[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re confused because you’re in a different place in your life than your boyfriend is, so you have to use a little empathy to eliminate your confusion! 🙂

If your boyfriend is only 30, single, never married with kids, and is putting you up on Facebook with sweet comments about you to friends and relatives, then you need to assume that his night out with a work colleague on a work trip, was just that — a night out, and not necessarily a date. He needs to be able to live his life and feel free in order to give you a commitment. He may not necessarily see his night out on a work trip with a work colleague as anything more than what it was, and I think that after dating him only a month, and getting good feedback from him, you have to back off and assume the best.

Also, understand that a month of dating, for a single and never married 30 year old, is probably less of a commitment than it may seem to you who is 33, divorced and a single parent. There’s going to be a difference, not because of age so much, but because of life experience, and you’ll have to be patient because marrying for him is going to be a much bigger deal, never having done it, than it is for you, who’s done it already.

So, enjoy the dating, be aware, as you are and have been, and practice understanding what it must be like for him, so that you don’t jump to conclusions or push too hard in a way that sabotages the relationship.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Love is a feeling, but feelings don’t make long term relationships work. In fact, feelings can sabotage and end long term relationships. What makes relationships work is respect, mutual compatibility and values, and an understanding that love and attraction come and go throughout our lives as we all undergo changes. Commitment is what people look for in relationships because they understand that love is sweet, but if we all followed love, we’d be all over the place! Look for more than just love. Use it is a geiger counter to start your dating processes, but don’t date someone you love, who won’t be there for you in the way you want them to, in the long run.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I’m not sure why you need to find out more than you already have. 😕 It sounds like you’re having a long distance relationship of five months with a guy that I assume because you didn’t mention how you met, that you met online. You’ve now found out that he not only has internet and text relationships with other women, but that he’s paying for internet sex. Isn’t that enough for you to decide he’s not right for you? 😯

Since you’ve only invested five months in dating this guy, and you’re long distance which isn’t ideal, it seems like you should start dating other people rather than invest any more time in a guy who’s got some secret hobbies that disgust you.

I’m not convinced your boyfriend is addicted to anything, but I do think he has some predilections that you don’t like, and in fact, are deal breakers if your relationship becomes long term.

What could he possibly tell you if you confronted him, that would make you think he’s worth staying with? 🙄 And if you have a good answer to that question, then by all means, do confront him with what you already know. It matters less that you were snooping to find out this information than that his behavior is of such concern to you. You may have just hit the tip of the iceberg.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

When you say you want him to “be here” every night, you have to understand that it’s unreasonable for you to think he won’t have relationships with his own friends, family and other buddies, so he should be able to go about on his own — that’s just healthy.

What’s not healthy is the situation you’re describing with him living at his mother’s house his entire 31 years of life, when he has a relationship and a baby with you. You’re not wrong to want him to live with you and your child together as a family. Adults leave their parents, normally, in order to create new families. This happens all the time. That’s what he should be doing — IF he wants a normal relationship with you.

What he’s making clear is that he doesn’t want that, and you’re having trouble accepting it.

The bigger problem is that you’ve chosen a guy with some serious issues, and you need to decide whether or not to stay with him. I don’t think you are going to be able to get him to leave his mother’s house the way you’d like to. So my advice to you is to file for child support with the court, and make this legal arrangement the basis for your relationship, which is not married or living together.

His mother is treating him like he’s still a little boy — don’t you fall into that same trap. If he can’t man up on his own, then you need to be the one to treat him like a man by accepting his living with his mother, and taking care of your child’s legal rights because that child has at least one grown up as a parent. Maybe that will be the wake up call he needs.

I hope that helps!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I wish you’d told me your ages, because that would help a lot in my advice, but I’ll proceed assuming you’re both in your mid-twenties.

You’re in a tough spot because your boyfriend says he wants you to be happy, but your being happy by going away to college is going to render him very unhappy. So, unhappy, that he’s not going to stay unhappy, and will look for a back up girlfriend or a replacement girlfriend when you go, as evidenced by his reading dating websites since you’ve told him about your desire to go away to college.

Another couple may be able to weather these two different goals (you’re going away to college, and his being okay until you return), but it doesn’t sound like your boyfriend is ready or able to weather this bump in the road. What you have to understand is that ALL relationships have bumps in the road like this — whether they’re long distance situations, illnesses, financial problems, job loss, family problems, or problems with children. You’re getting a good glimpse of your future together. If you stay together, you are going to have to be the one to make all of the compromises — because he isn’t willing to sacrifice his feelings for the relationship.

Don’t be angry at him — be glad you found this out now! Dating is a process that if you’re wise, you’ll use to figure out who is Mr. Right and who isn’t. Compatibility is a huge factor in successful relationships, and you’re stumbling on a compatibility blocker.

If he is ready to marry you, and after dating for two years he should know whether or not you’re Ms. Right, then he would be wise to get engaged, send you off to college with a ring on your finger, be faithful and happy that this break in your togetherness is temporary while you finish your degree, and make a plan for a temporary long distance relationship. But instead, he’s looking for a replacement girlfriend for when you go away. Your reluctance to tell him that you’ve seen him on these dating websites when he thinks you’re not looking, is fueled by your fear of losing him. 😕 While it may hurt now to realize that you may lose him, it’s going to hurt more in the long run if you don’t accept what’s happening in your relationship, globally.

My advice is to accept the reality of your having seen him looking on dating websites, and his change in behavior since you’ve discussed your finishing college far away from him. His not asking you for a commitment is very telling. Accept it. He’s not ready for an engagement or a mature, long term relationship. He is who he is, and you need to understand that he’s not Mr. Right, even if you do think he’s great. Compatibility is what you need to look for in a man, and this college experience has given you a gift to see that it’s time for you to move on.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

It would be wrong for me to interfere or advise you on your sex therapy since you have already committed to a sex therapist and will meet with him or her and get a diagnosis and a course of treatment. If you start asking a million cooks how to make a broth, you’re going to end up with a bastardized meal, so commit to your therapist of choice, and let the treatment run it’s course. If, at any point, you are unhappy with the outcome, discuss this with your therapist directly. Remember that every patient and therapist match does not produce a perfect outcome. Like any relationship, you have to find a good match, so while I congratulate you on you and your wife seeking professional help, I advise you to focus your treatment and course of therapy on the process you establish with your chosen therapist.

That said, what I can advise you is to keep the course of communication open, and be patient. It’s important that you’re open with your wife regardless of her behavior. When you do want her, tell her and show her that you want her, and when you’re hurt by her rejection or disinterest, tell her how you feel. The best you can do is to try and keep her in the loop with you, if not by having sex, then by communicating your feelings in a hope that that will build intimacy, and an understanding that will lead to mutually beneficial situations and outcomes with your wife.

Also, understand that while you’re taking the bull by the horns by losing weight, working out, reading books, and working on changing your behavior to a more positive stance, she may not take the same course in her journey to get back to you sexually. You are two very different people of different genders with different biological make ups, and psychological make ups. She will have her own course of recovery of your sex life together than you will, so just because you don’t see her doing what you’re doing to get back on track, doesn’t mean she’s not working her own process.

I wish I could wave a magic wand for you, but I can’t. You’re doing all the right things — just stay open with your wife, and muster your understanding for her, but at the same time, don’t give up on what you want from and with her.

I hope that helps — good luck with the sex therapy. Please let me know how things go.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

The problem is that you’re slow to process your relationship with this guy — or else you’re afraid to be without a boyfriend. Although you’ve written that he didn’t have a child when you met him, YOU KNEW that he was expecting a child and that his former girlfriend was pregnant with his baby, and yet you still dated him and got into a full fledged relationship with him. What you failed to do was to calculate what kind of life he was going to have when his baby was born and where you would fit in. Or else, you realized it, but didn’t want to let him go even though you were not going to be happy being with him when he became a single dad. While you’re figuring out now how unhappy you are, this time, don’t make the same mistake you did when you started dating a man who’s ex was pregnant with his child, and miscalculated what that would mean to you. Understand deeply what a future with this guy will mean to YOU!

You wrote that you fell in love “right away” rather than thinking through what dating a single parent would mean to YOU. Slow down — NOW!! Clearly, your boyfriend has different values than you do when it comes to family, and these differences can be deal breakers, so it would be wise for you to reconsider a future together. You ask rhetorical questions about what kind of a person would want to make a baby with someone he isn’t well acquainted with, lives far away from, etc. Well — hello! — you would know the answer better than anyone because you’re dating exactly that guy! What you’re trying to process is the fact that you made a mistake. 🙁 The good thing is that you haven’t moved in with him yet, you’re not engaged, married or pregnant, and you’ve only invested seven months and not more. Now, it’s time to back away from him.

It’s nice that you want to be an equal part of his family with his ex and their child and their respective families, but you have to understand that may or may not happen. And it’s likely to be a very bumpy road, at best. The most you will be to this child and to his family with his child’s mother and their daughter together is a stepmother. Please understand that your boyfriend has 18 years ahead of him that will include custody and child support issues in addition to all other family issues faced by parents with children who are not married to each other. If you are a part of his family, then these issues and others will be yours, too.

All of this [i]can [/i]work out, but only with supreme understanding and flexibility on your part. But frankly, I don’t think you have or want it to work out except if it goes your way. Understand I’m not passing judgment on your wanting things a certain way — but I am trying to guide you towards personal happiness and success in a relationship — any relationship! Your hesitance to further your relationship with this man is appropriate. He’s obviously really at ease with making a baby and not seeing it on a daily basis or any kind of regular basis (and while he thinks visiting a couple times a year is great, I can assure you his son or daughter will feel abandoned by his lack of more regular involvement in the child’s life). You clearly don’t share this value. You are appropriately concerned about having a baby, yourself, with this guy who lives more spontaneously and less conservatively (again, no judgment, but definitely reality check) than you do.

It doesn’t sound like this man is a good match for you — his lifestyle and values are not compatible with yours. Listen to your inner voice and thoughts — it’s time for you to let go of this guy and move on to find someone who is 100 percent yours from the start. I think that from reading your posts that is what will make you most happy and successful in a relationship.

Right now you’re better off single than you are in this relationship that is too complicated for you at your age, given what you want in life.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Glad you’re here! 😀

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Yes, you’re tripping. 😆

Your boyfriend is 31. If he chooses to live with his mother his entire life it’s not her fault. At any given moment he could move out and get his own place, or get a place for you, he and your child together. HE is the one who chooses not to.

Don’t confront his mother. You’re barking up the wrong tree. Your boyfriend is the one you need to deal with solely and directly.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Yes, you do have a chance with your ex-girlfriend, but my advice is to back off while she’s dating this other guy, and let that relationship run it’s course. If he is the wrong guy for her, as you suspect, then when she’s done with him, you’ll have a chance to try again with her.

What you really need to avoid is complicating things. It seems like your past with this woman is full of complications between her not being divorced yet, her former boyfriend being your good friend, not being truthful and stealing her photos, and leaving a waitress’s phone number on her dresser by accident. Try and live a simpler life, and you’ll have a better shot a committed relationship with her.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I admire your desire to stop a destructive behavior you’ve been employing (cheating). However, I don’t believe you when you say you don’t know why you cheat. I think you do know and you’re not being honest with yourself. I also bet that until you know yourself deeply, and are able to acknowledge why you cheat and what need in you cheating fulfills (because people don’t behave over and over again in the same way unless they’re getting a payoff from their behavior), you’re going to continue to be challenged by the temptation to cheat.

I hope you can find a way to dig deep and be brutally honest with yourself so that you can learn what it is in your self that has fostered and nourished your indiscretions.

Good luck! I’m here if you need me. 😀

[April Masini, your AskApril]

The great thing about life is that [i]you[/i] get to make the decisions that create your own life. But decisions come with repercussions, so when you do make decisions be mindful of the possible repercussions that come with them.

I’m here if you need any further advice. I hope things go well for you. 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Look — he may call or he may not, but there’s a chance you’ll run into him again at which point you can flirt with him enough for him to know you’re interested in him as a possible date or boyfriend. Meanwhile, don’t obsess or overanalyze. Be clear on what happened and what you want to happen next with this guy, but live your life well so that if you don’t see or hear from him again, you’ve still got a great life in front of you, and if you do, it’ll be even more interesting. 😀

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re in denial. 😮

Your boyfriend and his ex-one night stand are now parents of a child who has blood relatives in his family. His parents are the grandparents of that one year old, and his ex-one night stand is related to his family. Yes,[i] they are family[/i], and it is ENTIRELY appropriate for your boyfriend’s family to become close with his ex-one night stand’s family because they have a child between them all and they want to make a good life for that child as well as her now extended family. The families are making the best of the situation in trying to support the life of this child, together. That you can’t see that means that you didn’t take seriously your boyfriend’s admission of this pregnancy when you started dating him. Now, it’s time to sober up! So here’s that cold splash of water: If you do marry your boyfriend, you will be a stepmother! If you have children with your boyfriend, they will have a half sibling in this baby he had with his ex.

What you’re in denial about is that you’re dating a single father. This is not something for everyone. In fact many women are not able or willing to date single parents because they don’t want to share their boyfriends with his children or his family commitments to his ex. You may fall into this category, and if that’s so, then you should understand that dating only single men without children, is something that is more appropriate for you.

The only way this can work is if you accept and welcome your boyfriend’s child into your life, and find a way to be civil to his ex. You can’t talk trash about her or the child in front of your boyfriend and in fact, you shouldn’t talk trash about her at all. It doesn’t sound like she’s done anything wrong. If you can do this, it will be a relief to your boyfriend.

If your boyfriend is not including you in family functions it’s because he knows how much you dislike the baby and the ex, and it’s too difficult for him to have you there when you’re disapproving. If your current attitude continues, you’ll never be included because your boyfriend will think it’s too much conflict for him, so he’ll keep his relationship with you separate from that of his child and her family. And I can tell you don’t like that already. So, if you’d like to be included become polite and accepting, then tell him you’d like to be included, and his subsequent inclusion of you will signal a deeper level of commitment from him to you.

I hope that helps!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Hi Matt:

You are very sensitive when it comes to yourself, and not so sensitive when it comes to your girlfriend. 😕 If you can focus on that, rather than all the details you’ve written about, you’ll have the answer to your problem. I know that probably sounds like I’m speaking a foreign language right now, but the details of your story are less important than the reasons you do what you do, and that has to do with self knowledge.

From what you’ve written it appears that you’re really afraid of rejection. You hate it, so much so, that you’ll sabotage a relationship in order to not feel rejected. So now, you’re wanting to know how you can have a relationship. Well, the answer is you have to get over your fear of rejection.

Dating and relationships require a lot of rejection to succeed. While that sounds backwards, the truth is that dating is a process to be used to find Ms. Right, and when someone realizes you’re not the guy for them, rather than seeing it as a retched rejection, you need to see it as a non-personal part of the process. The woman who rejects you is actually respecting herself and you enough not to waste her time or yours on a relationship that isn’t going to have a future. But all you hear is that you’re not good enough, when that’s not the intended message at all. The intended message is, you’re not Mr. Right for me, and if we continue to date, this is going to go nowhere, so I’m not interested, and you’re not free to find someone wonderful and right for you! 🙂

Instead, you sabotage relationships by telling women how many other girls hit on you. You tell girls that you’re going drinking with other women. You bolster your own ego by telling women how popular you are — but what you’re REALLY doing (and I know you haven’t realized this up until now) is telling the other women that THEY’RE not good enough for you, or special enough for you, and so you’re going to consider other women as possible partners either for the night or the long run.

Put yourself in your girlfriend’s shoes. Imagine what it’s like for her to hear what you tell her. If you can’t figure it out, here’s the clue: It hurts her. And it doesn’t make her want you any more — it makes her want to protect herself from you. Which, ironically (or not) is what you’re doing to yourself.

You’re in a bad cycle, and you need to get out of it.

To do that, you’re going to have to man up (and I don’t mean the kind of manning up that gets you great muscles or military training). You’re going to have to face the fear your heart has of rejection, and understand that you’re going to have to take a few bullets in love. That’s the name of the game — but the winner in love (the guy who’s got his eye on the prize and his strategy set to win her) gets a relationship with support, loyalty, intimacy, companionship, love fueled sex, and a desire to bring out the best in his partner and himself, will know that the scars from failed romances are nothing compared to the prize.

That said, if a woman treats you in a way that you don’t feel is valuing you, then it’s your turn to make the same non-personal decision that she’s not Ms. Right for you, and you need to stop chasing someone who is a waste of your time (and you of hers). 😉

Make a decision to win in love, and start changing your behavior so that you value yourself and the woman you want enough let yourself and her feel valued.

I hope that helps. Let me know what you think and how things go. 🙂

[Member]

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