You're Killing Independent George

Dudes

You’re Killing Independent George

Mr. Eous Tuesday, June 25 2021

Dear Girlfriend I Recently Moved In With,

It’s been about six months since we moved in together, and I have to admit – it’s nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it’s actually been kind of, well, good. Our differing sleep habits, tastes in music/tv/movies, eating tendencies, and definitions of the word ‘clean’ have yet to become the relationship killers we both feared they would be. I’d say we’ve settled into a really nice groove at the intersection of friends, lovers and roommates. I cook for you, you clean up after me. I toss you the occasional romantic comedy in exchange for your undivided attention during football season (although we’re still stuck trying to hammer out a deal for the playoffs – I will not under any circumstances watch Sex and the City 2. But I’m confident we’ll get a deal done). I leave the seat down, and in exchange, you take responsibility for the epic amount of your hair that clogs our shower drain (seriously, are you secretly getting chemotherapy?). And we’re both still holding in our farts around each other (except for that one time we both had the flu). And the great thing is, we still occasionally make time to do things on our own, you with your ‘retail therapy’ nights with the girls and gays, and me with my poker nights with the guys.

Really, everything has been great since we moved in together. We’re both as content as we’ve ever been. So because of all these things, I think it’s time we consider our future.

(If you can sense where this is going, first let me apologize for doing this in a letter. God knows it’s not the most romantic way, but I might not ever get my nerve up to do it in person, so…..Deep Breath…..Here it goes.)

I think I should move out.

And now that you’ve run out of dishes to throw at me, let me explain. Cohabitation is killing Independent George.

You see, every guy has two sides. Relationship George is The Man they feel they should be – a fine upstanding citizen, aspiring husband, father, and homeowner. And Independent George is The Guy they want to be – a guy’s guy, man about town, the dude whose miscellaneous antics and assorted shenanigans are retold using the words ‘I swear to fucking god’ for countless years to come.

Though the two Georges are fundamentally different, they can coexist relatively peacefully for years…until their day of reckoning eventually comes in the form of a serious relationship, cohabitation, engagement, marriage, kids, etc. Every one of us has a different breaking point. Mine came when I gave up having my own place. Without the Batcave, after all, Bruce Wayne is just some rich dweeb with a spandex fetish.

The funny thing, though, is that I didn’t even know Independent George was gone until you went on that two-week business trip. Suddenly, he was back in charge! He left the seat up, he willfully ignored the existence of the hamper for his dirty clothes (opting for the more logical place of storage for such things, the floor), dishes piled up, beds went unmade, empty beer cans found new life as ashtrays. Scented candles, decorative pillows, potpourri and bras hanging in the shower? Gone. Porn (and I don’t mean the “female friendly” crap that we watch together, I’m talking about the good stuff) was played on loop like mob movies at a gimmicky Italian restaurant. Take-out containers of varying ethnic cuisines piled up to the extent that it looked like the U.N. cafeteria after lunch….

But I digress. The point is that when Independent George was resurrected, I realized something that I had forgotten: that guy is fucking awesome.

Relationship George doesn’t crash rich people’s house parties in Chicago. He doesnt pull all-nighters in Atlantic City shooting dice. He doesn’t toss a hundy to the bouncer at The Boom Boom Room in NYC so that his buddies can see the half-naked models drinking champagne in the bar’s giant hot tub. He doesn’t spontaneously go to DC with his friend’s band just for the hell of it. He doesn’t convince his friends to shroom out after the World Cup game because they had already taken the day off from work and it was only noon. He doesn’t fly to Amsterdam to see a band he’s already seen dozens of times. He’s never made UPS an accessory to the interstate smuggling of a controlled substance (for personal use only!). He’s never gotten a stripper’s phone number just to prove he could. He never occasionally wakes up on a couch he’s never seen before, and he’s definitely not the greatest wingman in the history of The Game.

You know what Relationship George does do, though? He goes to dinner with you and other couples, where he makes small talk about golf and “the markets.” He goes to wine tastings (where he SPITS like a goddamned fucking snob). He goes out drinking sometimes, but he can’t help but think that the two of us could be catching the same buzz at home by ourselves for way less money and with way less Lady Gaga reverberating through his ears. He hosts dinner parties, during which he uses some variation on the word “gastro” way too many times. He lets his gym membership expire. And his idea of a hot three-way is you, him and the couch.

In short, he’s kind of lame. But that’s okay, because he’s not a bad guy – and in fact, he’s a vital counterweight to Independent George, whose proclivity toward excess is simply unsustainable, and who admittedly occasionally needs that hot three-way with you and the couch to recover from said excesses.

But relationship George has his excesses too. Namely, that couch: we’re on it too much. Our near-perfect compatibility makes us content to just lay around in our spare time watching TV or a movie. Do you remember when that was just our occasional lazy indulgence? Now it’s our routine. It’s gotten to the point where we only leave our little opium-den-of-love for work, groceries, or because neither one of us could think of a movie we haven’t seen (despite an hour of trying).

This isn’t what I signed up for.

This may be the way I choose to live in the future, probably after Independent George hits rock bottom and has his moment of clarity the way Relationship George is having one right now. But the fact remains, I’ve got a few solid years left before I hit 30, and I’m going to milk them as much as possible before I have to become a grown-up.

And even though I still love you and don’t want this to be the end of us, I suspect it will be. Because you will likely read entirely too much into what I’m saying here and infer that I don’t love you anymore. And even if I did, relationships, in your mind, can never go backwards. I’ve known girls who’ve stayed by their man through infidelity, domestic violence, substance addiction, prolonged unemployment and even a receding hairline. But I’ve never heard of a girl staying with a guy after he decided that they’d moved in together too soon and wanted to go back to having his own place.

I guess a girl’s gotta draw the line somewhere.

Yours Sincerely,

The Guy You Love, But Whom You Will Soon Probably Break Up With Because You Might Believe Relationships Can Never, Under Any Circumstances, Be Allowed to Go Symbolically Backwards

lovegirl81

WOW…is this how all men feel about moving in together?? I lived with a boyfriend once, and this is really similar to what I think ended it. BUT we were 23 years old. Do all guys feel this way? And do they honestly ever grow out of it???
Caitlin

If you want women to accept that relationships can take a step backwards perhaps less selfish-seeming reasoning would help facilitate a healthy step back.
singlegal

this is so depressing!!! it sounds like your girlfriend is prob just sitting at home, thinking everything is perfect, not suspecting anything. her fault? your fault? ahhhh sucks either way
Committed101

As someone who’s been in quite a few relationships (serial monogamist, maybe?), I have two thoughts:

1) Despite all that stuff about how much you love her (which I partly believe), it sounds to me like you’re kind of hoping that SHE’LL break up with YOU. You know how guys sometimes talk about how they don’t want to be the bad guy, and they don’t want to deal with confrontation, so they’ll just start acting like a really bad boyfriend until the girl decides to break up with them? Yeah, this blog reminded me of that.

2) However, to not be a hater for a minute, I’m willing to bet that it’s not just timing, and that there’s a better girl out there for you. A girl who doesn’t make you feel like you’re choosing between Independent and Relationship George. Maybe a girl who wants to hang out with Independent George and partake in his crazy lifestyle. I don’t think the fun/responsible tradeoff HAS to be inevitable, when you find the right person for you. So maybe this is all for the best.
West

I’m reading into this a little differently, maybe because I have been in a very similar situation. Correct me if I’m wrong Mr. Eous, but I think the problem is that you DO care about her and you COULD see her in your future – but that “future” that women talk about is too far off for you to think about. I don’t think you necessarily want a women who can hang out with Independent George – I think you want Independent George to not have a girlfriend.

What I’ve realized recently is that you will never be able to have a good/healthy/happy relationship if one or both of you aren’t happy in your personal lives. It has nothing to do with the love you have for each other – but the love that you have for yourself. If you’re still needing/wanting to be out there and acting like a single Independent George, than you’re not ready for relationship George and you should acknowledge that.

Another note – have you talked to your GF about any of this? Don’t ruin a good relationship by skirting around it all. Maybe she wouldn’t mind taking a few steps back in hopes of a better future?
- lovegirl81
  
  I was wondering that too – have you actually talked to your GF this? Or are you just writing about it here, and then pretending to be the perfectly happy BF at home?
Mr. Eous

A couple things I’d like to address:
I don’t know how any of the above thoughts could be portrayed as selfish, as Caitlin suggested. I simply suggested discomfort with the phase that my relationship is in currently- to Caitlin I would ask: how is any of the above different than someone being uncomfortable with their relationship not progressing quickly enough? Why is it ok to have regret that a relationship isn’t at the “next level” but not ok to have regret that the relationship progressed to the next level too quickly? Either scenarios are selfish or neither are. Otherwise you’re operating under the assumption that all relationships are governed by arbitrary absolutisms, namely that A) relationships must only go forward; and B) that forward is always good no matter what the circumstances. You’re trying to impose linear logic on the most inherently emotional (and hence non-linear) aspect of our lives- why?

To Lovegirl81: No one knows how all guys feel about anything. As I mentioned in my post, the reckoning between Independent and Relationship George comes at different times and under different circumstances for everyone. I know plenty of guys who were totally content being relationship guy and settling into marital isolation even years before they even got engaged. Conversely I know guys that will never be ready.

I’m also not, as some have suggested, hoping she’ll break up with me. I love my girlfriend and as I stated, I am very happy in our relationship. But that’s not to say we do not have differing timelines as to when we expect to reach the various benchmarks in life. Moving in together is more than just shared living expenses- in my opinion it’s the biggest adjustment either party will ever have to make. Now that I know I have someone waiting at home for me, the behavioral calculus changes (think of it as the inverse of the behavioral change that occurs for most of us when we move out of our parents house and go away to college). My girlfriend never once complained about any of Independent George’s exploits, she always laughed them off as symptoms of my hyperbolic personality. However, she always found out about said exploits after the fact, when I was demonstrably safe and sound- to put it another way, she didn’t know what I was up to until I told her after the fact and hence she was never in a position to worry about me. The effect of this change on people in a loving relationship should not be underestimated.

FInally: have she and I talked about this? Yes. Part of what inspired the idea to put this into blog form were two things about that discussion.
1. That she, like myself, has found it to be a period of significant adjustment and that she, like me, has found that he behavioral calculus changed in ways that sometimes frustrated her as well.
2. Despite the above admissions, she nonetheless turned into an emotional hand grenade when I suggested the idea of going back to having our own places.
Hence my frustration. So now I will explicitly ask the question to you, the commenters, on the implicit question posed in my post: Why is it WAY more common to see a woman ‘stand by her man’ through what I think to be more severe transgressions of the relationship covenant? Why will they sometimes stay through infidelity, physical and/or verbal abuse, prolonged unemployment/social uselessness, etc?
My theory is that many women- though not all- view relationships as status symbols, not unlike many of us approach our careers. Most of us aspire to get that corner office with the big salary, and at a certain point, we realize that even though we may be with the wrong company, that we’ve invested too much of our careers there already to even consider making a change and taking a step backwards or worse, starting completely from scratch somewhere else. I think that’s the reason some women (and probably a few men as well) stick with people who treat them poorly, because the idea of leaving a decent “job” involves too much risk of ending up in a worse situation.
Though I’ve yet to study the matter scientifically, I’d be willing to wager that the people who took the most circuitous(i.e. confusing, scary, frustrating, discouraging and otherwise risky) routes to their career or relationship endgames are probably significantly more satisfied with where they are in life than those who took the easiest, safest, most direct route.
Thoughts?
- West
  
  Well – I can only give an answer to your question on the emotional trauma, from my own point of view. So my disclaimer is that not all women will think this way – and to be fair, I’m sure there isn’t a large number of women who have gone through a relationship that entailed moving in – then taking a step back – and moving out. SO – here it goes.
  
  To women, getting a guy to the level of commitment that moving in together is, means that you are the one they want to be with. You have broken through the barrier than men hold up (because of fear of this commitment?) and even though marriage may be far away, you don’t care because you’ve “found the one”. I personally am not a “dating” gal. It’s hard for me to connect with people and when I do, I want to hold on to that. Now – telling a woman that you think you should live separately again is like telling her that you don’t love her anymore. That living with her wasn’t as good as you thought it was going to be and ultimately that your life would be better if you were living alone. Ouch. No matter how you play it up “I love you” “this has nothing to do with how much I love you” etc etc – all we hear is “We lived together, and I’m unhappy and I want out” again. OUCH.
  
  I’m not saying that moving out will break you up – BUT the ONLY way it will work is if both parties understand and truly believe it’s not about a loss of love and honestly, I don’t think women have it in them to hear that. Think about it. As it is now – when you are “Independent George” – going out, acting crazy, living the almost single life – you are coming home to her. If you live alone again and go out as “Independent George” – she is lying alone, thinking about you. It’s going to be worse. She KNOWS what Independent George does but she didn’t care because Independent George chose her. Moving out means you’ve chosen the bar/club/whatever.
  
  No matter how much you tell her it’s not about her – she will make it about her and I don’t think you can blame her. From someone who has cohabited and “taken a step back” in a relationship – it’s going to be harder for you. You’re going to have to call her more, tell her you love her more, take her out more – otherwise she see’s it as a break. You can no longer come home and just hang on the couch and count that as a “night out” – now you have to take her out because if you just go over and hang on the couch then stay over, it will turn into “why are you staying over every night – we should just live together”. So I guess what I’m saying is, be careful. You think you’ve opened an emotional can of worms now – just wait.
  
  My last comment will be about women and what other people will “think”. No matter how secure your GF is with your feelings or even with your relationship – she is now going to have to go into justification mode with all of her friends and family. You may say “she shouldn’t care what other people think” BULLSHIT. Everyone cares what other people think in some way and unfortunately it’s going to be VERY hard for her to talk to them about your step back. And every single time someone asks about you and how your “relationship” is – she’s going to have to explain this step back and every time she explains the step back she’s going to question it herself because it’s going to sound more and more ridiculous each time. Friends and family may nod their heads and be supportive but we all know they’re talking about it amongst themselves, questioning you and questioning the relationship. OF COURSE this is stupid – no one knows how you really feel or why you both chose this path but it will be another source of trauma.
  
  Phew…ok I’m done.
- turrah
  
  “Why is it WAY more common to see a woman ‘stand by her man’ through what I think to be more severe transgressions of the relationship covenant? Why will they sometimes stay through infidelity, physical and/or verbal abuse, prolonged unemployment/social uselessness, etc?
  My theory is that many women- though not all- view relationships as status symbols, not unlike many of us approach our careers.”
  
  Ok, two things about this.
  A) I think is is unfair to categorically dismiss women as the one’s who will stay in bad relationships. I have seen many of my male friends stay with women who even they would admit were not good for them solely because they were afraid of the alternative. It is easy for all of us, men and women alike to stay in a relationship that is comfortable if not passionate to avoid being alone. As far as status symbols go, those same friends have argued that their girlfriends’ beauty, job, family, etc. were reason enough to stay. Let’s be fair, everyone can be pretty shallow.
  
  B) There is a HUGE different between a stagnant relationship an emotionally or physically abusive one. Someone who sticks around when their partner is hurting them in some way is not doing it to maintain some artificial status, she is staying because she are convinced by her abuser or society that she is somehow unworthy of anything else. An emotionally manipulative relationship is deeply traumatic psychologically. Comparing your fear of a relationship that is “too comfortable” to an abusive one is entirely inaccurate, and congratulating yourself while vilifying those who stay is reprehensible.
  
  Now, granted, there is no universal algorithm for pair-bonding,and many people can sustain mutually beneficial relationships while living independently, IF that is what everyone involved wants. However, it sounds like you are terrified of both commitment and stagnation and rather than do the hard work to maintain passion while developing deep emotional intimacy, you are justifying your decision to leave through sociological posturing.
  It’s like people who argue that they won’t get married until gay marriage is legal. It may seem laudable on the surface, but it’s really just a way of avoiding having to get married.
- Southern Belle
  
  To chime in about the idea that girls stay in stagnant relationships just because they’ve invested too much and are afraid to start over: I want to go on record saying that I also see guys do this all. the. time. You meet some guy, and he obviously doesn’t want to be in his relationship. He says not nice things about his gf behind her back, he flirts with other girls, he resigns himself to a life or relationship that you can just tell he doesn’t really want with all of his heart. But they’ve been together for a few years, or they live together, or he’s getting older and is afraid that maybe he’ll never find something better or will end up alone. So he stays. This is NOT just a female thing.
  
  Sadly, I find that these are a lot of the guys who eventually cheat on their gfs or wives. Because if you’re not happy a few years in, then you’re not going to be any happier a few years later. Relationships tend to get harder over time, not easier (with exceptions, of course).
  
  I guess that means that I don’t totally disagree with your decision to move out. Good for you, for not being ruled by fear and sticking with the easy, unsatisfying option. Like it says on this site a lot, sometimes it’s better to take the more confusing, less traditional path in life. At least you’ll always know that you weren’t pressured or tricked into anything.
  
  But thank god I’m not your girlfriend! This really sucks for her. Honestly, I don’t know if I could ever get over the hurt and insecurity enough to stay with you after all this. Sad but true.
- Ukulady
  
  How can those thoughts be portrayed as selfish? You pretty much said you wanted to move out because Relationship George can’t wake up on strangers couches, get strippers phone numbers, or watch half naked women sip champagne. You want to do all of that AND be in a relationship? Honestly, these are issues that would be a problem regardless of living situation.
  
  I understand feeling some regret for the freedoms you might have had to give up in a relationship. I can completely relate to that. I am in a serious relationship and I’m in my 20s and I will totally admit that sometimes I miss having no one to be accountable to. Sometimes it’s hard to have to stop and consider how my decisions will effect my partner. But at the end of the day, even if we do spend too much time on the couch watching Netflix, he’s more important to me than all of the legendary antics I’m missing out on. Women have those kinds of stories too, you know. We don’t live together, and maybe I haven’t reached said breaking point, but I really can’t see how you think you have these unselfish reasons for moving out that your girlfriend should accept while continuing to date you.
  
  Sometimes it’s ok to be selfish. I don’t think you’re at fault for wanting what you want, or wanting to slow down, or even moving backwards. If you’re not going to be happy and you’re not interested in adjusting your lifestyle right now, that’s what you want, and you’re better off being honest about it. But your your girlfriend has her own set of needs, and she has to do what’s in her own best interest. Staying with Independent George is probably not in anyone’s best interest.
  
  People stay in relationships for a number of reasons. People stay with the unfaithful or (unfortunately) even the abusive because those people promise that they will change. They swear up and down that it will never happen again. They have committed their transgression, and beg to be forgiven. I’m not saying it’s right, of course this is preferable to an abusive situation, but moving backwards offers no such remorse. It’s not an incident, or an exception, or a momentary loss of control, but something that changes and negates what you’ve been working on through the entire course of your relationship. The cheater says, “this is what I’ve done, and I’m so sorry, please forgive me, I want to be with you.” The man who moves out says, “this is what I’m doing, I know it will hurt you, but I’m going to do it anyway. I hope we can still be together.”
  The remorse, ability to chalk the event up to a temporary loss of judgement, and promise of future happiness is (unfortunately) an easier pill to swallow.
jlinab

Independent George seems like he was being honest, unlike many people who will hide who they are and how they feel.
I think we all have various sides to our personalities; cant people in relationships share them all? Do you have to be just one type of person in your relationship? Can’t you be who you are, even if that means having 10-100 different sides?
I mean I say you own the good, the bad and the crazy