I was talking with an old friend the other day about how he was doing after he and his long time girlfriend broke up. He lives overseas and she's stateside and had been long distance since he moved to Amsterdam a couple years ago for grad school. He said the break up was amicable because she decided that she didn't want to move overseas to be with him and planned to just stay in the US. Fair enough. They'd been together for 4 years and he'd said he'd be ready to start dating in 4 months to "grieve every year with one month." I thought that was way quick, but male logic.

The thing that made me defend his gf was the fact that he was upset that she didn't want to move to Amsterdam with him when he virtually did nothing to really set her or the relationship up for success. He criticized her for not wanting to leave the states because her support system is in her small town where she lives. Yeah, if you're close to 30 and you don't want to branch out, that's small town mentality, but I get that. He went on to say that "moving isn't a big deal I've had to do it all my life" (he's from South America), which I also get since I moved a lot as a child. And I told him, that's true but she'd be completely overhauling her life, so what did you have planned?

He said his plan was for her to come over there, they'd live there for a few years and THEY'D decide together where they want to live. He had no plans coming back to the US because he has better opportunities overseas. I was thinking.... no wonder she didn't go for that. So I asked, well, did you set anything up for her to put her mind at ease? And he responded that he did all the research and was adamant on "All SHE had to do was get this paperwork..." or "All SHE had to do was get a job..." "She knows things would be better for her over here" etc. He believed he was putting in effort just to research and not create space for her. He is now mad that she's looking for a house to buy and I quote "To think only of what's best for HER instead of US so whatever." But you wanted her to move across the country for you with no plan, no job and no ring and wanted her to go along with ya'll figuring shit out? In a foreign country (to her)? Yeah no. "Well, she did say she wanted to come to Amsterdam but now she doesn't so she lied."

I've seen the reverse happened with a friend of mine who was engaged and later married (the guy came from a different country to the US) and she was up calling immigration every day, finding her man a job, making sure he transitions to the new country well etc. and told him about that (I wouldn't advise doing that as a woman for a man, but I told him that as an example of what effort looks like). He said "Well it wouldn't be a language change, most people speak English here and it's not that hard to get paperwork like it is in the US." If it's not that hard, why not help her?

He's now saying that he'll just find someone else now since the situation won't change but I kind of feel like he could've at least put in the effort to make her comfortable and set up for their future. I'm also shocked to understand that men are just willing to call things a wash instead of just trying to truly listen and fix the issues at hand. They really think they are doing so much. Lol.

But anyway, does anyone else find this to be LVM behavior?