Dear GirlShrink,

I’m 37, she’s 32… We’ve been friends now for about 5 years. When we met I had a mind to pursue her romantically but it seemed that our lives were moving away from each other so we remained friends. She married a man who didn’t love her (but she loved him very much) and is now in the process of a divorce. We’ve been spending more time together for months now and the idea of a relationship between us has been mentioned (yeah, I mentioned it).

She’s still heartbroken though and I see that very clearly so I’ve backed the pressure off her and decided to wait for her. I don’t want to be selfish as I spent much of my life that way and have learned that I’m happier when I’m pleasing someone else. I can see the life we’d have together and how happy we’d be. She has even noted how great it would be and told me that whatever happens she wants me there, with her. We’ve had very deep emotional conversations in the evening and the next day she acts like it’s never happened though….

We kissed last weekend for the first time and then I held her through the night,we didn’t have sex just barely but again, next morning she seemed less receptive to my touch and any talk about “us”. I’m about at my wits end with this though. I feel like I’m being tossed back and forth for no good reason here. I just want to be happy and see her happy as well, what can I do but wait?

Dear Waiting Patiently,

My gut reaction to your letter is that this is a classic case of someone unknowingly using a friend to get over a breakup. She probably doesn’t realize that she’s giving you hope. She’s just so heartbroken, lonely, and in need of validation that she probably loves having you around (not to mention that you are a friend).

My advice for you is that if you decide to wait for this woman, you should not put all your eggs in one basket. Try to date other people. Get out and do other things. Don’t fixate on her. Let her see what a great person you are, great friend, great confidant — but also let her see that you have a life and that you are a great catch. She has to be able to see that on her own and make her own decision on whether or not she is going to take action with you. You pressing the issue will not help.

Know though that if you do wait, it could be a long time and if she’s not the smartest cookie and always seeks emotionally unavailable men (like her ex) then you may be waiting forever!

Dear GirlShrink,
I really need help with this boy. We have loved each other forever and he cheated on me before and we have a lot of history. We forgave and forget but my parents wont let him back into my life but they don’t realize how much he means to me. Please help.

Dear Friend,
There are lots of couples who stay in each others lives because of all the “history” that they share, but is that really reason enough for you to stay in your relationship? As far as your parents not understanding, this really all stems from the fact that your parents want to protect you AND they know that this guy has hurt you. It’s only normal for them to want to save you from someone who they feel isn’t too good for you. Ask your parents if it’s okay for your friend to earn back their trust (and yours!). Framed in that way, your parents may feel better about giving him a second chance.

Dear GirlShrink,

About two months ago I met someone online on a sugar daddy website. It was the first time either of us has ever met up with anyone from the website. Lets call him Jack. Jack is 39 and very wealthy. His work causes him to travel a lot. He broke off his engagement of about a year off back in November. I am 19 and currently a student. Jack and I have only met up twice so far. Both times we went out to a very nice dinner and after we had sex. Jack is a gentlemen in all areas; during the intercourse he always pleases me first and if a position hurts he will change it to what he can tell I am comfortable with.

Though we met on a sugar daddy website. Jack and I have never made arrangements for pay or anything to make it seem like that type of arrangement. I guess it feels more like casual dating. I once asked Jack what we were doing and he replied “getting to know each other right now and seeing if we are compatible.” He texts me everyday since the first time we have talked. But sometimes he will answer right away, but a majority of the time he takes anywhere from an hour to 3 hours to reply to me. I know he is busy being away for work, but does this mean anything? I have come to develop feelings for Jack, but I am not quite sure what he is looking for and I find it awkward to ask because of how we met and also the age difference…

I was wondering if you could help me and give me some advice as to what he may want or be thinking. How should I act towards the situation? Also with the communication when we aren’t together with him taking hours to answer me. Should I not answer him right away? Do you think anything serious could ever come out of this? What is your opinion about the situation; any advice you could give me would be great.

KAY

Dear Sugar Daddy Seeker,

You need to remember why you sought companionship on this type of website in the first place and why he did too. Sugar daddy means he is looking for an “arrangement” that typically benefits him sexually and you financially. If anything more comes out of it — it’s a bonus. Do NOT look to this relationship as some sort of “real” relationship. At least not yet. As far as the texting, a 39 year old man hopefully has a job and probably some other familial responsibilities that you do not have yet and probably cannot respond to you right away. I would also venture to say that you probably text more than the average 39 year old. He’s not accustomed to using text as commonly as you do. Also — let’s be real here and say that there is always a chance that he is another relationship or that he’s even married. You just don’t know enough about him yet.

Personally, I think you guys have too much of an age difference and I would question why a 39 year old man would want to date a 19 year old. I would be cautious about this relationship and not put all my eggs into one basket. Continue to date others, especially in your age range, and take things as slowly as you can at this point.

Dear GirlShrink,

I am 18 years young, I am still a virgin. Well I am friends with this guy me and him are NOT really all that close, we are just friends well one day he decides to text me and tells me I should be more adventureous with… sex. He knew I have never done anything with a guy, but kiss.
Well to the point, he wants me to have sex with him, I mean I kinda want to, because I am 18, and I know him and I wanna get it over with. I mean it is gonna happen someday. I am stuck in the middle of what to do. Should I just go ahead and get it over with or tell him I am not interested? Please help me..

Dear Confused Virgin,

Having sex with someone is not something to do to get it over with. You will remember your first time for the rest of your life. It WILL mean something to you regardless of if it’s bad or great. Wouldn’t it be nice if your first time was something “great” to remember and not regret? This guy is not the one you should be “gifting” your body to. While I’m sure you are curious and have a lot of hormonal, sexual feelings going on, this is not the way to relive them. This is not the guy. Tell him you’re not interested and wait for the guy who is “the one”.

Dear GirlShrink,

So i have this best friend and i’m dating her twin brother, we’ve been dating off and on for the past two years . We love each other unconditionally but is it wrong ? My best friend is fine with it . She is the one who set us up but is it okay for us to be In Love ?
I spend the night with them, I hang out, and its scary how much I love him . Is this wrong? Please help (:

Dear Friend,

I’m not sure what you’re feelings of anxiety are based on. If your friend is fine with you dating her brother, then there shouldn’t be a problem. You need to ask yourself what is it about dating him is making you feel “uneasy”.

Hey GirlShrink…

I’m about to hit you with a hard situation so fasten your seatbelt…my life is a MESS. I’ve been dating a guy for a year, it may seem like a short time, but i can assure you we both feel like we’ve known each other forever. He loves me so purely and deeply, it makes me cry how true he is. I wont say i love him more, because i dont think i match up to him yet, but i love him very much. We understand each other and simply cant live without each other, its just too hard.

The problem is…my parents and his family. Im 20 years old and he is 20 as well. We as a family are pretty well-off and stable, my parents have a lot of dreams for me and they want me to marry into a wealthy and stable family so later in my life i wont have any troubles due to money. And my boyfriend’s family/ financial situation is really out of order. His financial situation is not as stable and there are many problems going on in his family. His older brother (24) is planning to move out and his parents are not as stable enough to provide for all of them. My boyfriend is very hardworking, he takes responsibility for his entire family whereas his elder brother is always out partying. He doesn’t provide for the family and simply doesnt cooperate.

Being from an indian family, we don’t expect our parents to live off their savings and we always have to provide and take care of them in our home. Thats just the way things work. My parents dont want me to marry into a family that is not going to be able to support me well and i do see where they are coming from. But i also know that if i break up with him due to financial/family reasons, i wont ever be happy. Because i just love him so much, hes my ideal guy…the way ive ever pictured one to be…he fits is pretty well.

He’s just so good that doing bad to him hurts way too much. He doesn’t smoke, doesnt drink, doesnt party too much, he’s responsible, warm-hearted, and one thing that i dont like per say, is that he is very sensitive…he cries everytime i bring something up about leaving him. He says if i leave him he’ll be single forever and he just wont let anyone take my place…I dont want you to think he’s a little girl with tears and stuff because hes a man when he needs to be but he does have a very sensitive, genuine side that i respect a lot. I love him very much, we have been far along the way with each other and we simply cant imagine it any other way.

Is love above family? Because i know if i marry him, which would happen in like 4 years…my parents will never be happy and i love them too much for them to hate me. Also my family is used to living a lavish lifestyle whereas his family is so simple…i dont think they will ever get along, and to me family means a lot, if my family is not happy…i can never be fully happy. Im in such a pickle…i dont know how to break this nice, genuine guy’s heart that i love so much, and i dont know if i want to sacrifice my everything to please my parents…What do i do?

Dear Love or Family,

As an American my first instinct is to tell you to honor whatever you want from your life and that your family just needs to deal with it, but then again I have to respect your cultural norms and how you feel about your family.

I hear that you love your family and want their approval and respect, but that you just happened to fall for the right guy in perhaps the wrong set of circumstances. OR perhaps this is a lesson for your entire family? Perhaps they will learn that seeing you happy is truly what will make them happy. I don’t know. Maybe it’s difficult for others in your family like your parents to see you in a relationship for love when that perhaps wasn’t an option for them when they were younger. Whatever the case — I think I’m going to lean on my American sensibilities and say that most of us believe that we only have once chance to live our lives. Why not live them happily? Why spend so much energy worrying about what everyone thinks as long as you realize its what make you happy?

So if you are looking to me for a solution on how to break up with him gingerly — I don’t have one. I rather you explore the REAL  cost to you if you chose your boyfriend? Is he worth it? And vice-versa? Is your family worth the price you have to pay in marrying your boyfriend?

 

Dear GirlShrink,

I have a situation where i share a computer with a significant other of 4 years, and recently i found some downloaded sites of forced sex, reenacted sex rape scenes, and this was very bothersome to me. I have tried to keep it to myself, and did for awhile, but then like always i finally confronted him. he said it was just a fluke that he downloaded them, unaware that he had, and why yes he did go tot he sites and look at them, it was out of curiosity. Ok so i let it go, with still just a pang in mind and heart.

The next thing you know, after several days, and i had already deleted the sites, low and behold, they pop up on me, when i am looking at something totally different, i mean took over my whole screen, i was so angry!

i deleted them, put them in trash bin and hit the permanent trashe remove or whatever you call it, from the computer. He is now angry at me, because i told him what had happened, said i invaded his privacy! and that i should not have permanently removed something that belong to him. Which if it was no big deal, i thought it was alright since it was nothing to him in the first place. Do you get the picture GirlShrink?

So what now, he has completely made me out to be the bad guy and acts as though i am the one with insecurities now, and a website invader! lol.
So we are not speaking. And may I add, i was completely in shock to see that he of all people was looking at such a site, since he knows i have been a victim of abuse and rape. It was like finding his dark side! What should i do or even say from this point on?

Dear Friend,

Your story throws up a million red flags for me. I don’t usually give such direct advice, but I must say in this instance to get out. Sometimes people who are victims of such violent crime as rape tend to attract people that do or have thoughts of doing the very same thing. Haven’t you ever wondered why so many women end up with multiple partners who abuse them? This should not be just bothersome to you — but a BIG red flag telling you that this is not the man for you.

I’m not saying that rape is not a fantasy of many people, it is, but the fact that it is a major fantasy for man you are seeing and you have been a victim of that crime before lets me know that it is not a healthy situation for neither you or him.

There’s also the fact that he lied. Plain out lied. And then of course deflects the fact that he’s been caught in the lie onto you. That’s childish and irresponsible.  I mean really. Didn’t he think you were going to run across that stuff at some point? Final advice – I’d get out.

Dear GirlShrink,

I love this guy and i met him at summer camp to soon watch him walk out of my life as suddenly as he had walked into it. We are both emo and into the same music and share a lot of the same interests and hobbies and he told me that he loves me and i said it back but now he is gone and i know that if he were to commit suicide i would too, i love him that much and I never thought I would or could love a guy, but i do. Do I make an attempt to get over him or keep hope that maybe I will somehow, by a miracle see him again. He made me believe that he loved me the same way he made me believe he didn’t as he walked out of my life for the last time.
What do I do???

Dear Friend,

First I want to tell you that you will meet a lot of guys over the course of your life and circumstances will often keep you apart. Sometimes a summer romance is just that. For the summer. And that’s okay. It’s a lovely memory you will have for the rest of your life. You need to get over him. People say a lot of things in the middle of emotional circumstances, but words are words. He went home back to his life with his family and you with yours.

And ask yourself why you would jump for someone who you haven’t even heard from? YOU need to care about yourself FIRST. Finally, if you are feeling suicidal, I must urge you to log off your computer and call 1-800-273-8255 (National Suicide Prevention Hotline) to talk to someone. It’s totally free and anonymous. And sometimes it’s just a good idea to talk through your emotions before you make a bad decision that can affect a lot of peoples lives.

Dear GirlShrink,

I’ve been surfing the net tonight, becoming thoroughly depressed with what seems to be a general attitude (from sites dominated by male posters) that cheating by a spouse in most forms equates to an unforgivable betrayal.

My wife and i have been married for thirteen years, and together for almost fifteen. We have a loving and very well adjusted 9 year old son.

About half way through our tenth year or marriage we hit a rocky few months. We had moved to my wifes old home town to be closer to her ailing mother. Familair surroundings and people gave my wife a confidence and comfort that she had not known in some time. I think its important to point out at this point that my wife has long struggled with bi-polar depression…an illness that can often be triggered by emotional stress, and can sometimes lead to days, if not weeks, of difficult times for her – and for our family.

It was during this period (just over two years ago) that my wife admitted to me that she had come close to having a full blown affair with a co-worker. She told me that she had kissed him several times one night, and seriously contemplated going further, but did not. I took it as a sign that we needed to make some serious changes – and after much work and couples therapy, we seemed to be well on our way to happier times. She promised me at the time that it had never happened before, and would NEVER happen again. I was incredibly hurt and told her that i didn’t think i could survive that sort of betrayal again…even if it meant splitting up our family.

Flash forward to this week… my wife has been having a difficult time with a family member. Out of retaliation, this family member threatened to tell me about “the other man” my wife kissed one evening a few years ago, following a party attended by a great many peope she knows well, but I knew little – while i stayed home to take care of our nine year old.

Rather than have me hear it from someone else, my wife told me what happened today. I want to believe that all she did was kiss him… but, honesty, I am at a complete loss as to how i should be feeling. Confused, hurt, angry, sad, betrayed…all of them are swirling around in side of me.

It has been two years since this happened. Our marriage has been rock solid since our counseling after the first instance… though, i can’t be certain this second occasion didn’t happen while we were actually still in counseling.

My wife sees a regular therapist for her bipolar disorder, and they have spoken frequently about this second instance – and how imporant her therapist thought it was for her to tell me about it, ask forgiveness and try to work through it.

Sorry for the long story… but my real question here is this…
When it happened the first time, she promised there wouldn’t be a second, and we both at the time agreed that if it ever did happen again – it would be clear sign that things for us just weren’t destined to be what we hoped. Then it happened a second time… and i feel that rather than face the very real consequences of her decision, she chose to keep it a secret rather than take the risk of disclosure.

I love my wife dearly. I’ve spent years trying to help her to overcome some really significant scars from her child hood, and we have an amazing child of our own- and most of the time, a pretty great home life.

But I just can’t get passed the fact that it happened a second time, and she only decided to tell me when she felt she had no other choice BUT to tell… or risk someone else being the snitch. I’ve read often online the opinion of others who say that some secrets are best kept as secrets…and that sometimes a case like this can cause far more damaged if brought into the open. I’m not sure i buy it.

She says she loves me, and will do anything she can to regain my trust.
I’m having a hard time telling her how i really feel; partly for fear of sending her depression into overdrive, and partly because i’m struggling over the timing of it all. It has been two years, and as i said, everything has been great…up until the “other shoe” dropped this week.

Any advice?
Should i feel as angry and betrayed as I do? She swears it “will never happen again”… but now after two isntances – and two years of silence about the second time, I’m just not sure what to think.

Thanks for any words of wisdom you can offer.

Dear Confused Husband,

I can honestly understand why you feel the way that you do. No one likes secrets or betrayal, BUT what I will say is that chances are that you probably would have tried to stick it out with her again, gone through therapy, etc. and you still would be where you are today. Of course she didn’t trust that which is why she didn’t say anything but the fact remains that you two have made it over to the other side and I would in this instance go to a few couples sessions and further discuss how crucial honest communication is between a couple.

I don’t think leaving at this point would benefit anyone including yourself. You still deeply love her, sounds like she loves you too, and you both love your son. Also allow yourself some time to be a little angry and sad. Give yourself permission to have a little time for yourself to sift through those emotions on your own terms. Don’t allow anyone to rush you or don’t rush yourself. It’s okay if you’re confused for a while. Loving someone is not easy – because essentially we are all flawed.

Dear GirlShrink,

Hi there! I really appreciate you taking the time to read this!

Ok so, at the end of the last school year, at the Country Ball, my crush asked me to dance with him. It was so sweet. He was shy, held my hand, brought me to the dance floor, and we were very close while dancing. He also told me I smelled good. Then, we didn’t really see each other afterwards. We were both really busy, and since all our activities were done, we didnt cross paths at school. Usually we are on the student council together, sport teams, etc. Then, the day after school was over, at the grade 12 prom, I was volunteering and he was the pianist. His parents are teachers so he had to stay late, as did I to clean up. While I was waiting for my parents, he came and said hi, we chatted for a while, then they arrived so I left. This year, I constantly find him staring at me. His locker is right behind mine, we are on the student council together, his best-friends are my close friends, we play the same sports (but not team, hes on the guys team, im on the girls team, lol)… So you can see that there are many opportunities for me to talk to him and I see him alote. And i’m not really shy. We are good friends. I think he’s into me but just a little shy. How do I tell him that YES, I like him, sort of thing. Should I tell him I enjoyed the ball last year (even if its been a while). When and where should I tell him ? what should I tell him ? Should I even tell him ? LOL

I need some advice, ANY advice would do! Please and thank you! God Bless.

Needs Words.

Dear Needs Words,

I think this one is a no brainer. This guy likes you, but he just needs you to step up. I think you need to ask him to do something that you usually don’t do. If he wants to study together. If he wants to help you with a student council event/planning over your house. Figure out a way to get some time with that does not include being surrounded by all your friends and I”m sure that everything will fall into place. Good luck!