[uniqueusername]

I have been with my boyfriend on and off for 3 years. We run into the same issue a lot- him not being able to lead me. I am trying to be patient because he says he wants to try, but it is difficult. When a guy hits on me, he barely makes a move. When I reach for the 3rd glass of wine, he lets me. I don’t want to be controlled, but I need him to be in control. When I get upset over something he says or does, he just shuts down and lets me run rampant on him. Sometimes I feel like I go too far, but he lets me. I actually want him to let me have it for once….but he often seems too scared to do anything. Then I attack even more, because I feel like that will make him do something, and I end up the jerk. I am very direct, and if I don’t have a man that is able to stand up to people or me like I do, I feel that I will be looked at as the one who wears the pants, and I [i]don’t[/i] want that!

Is there any advice you can give me on how to help him become more of a leader?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Is this new behavior on his part, or was he always like this?

[uniqueusername]

He has always been like this, but has gotten a bit better over the past year due to a job change which forces him to take initiative.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

If this is who he is when you started dating him three years ago, I’m not sure why you expect HIM to change now. 😳 I know you want him to be different, but it’s not really fair to start dating someone who is one way, and then try to get him to be different — and get angry and frustrated when he isn’t.

I always counsel women not to fall in love with a man’s [i]potentia[/i]l. More often than not, who he is when you start dating him is who he’ll be a year after you’ve started dating him. Taking on a “project” in a man is a bad idea. It’s a lot better to know what you want in a man, find him, and don’t expect to make him different going in. There are definitely things you can change, like his wearing high waisted pants, or leaving the toilet seat up, but getting a guy to be a leader, when he never was one, is probably a challenge that’s going to leave you both frustrated and angry.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything else — and please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 🙂

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