Needy Woman is Driving Me Nuts

I am 48 and am in the middle of a divorce, been married for the last 10 years (second marriage) but have not been single for 12 years. I’ve started online dating via match and have met several women who hit home runs within two dates but who I let go for various reasons.

Now I recently met a decent-looking Middle Eastern woman and she and I jumped into bed right away. The problem is that she is REALLY NEEDY in terms of attention and time. She hits my smartphone with 30-50 texts a day with little messages like “do you miss me?”, or “I want you bad right now”, etc. Sometimes she texts me some filthy

stuff, too, which is entertaining but she is texting me way too much. Plus my smartphone is company-owned. I’ve asked her to slow down on the texts, and she gets insulted. She is also Muslim, and has asked me to stop drinking beer and coffee – which I told her I absolutely won’t do (and again she is insulted). Everything I describe here has occurred within two weeks of meeting her. She insists that I don’t meet any more women, and that I close my match account.

I said I have not been single in 12 years – so my question is if this sort of thing is considered “normal” today in new relationships? Or is it more “out there”? Part of me wants to continue to be with her, and entertain her demands for attention … but I work so much that it interferes with my work day. Plus I am not so sure that I want to be exclusive with anyone so soon with me just splitting up with my ex several months ago. What do you think?

Sounds to me like you have one hell of a ride going on, and that is certainly something to be thankful for. However, I can tell you with certainty that if she is this demanding and hungry for attention right now (out of the starting gate), then it will get more severe as time goes by. In other words, I bet you have not seen anything yet with respect to her demanding your time, attention, and requests for change (no beer, etc.). [What the heck is wrong with drinking coffee anyway????]

It has been my experience that people (men and women) are usually on their best behavior when they first start dating someone. This typically means that if you see any little thing that bothers or annoys you right now – that this quality will prove to be huge later on. In other words, people typically suppress their idiosyncrasies up front – so whatever bothers you about her a little right now (first two weeks of dating her) is going to get worse, and bother you a lot more down the road. If she cannot go one day without annoying you are this early stage, then she is seriously going to annoy you later on.

You are fresh out of the gate with respect to being single. There are tons of women out there – and match is a great place to meet them. [You can also try some of the other online dating services and get discounts on them by going to our Online Dating Discounts page.] My advice is that you should let her go, and have her annoy someone else with all of that neediness. She really needs someone who is not annoyed by all of that, you know?

Hopefully this was helpful. I encourage you to consider joining our Midlife Forum here on midlifebachelor.com … where we talk about a lot of things, including dating issues. We’d be happy to have you as a member of our community. Here is a link to it: Midlife Forum