BeStrongBeHappy

you have actually done very well for someone aged 30, and have saved a lot... you can look up all kinds of charts related to what kind of assets people have at your age, and you are doing just fine, in fact, better than most. it sounds like you ex wanted a *really* high lifestyle, and expected you to contribute to it... and for some people, no matter how much money they have, it is never enough... but some men also do not want a stay at home wife, in fact are afraid she will end up being a financial drain and hitting him for alimony and child support should they divorce... so some men would never agree to that, and i have seen some marriages disintegrate when mom wanted to stay home, and dad didn't agree with that... so really, i think you should look for someone with similar values, who sees you being a stay at home mom for the kids as a positive thing... if you moved to an area where the cost of living wasn't so high, it could be a reasonable goal for a normal family, though not easy to do these days depending onwhere you live...

20 is young to be jaded, but then, you've been living a lifestyle recently that is focused on instant gratification, not lasting peace or happiness... it's kind of like a diet of all junk food... after a while you feel totally stuffed, and at the same time unfulfilled, but can't even think about food without being disgusted by it... so my suggestion would be to step back for a while, and NOT date at all... just go hang out with your friends and make new ones, until you meet a girl that really makes you laugh, have fun with, like to talk to etc. in other words, go try to fill all your needs, not just the need for sex, and you will feel less jaded...

given that you are only 18, you might discover that neither of these guys is the one for you... but what are all your goals in life, and which one seems to fit better with them? you can really like/love someone, but if you want/expect very different things in life, that can lead to trouble down the road, especially if you are young and will be changing a lot in the next 10 years... the other suggestion is to be careful not to leap into one relationship from other... sometimes we choose the next relationship because they are the opposite of the last one... i.e., if one guy is a bit boring, you might think, i need an exciting, dynamic guy. then when you switch to a relationship with the exicting guy, you discover that also means he never wants to stay home and goes out partying all the time... so don't compare one person's positives against the other person's negatives, just try to evaluate whether one person or the other has what it takes to make a good relationship with you, exclusive of the other person, not in reaction to them.

it's hard to just 'hang out' together on the phone because of the natural tendency to fall into silences sometimes... if you were in a room together, both would just watch TV, or read, or go off and do their thing... so it's not bad news that you have silences, but your boyfriend needs to accept that sometimes conversation comes to a natural halt and saying bye for now (and talking again when you have something to say) is OK... maybe talk to him about it so he doesn't feel that silence sometimes and ending a phone conversation 'early' is a bad thing when it really isn't.

yes, it's possible... hormone changes, allergy to perfumes, detergents, rash, etc. growth can be hormones too, but if its really a lot, she should take a home pregnancy test now, and again in a couple weeks...

they tell lottery winners the first thing they should do is set up a blind trust or other way to claim the money not in their own name, because relatives just assume they deserve the share the wealth, and strangers and friends come out of the woodwork with sob stories for handouts and all kinds of schemes to get a piece of the money... so i guess it is best to tell as few people as possible, but the cat is already out of the bag. even better than a will, set up a living trust or other vehicle to manage the money, then tell everyone the money is in trust and you can't tap it at will to buy them the latest toy.. and also to protect yourself... not that anyone you know will hire a hit man, but there are books out there about people who have inherited money or won the lottery, and some idiot 2nd cousin has them killed because they think they will inherit... money can bring out the best in people, and you could share your wealth with deserving people and/or charities while alive or after death as beneficiaries to your trust... and if you lose any friends because they are only interested in the money, then good riddance... make new friends, and DON'T tell them about the money if you want less trouble.

i think age gap relationships can work if you want the same thing out of life... do you both want to have more children? and if you want to have children with him, you can certainly love his children too, especially since they will be the siblings of your own child... but if the issue is he thinks his family is 'done' with his existing children and doesn't want more, then that could be a problem. and i wouldn't really spend much time feeling jealous of his ex-wife... he divorced her and didn't want her, and he did want you!

i think sometimes people are genuinely confused, and need a little time off, but many times they are just trying to ease out of the relationship in a way that doesn't cause a big blowup or emotional scenes. so if you really love him and want to give him the benefit of the doubt, i would decide how long you want to wait for him to 'find' himself, and i would check in with him after no more than a month to see how things are going and if his feelings have changed. i think people who really love you want to be with you, and if they are finding lots of excuses to not be with you, or the excuses keep changing, then they may not be being fully honest with their intentions. so spend time with your other friends and do fun things for yourself, but don't put all your expectations into getting him back, and don't let a really long period of time go by without finding out whether he really intends to get back with you, or he is just stalling while he goes off and establishes a life without you.

You need to try to not 'link' two different people in terms of trust. by that i mean, every person you are with needs to be evaluated as an individual, and not as either potentially trustworthy or untrustworthy by default. It never pays to disengage your intuition and ignore any little warning pings. but you should be investigating those pings farther, to see whether it is just a knee jerk fear reaction, or a real reason to be suspicious. i think the tendency is to try to categorize people as 'good' or 'bad', and that leads to a lot of problems in misjudging people. i think it is normal for people to 'brag' on themselves when first trying to impress someone, but is it just stretches of the truth, or lots of untruths and potential pathological lying? posting a picture that shows him weighing less is not unusual, especially if he had no recent pictures, and it would be obvious once you met him what he looked like... but if he is exaggerating or caught in multiple, even small, lies about all kinds of things, i would really worry. and don't be distracted by him buying his way into your affections... that could be generosity, or else manipulation. so sit down and evaluate everything he does on a case by case basis til you form a clearer picture of him, and if you think there is more than the normal amount of truth stretching, beware! one should neither by default trust or distrust someone, just observe their behavior and investigate any hunches or red flags you feel. that should keep you closer to the path of who he really is.

i'm sorry... it sounds like he has decided that he doesn't want to be close with you anymore... it could be that he feels awkward about the kiss, or that he is getting closer to his girlfriend and more serious with her and doesn't want to hang out with his friends as much anymore... but this is quite clear: 'we're not married to you so we don't need to be in constant contact' . he's basically spelling out that he is a couple with his girlfriend, and is letting you know that they don't feel obligated to spend time with you. i think you feel they 'owe' it to you to spend time with you, but friendship and relationships are optional for everyone involved. it is sad when friendships fade away, but it happens and one can't force back into the friendship if the other people don't want it.. i think all you can do know is to respect his wishes and move on... spend time with your other friends and make new ones.

he was not cheating with just one person, but with three, regardless of who he ends up with... this has nothing to do with you, he is just a flagrant cheater who will not be loyal to anybody in the end... so please try to see him for what he is, and not who you thought he might be... it helps to get over it is you realize what a jerk he is, to cheat with 3 women on a wife who is pregnant wtih twins and has a 3 year old! he's totally selfish, and you can have a better life without him. you don't need to rush, but please make sure that you get a lawyer so that you can get temporary support and child support for your 3 children. he may be able to run off with someone else and you can't stop that, but he won't be running off to luxury when he is required to pay support for you and your children. best of luck, and enjoy your new babies. it is hard, but you can still make a family with your children, and let the awful dog run off with anyone he wants, you don't need such a liar and cheater in your life.

I am so sorry you discovered this, very shocking, but better to know before you married him. he sounds like a very experienced philanderer. his approach is shopping for women on the side who will tolerate his primary relationship with someone else. he flirts with someone, passes him his card, then if she bites, he asks her how she'd feel about seeing him in spite of a girlfriend. then when she waffles and says no, he tries the next pitch, which is flattery (how beautiful she is) etc. in hopes she will soften up and agree to it... this was NOT a business contact, no matter what he said. business relationships don't ask those kinds of questions of one another, nor do they talk about how each other looks etc. the fact that he is continuing to deny his intent in the face of getting caught just adds fuel to the fire. i think this is a person you will never be able to trust, who will be perfectly happy to deceive you to his own advantage. i just don't think he is marriage material, if you are not even married and he is shopping for mistresses on the side. please be careful, and demand that he attend couples counseling with you at a minimum, but i really think that a marriage with him would be a losing proposition...

i think the best way to break up is to sit the person down and tell them why to try to get closure on the situation... so both of you understand why you made the decision and can move on to new things without bitterness... if you already suspect he is cheating on you, and you don't seem to care all that much and want to move on anyway, then you two may just have grown apart so it might not be unexpected to him either... no contact just means that after you break up, give yourself a breather from him, and don't continue to communicate with him like your dating anymore... maybe agree that you won't get together, email or talk for a while until you both get adjusted to being apart... it can make the breakup harder if you keep in close contact and see him dating someone else or second guess yourself and question whether the breakup is the right thing when you have already decided it is... it doesn't mean you can't still be friends with him later when you have some distance from the breakup, but sometimes it is hard to try to go straight from boyfriend/girlfriend into being friends who speak/communicate all the time.

well he sure is a guy skank, isn't he? it sounds like he was feeling sporty because his girlfriend was out of town and so took up with you under false pretenses... i had a guy do this once, who told me he was 'separated' from his wife and his wife had moved out so we dated for a month, only to find out that his wife had no clue they were separated, had not really moved out, and was just on a month long vacation with her mother! as soon as she was back in town, he was 'married' again... and obviously a jerk and liar too! so PLEASE don't let HIS bad behavior make you want to hide... you have nothing to be ashamed of and HE is the one who should be ashamed of himself, but obviously isn't... and obviously is a jerk and used you for sex, and is now using his girlfriend for money and social connections. if you are a partner in this business, is there any way you can get the other partners to buy you out, or sell your interest to someone else? my concern would be that if he is so dishonest in his personal relationships, he probably has no business ethics either and you don't want your life and business to be tied up with him. but don't let him drive you out until YOU have something better for yourself to go from a business perspective. right now you are hurt, but please allow yourself to feel what you should be feeling, which is angry... you should be able to tolerate it better if you don't continue to see him as someone you 'lost', when you should be thinking good riddance, and try to work towards either ignoring him totally other than when necessary, or finding a way to get bought out of the business and start another one with someone you can trust more than this guy.

first, he did say some insensitive things to a pregnant and new mother, commenting about flirting with other women. but at the same time, he seems willing to talk to you about it and try to work it out, and may not have realized that he was being so insensitive, so he is not behaving like a total boor, just immature. i don't think that anyone can ever shield someone else from flirting with your partner... and requiring him to announce he is 'taken' to other women is not really necessary from the standpoint if he is committed to you, anyone on the planet could flirt with him, but he would never take it any farther than a little joking, nor accept a date, nor do anything else inappropriate or cheating. so focusing on him telling this one girl that he is taken won't make you feel any more secure, because there will always be other women out there, and many will flirt, so your worry could just rove from woman to another as he meets them or you become aware of them at a party or however. so really, the issue is between you and him and 'warning' other women off is not the answer. nor is your meeting this other girl, what would be the purpose of that? i think it would just make everyone uncomfortable, and she is just a school classmate so i don't get the point of why anyone would suggest you two meet up. and becoming 'aloof' to try to make him chase you is game playing, which could alone strain the relationship further, so i don't recommend it. please try to have conversations with him about what you do and don't think is appropriate in terms of flirtations or friendship with people of the opposite sex, and how it is scaring you and hurting your feeling if he talks about flirting with other women, especially if you are a new mother at home with a baby. talk about how much flirting is too much in your mind, and how he shouldn't tease you about other women when you are feeling insecure. if you approach it from how it makes you feel distant from him, rather than a blaming and accusing stance, the conversation would probably go much better. there are no guarantees in life, but living with no trust in your partner is pretty much torture, so you need to try to balance your fears against the reality of how he is behaving. he doesn't deserve the third degree every time he comes home,and you don't deserve to feel like he is out flirting up a storm and coming home to tell you about it. so that is where talking and negotiation comes in. if worry about his potential infidelity is so strong that you can't enjoy your interactions with him, then you might consider counseling to understand why you feel that way. if you worry too much, it could become a self fulfilling prophesy, where you become so tense and possessive it makes him uncomfortable too... so please try to work things out with him... being a young parent is hard for both of you and an adjustment, especially if it was an unexpected pregnancy early in a relationship, but i think for your daughter's sake you should try to work it out between you, with joint counseling, or counseling for yourself if you are worried about it all the time. best of luck, it sounds like he is willing to work with you, and did not abandon you when you got pregnant like lots of men do, so i think he is definitely willing to try to make a family with you. use that as your foundation for trust, and work up from there...

Hi CL... of course you are welcome here... people find both love and heartbreak at all ages, and reading other people's stories and getting responses to our own really helps a ton... whenever you feel like it, post your story on one of the threads here and people will be happy to respond.

i had an ex once bring me flowers, and candy, and a cake, and two cards because he wasn't sure which i'd really like best... i thought that was sweet, just an explosion of sentiment and thoughtfulness because he wanted to make sure that one of those made me happy... (and they all made me happy, and he did too... for a while anyway... LOL!!!)

oh my gosh, i am laughing so hard right now because you are sooooo NOT old... and it sounds like you want to star in a southern gothic romance novel... how is the rest of your life going? job? school? sometimes we feel incredibly lonely because life feels unfulfilling in general, and romance becomes SO important because there is nothing else interesting going on in life. then we expect romance to be the be all and end all. romance is great, but so are lots of other things in life, and you should be out there enjoying as much of it as you can, especially while you are young and NOT tied down by a family... so don't just wait for Prince Charming to ride into town... make a list of everything you'd like to do in life, besides just romance, and start living them, one by one.

i think a lot depends on your age and circumstances... if you start dating at 16, then 6 or 7 years would seem fine to a lot of people, but if you meet in your 30s and want to have children, then waiting that long might impact whether you could have kids or not at all.. but i got engaged at 4 months, married at 6 months, divorced at 8 years... so in my case, i wish i'd waited a couple years to get engaged, because i think i wouldn't have done it at all if i'd known him better, but kept trying for years and years because i wanted to make good on the marriage commitment...

times and people change... maybe she had a situation 6 months ago where she couldn't date you (a boyfriend etc.). and maybe you misunderstood her rejection since you didn't actually ask her out... the difference between a person who is a failure and one who is a success is someone who keeps on trying no matter what, picks up and moves on if they get rejected. so getting rejected (or thinking you were rejected) shouldn't be such a big deal in your mind... try to have more self confidence, and say to yourself, so what? look what she's missing!!! or oh well, i gave it a shot and it didn't work out, so i'll just dust myself off and move along. so what do you really want to do? do you want to go to the movies with her? if you do, then go. don't let something that happened 6 months ago stop you from living your life. people's lives and circumstances change, and you shoudl evaluate whether you want to spend time with her on what is going on now, not some conversation that happened a long time ago. and if you decide she no longer appeals to you, then just stop responding to her contacts, or tell her you aren't interested... rejection is a part of the dating process, and best for you to learn to take it in stride... everybody gets rejected, and usually many times, but the ones who learn to just say, oh well, and not let it get to them are more open to dating and new opportunities, with the same person or with someone else...

You are absolutely, totally, completely, 100% right to get him out! there is no question that this is a freeloader who is taking advantage of your husband's and your good will. People like him will always find yet another reason to not be responsible for themselves, and someone to use. A decent person would be doing everything they can to get back on their feet and take care of themselves, and to NOT impose on a good friend for one second longer than was necessary. Give him a specific date when he has to be out, no more than one month away, and don't listen to any excuses. Let his married girlfriend take care of him, or his family or WHOMEVER... LOL!!! Not your problem at this point, and shame on him for trying to make it your problem and make your husband feel guilty or like he owes him something after all this kindness. Be prepared for all kinds of whining and excuses and anger, but stand firm. If you have to, pack his stuff for him, send it to a storage facility you have rented for a couple of months for him, then change the locks. If your husband won't stand behind you 100%, then he and his buddy can move out and rent an apt. together, that your husband pays for. Time for you to have a normal family life, and a freeloader in residence is just spending money that should be going towards your own future, and causing stress in your marriage. NOBODY is worth wrecking either of those for...

it sounds like she is more interested in getting married than getting married to YOU. i think she had already made up her mind that she wanted you to propose on Valentine's Day, and that was that in her mind, no other alternative allowed! marriage itself should NEVER be the goal, but getting married to the right person at the right time should be. she is obviously missing the point, bigtime! LOTS of problems with how she's behaving, not the least of which is that you are being perfectly reasonable to wait before getting engaged, and she had some scripted fantasy that required you proposing to her this valentine's day OR ELSE. 4 1/2 months is NOT a long time dating, and certainly early to expect a proposal, in fact, foolhardy to get engaged that quickly, because you don't know each other well enough (as she is proving to you today!). she really is bullying you here, and if you give in on this, then not only will that teach her that bullying works, but i also think it would mean you are marrying someone who wants to make unilateral decisions about how you should behave, and not make it a partnership, but a dictatorship. please reconsider the relationship in general, not just whether you should give in to her or not. this is really beastly behavior on her part, and should be a giant red flag that she is not mature enough to marry ANYBODY, and that you were perfectly right to wait til you knew her better.

I am sorry to hear this, it must be a shock to be so sudden... the sad thing is some people are thinking about leaving for a long time, and don't voice their feelings until they have emotionally separated a long time ago, then just do it... or maybe he did indeed develop a huge schoolboy crush on someone else and just is confusing a hormonal rush with something solid and is being foolish for rushing off before he realizes it is just an attraction but not something plausible or as good as what you two had together. you can't make him try, but you might want to call him and try to get him into counseling with you. but if this other person he has a crush on is dating him, you might have to wait until that thrill wears off... it does happen sometimes, where he sits up and realizes, what was i thinking? but it also happens that he goes straight into a new relationship and doesn't look back. so you don't want to stop your own healing waiting for something that might not come. try to communicate with him, and if he is having none of that, then you probably should go into no contact with him while you heal yourself. if he comes to his senses, and you are still interested, then you might consider it, but since he so quickly and rudely left you, i would take him back very cautiously, if at all.

yeah, he sure had time and energy next time he was in town to try to hook up with me, and i said, ummmmm, sorry, i'm way too busy (busy permanently that is...)

holidays don't have to be about spending a lot, but people who make no effort to do anything at all, unless they have both agreed to not doing anything up front, are making a not too disguised statement... i.e., don't count on me to be there for you or put myself out for you if i don't feel like it... like they don't want to be obligated to you for holidays or things where they have to show you are 'special' and entitled to their efforts/time etc. if someone really cares about you, they enjoy doing special things for you, and enjoy spending special times with you, rather than avoiding or ignoring them... they can at least they do something small for you because they don't want to hurt your feelings or have you think you don't care about them... i dated a guy where we were in different towns on valentine's day, and i sent him a happy valentine's day text.. and he replied that he was sad and sending candy to 'his girls' (his daughters because he was unhappy his ex had the girls and he wasn't wtih them on valentine's day), but didn't bother to wish ME a happy v-day or send me candy... so he did indeed know how to do it, and have the money to do it, and knew it meant something to me, but he was just trying to one up his ex and made sure his daughters got something but basically blew me off... so i knew right there that he did not value me as much, or wanted to send a message that we weren't all that serious, so i took the hint!