RESET: Starting Over

[GuppyCaptain]

Greetings to all. I've been absent from the forum for several months and am planning on posting more frequently now. For the sake of sharing our collective experiences searching for and dating FSUW, I'm posting a brief synopsis of what's been going on in my personal search these last few months.

As some of you might know I was using Mordinson's service in Kharkiv. After meeting and briefly dating Alla through them, her and I had an unsuccessful two week trip together through Hungary and Romania this past New Years. Thus I broke that brief relationship off in January.

It was a blessing in disguise as I started writing Irina daily shortly thereafter in January and finally met her in March (along with several other ladies through Mordinson). We immediately hit it off and fell for each other. After becoming "exclusive" and spending close to two weeks with her in March, I returned in May for another two weeks at which point I spent time with her lovely little nine year old daughter as well and had the privelage of meeting her parents. We also traveled to Kyiv to try to get her a tourist visa to the States (unsuccessfully as was expected).

Her and I then met last month and spent two weeks skipping around Budapest, Prague, and Crete. She returned to Ukraine and I went up to Riga for a few days to visit my best friend who was there visiting her parents.

Even before our recent trip to meet in Europe, I felt my feelings begin to wain and this last trip confirmed those feelings. After getting to know her, I can honestly say that she is one of the nicest, warmest, genuine and trustworthy people that I've met. However, as we progressed in dating I began to realize that we probably were not a good long-term match and thus if the relationship was not leading to marriage then it was time to call it off.

There were several reasons that I attribute to the chemistry doing a 180 on my part, but I won't go into that here. The bottom line is that I didn't feel a long-term connection between us. As I told her, "I don't feel the type of connection between us that a man and a woman need to have in order to contemplate something as serious as marriage. I think it's best if we both continue our search for someone who's compatible for us in that regard".

To be continued as I have more time.....


 

[HoundDaddyLee]

Guppy,


Very sorry to hear that you are starting over. I understand your reasoning. You know when you find the one. I wish you luck going forward. Please come into chat more often. We miss you there.


HDL

[BillyB]

It's tough ending a relationship after you invest lots of time, money and emotions into it but at least you ended it like a gentleman. Hopefully her feelings weren't hurt too much.

[msmobyone]

GC

You have been missed and as BillbyB says you ended it like a gent.

God luck for the future

[Trenchcoat]

Welcome back Guppy

Don't worry we all fall down and have to get up, it is brave of you to be honest and talk about what has happened and by doing so I feel progress is made. My recent endeavour you may have read about in Nikolaev also failed, but it came with the upshot of much experience gained about the culture of the Ukraine, the women and how to direct my search in the future. Perhaps you to have gained some experience that could be used to further develop your approach to dating FSW.

Wondered what happened to you as it had been a while. My own reading of your situation leaves me to suspect whether the girl was really into you and you ended up getting the feeling as a result that there was not strong enough feeling, that she liked you but not loved you. I say this as you say the long term chemistry was not there, in my experience chemistry does not go away, you may not get on long term personality wise, fall out or feel bad about that person, but the chemistry will still be there. Girls I know that got with other guys but had obvious chemistry for me, you could tell they still felt it for me even though they chose some other guy over me whether for convenience, better social skills than myself, personality fit, asked first, possibly more attracted to them, etc. My thoughts are perhaps this girl really wanted it to work so turned the charm on a lot as girls seem good out that in the Ukraine, she wanted a better life for herself & her kid, but in the end if it isn't there even charm like the first girl I met there does not equate to chemistry however much we want it.

Anyway GC, what are your thoughts now about way forward, experience learned and new strategy/search specification? Would be interesting to know what you have learned out of this experience.

 

[GuppyCaptain]

Thanks for the kind words gents. So to finish up......

Irina didn't take my calling off our relationship too well and to be honest it saddened me quite a bit as well. She's a wonderful person who deserves true happiness in life and it was difficult to see her upset and know that I was the cause of it. Even more difficult was knowing that this was going to really upset her daughter. She really took to me (and I to her) and wanted a complete family so bad. Honestly, it's heart-wrenching to know how much this was going to upset her daughter but I'm left asking myself, what can I do? It's not like I can will myself into stronger feelings for her mother. I hope that when things settle down her and I can stay in touch and remain "friends", but of course this remains to be seen.

So what's next and what did I learn? For now it admittedly is somewhat refreshing to be single again. I am taking a breather from my FSUW pursuit. Fall is a very important time of year for me because I'm a diehard archery hunter and will be traveling to several States to pursue my life's passion over the coming months. I've also reactivated my online dating profiles (U.S. sites). I have to chuckle as I write this as I think I know exactly what's going to happen. By the time this winter hits I will be SO ready to jump back into dating FSUW again, but who knows? Maybe I'll meet "Her" on one of the local dating sites. Life works in funny ways as you all know.

What was a rather significant language barrier didn't seem to negatively affect our relationship in the beginning but as time progressed and our relationship deepened and became more serious, that language barrier started to become more of an issue. I had set her up with English lessons and explained to her why it was critically important that she achieve a minimal level of proficiency with the language. More specifically, I wanted her to be able to get around and function on her own once in the U.S. as I am away for work at times. Also, we needed to discuss some fairly serious topics and scenarios if we were going to contemplate getting married. Some people are blessed with picking up a language easier than others. Unfortunately, English doesn't come easy to her and after several months of lessons, Skype, Viber and visits, Irina's proficiency didn't improve much. It certainly wasn't for lack of trying so I do give her credit for that but she's just not blessed with the ability to easily learn a new language.

My opinion on "The Great Language Debate" is that while there are certainly many compatible life partners for me in the FSUW who don't speak English or speak it very poorly, next time I will focus a little more on finding a lady that has at least a minimal level of English proficiency. It will eliminate a potentially large barrier in developing and furthering a relationship. Of course, if I happen to meet a woman whom I'm crazy about it's not like I won't pursue her just because her English is not up to snuff. I moved to the U.S. at the age of six knowing zero English so I totally respect and empathize with the challenge that some of these ladies face in learning the language and at an older age no less (31 y/o in this case).

If the next lady has a child already I would like to see more time pass before introducing that child to our relationship. This has been a factor with both Alla and Irina and it's just too difficult for him or her if/when things don't work out. Therefore, I think it best that the relationship first develops to a point where marriage is likely. Of course, I also realize that her child and the way they effect the dynamic has caused the failure of relationships in the past and that makes the timing of this difficult to judge. I don't have all the answers. I'm simply trying to learn from this experience and apply that to the next relationship in the hopes of it turning out more successfully.

[CaptB]

Although some folks here found their match with RW/UW that spoke little or no English.....my wife taught English for 15 years at a language institute in Stavropol, Russia. We talked.......sans interpreter.......for 30-60......everyday we were apart. No third wheel interpreter. Our level of understanding was at around the 90-95% level. I would not advise anyone to "not" date a non-English speaker. The struggle to understand each other can become another element of bonding between you. I have seen very motivated FSUW.......learn an amazing amount of English in only six-months time. But..........I have done both. If I were starting from the beginning I would search for English speakers. Just more convenient to not rely on and interpreter for everything. When I tell my wife that someday I want to be fluent in Russian....she says "no...no..you will never become fluent.....our language is too difficult". I think she likes that I am in the dark sometimes. But when she has her Russian (5 and counting) girlfriends over of tea.....I occasionally give the group a knowing glance......to let them know.....I know more....than they think I do:-)


Capt B