[Chilem]

I have been seeing this guy for 4 months now. He isn’t my usual type, he is very quiet. I am nothing like the girls he was with before. They are all v natural and v well educated. I am not very well educated but I have a very successful job too and I take a lot of care of how I look and people often say I look high maintenance because of it. Anyway he doesn’t want to see me very often but when we do, he is all over me and telling me how much I turn him on & he never keeps his hands off of me. I don’t think he has been with a lot of people and he tells me I am the first girl to make him cum from a blowjob& that I’m really wild etc. But I really am not. I haven’t been with many people at all and this makes me conscious that he thinks I have slept with a lot of people. For some reason though, he just will not sleep with me. We get v intimate and do everything but sex n he always says how much he wants to have sex but then when it comes to it, he just won’t do it. The other night we got v intimidate and he kept saying he wants to have sex so eventually I just said just do it pls and he started having sex with me but pulled out after a min or 2 and said we need to think about contraception even tho he knows I’m on the pill. If he really wanted sex we could have used a condom months ago but he avoids it. He then came out with a comment that his mum pulled him aside and told him he has to be careful now because of his success and he wants to make sure he doesn’t have a baby because he isn’t ready! I don’t even want a child and he knows this. I just don’t understand. I told him my feelings and I was hurt by this comment and his response is that I overreacted. I don’t think I have. Pls help

[April Masini, your AskApril]

It sounds like there are a few yellow flags here at the four-five month mark in this relationship. The first yellow flag is that you feel that you’re not his type and you’re a little self-conscious about that. You’re concerned that because people tell you that you look high maintenance, and because you’re not as formally educated as the women he usually dates, he may be using you for short term gains, and not be truly interested in a serious, long-term, monogamous commitment. When he mentioned that his mother is worried that women may be using him for his money, so he needs to be careful about not getting you pregnant and invoking a child-support commitment, you felt that yellow flag you was justified. Understandable.

The second yellow flag is that although you’ve had some sexual escapades together, the two of you have never had intercourse in four months, and you don’t understand what’s keeping him from that act when he seems very into you sexually. Again, understandable.

So, here’s my advice. Don’t try to push this relationship or try to force it into something it isn’t. Instead, and I know this is going to take discipline on your part, sit back and observe the relationship while you’re in it. Move away from commitment and towards a place of deciding if you want a commitment with this person. If you’re not comfortable in the relationship and he’s making you uncomfortable by pointing out an inequity that worries him, reconsider. Don’t plunge ahead. And if there’s a sexual issue, and you discuss it with him, and don’t see changes or reactions that you feel are part of a healthy relationship you want to be in, consider that this may not be a great relationship for you.

Part of the problem is that you’re trying to make this work instead of deciding if it will work. You’re painting yourself into a corner as a victim, when you’re not. You have a lot of assets of your own, and if you’re with someone who doesn’t make you feel good about yourself and about the relationship, reconsider the relationship and him. Lighten up and laugh it off — instead of bearing down and trying to fix a four/five month old relationship with someone you’re not sure of.

[Member]

Posts