GEMMACHURCH

He has the sports car, which I have always supported him having and he will pick me up sometimes and I don’t drive which is why I don’t mind paying for his drinks. It’s when he suggests that we go out and then sits there downing drinks and actually asking me to buy him more that it bothers me. He always says “sorry I feel so terrible” but he continues to do it and I end up just getting him drinks and not even for myself. He often gets rounds and realises he has ‘forgotten’ his bank card. Of course I jump in no questions. He promises to pay me back but has never done so. I have also spent lots of money on him for birthdays/xmas. For my bday he got me a flat screen TV and goes on about how expensive it was. But my sister thinks he got it just as much for himself as he sits and watches it when I go to work and I already had a tv and didn’t want another one. He bought me a coat, but brought it up once when I was paying for everything one week so I gave him the money for it which he accepted on top of everything else. He was moaning about his mother the other day and how she has ‘never done anything for him’ He has had a fortunate up- bringing, his parent bought him a car and he doesn’t pay rent. I have not been so fortunate and have been paying rent for years and I find it hard not to be resentful when this is the way he acts. On valentines I guessed he wouldn’t get me anything and my friends laid heavy hints so that he might get me a card. That’s all I wanted from him. But he went on about having no money and that he would take me out when he gets paid and gets all his commission (he gets bonuses on top of his salary) He often says he is skint and then goes down the pub with friends or out clubbing with work. He tells me that he gets in for free and that they all pay for him. But I don’t know if this is true. He is supposed to be taking me out tonight. (2nd time in one year) Today he has called saying he wants to go out but “hasn’t got any money on him” I know he is waiting for me to say that I will pay or that I will lend him money (which I always do) But I know I will never get it back. It is starting to make me feel worthless and like a doormat. But I feel like its my fault as I encouraged it in the first place.

That was pretty spot on! that is just how he is and does treat me just like he does his mum........ The trouble is he will just get touchy, start and argument and walk out and I'll get 3 days of sarcastic texts till he contacts me again.... But I'll try my best to be strong and diplomatic. Thanks so much for your good advice xx

Going out for nearly a year. Started out fair, now I pay for all his drinks when we go out, take-aways and lend him money every now and then. He has bought me some big expensive presents, but I have probably paid this back in all the times he has come down the pub with no money. Occasionally he will pay, but not often. He earns the same as me. He drives a sports car and the insurance is crippling. I do not drive, and he picks me up occasionally which I know costs him money. I have taken him out a few times and he promises me to treat me when he gets paid…..but we usually end up staying in and ordering a takeaway which I usually pay for. Tonight he is supposed to be taking me out for a meal. I have spoken to him and he has said that he left is bank card round my house and won’t have any cash on him for tonight (a trick he has pulled before) I am mostly to blame for this as I have always paid and told him that it was fine, not wanting to embarrass him. We once argued about it and he remembered the few things he had done and I was speechless as I have lost count of all the things I pay for. I have never complained as I usually get embarrassed. I know this is my fault but I feel so upset and angry now. My mum and friends think he is taking the royal p****. I do feel that he is taking advantage to the limit. But I have no idea how I should approach the subject with him after leaving it so long

really? that isnt a bit much? He said he would leave if it bothered me. He is looking for another job anyway as he says he is fed up of his job. Do you think it is reasonable for me to tell him to leave? he was working there before she joinned and swears that he had no involvement of her getting the job. My sister and friends tell me im mad and that I should trust him. But the thought that they have slept together, even if it was three years ago drives me insane!

That is the thing, I really dont know. I went to the same school as her but she is about 3 years younger than me. She seems to go out with a lot off different guys, but I dont know for sure. She didnt have any reputation that I knew about. I saw some photos of her on a club website where they had all been out for a work do. There were none of her and my bf together, but a few of her huggging his single friend who also works with them. It has been about 7 months they have been working together now and im really upset that it has started to bother me again!

He didnt tell me in the beginning that he was working with her which was why it became an issue. I reconised her name and asked him if it was his ex and he told me it was. He said he didnt tell me in the beginning as he didnt want to worry me. We were a bit drunk on friday and he told me that he felt he always loved me, even when we were teenagers. I told hm that i didnt believe this (knowing what a player he was) and that as long as he loves me now there is no need to lie. This upset him. And I then asked him if he had slept with this girl he works with. He said he had and that he didnt want to lie to me.

a while ago I found out that my boyfriend is working with one of his ex girlfriends. They went out a long long time ago, only for a few weeks and are still friends. They are in quite a close environment which bothered me. I came to accept it and we have now been together for about 8 months. We nearly split up at one stage but he begged me to stay with him. I do have issues with trust but I am trying to over come this. He says that if he wanted to be with her he would be and that it was a long time ago and she means nothing to him. He spends all his time with me when he is not working and is very loving. At the weekend I found out that he slept with this girl when they were together. He keeps telling me it is nothing, and not different to my ex boyfriends. But the thought of them at work together makes me feel sick and i have had some really bad dreams about him cheating on me with her. Ironically he had a dream about me cheating on him lastnight which may help him understand how i feel a little more. He is looking for a new job also (career change) But i am really struggiling with this at the moment and am starting a new job soon and just feeling really anxious with it all. Appreciate any advice on how to deal with this? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One of my friends, Steve had always like my girlfriend, katie, for a while she didnt realise but then she knew after people told her but she was never interested in him This was all a few years ago, recently we had all been meeting up, and me and Steve started to get along really well and I started to have feelings for him. I asked my friend if she liked him (thinking he still had feeling for her) but she said she didnt see him like that and basically wasnt interested. Me and Steve met after work one night, and he kissed me. It happened again and we admitted that we both had strong feelings for each other. He is moving about an hour away so we agreed not to get too deep and take it slowly. We have kept this a secret as I was seeing someone at the time of our kiss and it just stayed secretive........ As Steve began to show my friend less attention, she started to decide she liked him. She said that she owed him a kiss from when they were younger and decided she was going to kiss him before he went away......I was upset but told him not to not kiss her because of me......but he didnt kiss her . Because he rejected her she is really angry and upset with him. I know that it is not because she liked him, but because she didnt get the attention she wanted, and she has said that. But she is one of my best friends. Steve really wants to see me this weekend. I really really want to see him. But if my friend knew i cant imagine how mad she would be with me. But I know she never cared for him and has admitted that she just misses the attention. I told him I feel to guilty to meet him.....but he says its not fair to let us go............. HELP!

Last night I found out that my boyfriend has been working with his ex girlfriend. He mentioned her name a month ago when she started working there, and last night i asked him if it was his ex and he said yes. He said that it wasnt a big deal and he didnt want to worry me at the time as we were already going through a disagreement and he was worried i would split up with him. he says she hasnt been his girlfriend since he was 17 (he is 22 now) but i had seen them together a year ago when i was with my old boyfriend. He says there is nothing to worry about and that he was worried about how i would react and that it wasnt an issue for him- they are just friends. He swore that he didnt get her the job there, but im not sure i believe him. He says that if he wanted to be with her he would be with her by now. We had got closer recently and he makes a lot of effort to spend time with me. He is round my house a lot of the time. We discussed it and he said that it was a lose lose situation if i wouldnt trust him from now on. I had been worried on the weekend when an old 'friend' called him at 3 in the morning, but he spoke to her like she was a friend. And i told him that i felt he was secretive with his phone sometimes but he didnt seem to see it and said that i had more text and calls than he does. I agreed to take it as nothing and believe that he is with me for me and doesnt want her, (which is very hard for me because i have had serious issues with trust) Should i give him the benefit of the doubt? i am very afraid of getting hurt. He asked me if i wanted to speak to the girl and then joked that she would probaly say there was something going on and he would be in even more trouble! but i wasnt in the mood to feel i could joke about this!

I had been in a lot of 'clingy' relationships in the past and was very controlled an minipulated by my last boyfriend. My Dad left home when i was 15 which left me with some security issues which added to these disaster relationships. When i finally found the strength to leave my last bf, i was so liberated and felt so happy i was determind never to have a relationship like that again and not to be as 'tied' to someone and let them take up all my time. I have found a great guy who is really easy going. It was all very exciting when we first got together and fell in love. I was strong enough to tell him i was seeing my friends and couldnt see him some days, and he was happy with his having an active life of is own. Recently he has got a new job and working long hours. He has been doing really well and on his days off goes away for a few days to windsurf with friends. I had started to get a niggling feeling that he was going off me and that i dont quite trust him, but i dont know why this was. we went out at the weekend and i got really drunk and had an argument with some one who offended a friend of mine who was murdered. I had put my boyfriend in a bad position and could have got us into trouble. I felt so guilty and ashamed of myself, i thought he wouldnt want to be with me any more. He was working at the weekend, but said he was too tired to see me. I immediately went back to my old insecure self, getting panic attacks and anxiety that he wont want to be with me. He came over last night and said i was stupid to doubt him and that he loves me. He went to a leaving do on saturday for a girl at work, he said it was really good and that hes gutted she is leaving coz she is a really nice girl. He then went on to say that she fancies his friend. My mum said that he wouldnt talk about her like that if he did like her. But this made me feel threatened as well. I should feel better but i still feel tearful and i feel threatened by his life, his job and his hobbies. Im so angry with myself as i thought i had completely changed, i have great friends and i love my job. But I have become insecure again all of a sudden and dont know how to snap myself out of it. My mum says she thinks i have out my barriers up too high and need to be a little more honest and to stop being so aloof, as I have conditionned myself to never let him know i am bothered about anything, I pretended that nothing bothered me and it started not to bother me. I feel I have taken a huge step back. But i cant seem to tell when i am just being insecure and should leave it or whether i need to say something. Help xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I know! its such a pickle! I have tried to push it down for so long, but i just couldnt help exploding, i have felt like this for so long This is the problem though, Rachel doesnt know what kate has done and I cant telll her because kate told me in confidence. Or should I tell my sister anyway? She is so much happier now, her and kate arent really good friends anymore, but i dont know if bringing it up would be more trouble than it is worth. I just dont know how im going to handel the situation if kate is horrible or doesnt seem to care after readiing my email. I just want some respect from her!

i grew up in a very tight knit of friends who are very close. when we were teenagers there was an episode where everyone fell out because my sister started going out with one of the boys in the group(leon). He had previously been going out with another girl (my friend kate) and she was heart broken when he finished with her. So my sister and leon started going out in secret. When it all came out the group 'disowned' rachel and leon for a few years. We are all grown up now, it is water under the bridge but the group is still affected with bad feeling in some ways. During this time, as i had felt so bad for my friend kate, i made an extra effort to keep her friendship and show her that even thought rachel was my sister, i felt she had been unfair to kate and that i would always be there for her. As I was the closest friend kate had (she is a bit of a moaner!) i was often subject to * * * * *ing and ranting about how horrible my sister was and basically slagging her off. Becasue i felt so bad for my friend, i more or less went along with it. I felt it was a sacrifice to make to help her throught the situation ( as nothing would ever change between me and my sister) But i started to feel terribly torn when my sister became severly depressed with the gulit and the situation ( she was self harming) I thought that Kate would always respect me for this, and always see me as one of her closest friends. However, when she went away to uni, she became distant and it seemed was making an effort to leave me out. Having a heart to heart with her, she confessed to me that when she found out about leo and rachel, she had gone and slept with peter, who was rachels ex boyfriend. (I realsied she became distant with me because she was fighting for peters attention when we were out)Now when Peter had split up wiht rachel she was even more distraught than Kate, i have never seen someone so heartbroken! so Kate had more or less confessed that she was condeming rachel, but was, herself, a hypocite. I was so shocked i didnt say much. And because Kate told me in confidence, i couldnt tell anyone. I was tormented looking at my sister, so depressed when i knew a secret that would ease her suffering. This is all long over now, but at the weekend we all got drunk and Kate( who can be very selfish sometimes) stared showing off. It was over something silly, but i ended uo exploding at her and told her how i felt about everything that had happened. We sort of made up afterwards, but a friend of mine said i should send her an email and tell her how i feel soberly. I feel terrible that it came out like it did and i think that she was shocked at the way i felt. But other friends have said she should have been well aware that she was hurting me even though i didnt say anything. I sent her an email. I told her how much she means to me, like a sister, but i was quite firm in how she hurt me and outlining the position (she should know) she put me in. She has sent me quite an aloof text saying she will email me later. If she is fummy with me it is going to hurt so much and im so worried its going to pull the group appart. My mum thinks she is a waste of space, a lot of my other friends think she is just selfish. But I feel so upset about it. What should i do?

I think that sometimes no matter how long you have known someone and feel you owe it to try and save the friendship, sometimes it isnt even worth it. I had a best friend who was very destructive and manipulative, I tried so hard to always understand and sort things out, but in the end i just had to cut off all contact with her and I was so much better for it. It was a relief not to have the negativity in my life.

I recently broke up with a guy who is in the army. We were only together for a few months, and he broke it off with me because he knew i really liked him and he didnt think i would be able to handle him being away so much. We got back together, it was very romantic at first, but after spending time with him it all became less romantic and i realised that we werent really very suited to each other anyway. I know we wouldnt have survived him going away but i realise after spending more time with him, that I am young haev my life ahead and should be enjoying myself. It does sound a bit selfish but i think you are right, you do have to love yourself more. My ex had a very hard exterior, he said it was the way he had to be with his job. At first I thought it was wrong of me to want something more gentle and honest in a person..........but i think its not wrong to go for what you really want and not to suffer for second best. I think this is how you feel to? Hope this helps at all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Does she know that you still have feelings for her? does she know quite how much you feel for her? I would like to say that she is doing it just to stay friends and see how you are. Which is fine, and means she just cares about you. But i would be a bit wary myself because i know a lot if girls who act this way and it seems they can do it for attention. Contacting you or hearing from you when she is feeling a bit low, or having bad self esteem makes her feel better because it reminds her that you liked her so and that she is desirable. If you think this may be why i would day ignore her, it may be worse to begin with because in my experiance if you to were ignore her she would then become very insecure and start to chase you for a bit of attention to feel desirable again. And that would not be fair on you unless she was really interested and not just doing it for her ego. Or did you think that she may like you? she may feel the same but not have the courage to say. I would think it would be good to ask her. If she seems shady about it then forget her. I hope this helps at all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx