1. IS IT RIGHT TO STAY WITH SOMEONE EVEN WHEN YOU KNOW INSIDE SHE’S NOT THE RIGHT ONE FOR YOU?
I’m in a terrible situation. I’ve been living with a wonderful woman for two years, and I know she is madly in love with me, and wants to get married, but I don’t feel the same way. I love her, and we have a great time together, but I‘ve always known she’s not "the one" I want to spend the rest of my life with. I don’t want to hurt her by telling her this, and it seems so foolish to break up when we are doing so well. What’s the right thing for me to do?
Let me get this straight--you are living with a woman who’s crazy about you, but you know she’s not enough for you, so you continue to lead her on and give her hope by staying when you secretly long to leave...and you call this "doing so well"? Maybe you’re doing well, but she’s doing terribly, or at least she would be if she knew that the man she adores doesn’t feel the same way about her. I know you claim you don’t want to hurt her, but the truth is that every minute you steal from her life is hurting her; every moment when she lies next to you, believing she is safe and secure in your love is hurting her; every time you selfishly decide to stay one more week or year since you’re enjoying yourself, knowing that you’re staying on false pretenses, you’re hurting her.
This woman wants the same thing most women want: to find a partner she can trust to love, honor and cherish her, and to live with that person happily and faithfully for the rest of her life. Believe me, your girlfriend never secretly dreamt that , one day, she’d meet a man who would mislead her into believing she’d finally found her soul mate, only to discover after several years that he’d known all along she wasn’t "the one", but never got around to telling her. That is every woman’s nightmare, not every woman’s fantasy.
You say "it seems foolish to break up". Let me ask you: foolish to whom? To you? Why should you give up a comfortable situation before you have to? Is that what you consider foolish? Do you think if your girlfriend knew how you felt, she would agree that it would be "foolish" to end the relationship? I’ll bet that she would have other, less polite words to say to you, and that the only time she’d use the word "foolish" would be in describing how she felt living with a man for two years, yet never suspecting that he had no intentions of ever marrying her.
If this answer sounds harsh, it is intended to be. Would you want someone to do this same thing to you? I think not. So do what is right and honorable. Tell her the truth, now, and leave. Sorry...there’s no way to leave and have her not feel angry and betrayed. That’s your karma. And don’t delude yourself into believing that by staying, you will avoid hurting her. First of all, not hurting her has never been your motivation for being there; fulfilling your own, selfish needs has been your true agenda. And second, know that she will one day tell people that "the nicest thing he ever did for me was to walk out the door." Please, take some time to examine your own heart and soul before you get involved with another woman.
2. SHOULD A COUPLE LIVE TOGETHER BEFORE MARRIAGE?
My girlfriend and I have been dating for a few years, and are starting to talk seriously about our future. She wants to get married right away, but I still have some doubts and fears about the relationship. I've suggested living together as a next step, but she's afraid it will somehow ruin things between us. What's your opinion of a couple living together before marriage?
In the past few decades, millions of couples of all ages have chosen to live together, either as a prelude to marriage, or in place of marriage. (NOTE: If you have strong judgments about living together due to your religious or moral beliefs, please understand that I'm looking at this issue purely from a psychological point of view, and skip this question if you wish.) I feel it's important to understand both the positive and negative consequences of living with someone you love.
The Case For Living Together:
There is a part of me that feels, after having seen so many dysfunctional and incompatible relationships over the years, all couples should live together before deciding to get married. I wonder how many unhealthy relationships would have ended if the two partners had tried being together twenty-four hours a day, and thus had come face to face with the issues they were avoiding by seeing each other only on week-ends or a few nights a week.
Here are some of the benefits of living together:
1. You discover sides of your partner's personality you cannot know about unless you live together. There is no way you can get to know a person whom you see intermittently as well as if you lived together. It's a lot easier for someone to be on his best behavior for three hours during a date than it is for him to maintain that behavior day after day when you live under the same roof. When you live with someone, you uncover habits, attitudes and behaviors you never see otherwise. You see him in his natural habitat, his home, and thus become exposed to sides of his personality he may be hiding from you when he is outside in the world. You see him when he is tired, when he is sick, when he is angry, when he is frustrated, and when he is grumpy. Living together requires a sharing of power and control; it demands compromise and flexibility from both partners. You get exposure to the full range of his emotional reactions.
I've heard so many nightmare stories about people marrying their partner and moving in together, only to discover things about their mate that are unacceptable. Marriage is tough enough without any unpleasant surprises.
2. You discover more about whether or not your lifestyles are truly compatible. Some men make great lovers in a romantic affair, but lousy husbands. Some women are fantastic part-time companions, but terrible full time wives. You may enjoy loving someone, but hate living with him. The qualities that encourage you to fall in love with someone and have a great time seeing him may not be enough to create day to day harmony once you move in together. You may find out your partner's lifestyle doesn't fit with yours, something you'd never know about unless you shared the same living space over a long period of time.
3. You discover how capable your partner is of true partnership. Living together requires a sharing of power and control; it demands compromise and flexibility from both partners since you are merging the habits and desires of two unique individuals. You may not find out how willing or capable your mate is of true partnership until you commit to living together. Only when you have to make decisions together about finances, food, household responsibilities, acquisitions , etc. do you truly discover what kind of team player your partner is.
The Case Against Living Together:
1. You can destroy the relationship by expecting too much from it when it's still developing. Although I personally feel living together with a mate can be a valuable experience at a certain stage of the relationship, I also feel that living together prematurely is a big mistake. I've counseled too many couples who moved in together for the wrong reasons:
- To save money
- Because one had a nicer place
- So they could spend more time together
- Because one partner was afraid of losing the other
Living together before your relationship has reached a significant level of commitment, maturity and emotional stability can actually speed up the disintegration of the relationship. If your relationship isn't ready to handle the pressures of living together, it might fall apart under the strain that living together prematurely brings.
2. You can become emotionally lazy. If moving in with someone feels like a goal to you, and you live together before you're ready, you risk becoming emotionally lazy in the relationship. You may avoid conflict in order to keep the peace, especially if you haven't learned to work through conflict together. You may give your partner less attention and appreciation since he or she is there all the time, or neglect the relationship in other ways.
3. You can avoid furthering your commitment to one another. You may have heard the saying "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" I think it was used by many of our mothers in their attempt to convince us that boys wouldn't marry us if we had sex with them, since they were already getting what they wanted. I've heard this same argument about living together--that if a man is living with you and enjoying the benefits of domestic life, he has no reason to ask you to marry him. I have to agree that in some cases, not all, this may be true, especially if you haven't known one another for a good length of time. Some commitment phobic men (or women) might hide behind living together in order to still experience the intimacy they crave, but also to avoid making the final commitment of marriage.
I don't believe the solution is to refuse to move in with someone unless you are engaged or married, unless that feels right to you. If you are considering living with someone, but want the formal structure of marriage somewhere down the road, you need to discuss all of this before you actually move in together in order to avoid any misunderstandings. You may want to come up with a time projection, nine months or a year, for instance, at which point you will reevaluate your relationship and decide whether or not you feel ready to marry.
3. HOW LONG SHOULD YOU WAIT FOR A PARTNER TO MAKE A COMMITMENT?
I am so frustrated that I don't know what to do. I've been living with my partner for seven years, and he still claims he isn't ready to get married to me. I know he loves me, but when I confront him about our future, he tells me he’s not ready and needs more time. How long should I be expected to wait for him to make up his mind? I'm thirty seven years old, and not getting any younger!!
I understand your frustration. You are at that point in a long term relationship where you and your partner either need to deepen your commitment to one another, or go your separate ways. A relationship needs to grow in order to last, and commitment gives a relationship purpose, direction and creates a level of safety that, ultimately, brings both partners true emotional freedom. You know that, and I know that. So what’s going on with your boyfriend?
Rather than blaming your mate for "stalling", let’s try to understand where he is coming from. Your boyfriend is telling the truth when he says he's not ready to make a commitment. The question you need to ask yourself and him is "Why aren't you ready?" If he doesn't know the reasons he's resisting becoming more involved, he can't do anything to improve or heal the situation. His saying "I don't know what it is" or "I’m working on it" shouldn't be acceptable answers for either of you.
See, for some people "I’m working on it" means "I'll tell you I'm working on it to get you off my back and buy some time because I have no clue what I’m feeling." For others it might mean he is seriously examining his Emotional Programming in order to understand his fear of commitment. You need to ask your partner what he means by "I'm working on it." Ask him HOW he is working on it. Is he going to therapy, reading books, attending a men's group, talking to other married men? WHAT SPECIFIC CONCRETE ACTION IS HE TAKING TO WORK ON IT? What is his goal regarding a time by which he’d like to be clear? A few months? Another year? What is acceptable to you.
There's nothing wrong with a person confronting his fears of intimacy. In fact, it's healthier and more honest than someone who blindly throws himself into a relationship, and then later, puts up the emotional walls. I actually feel that a man who says "I’m not ready" might be behaving with incredible honor and respect for you--he doesn’t want to propose until he feels right in every part of his being. The problem develops when he’s not sure how to get more clear. Maybe he’s waiting to wake up one day, and find that all his fear has disappeared, but it doesn’t usually happen that way. Fears of commitment come from somewhere, and unless they are examined directly, they may linger forever. They usually involve fear of choosing the wrong partner, fear of turning out like our parents, fear of being hurt, and fear of the unknown. All of these fears can be resolved by doing some emotional work.
Here’s a possibility you need to consider: Sometimes men are afraid to bring up their fears of commitment because the woman in their life seems so sure, and he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. It might help to share your own fears about getting married with your boyfriend , so he knows he isn’t alone. Perhaps he’s been afraid to hurt your feelings by voicing fears like "What if we lose our attraction to one another?". However, if you share your own concern about that issue, and let him know, for example, that you hope to work together with him to make sure to always keep the passion alive, he may find his fear rapidly dissolving.
The following is a powerful exercise I’ve given to many individuals who have commitment fears. You can suggest that your boyfriend try this --it might help him get in touch with his own feelings about marriage. The exercise has two parts. He can do this out loud with you, or privately with paper and pen:
1. I'll be ready to get married when__________.
This is a fill in the blank exercise. The person taking it should repeat the exercise at least ten times. Example:
Example: I'll be ready to get married when ....
- I own my own home
- I have $50,000 in the bank
- I'm thirty years old
- I never feel turned off by my partner
- I see an example of a happy marriage
2. I’m afraid if we got married __________
Example:
- You’d leave me like my mother left my father
- I’d feel trapped forever
- I’d never have fun anymore
- I would lose my freedom to have time by myself
- We’d end up miserable like my parents
Sometimes this exercise reveals issues a person didn’t realize were contributing to his fear of marriage. Identifying the fears is always the first step towards healing them. Share my advice with your boyfriend. Hopefully he will feel understood, and be willing to work through his fear with you, so you can both go forward to experiencing more love in your lives.
4. IS THERE SUCH A THING AS FALLING IN LOVE TOO QUICKLY? WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF A PERSON EXPERIENCES THIS OFTEN?
I’m madly in love with my boyfriend, and we’re talking about getting married. My friends think I’m crazy, since we’ve only known each other for about six weeks, but our relationship is perfect! The only thing that makes me a little nervous is that in the past, I have been engaged or lived with two other men, both within the first three months of meeting them. Am I falling in love too fast? How do I slow down?
You are a bona fide "Love-at-first-sight Junkie" !! You are addicted to falling in love, and the instant high it gives you, especially in the beginning of the relationship. Love-at-first-sight junkies are in love with love, and it doesn’t usually take much for you to feel it. Once you get hooked on a new partner, your mental faculties seem to all but disappear, and you say things like "our relationship is perfect" when the truth is, you hardly know the person. And that’s the point. You don’t really want to know him, because if you did, you’d have to take him off of his pedestal and see him as a flawed human being, and that would ruin your fantasy.
I wouldn’t even call what you’re doing ‘falling in love’. It may be more like "falling in lust", or an infatuation with who you think the other person is. You are so commitment hungry that you are looking for a commitment rather than looking for a good relationship. True, some people do know the moment they meet their partner that it is right, but in your case, you’ve made a profession of instant love affairs, so I am pretty sure this isn’t the real thing. And the problem is that once the relationship does become more real, and you are forced to deal with all of the challenges every couple faces, you become disenchanted, feel like you’ve "fallen out of love", and break it off, right?
There are two issues you need to deal with. First, why you keep doing this, and second what to do about your present situation. Let’s talk about the why. "Love-at-first-sight junkies " are usually people with very wounded hearts. I know--I used to be one. When you were small, you probably did not have the loving family you wanted, and in some way felt rejected, abandoned or not good enough. You grow up with this huge, unfulfilled desire to belong, to have someone, anyone , there for you, to fill the emptiness you’ve carried inside you for as long as you can remember. And it doesn’t take much to fill this order. A person comes along, usually someone who is also desperate to feel wanted, and you latch onto each other like two drowning sailors who just discovered a plank of wood floating in the ocean.
If you ever want to have a truly healthy and lasting relationship, and I know you do, you are going to have to face the demon you’ve run from your whole life: your pain. You’re in need of intense emotional healing work. Stop hiding behind your infatuations, and find the courage to look within. There you will find the answers to all your questions and, ultimately, the love you’ve been seeking.
Now , about your boyfriend. You don’t necessarily have to break up with him. Hopefully, you can both do this emotional work together, and actually begin to create a real relationship. But whatever you do, do not live together and do not get married. Don’t even talk about it. Slow down. Date each other, and get to know yourself, as well as the other person. Day by day, week by week, your relationship will grow, slowly, like a tree sprouting from a seed, planting it’s roots firmly in the soil.
5. SHOULD YOU STAY WITH SOMEONE WHO ISN'T OVER HIS EX PARTNER?
My boyfriend is driving me crazy! We've been going out for five months, but he still isn't over his ex-girlfriend. I know they talk on the phone a lot, and last week he took her out for her birthday "just as a friend" because , in his words, "I didn't want her to spend the day alone--she's feeling really vulnerable." When I confront him on this, he accuses me of being possessive and insensitive. Should I just ignore this and hope it goes away?
Do you really think if you ignore this problem, it’s going to go away? It won’t, and you know it. You are in a relationship with someone who is still emotionally attached to his former lover. This is one of the major Fatal Flaws I warn people to look out for when choosing a new mate. It’s obvious that your boyfriend hasn’t let go of his past relationship. He has all of the classic signs: staying in touch because he is "worried about her"; not setting up proper boundaries with her regarding his new relationship with you; making his concern for her feelings more important than his concern for yours.
You’re in what’s called a "triangle" relationship, because there are actually three people involved together. Even when he isn’t talking with her, you can feel her presence, can’t you? His feelings for her are undoubtedly preventing him from totally surrendering to his relationship with you. It may not be that he actually wants to go back to her--he just might be a rescuer who is having a difficult time letting go of someone without feeling tremendously guilty.
Maybe his Dad left his Mom, and therefore, he has an awful time leaving anyone or anything without feeling like the " bad guy."
Sure, your boyfriend is defensive about his behavior when you confront him, because he doesn’t want to confront it himself. Don’t wait for him to wake up and get it. Get out....at least for awhile. Let him know that you have come to the conclusion that he hasn’t fully detached emotionally from his former girlfriend, and therefore, isn’t ready to be in a committed relationship with anyone else. Tell him how much you care about him, but that you also care about yourself too much to be involved with him right now. Encourage him to take time to decide if he wants to go back with her or not, and invite him to contact you if he is truly ready to love you. Who knows? Your frank discussion may cause him to take a good look at the situation, and he might make a big breakthrough and call you in a few days ready to go forward 100%. Or you may never hear from him again! Whatever happens, you will have honored your own needs and feelings, and will win in the end.
6. SHOULD YOU WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE 100% SURE THAT SOMEONE IS RIGHT FOR YOU BEFORE YOU MAKE A LIFELONG COMMITMENT?
My partner and I have been together for four years, and are talking about getting married. We have a very loving relationship, and are best friends, but we both want to be really sure before we get engaged. The problem is that there are moments when she does something that annoys me, and I wonder whether I’m making a mistake, and she admits she has occasional doubts too. Her parents were divorced, and mine had a loveless marriage, so we really want to be careful. Should we wait until we are one hundred percent sure all the time before we make a commitment?
If you were sure one hundred percent of the time that your relationship was perfect, with no moments when you became annoyed or upset, I would dub both you and your partner saints!! It is natural to have doubts, especially when both of your parents had dysfunctional relationships, and when we live in a society with such a high divorce rate. And as any happily married couple can tell you, even after you commit totally, there will be moments when you are so upset with your partner that you think to yourself, "I knew it--I made a mistake." Fortunately, those moments pass and are replaced with the love and friendship that is the foundation of the relationship.
>My point is this: I don’t believe that in our uncertain world, we are ever 100% certain 100% of the time about anything. None of us know what the future holds, and if we think seriously about this, it may be difficult for me to make a commitment to marriage, if we believe that means we are promising someone how we will feel at a future date. "What if in twenty years, my husband and I have grown apart because he stops loving me?" you think to yourself. "How can I be sure that won’t happen?" The answer is that you can’t--you can only both do the best you can to make sure your relationship stays healthy and passionate.
I hear your concern about making a mistake, and wanting some kind of ultimate reassurance that you are indeed doing the right thing. It's as if you would like God to come down and say, "Hi there. Listen, I know you've been wondering whether you should marry your boyfriend or not. Let me reassure you that he is indeed the one I had in mind for you, so trust me, you're not making a mistake. Feel better now? Good. Gotta run. Lots to do in heaven. Bye-bye." Whew! Now that God told you you’re making the right choice, you can relax.
Unfortunately, we don't get that kind of supreme reassurance about our love choices. Talk about every issue you need to discuss, and if you feel confident that you are right for one another, don’t allow those tiny doubts that pop up once in a while keep you from taking a leap into your future together. (Obviously, more than a little doubt may be a warning sign from your heart that you are not making the right choice, as we’ve discussed earlier.) And guess what? There will be a surprise waiting for you when you do make that commitment to spend your life together--just the act of committing alone will have magically erased all kinds of small concerns you had, and you’ll find yourselves more in love than ever!
