[April Masini, your AskApril]

I think the vote is in, and everyone agrees that this boyfriend isn’t worth the time or trouble. 🙄

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Welcome!

Please feel free to post any questions you may have in the Q&A forum. 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

If you’ve known this girl for 7 years, I think the way that you’d know she likes you is if something different happens. For instance, if this is the first time you’re texting each other with the frequency you mentioned in your first post to me, here, then I’d say, your pattern of friends has been broken by this surge in texting.

But the real question is, do you care enough to want to pursue things with her at a boyfriend/girlfriend level? If you want to ask her out, do it! 🙂 That’s really the only way you’ll find out if she wants to go out on a date with you. Otherwise, you’ll probably just stay at this status quo level.

The ball’s in your court because you’re the guy! You get to do the asking out! 😉

[April Masini, your AskApril]

So very glad to have helped.

Good luck! 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Your posting online to find a friend is just going to lead you into the same cycle where your girlfriend dominates any social situation you’re a part of, even with your new friend/s. So, while getting a new friend online may make you feel better now, it’s not going to help in the long run.

Your problem is really between you and your girlfriend. And I think the answer is [i]compromise[/i].

You both have to work towards the middle a little more. In other words, she has to be conscious of how her behavior is affecting your feelings when you’re in public, and you have to be conscious of how your introversion is affecting your own feelings when you’re in public. She has to tone it down a little and you have to dial it up a little. See if you can both agree on that compromise, and then practice it out in public.

In addition, you can take responsibility for your part in your joint social life. For instance, she’ll probably only dominate the arena when she’s able to. If you’re at a party with lots of people, you don’t have to be at each others’ sides the entire time. You can wander off and start your own conversations with other people. Dinner parties often have couples interspersed with other people for variety. If you keep going out with the same crowd and keep getting the same patterns of behavior, then maybe augmenting your social life so that you go out with new people will help you find other extroverts ❗ as well as other people who are mostly interested in you.

This doesn’t have to be a deal breaker, but it does require some work from both of you. She can’t be obstinate and say, “That’s just the way I am,” because that’s not generous. And she may have said it because she felt backed into a corner. You can ask her, “If I try taking center stage more often, will you try backing off more often?” That will take BOTH of you out of your comfort zones and your normal social roles, and help you find some new ground that may be better for you both.

I hope that helps!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

First of all, congratulations on going back to school after you dropped out with a broken heart. Everyone goes through hard times, but what they do after a hard time or a mistake or a crisis, is much more telling about their character than what the crisis or heartbreak delivered. So, I’m glad you found your footing again, and have one more year to complete your doctorate.

Now, the problem is that no matter how much formal education you have, you can still flunk dating! 😆 Believe me, even PhDs and other professional people come to me with similar dating and relationship problems. Love and relationships cross every socio-economic border, so don’t think that just because someone is a professional, they know what they’re doing when it comes to relationships! And….you’re in the right place.

Your brother is right that it’s good to be independent, but you can be independent and still have a successful marriage. Lots of women do it. So, let’s see if we can’t help you do it, too! 🙂

To be truly independent, and to value yourself, you have to be clear about what you want. Then, once you know what you want, you have to be responsible for executing that desire. If you want a blonde more than anything, don’t date a brunette just because he asked you out. If you want to marry a flashy entrepreneur, don’t date a garage mechanic just because he asked you. So, have your goals in dating, and respect them!

You sound very clear that you don’t want to move back to Iran to live. So, what’s keeping you from honoring that value? That’s really what your question here is about. You know what you want, but this guy is not offering it. And still, you can’t quite let go.

I think you’ve got a deal breaker on your hands, only I’m surmising you’re so anxious to get married that you’re willing to gamble on the wrong guy with the wrong life plan, just to get an Mrs degree, which obviously isn’t something you can get independently! 😉

You need to start valuing yourself when it comes to men. You could be a wonderful partner and wife to many, many men — who want the same things in life that you do — but you have to find them. If you choose men who are incompatible with you (and it sounds like you two are now incompatible because of your disagreement on what country to live in), then you are going to waste your time. Again. 🙁 You have to be able to find “No” in your vocabulary, and if a man isn’t compatible with you, then honor yourself (and him!) and stop dating him. You’re wasting your time, and his.

Dating smart means playing the field until you feel committed to someone. You have to date lots of men to find the one who is compatible with you, and you need to use the dating process to learn who you are, and who your date is, and discern whether or not the two of you are a compatible match. I have a feeling you haven’t been dating smart up to now, in spite of all your education. 😉

My advice with this current boyfriend is that you’ll have to let him go and start dating other people because he’s adamant about living in a country you don’t want to live in. Don’t waste any more of your time — especially since you admit a history of wasting your time with men who end up being Mr. Wrong times 4!

When you’re dating, if you feel like someone isn’t compatible with you, end the relationship. Rejection is really everyone’s friend because it means someone in the relationship has realized there is no future together, and is stopping the clock from wasting either of your time.

I hope this helps. Please let me know how things go.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I hope that things work out for you and your new boyfriend. And if not — I’m happy to answer any questions you may have, here.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Sounds like you don’t really have a question after all!

But…I want to caution you about internet dating. I would NEVER suggest you go to a boy’s home that you just met on the internet. 😕 While your experience, so far, has been good, the reality is that there are a lot of creeps out there, and you can’t assume that you know someone you’ve only met over the internet — especially for such a short time as you and this boy seem to have.

My suggestion for the future is that you meet at a mutually agreed on public place like a coffee shop or a movie theatre or somewhere else that you might be safe….just in case this guy you’ve never met before and that your friends and family don’t know, turns out to be a creep.

And always tell someone where you’re going to be if you’re on a first date with someone you don’t know except for the internet. I know your mom drove you to his house, and that’s a good thing because she knows where you are and where he lives. But for future, date safe! 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Welcome!

And since you’re new, please note that all hello and welcome info goes in the Welcome Forum, and any questions you may have or that you read and want to chime in on, go in the Q & A forum, here.

Glad to have you with us! 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You haven’t told me how old your child is, so when you write that you haven’t had sex since the birth of your child, I don’t know if it’s 6 weeks or 6 years.

In general, your loss of a sex life with your girlfriend is something that needs attention now. While you’re addressing your job loss and taking care of business in the work place. The longer this lack of sex lingers, the harder it is to get back on track, but it’s important that you do get back on track.

Having children can take sexual impulses away from new mothers. It’s probably something Darwinian to protect the species, but you have to protect your relationship! So, let’s ask Darwin to take a back seat at this point. 🙂 The only reason I want to bring this up is so that you understand what your girlfriend may be going through. Physically, her hormones are probably out of whack from the delivery. She may be depressed, as in post partum depression, and that can lead to low sex drive. If she’s nursing the baby, she may also feel a lack of sexual interest because, again, her hormones are working to make her a baby nurturing machine. So if your wife is in any of these stages, let me know.

But if that’s not the case, and the child is six months old or more, I think you’re just in a rut that you need to get out of. You have to start to romance your wife. Sexual impulses in women are different than in men. They often start in women’s heads, and then work their way down the body! 😉 So get a babysitter (I know money is tight with your job loss, but a family member or a neighbor would be willing to gift you a few hours, I’m sure.) and take your wife out of the house, to a nice dinner or a picnic and start building the bridge to liking each other again, as man and woman, not just mother and father.

Tell her that you miss her, sexually, and you think she is still just as hot as the day you met — in fact hotter, because she’s given you a child. Tell her that you desire her, and that you’d really like to get back to having a relationship in the bedroom again.

Don’t push too much because if she’s not feeling sexual, and she’s feeling uncomfortable about her body changes, which are natural, she may get defensive. But definitely make the loss of your sex life a relationship issue, not just your personal issue.

Don’t expect a switch to flip and your sex life to get hot like a match was lit, but do start a campaign, where you tell her how great she looks, give her a wolf whistle and a leer more often than not. Start to seduce her without the bedroom being the goal, each time.

In other words, don’t give up. It’s great that you have sexual feelings about her. Now act on them, but making them known, and making her realize that you’re not going to give up on what is one of the most vital parts of any adult relationship — a sex life. 🙂

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Before I answer your question, I want to comment on something you wrote that appears to me as a flashing yellow light. “I did my best to be honest and tell my boyfriend about my concerns [b][i]without hurting his feelings[/i][/b]…”

Warning! Warning! Being honest in an intimate relationship, means that sometimes you’re going to hurt the other person’s feelings, and it’s more important that you be honest and hurt their feelings, at this stage of intimacy, than that you hold back your true thoughts in order to protect that person. Your boyfriend is not your child. He can take it — whatever it is you’re feeling. If you start treating him like a child and trying to “protect” him from your feelings, you’re going to start a dynamic where you act like the parent, and he gets to be the kid. Bad idea! 👿 Especially since marriage and a future together is on your plate. If he can’t take your feelings, then he’s the wrong guy, and if you can’t tell him your feelings, you’ve got a problem.

Ironically, when you do take a risk and tell someone with whom you’re intimate, how you REALLY feel, you can bring the relationship into an exponentially deeper level of love, trust and romance. These are called breakthroughs in a relationship. When risky truths are revealed, and the admissions invoke a greater level of trust and respect. So, take the risk. Your boyfriend can deal with it, from what you’ve told me about him. Can you? ❓ ❓

Now, for your question: There’s a little saying that you may be familiar with: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. That’s what you’re describing when you tell me that you feel more romantic sometimes, when he’s away, than when he’s with you. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s normal. In fact, it goes hand and hand with your original feelings that your last boyfriend, who was a long distance relationship, felt more passionate than this one which is more realistic and face to face. Listen. Day to day life isn’t that glamorous. Movies, novels and the media all capitalize on lust and “swept away” feelings of love, and those moments in real life do occur. But they’re MOMENTS! You can’t build a future on those dozen moments you may have over the course of years.

Marriage, family and any long term committed relationship is down and dirty, gritty and sometimes ugly, and also beautiful, romantic, lust-filled, and emotional in different proportions depending on where you are in life (teenager, young adult, thirty-something, middle aged, senior, parent, divorcee, serial dater, monogamist who can’t get a commitment, etc.). When people are in marriages and other such relationships, they work to get those romantic feelings you have when your boyfriend is away, back into their lives, because they miss those feelings. Everyone goes through this — even movie stars and tabloid princesses!

Spending time away from each other within a committed relationship is a wonderful tool for getting the romance back. Whether it’s a day apart, a weekend apart, a week apart — whatever it is that works for your relationship, employ it! Keeping the allure and the sex appeal in your own life with a committed relationship means doing just this. Giving yourself some secrets and surprising him with romantic dinners, sexy, new lingerie, a weekend away — all these are catalysts for romance.

I’ve gotten so many letters from men and women wanting to put sparks back in their relationships, where they love their spouses or partners, but want to get some of that passion back. This book was my response to these readers [url]https://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/romantic-date-ideas.html[/url]. Check it out if you feel compelled.

You’re asking all the right questions, and I hope I’ve been helpful!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Yup. You’re broken up. I’m sorry to confirm what I’m quite sure you already know. Sadly, she’s not very graceful with her relationship moves! To say the least. Breaking up the way she is doing is really cowardly. Everyone deserves a face to face, “I’m sorry, this isn’t working out for me.” Or at least a phone call break up. I mean, text message break ups are really bad manners, and the Sex and The City “post it” break up episode gave lovers all over the world a new low in break up methods. But to just avoid you for 3 weeks, is really rotten and bad character.

The good news in this break up is that you deserve WAY BETTER!! 🙂 While it hurts when people show their true colors, and their true colors aren’t so pretty, it’s a gift so that YOU don’t have to waste any more time with someone who’s not going to be your Ms. Right.

So know that you deserve better than this, and you are better than this, and go out there and meet someone new who’s got manners and courage, as well as everything else you’re looking for in a woman.

Halloween is a great date night, so start looking for someone to take out on Halloween. 🙂

— OH, and next time you write me, please post your relationship questions in the Q&A forum!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Surrender is the sweetest loss. 😉

[April Masini, your AskApril]

This isn’t about this guy wanting to get into your pants. This is about you being new to dating. That’s all. He didn’t do anything wrong. He just wasn’t ready for or interested in someone who had “rules” like yours that were different than his. So take a breath and relax. It’s all going to be okay.

First of all, if you had 5 or 6 dates and then slept with him, I can tell you that he did like you a lot, and that you were in a relationship, contrary to your thinking you slept with him before you were in a relationship. There was nothing wrong with your sleeping with him at that time — normally. But as you’ve admitted, this was only the second guy you’ve slept with, so you don’t quite have a “normally” yet. 🙂 There was no reason for you to freak out, except that somehow in your head, you did something wrong. You didn’t.

When you left him at 8:30 a.m. the next day, that was okay, too. But when you told him that you didn’t want to appear clingy, and that was why you left, [i]that[/i] was a mistake. 🙁 What you were basically telling him was that in spite of your feelings, your [i]appearance[/i] to him is more important. Look, it’s okay to not want to appear clingy, but the way to do it is to smile, kiss him passionately at the door, and tell him what a great night it was, what an incredible lover he was, and that you’ve got some things to take care of today. Then flash him a giant smile as you leave. That would have given the appearance of not being clingy, but when you tell him your game plan, he realizes you’ve got an agenda and you’re spilling your hand, and not playing it well.

When he cancelled his next date with you because he had food poisoning, it was really wrong of you to tell him you disbelieved him. If he did have food poisoning, you wind up looking like someone who doesn’t care about him. If he didn’t have food poisoning, then you would have been wiser to take the hint that he didn’t want to see you again, and move on without creating drama by telling him your feelings about his text.

That was the end of things in his mind. And you probably knew it, subconsciously, and started to chase him after that. BIG MISTAKE. You must never chase guys — EVER. You can see for yourself how that works out! Men want to be the ones to do the chasing, so if something is going right or if something is going wrong, let him be the one to ask you out and contact you.

So, at this point, I think your relationship with this guy is over. You can try and shirk responsibility for being dumped by rationalizing that he just wanted to get into your pants, but my advice is to accept your responsibility for the break up, and learn from it. You’re in the very beginning of your dating life! If you take what you learned and apply it, your next boyfriend will be more compatible because you won’t be so neurotic about the relationship. Sorry — but it’s true.

You’d be wise to get my book, Think & Date Like A Man, at this link[url]https://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/think-and-date-like-a-man.html[/url], and read it this weekend. It’s a step by step guide on dating for women with the thrust at getting the guy you want. Because you’re new to dating, and want to be good at it, this book will really help you a lot!

Anyway, I’m sorry that this relationship is over. For now. This guy isn’t committed to you enough to want to work through things with you, and that’s good to know. It’s much better to get the truth about people sooner rather than later. He doesn’t like you as much as you like him. And, it may be that he’s looking for someone who’s more at his level of experience when it comes to dating, and isn’t willing to compromise. Or, it may be that he’s had enough of you and wants to look elsewhere. Regardless, you’re out of moves.

Let this guy go, and be glad that it’s only been half a dozen or so dates and not half a dozen or so months before you got to this point with him. Make this fall and winter your best dating season ever! Starting today. 😀

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Yes, you are being unreasonable. Your boyfriend is being a good father, and a good person by seeing his son every weekend — especially after being barred by the child’s mother from seeing the boy for 3 years. I’m sorry you don’t feel proud of this man, rather than resentful of the child. 🙁 This poor kid had no father in his life for three years, and now he’s got two mothers, if he’s only confused when he grows up, he’s way ahead of his game! The fact that your boyfriend wants to be part of his son’s life (not to mention supporting the boy’s medical therapy with pediatric kidney disease), then he’s truly a good man. And while you state that relationships are about compromise, and that is true, when you date a man with children, and the children are young, especially, the kids have to come first. YOU are the one who should be doing the compromising in this situation, not the boy, who would be seeing 50% less of his dad, if you have your way.

However….this isn’t about your boyfriend. It’s about you. Your honesty about the boy will help you in the long run. Here’s why. It’s very clear that you should not date a man who has children, or wants them. I mean, think about your future with a child or two, and remember that often, at different times in their lives, kids like their father more than their mothers. It’s natural and normal (and sometimes it goes the other way around, too). If you are going to be jealous of your future children wanting their daddy and not mommy, then, seriously, you shouldn’t have the kids. And I hate to break it to you, but this little boy is going to be way less of a daddy’s child than any baby girl that may come into your life, who will become a teenage girl, who can be brutal on the woman in dad’s life. So, if you can’t handle this situation, you’re in for a very rocky road with kids in your life.

You don’t have to look at this as a weakness. In fact, I’d encourage you to look at this as a strength. Not everyone should have children, and if you know now, that you’re just not really willing to make compromises that benefit children in your life, and that you’re much happier if you’re the only one who gets your man’s attention, then honor that! I’m not going to ding you for being honest, if you respect what it is you know about yourself. I’m going to encourage you to respect it, too.

So, break up with this guy — you’re the wrong woman for he and his child, and he’s the wrong man for you since he’s a parent. When you date, you should only date men who don’t want kids, or can’t have kids and don’t want to adopt. Oh, and make SURE you use birth control that is fail safe!

Remember that dating is often a way to find out who YOU are, and what you want from a man in your life. You’ve done that in an important way here by realizing you don’t want a man with children, so that’s something good that will come from this relationship and it’s subsequent break up. Now, date smart, and use that information so that next boyfriend is more compatible.

Good luck! 😀

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