[Anonymous]

I need some help. I have been dating my boyfriend for 10 months now. We feel in love quick. We have a complex situation. There are several things and I need some outside advice. He has 4 kids, his wife died. He still loves her and hold her in high regard, she was a good wife and mother. He honors her but sometimes that makes me feel 2nd. He dosent talk about her much and sometimes I bring her up just for clarity. I have 2 kids. Been divorced for 4 years. I think he is perfect for me, but I have trust issues from my past and from him. He is a flirt and always makes comments that “things happen” in reltionahips and “men mess up.” This makes me feel uneasy. He also claims that no man in his family has lived past 40. he is 35. He wants to get married and have 1 more child, but honestly, if he dies, then Im left with 7 kids to raise on my own. I know this al sounds silly but im stressing over it. I love the way he treats me in general. he is really good to me and my kids. I love his kids as well. Any advice? Please help! Thanks.

[Ask April Masini]

Dating and blending families is VERY different than dating with no children or prior spouses involved. You can do this, but you need some new tools.

Because you are considering blending families, and you are concerned that his family health issues may leave you widowed with six or seven children, you need to have a business talk with him about what would happen in that worst case scenario. Having children is NOT romantic (except for 1% of the time when they kids are sleeping or when you’re looking at happy family photos). So, it would help you to understand that you need to talk about finances, legal responsibilities and worst case scenarios.

You need to have a will executed immediately following your marriage, you need to discuss adoption of his children and yours. You need to discuss finances and money. This is not sexy or romantic, but it is part of what will ensure the success of your relationship and blended family. Understand that this is going to entail more than one talk — in fact you’re going to open a channel of communication that needs to stay open throughout your relationship. You’ll feel a lot better once you have some more information and answers, and he’ll feel better knowing you want to assume responsibility, too.

As for your feeling like second best to his late wife, you have to understand that you will be the second wife, not the first. His late wife didn’t divorce him like you and your husband divorced. He will always hold her in his heart in a way that you won’t hold your ex-husband. That’s just the way it is. You need to understand and be able to accept that she was important and gone too soon.

That said, you are important, and you are the woman he wants to marry (I assume). You can and will become the love of his life, but you have to be patient. You also have to open your mind and understand that blended families are not Norman Rockwell paintings and their success depends on flexibility and understanding, which I trust you have enough of to make this work. Remind him you need more attention when you feel left out, and allow him to love you without your slashing him emotionally for not loving you the way you feel you should be loved if not for his late wife.

Hang in there, and do your work. As the kids get older, your life will get easier.

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much April.

No one has EVER explained it that way to me. Most people say, you need to leave because he will never love you the way he loved her, etc. We have not even dated for a year yet and he does treat me really well. He makes me feel like a princess and really I get whatever I want. I just know in the past, he has made mistakes at a very young age. He was with his wife since he was 16. So I worry about him cheating, but dont most women do? I think also its because my x cheated on me a lot when we were married, so sometimes I hold my past with me.

Do you think its appropriate for me to move into the house that they shared? Apart of me wants to move in with him and the kids in the next 6 months but then the other part of me tells me to wait another year until we buy our own home together. What are your thoughts?

[Ask April Masini]

Talk to your boyfriend more about his comments regarding “men mess up”. Ask him if he’s ever messed up and what that looked like. You’ll feel better if you have more information and if you let him know your own baggage that you’re bringing to the relationship in terms of having been betrayed in your last marriage. Clarity will help you. It won’t cure you — time will — but it will give you more security than you have right now.

Don’t move in with him until you are engaged and married. You have too much at stake as a single mother to move in with a guy you’re not married to. Too much can go wrong, and if he wants to marry you, make the order of things marriage, blending the family and moving in together.

Buying a new house together is a better idea, psychologically, for everyone involved, than moving in to his house with your children. However, given the nation’s economic climate, if you can’t do the former, make the latter work. Just don’t move in together too soon. Ten months dating is not enough time given all the dynamics between the two of you, and your children. Wait at least a year so that everyone is more comfortable with the impending blend and move in.

[Anonymous]

I have an updated for you. Since we spoke last and in the past, I have seen test messages from my boyfriend to other women. In the past, he had taken someone out on a date and she sent him a message saying it was nice, but no thanks. I confronted him about this and he denied it. Just recently, I saw a similar text message conversation where he in fact asked this woman out to dinner and she accepted. I was curious to see if he was still listed online (that’s where we met, a dating website) and he was still there but not active. To make a long story short, we are supposed to be in a committed relationship. He says he does not cheat but all this flirting with other women and asking women out, is not acceptable to me. He told me this week he wants me to move in this summer and how can I actually do that when I do not trust this man. I have been feeling this way for sometime and I have been ignoring all these little warning signs April. I was in a failed marriage before and I seem to fall for these “con artist” types. I want to break up with him but how? We broke up before and he sucked me back in. Thanks so much!

[Ask April Masini]

You sound very clear that you want to break up with this guy, but your question is if you should do it now. The answer is yes. You already have really good reasons to break up with him, but you aren’t taking responsibility for your own actions — especially when you say that “he sucked you back in.” He did?? 😯 How about, instead of that explanation you offer yourself this one instead: [i]You[/i] decided to get back together with him in spite of all the warning signs. Don’t blame him for your behavior. He’s not responsible for what you do. You’re an adult and you have to be a good dater and a good judge of what is right for you if you want to be successful in a relationship.

Until you take responsibility for your own behavior you can’t change it. Since you are already self-aware that you fall for con-artists, stop doing it. Train yourself to pay attention to the warning signs, and once you recognize them, don’t move forward. Instead, move on to someone else.

Use self-discipline, an awareness of reality, and keep your eye on the ball which means keeping your goals in a relationship first and foremost and remember that they don’t involve con artists or players.

[Anonymous]

April, first and foremost, I want to thank you for your site. I read it all the time for advice for myself and other. It is a life saver. Onto my issue….
I have decided to break up with this man. I have held strong and we haven’t seen each other in 2 weeks. I have decided that there were too many red flags and when he made the comment about my son, I don’t think I could ever get over that. My some comes first in my life and I never want to feel like my son’s behavior would inhibit a relationship. So on top of the other women he was texting and taking out, there were differences in our parenting styles in which he never shared with me.
We still continue to talk daily. It wasn’t like that at first, but lately we talk as much as before. I want to move on with my life and would still like to be friendly with him but I don’t want it to seem like I’m checking in with him so he can know what I’m doing at all times. He still wants to see me and tries to make times where we can see each other. I still love him very much so this is so hard for me.
How should I end this totally or do you think it’s going to be ok if we are friends?

[Ask April Masini]

First of all, thank you for your compliments about this site. I’m always glad when readers like it and feel that they’ve been helped by it. 😀

Now, as for your post and latest question: Being friends post break up may work sometime in the future but immediately post break up this is a bad idea. 😕 You’re having trouble breaking up because you’re still talking to him every day. 😳 You can’t do that. Talking to him every day isn’t breaking up with him. It keeps you (and him) hooked into each other on a different level, but it makes it way harder to really break up with him and allow your heart to heal and move on. I know you think that being friends is the politically correct, right thing to do, but trust me — it won’t work, and it isn’t right in this case. You need to cut off with him completely. No more calls or contact for at least a year. 😮 I know. That sounds harsh, but if you want to move on in your life and find someone who is Mr. Right, you have to make space for someone new which means not having your ex-boyfriend around at all, and it means breaking up for real. That entails pain, heart ache, being lonely …. and only after feeling those feelings can you start to heal and move on.

So put on your big girl pants and do the right thing for you and your family. Break up with him and move on. Completely.

[Anonymous]

April: You have always given such good advice and have led me in the right direction. I have a quick follow up question. Since I have broken up with my boyfriend and have had limited contact, he has been really trying to do better and try and get back together with me. Since you know some of my history, do you think it is worth another try? Given his past and his behaviors, I question it but I really do love him. What do you think honestly? Thanks!

[Ask April Masini]

Since you admit you get “sucked back in” to bad relationships, you need to make sure that’s not what you’re doing now. It’s hard for me to know how to advise you because you haven’t told me what, exactly, he’s doing to win your favor after you broke up with him. Let me know the details of what he’s doing to make you consider a reunion, and I can help you further. 🙂

[Anonymous]

Hi April.
We have been broken up for about 1.5 months now. Because I didn’t trust him and because I felt like I deserved better, I though us not being together was the best for both of us. To explain further, he said the time that we spent apart had really made him realize what he did was wrong. I do believe him when he says that he never went out with any of the women but just had a flirty relationship with them over text messages. He did agree it was to boost his ego and because he was going with the flow of the conversations and this text message relationship. Of course I feel like I can’t trust him but I hurt everyday and miss him and love him very much. He wants to try again. This will be the 3rd time. I have to also tell you honestly, that because all this was happening, since e broke up, I started to see other men. So I am not perfect either but I felt like this chapter was closed in my life. To me, I want to try again as well because I also feel like I’m setting myself up for failure yet again. I know people make mistakes but come on, this mistake has occurred over and over again. I always think about the old adage, a zebra doesn’t change their stripes.” You are who you are!
So this is where my confusion comes in. Do I give it one more try and go with the gut which says that I deserve better in a man and want better from a man. I’m a great person and can offer so much to a person.

[Ask April Masini]

Don’t get back together with him. He’s given you too many reasons to break up with him. You can do better — but only if you decide to do so. Trust your instincts. Don’t cave to your loneliness. Instead, focus on making yourself a better person, and spend more time out and about socializing with new friends and older supportive ones. Stay busy so you don’t find yourself connecting with him for lack of anyone else to talk to. Volunteer, throw yourself into your work and your children’s’ activities, start flirting with other guys.

Be single and be discriminating this time around. 🙂

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