Relationship Has Lost That Lovin’ Feeling…
Dear Ms. HeartBeat:
My boyfriend and i have been together for three years and we have a 1-1/2 year old. I am 24 and he is 35. Our relationship has been the longest relationship he has been in.
Everything was great in the beginning but lately I’ve been seeing texts that were not appropriate for him being in a relationship. I started a new job and for the last week I have been having a strong intuition that something has not been right.
We hardly have sex anymore but when we do it feels emotionally different. He does not show me affection or do any of the things that he used to do. He hides his phone sometimes and erases his texts. I just need some advice please because I am so confused and an emotional wreck. Please help me to figure out what I should do.
Signed,
Is it Over?
Dear Over:
Your plea to ‘help you figure out what to do is really a cry for you to have someone else peel back the blinders you keep forcing over your own eyes. You and I both know that this man is stepping out with another woman… at least we HOPE its another woman. You never know these days.
Irregardless, you know that there is someone else in the picture as well as I do. Now you must decide what it is (if anything) you are going to do about it. You can start by looking for your own place immediately so that you can move out. Unless you want to be lied to and gamed on, it is best that you start planning how you are going to live the rest of your life without this clown in it.
Now I need to ask you why in the world you would you spend the best years of your life breeding babies and playing ‘wife’ to a man that apparently has no interest in marrying you?
You’ve put yourself in a vulnerable position. Now here you are practically a baby yourself at just at 24, saddled down with a child fathered by a cheating, trifling man. It kills me how you girls put so much emphasis on the fact that you have a baby by some fool like it means something important when it really doesn’t mean shit. Well, it does mean shit actually – that you have gotten yourself into a bunch of shit when you could be enjoying yourself in the prime of your life, single, baby free and enjoying yourself dating different men (not sleeping with them), and enjoying being a young woman.
Instead, you sound like an old woman all used up after having given a man all the benefits of a marriage with none of the social, emotional or legal obligations of marriage.
Your situation is exactly why I did a video a short time ago entitled “WTF are You Doing Having Babies with Nothing Ass Men?” Too many women get caught up, playing the role of the wife to a man who is not committed to them. These confused women often think that because they are sleeping with a man, it constitutes a relationship. You don’t lay down with a man and get up with a committed relationship.
I mean, did you both sit down and agree that you will commit to an exclusive relationship with one another? Did you just assume sex and a baby meant exclusivity and happy ever after? You’ve already said this man hasn’t been in relationships long, even though he is on the downstroke to 40! This guy must have commitment issues because his shadiness sounds like a well-established pattern.
Bottom line here though: You already know what to do. You are not confused and need to stop playing dumb. You know what you need to do, you just don’t want to do it because you are thinking he is going to change my magic and become the man you need him to be.
Ha!
You need to gather what little dignity you have left, and break things off with this man and mean it. File the appropriate paperwork to arrange visitation and child support. Because you and he don’t work out is no reason for the child not to be around his or her family.
The best way to make sure someone pays their child support is to make a legal filing through the court system. That way you can make sure that he will always pay a fair share for the upkeep and maintenance of the baby he made with you.
And in the future, do not have any more babies with men you aren’t married to.
Deborrah
Veteran social researcher, relationship advice columnist, author and radio host. Author of hundreds of articles on American and black culture, gender issues, singles, dating and relationships. Author of "Sucka Free Love!" , "The 24 Types of Suckas to Avoid," "The Black Church - Where Women Pray and Men Pray," and "Why Vegan is the New Black" all available on Amazon.Com. Her unique voice and insightful commentary have delighted fans and riled haters for 20 years. Read her stuff on SurvivingDating.Com and AskHeartBeat.Com.
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Category: Dating Advice
