Dear Miss U,
I’ll try to make this short. LDR 4 years, I had a few health problems and couldn’t move right away. He was wonderful ad we were very much in love. We encouraged each other in many ways. He wanted to attend school, I had his back and vice versa.
Went out with his brother got a DUI, couldn’t travel for a year became very depressed including not speaking to his mom. Broke up with me and I find out that he jumped into a relationship and got her pregnant within 6 mo. Mother was extremely upset because she never knew about this person. He says he was afraid what this was going to do to his life. I support him in being a great dad and he asked for my forgiveness….I forgave him at that very moment. He moved in with rebound says he wants to try to do what’s right. Later I find out she broke as a joke living in a one bedroom with an 8 year old kid (by a married man). We never stopped talking and we continued to Skype for a while. Fast forward, I moved to his city which was always the plan for us and medical care for me. I’ve spoken w/him about 2 months after arriving here (haven’t spoken in 3 months). He was so happy to hear from me and his voice was so sweet. He wanted me to call him the entire day he was at work. I missed him and told him so. Well we ran into each other the day they were bringing the baby home from the hospital. He came right over to my car right in front of her. Uuuugggggg she’s gross. Can I get my man back? Here 8 months now. No joy in his eyes.
~ Missing my man
Dear MMM,
You probably can “get him back” but for the life of me I can’t figure out why you would want to. There is nothing here that indicates a shred of date-ability to me. He is a man in his middle years who is so irresponsible he gets behind the wheel drunk and then instead of accepting responsibility for that and moving on uses the mistake as an excuse not to travel. And it is an excuse. There’s this thing called public transport. Failing that, I’m sure he knows someone who could have given him a ride at least once during that year –because if you’re not in driving distance you probably are in flying distance. There is always a way, and I don’t believe for a second that a working man of middle years couldn’t have found one if he truly wanted to.
If that alone wasn’t enough; in the twenty or more years he’s been sexually active the common sense of using protection when you have sex didn’t sink into his brain, and now he has a baby to care for. He states he is going to “do what’s right” and he sticks by this woman, but somehow his version of “right” doesn’t exclude slandering his partner behind her back and leading on his ex.
And that’s what you are hon, his ex. Yes, this other woman might be poor – I’m not sure when exactly that became something to be disgusted by – and her son might have been the product of an affair with a married man eight years ago (You’ve never made a mistake and lusted after someone else’s man, I’m sure) but where in that do you gain the right to slander her? You might think she’s gross, but he obviously thought she was attractive enough to warm his bed. You might believe he is unhappy, and he very well might be, but he is not yours – you cannot own another human – and his happiness is not your responsibility. I think you need to work on your misplaced anger. This is not entirely her fault, he makes his own choices or mistakes. This man is either a fool, or he’s playing you for one and I urge you to see that and move on.
Move on, because he already has.
Dear Miss U,
I have been talking to this guy for almost a year now. He lives in India and I in America, him being only seventeen and myself sixteen. Because we’re so young and there’s nothing we can do about the distance as of now, we haven’t put a label on our relationship because it would be as if we’re putting our lives on hold until we can meet, which might not happen till a few more years. He always gets insanely jealous when I talk about a guy friend, so I try hard not to. But as of late, he won’t stop talking about other girls, whether friends or flirting acquaintances. We have fought a few times over this subject. Of course, because we love each other, we always make up, but the situation still remains unresolved. Every weekend, he loses all connection with me, never replying to my messages or video calls. It’s strange because during the week, he answers right away, or initiates it himself, dedicating all of his attention and time to me. I understand he has a life outside of talking to me, but really, this is just getting strange. So today, when he tried to talk to me after ignoring me all weekend, his excuse was, “I was busy this weekend and I don’t like replying to you when I’m busy because I want to make sure you have all of my attention.” Which would make sense if he hadn’t told me on many other countless occasions that I always come first. He later admitted he was flirting with many girls. Do I let this slide because he swears it’s innocent or do I demand commitment?
~ So Confused
Dear SC,
In your letter you have given good reason for why you have not defined this relationship and it is my belief that if you force a commitment now it will only lead to the end of this romance later.
If you’re supposed to be together, if your love for each other is the kind to go the distance, what happens between now and when you meet in person will scarcely matter. I dated long distance at your age, international, just like you. We didn’t commit. Back then it was an alien concept to be in a relationship with someone you’d never met. People didn’t do that.
This boy and I would flirt, and far more. We were a couple, but we didn’t realize it. Didn’t call it what it was. At the same time, he dated other girls, local girls, and when he would commit to them he would scale back our relationship. The flirting and intimate activities would stop. We would be best friends, I would help him as much as I could, giving advice for his relationships when he needed it because above and beyond anything else I wanted him to be happy. But none of those relationships lasted. Years later he confessed to me that try as he might, he could never give his heart to someone else, because I already had it.
The good of this was he learned what he did and didn’t want in a relationship, and as we had full disclosure I too learned what he needed and was able to aspire toward that.
Looking back, my only regret is that I didn’t date around as much as he did. I was so afraid to lose him and so scared of how others might judge me that I spent most of those years waiting and turned down many harmless opportunities.
As I said, I wouldn’t go demanding commitment, but I would bring this subject up and talk about it. I suppose, if you needed a label for it you could call it an open relationship. Make some guidelines that you are both happy with. For example, he seems to want to talk about what happens with other girls, let him know how much you want to know about his encounters, if anything. He also needs to know that the rules have to be fair, he can not expect you to wait for him if he is not also waiting.
Go be young, flirt with some people and relish the attention. Enjoy your freedom, but maintain this unique friendship the two of you have. Don’t pause your lives to wait for each other. Stay in contact so that when the time comes that you’re both ready for something serious, when you have the means to truly be together, you can jump in without regret.
Honesty > Monogamy.
