouldn't confuse getting emotionally involved with just sex, hanging out and hooking up.

For instance, i'm still pretty messed up about a relationship gone sour 4 months ago (and still have feelings for her) but in the mean time i had one very short relationship and hooked up with as many women as i could (not that much, but enough).

And if the man in questin DOES get totally emotionally involved it probably means he wasn't that much with the previous girlfriend.

On a side note though i don't think the process is that much different for women. But the difference being that women (if they are getting doubts, or decided to move on) start distancing themselves emotionally earlier on so at the moment the relationship does actually end, they are pretty sure it's over.

My personal experience is that men are NEVER 100% sure (disregarding incidents, deep hatred lol), also if they initiated the breakup, at some point they'll start to doubt themselves and that's also the moment that they put more effort in finding a 'replacement'. But like said, emotional involvement is not the same as sex.

True, I agree that sex/hooking up is very different from a proper relationship, but I think you can still develop feelings for someone. We did get to know each other a bit and got along well so I hope he felt a little something for me but I don't know. That's what lead me to my question. Women are lead to believe that men, in general, can have sex and feel nothing. And as I said I would hate to think he felt nothing as I was his first sexual relationship but maybe that's what happened and he has just forgotten all about me, who knows.

To answer the original post - As a male who is reading this thread I can say for myself that I don't forget quickly and I find it very difficult to move on from a broken relationship of any kind. I will say, however, that if you looked at me it would appear that everything is OK. I can remember a recent time when I was holding back tears and my co-workers had no clue that I was upset.

It sucks that, as a man, I feel the need to appear this way to others, but I'm not that comfortable displaying my emotions unless I'm with somebody who I am extremely close to like a close family member. I've actually been criticized for being "too emotional" at times and that just caused me to hide my feelings even more.

I think that a lot of men are probably this way so please don't assume that just because we appear to be fine that we really are. We're probably just better at hiding it. So I guess what I'm saying is that it's not real easy for a sensitive guy these days. So have a little compassion ladies