[Ask April Masini]

Well, he finally got over her — now it’s [i]your[/i] turn to do the same! 😆

He talked about her incessantly because he wasn’t over her. A year later, and now he is, but you’re the one who can’t let go of the hurt his behavior caused you — [b]a year ago[/b]. A lot of women wouldn’t have stayed with him during that year because of the feeling that he may never get over his ex, but you did — and he’s gotten over her and stopped the behavior you didn’t like. Now you have what you want — a boyfriend who’s totally into YOU and you’re looking for a way to sabotage things. 😮

You need to focus on the present and the future — which now seems like a possibility. He’s being a good boyfriend. If you still want him, he’s yours for the having. If you truly don’t, then you should understand that and move on, but don’t look for reasons to concoct a problem that doesn’t exist any more.

[oogyflip]

Thanks for your reply, and I know that you are totally right, but it’s extremely difficult to get over, especially when his sister and his mum quite obviously prefer her to me, even though she cheated on him. This is my first real relationship and I always pictured it to be- I’d find someone, they’d find me, we’d be equally over the moon to have found each other, we’d build the relationship, we’d fall in love, etc etc. I am one to find it UNBELIEVABLY difficult to come to terms with people hurting other people without a solid reason, as my whole life I have always taken so much care not to hurt anyone. I just find it so hard, when anyone does anything to hurt me without me deserving it to get over it. Especially this situation, as he’s supposed to be the person who makes me happy, the person I don’t have to worry about anything with, the person I can trust. Even though I said I wouldn’t, I brought it up with him again, and this time he finally seemed to be on my side, rather than defending himself and her in the situation. He confessed that he truly believe I am his first love, which made things a lot easier and he explained he feels he was a different person back then. I kept asking him why he carried on for so long even though he knew how much it was hurting him and he said he truly doesn’t know. When I think about it, I think the reason I can’t let go properly is because he has never appologised. We just get into these long talks about it which never include any form of appology. I just desperately want to get it out of my head, the sooner the better. My only fear is never being able to let go. I think it will be a lot easier once we are able to live on our own without his mum and sister around as everytime I look at either of them, I think about the whole thing and I just know, because of the sort of people they are, that they talk about me to her and probably say things like “she’s nice and all, but not as nice as you” (even though she cheated on their own brother/ son… 6 billion people in the world and this is who they choose to hang around with? I find it sickening). I used to be a very strong minded person, but now I just cry whenever I get upset, because my trail of thoughts leads me back to the past. I know he is over her, and I know he loves me, I just find it so hard to let go when people hurt me. Sorry for babbling on, and thankyou for your response.

[Ask April Masini]

It really seems like something else is going on other than what you’re writing me about because from where I sit, you’re just bent on sabotaging this relationship because you can’t deal with something internal that’s bothering you.

Your boyfriend is doing everything right, and still you’re picking at this relationship like it’s a scab that’s healing and you want to make the wound bleed again. 😕 Men want to be with women who make them feel good about themselves, and you’re behaving in a way that shows you don’t appreciate or value him. If you continue on this path, eventually, he’s going to walk away from you for good. 🙁

If you want to get over this problem, stop talking about it, and move on. You have ideals about what relationships should be, and you’re having trouble accepting reality which dictates that they’re not necessarily so. Stop harping on his mother and his sister. You have a guy who loves you and if you don’t want his love than just keep doing what you’re doing, because that will surely end things.

I’m sorry to have to be tough on you, but you’re not [i]acting[/i] like someone who wants to be in the relationship. 😮

I hope this helps, even though it’s a little tough. And that you’ll join me on Facebook: Here’s that link! [url][/url].

[oogyflip]

Ahahaha I can deal with tough. I now see that this site is based around cliches of “man with six pack meets pretty airhead woman. They get together. Man has his guy friends who he goes to the pub with, woman has blonde big boobed friends she goes shopping with. Man cheats. Woman cries. Woman forgives over night because she doesn’t know any better. Man does it again. Woman forgives overnight again. They have two babies. One girl one boy. They divorce. They find new partners”. I am far from the mainstream of life. My problems are, I admit, way in the past. I just have difficulty forgiving when I did not deserve the hurt. Yes, I now have everything I could ask for from a relationship, except for this brick in my stomach I am having trouble disposing of due to the fact I have a brain, therefor a functioning mind and am able to stick up for myself and know what people should and shouldn’t be doing to me. Yes this seems hypocritical as I am with a guy who spent a long time making me feel like nothing compared to someone else. However, I was not in the same state of mind back then as I have never been in a relationship before so I was shocked and determined to fix this problem, help him through his problems and move on, as like I said everything else is perfect (as hard as that may be to come to terms with in “the real world” but yes, it is possible to have EVERYTHING you want in a partner). You make this all seem like I am in the wrong, whereas if you look a the situation because you want to understand rather than to pay the bills, you would see I have done nothing wrong and surely he deserves me bringing it up in order to fix it as he had no problem bringing it up over and over again in the first place. You say so certainly that eventually he is going to walk away from me. Unfortunately for you you have evidently never met a human willing to mend rather than walk away every time something goes wrong. If your computer freezes, do you buy a new one? Do you buy a new guitar everytime a string breaks? Do you amputate your limbs if a nail breaks? No. You fix them. He is aware that he hurt me and he feels bad about it and wants to try and fix this as much as I do. Why would He leave Me? There is no logic behind that. You tell me to stop bringing it up? You are supposed to be a number one relationship expert and you are advising me to not talk my problems through with my partner? That’s like working for a travel agency and advising people not to go on holiday…

“If you don’t want his love, carry on doing what you are doing because that will surely end things” riiiight… so he hurts me, I want to fix it, I get a little upset in the process of trying to fix it… that means I don’t want his love and he’s going to leave me? Again… breaking up is not the answer to everything. You say move on, stop bringing it up, it’s your problem, blah blah blah. Well, I did bring it up, again and again and again, and we are working through this together. In doing so I have discovered a lot of things which I did not know before which have made me feel a lot better about the situation. He explained to me he was going through a lot of trouble at that moment in his life and his way of dealing with it was making up crap as he was in denile. I have found out he was a completely different person back then, and he no longer believes anything he said before and he did not believe them at the time either, he was just in a state where he did not know how to deal with things as on top of this I was the first person who came along who he could talk to.

Since I last wrote to you we have discussed this subject about 3 times, each time progressing a bit further, helping me to forgive him and understand it meant nothing and overall be able to move on. These things take time if you have a brain ;D

You say I’m not acting like I want to be in this relationship… I stuck through a year of crap and even though he hurt me, I am making as much effort as I can to try to fix it and move on… yet that means I DON’T want to be with him? If I did not want to be with him, do you really think I would have gone through this?

So shock horror, people can resolve problems in relationships by talking them over, despite what the books told you when you were studying psycology or whatever you had to pass for the rights to give people “advise”.

Don’t take this as me not being abe to deal with “tough” as constructive critisism is what helps the world go round. What I can’t deal with is people sticking to a mainstream system of fashion, footballer men, girly women and perfect cliche lives of dead end jobs.

Try advising people on how to fix and overcome their problems, rather than telling everyone to just throw a blanket over them and pretend everything is fine.

[Ask April Masini]

Wow. I guess I hit a nerve. 😕

I can see you’re very, very angry, but I can’t believe it’s really [i]me[/i] you’re angry at. I think I’m just the object of your anger. You and I don’t know each other, and I’m sorry you think my advice is mainstream and you don’t agree with it — or at least all of it. 😆 I do make generalizations about men and women that I’ve come to learn are mostly true — and LOTS of my readers benefit from this wisdom. But I never lump people all together as you suggest. Especially on this forum I always try to give each poster special attention. That said, I can only go by the paragraphs you write me. We’re not in a room together and we don’t really know each other over time, so again, I don’t think it’s me you’re so angry at. I think you’re angry at yourself or someone who’s in your day to day life.

I noticed as well that you have a lot of ideals and it seems that real life isn’t always ideal. I can see where this might make you angry, too. Lots of people hold on to their ideals in life, but balancing your ideals with the reality you come to learn exists in communities is important to being happy and at peace. There are lots of terrific novels about young people coming of age and you can read at length about real life clashing with youthful ideals. It’s often hard to hold on to what you think in the face of reality, but you can make your life a creative endeavor if you’re open minded and willing to bend when you have to and hold strong when it’s right.

You wrote that this is your first relationship and that you are afraid of never being able to let go — but you also were very upset that your boyfriend kept bringing up his ex-girlfriend and then you were very upset that his mother and his sister seem to prefer her over you. It sounds to me like you have a recipe for being very angry and hurt if you don’t let go or make some changes. You wrote that you want to “fix” your boyfriend or “fix” a relationship problem, but what you may or may not understand is that you can’t make other people do things that they don’t want to do. The only person you have 100% control over is yourself. So, if you want to try and work on this problem with your boyfriend, you should try it. But at a certain point, you owe it to yourself and to him to move on, if things aren’t “getting fixed”. That said, nobody is perfect, and if you are [i]okay enough[/i] with his behavior and he with yours, then stay in the relationship. Again, you have to find out when to bend and when to hang tough in YOUR PARTICULAR SITUATION.

If staying with him and working things through is what you want to do — by all means do so! You can take or leave my advice, but know that I am empathetic to what you are going through and don’t ever consider you or any other person who writes here a stereotype. And moreover, I am here to advise you whenever you want. Or not.

Let me know how things go.

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