[April Masini, your AskApril]

Listen, you can do your best and give your all, but if two people aren’t interested in each other in the same way at the same time, it’s not going to work out. Rather than blame yourself for having given your all, why not accept that not everyone is a perfect match for you, and that dating is a process. You have to get out there and figure out what you want, what you have to offer, and how to get what you want. But it takes playing the field, like a numbers game. The more you date, the more likely you’re going to find the right guy.

You should check my book, Think & Date Like A Man [url]https://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/think-and-date-like-a-man.html[/url], for more help in this arena. You’ll really thrive on this advice.

I don’t think your ex-boyfriend was bored or that he used you. I genuinely think he took you on a very thoughtful and lovely date, but as you two got to know each other, he realized it wasn’t a good match for him. He was respectful enough to tell you so.

Finding Mr. Right isn’t easy — but then again, most good things in life take work. Value yourself enough not to quit and give up. Read my book. I know it’s going to help you. 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

If he asked if you were hungry, and you said no, not realizing he was trying to invite you out to eat with him, he either didn’t know you were taking him literally, or if he did, then he could have asked you to go out just to spend some time with him whether or not food was involved!

Keep up the discipline of not asking him out, and flirting with him at the same time. It sounds like it’s working.

And remember — if you give up four Starbucks drinks, you’d have enough money to buy Think & Date Like A Man, which is probably better for you! 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

When you told this guy that you had religious differences between you that were deal breakers, and that you would only ever be just friends, he took the rejection hard, and has decided to be your friend in spite of that. But now that you’ve realized you made a mistake, it’s understandable that he’s protecting himself from further rejection in spite of your amped up flirting to try and get the message across that you’ve had a change of heart.

My advice to you is to keep up your availability and attention to him, and work harder to convey your change of heart. You may even have to admit that you made a mistake by rejecting him, and you hope that he might be able to understand and see if he’s got a second date for you somewhere in his personal repertoire.

I hope that that helps. Let me know how it goes. 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re right. It’s time to leave.

We all make mistakes and have problems as well as successes in love — regardless of age.

I advise you read my book, Think & Date Like A Man, [url]https://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/think-and-date-like-a-man.html[/url] for women who want to find Mr. Right (not Mr. Right Now), and figure out how to get him. You’d get a lot out of this book!

Good luck.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

My suggestion to you is to walk away. For good.

You have emotional problems that may have been the catalyst for your alcoholism, and you were wrong to think that 2 months of sobriety for a newly adjusting alcoholic was enough time for you to be in a healthy relationship. I would strongly suggest taking a year off from dating just to use that time to work on your own issues with a clear focus.

That you attracted a man with his own serious problems with violence is not a surprise. It speaks to your not being well enough to date yet. The sex play you got involved with is dangerous and is going to lead to serious injury. That you stayed with your boyfriend after he beat you twice during sex is extremely unhealthy. Your boyfriend isn’t well, and I hope that you will cut off immediately from him.

His problems that landed him in jail are not your business, and I sincerely doubt that you are the only person in America he knows who speaks English and has a driver’s license. His promises to you now that he wants something from you are not genuine or true.

He’s an adult, and you are not his mother or his wife. Part of becoming sober is finding out your own boundaries and knowing what you can and cannot handle. If you can’t figure it out yourself, now, I’ll tell you: You should not be dating this guy. You should not be contacting him. You should not be bailing him out of jail.

I hope you can find a healthy lifestyle that will lead you down a path to genuine love and romance.

Good luck!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You gambled on a man, and lost. He was a bad bet. Now it’s time to cut your losses and get out.

I’m sorry if that’s harsh, but your priorities as a single mother have to be your children, and your relationship with this man is taking food out of your kids’ mouths and putting their mother in a high stress position so she can’t be there for them the way she was when she was single.

Being a soul mate, a best friend, a lover, and in love — will all mean nothing when the lights get shut off, the car gets repossessed, there’s no money for food and you’re being evicted.

You need to get your act together, and that requires you putting your emotions on the shelf, and your children first and foremost. Move out. Move back to where you used to live so you can cut your stress by being close to your job and your children’s’ school.

You’re enabling your boyfriend big time, and actually making the problem worse by propping him up. When you have little kids, especially since you’re not receiving child support, you should NOT be investing in your boyfriend’s career. He sounds like a deadbeat, and you should be with a man who sees a problem and rolls up his sleeves to take care of it. You’re making excuses for your boyfriend instead of seeing him for who he is now.

If you have full custody of your children, and aren’t collecting child support, you need to get into court and ask for an order awarding your children support. They deserve it and your responsibility is to get it for them.

Get your act together as a single mother, and only then, should you consider dating.

I hope that helps! 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

The first thing you need to do is get a physical from your physician and explain these concerns you have to him or her. This will rule out any biological or chemical issues that may be depressing your sex drive. Be frank with your doctor, and ask him how you can have a more normal sex drive.

There are lots of things that can make you uninterested in sex. Some of them are excessive stress in your life, being tired, and taking certain medications like anti-depressants. If any of these sound like they may be part of your life, see if you can remedy them by reducing stress, getting more sleep and talking to your physician about your medications and it’s possible side effects.

If you pass all those hurdles, and still feel like sex isn’t interesting to you, you may want to try slowing things down in bed. You need to communicate this with your boyfriend because this is a mutual project. Allow your sex life to become less goal oriented and more process oriented, in other words, focus on more on play in bed, and less on reaching orgasm. Sometimes the race to the finish line causes you to miss all the gorgeous scenery along the way!

I hope this helps. Let me know how things go. 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Your feelings are justified, and I bet you actually do know what to do, but it’s hard, so you don’t want to hear it. Well, you came to the right place! 🙂

I usually advocate singles finding mates with “matching luggage” or similar emotional baggage. You’ve finished school, you work, you’ve been married, divorced, and have 2 children. She hasn’t done any of that. Not [i]one[/i] of those life changing events. It’s understandable that she doesn’t feel compatible with you living in San Diego, as a potential stepmother with your joint custody situation is.

You’ve done everything right — when a single parent dates, the children have to come first, the relationship second — and you’ve put your joint custody with your ex-wife ahead of your home location. You did the right thing as a father.

She doesn’t have the maturity to understand your priorities and how your moving out of San Diego would wrench your kids’ lives. That she moved back with her parents is not a good sign for your relationship, as opposed to her moving somewhere to be on her own. She’s looking for guidance from them, and understandably, they want her to finish school, focus on her career, and marry someone who doesn’t have the baggage of a failed relationship with 2 young kids. It’s a lot for anyone to take on.

Her asking you to stay monogamous and faithful to her for 6 months while she’s in Illinois figuring out if she even wants to see you again, is unreasonable. But it’s in keeping with who she is. Her decision is not in your best interest or your kids’ best interest.

My advice to you is to call this a break up and move on. If in 6 months she decides she still wants you, she can take her chances that you’re still available and get in touch. Otherwise, you have to live your life for you. What she’s asking isn’t a good idea for you.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

It would be a shame for you to take this one rejection, and rule out [b]all women [/b]for the next 11 years. I would never advise that. What I would advise is to really look at your part in the relationships you have with women and figure out where you can make adjustments so that you can find and be in a relationship with someone who loves you and respects you, and can have a healthy and happy romance with you. You deserve that. I hope you’ll get over this break up and move on because there are other wonderful women out there — you just have to figure out which ones are for you! 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

In answer to your question about what should you do now, my advice is that you should give her the space she’s asking for.

Your therapist only knows one side of your relationship with your girlfriend — yours. So when he told you your girlfriend wasn’t meeting you halfway, that may have been correct, but your girlfriend is under no obligation to meet you anywhere, including halfway. She doesn’t owe you a halfway meeting. When you told her what your therapist said, you ganged up on her, so to speak, by telling her that your therapist thought she was wrong. It’s no wonder she backed off.

What would have been a better way to handle the situation was to leave the therapist’s advice out of your conversation with her, and ASK her if she’d be willing to meet you halfway to help you with this worrying problem you have. When you start sounding demanding, judgmental and putting her in the wrong and on the defense, you’ve backed her into a corner with only two options — acquiesce or flee. She chose the latter.

My suggestion is that you find some understanding of who your girlfriend is, and really figure out if you can live with her if she doesn’t change — because it’s [i]a lot[/i] easier to get yourself to change, then it is someone else.

Your 3 concerns about her that cause you worry, are probably not going to go away, and you know about them now — before you’re engaged or married, so NOW is the time you need to decide if you can honestly live with her for the rest of your life, given these 3 “worries” you have about her.

My instinct is that you’re rushing things because you’re anxious you’re going to lose her without marriage. Your first marriage is not even over yet, and while I’m not sure how long you’ve been dating your girlfriend, seeing her once a month isn’t enough to suddenly jump to living together.

Why don’t you consider rather than moving in together, moving closer to each other, and dating normally (several times a week) before considering marriage?

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Wow.

You just dodged a bullet (cannonball, actually), and you want to know what to do? Go celebrate! 😀

Your fiance was scum, and the relationship is over. Congratulations! Get my book, Think & Date Like A Man, and read it. Start being a woman who values herself, and knows and allows herself to deserve a wonderful man who doesn’t need or want to cheat on her. Don’t settle for less!

It’s amazing to me that you want to know if you should feel bad! You’re really out of touch with what a good relationship looks like, so I suggest you venture outside your normal circle of family and friends and start looking at relationships that seem good to you, and ask yourself why they seem good. Learn what real love looks like, and then go get it.

That you’ve never heard anything else from your ex-fiance is great news. Keep it that way. The next wonderful chapter of your life starts NOW! 😉

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Trip definitely likes you, and he’s just on a very, very, (did I say very?) VERY slow schedule. He’s also not just shy, he’s not assertive, and he’s acting more like a high school boy than a college man. But then again…so are you, acting more like a high school girl, than a college woman. 😕

You can continue on the way you have been, or you can try and tease him into feeling interested [i]enough[/i] about you, he’ll want to change things (and if he’s worried about losing someone as hot as you are, he’ll step up his game, too!) — and he’ll become more assertive about you and a possible relationship. He’s not doing much “chasing” in the relationship, but then again — you’re not really giving him anything to chase. So my advice to you (again! 😉 ) is to get and read my book [url]https://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/think-and-date-like-a-man.html[/url] for the whole lowdown on how to entice him into asking you out. You’ve found the guy you want — now you have to get him!

In a nutshell, you have to balance not being so available, to being super flirty when you’re actually with him. You’re making it too easy for him to have you without dating you. If you show up every night for several hours of IM chat with him, and see him every day, what’s there for him to chase? He’s already seeing you — a lot! — and he’s already got this tacit commitment from you without having to do anything for it.

If you want him to act more like a man, you have to act more like a woman. I guarantee you that he will respond to some flirting if you dial it up a little. 🙂

Let me know how it goes. 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I’m genuinely sorry for your broken heart. 🙁 Rejection is really hard, and it hurts. When you can’t have what you want, it’s very disappointing, but when that thing you want is a man, and he doesn’t want you back, it can feel demoralizing.

Okay, dry up your tears. The pity party is officially over! 😉

The wonderful thing that this guy did was to be straightforward enough with you to not waste your time. He respects you enough as a person to let you know that he’s not into the relationship and he’s giving you back your life so that you can move on and find someone who is Mr. Right. 🙂

So take his very clear message, and turn yourself around. It’s one thing for you to think someone is perfect, but in order to make a relationship last, both people have to want each other. If both people don’t, there’s no relationship.

My book, Think & Date Like A Man, will be great healing material for you right now and it will absolutely help you get back on your feet again. You can get it here. [url]https://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/think-and-date-like-a-man.html[/url] This is a great book for women who want to find Mr. Right, get him — [i]and keep him! [/i]

You’ll learn tips and advice that you may have missed in this past relationship, about giving the man something to chase — because that’s what men want to do: chase a woman they think is a prize, and then win her. If you throw yourself at him (texting him too much, e-mailing him too much, making yourself too available), he may not think you’re such a prize because you’re too easy. Remaining alluring and mysterious as well as sexy, fun and solid, is a balance that women who get their man, learn to master. Learn how to do this for next time.

Again, I’m sorry for your pain, but hard times are opportunities for change in behavior, and positive turns in life. I hope you’ll take this break up as just that — a good opportunity for you to make your life better.

Good luck! 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You obviously didn’t read my last post — and if you did, you didn’t take my advice. 🙁

What you are doing instead, [i]is exactly what I cautioned you against[/i], and sure enough, you’re creating more drama by doing so.

If you “refuse to be treated that way again,” then stop contacting her, and stop seeing her. Otherwise, you’re going to continually be treated like a doormat.

Sometimes people have to really hit their bottom before they change their behavior, and if you haven’t been treated badly enough yet, eventually you will, and you’ll figure out that this woman is emotionally abusive, but worse than that, you’re making yourself a willing victim.

I’m sorry for your pain. I hope you decide to change your behavior and value yourself.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I believe you that you can forgive your boyfriend, but I’m not sure if you will be able to, so let me try and answer your questions and explain why I’ve given you these answers.

Your idea of a break up was really kooky. 😕 You can’t be broken up and sleep together and expect things to be non-dramatic. He had every right to sleep with the other woman while the two of you were broken up. A break up means freedom, and he was granted that freedom by the two of you agreeing on a break up. If you really wanted a clean break up, then you wouldn’t have slept with him during that time — which is normally what a break up implies. If all you really wanted was to express your anger about his emotional distance, then a fight within the relationship would have worked better for you. But now, although you’ve checked yourself for STDs, the problem of a possible pregnancy looms, since your boyfriend did not use birth control on any of the (allegedly) three times he slept with the other woman. (What was he thinking?? 😮 )

Also, your sweeping statement about your belief in “full disclosure” during a monogamous relationship is kind of hypocritical, since you never disclosed your past, knowing it would upset your boyfriend. I think you’re just upset that your boyfriend slept with someone else while you were expecting monogamy during a break up, and now you’re quoting theories about relationships to support your position. Sorry — that doesn’t work. A break up is a break up. 🙁 You were both free to date and sleep with other people during that time.

Now that you’ve found out about this other woman, and you’re steamed, feeling betrayed, and hurt that she’s still around (and possibly pregnant with his child), your anger at her is misplaced. She didn’t do anything wrong. He’s not married, and she’s free to flirt and date him during break ups. The problem isn’t her. It’s him. If you confront her, you’re misplacing your energy, and you’re just going to give her more reason to want to connect with your boyfriend (they can gossip about your bad behavior), so just ignore her. Don’t give her the time of day, and don’t confront her. Anything that needs to be worked out with your boyfriend is between the two of you.

Lastly, although you have invested 4 years in this relationship and have a house together, you are not married, and if you were married, this would be a marriage verging on a divorce, given your recent separation, so just because you’ve been together “like a married couple” doesn’t mean this relationship is bulletproof.

One problem that was festering within your relationship before all this drama brought on by the “break up” was that you felt for some reason you couldn’t tell him that you’d slept with someone before the two of you were dating. While this admission may have disappointed him, because most guys like to feel like they’re the only one to have “had” their woman, the reality is that what you did was normal, and it would have been easier for you to have been honest with him about something that he didn’t like, then to hide it from him and have him find out from someone else, adding a lie to the disappointing behavior. So for future, remember that honesty is usually the best policy within intimate relationships. In fact, [i]honesty deepens intimacy.[/i]

But more importantly to me, is that you broke up with your boyfriend in August because he was acting like a stranger to you. What was that about? I think that that is where your problems began — and possibly will end. All this drama in between is possibly just a way for you to distract yourself from the real issue — that he lost interest in the relationship. If you do get past this present chaos, and you do decide you want to give it another try (which is possible — if you both want the same thing), the question remains, where is his head in all this? Was he really wanting to get out of the relationship, but not wanting to give up the sex or security “having a girlfriend and a home together” provided him?

It’s one thing for you to have standards, values and feelings, but in a relationship, both people have to want to make things work. If he’s not “in” then you’re going to have more chaos ahead of you.

I hope that helps.

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