Been There, Done That

I have been in a relationship for two years. I am 38, he is 49. I have older children and am also a grandmother three times over. I would love for us to have our own family, but he is totally against it. He will not explain why.

Neither of us has to work so we have plenty of time to spend raising a child. I have to say it really hurts and is very confusing. I don’t understand how a man can have a child with someone they can’t stand and not have a child with someone they are in love with.

I like to do what I can to make him happy, so why is the feeling not mutual? We have a great relationship, and I think adding another child to the family would make it even stronger. Is that so wrong?

Keely

Keely, Shakespeare said, “One man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” A 49-year-old man may think fatherhood belongs to an earlier age of his life, and that is especially true when the woman he is with is a grandmother three times over.

He may also believe he cannot explain his feelings without insulting you. He may think you are simply bored or trying to compete with your own daughters. Whatever his feelings, they are as valid as your own.

Wayne & Tamara

Present Tense

I’m happily attached to a new guy, but still haunted by a breakup experience from two years ago where the guy just dumped me with an SMS. We were together more than three years. Coming from an Asian background I was taught to be protective of my virginity, but I lost it to him.

We had regular sex right up to the end. I was emotionally torn up after that. However, after a few months I got together with another guy short-term and had sex once. That relationship only lasted five months, and I blamed myself.

The greatest hurt is from the first man, hereafter referred to as “the jerk.” It haunts me, and I’m afraid it will affect my current relationship if we ever walk up the wedding aisle.

When I confided in my boyfriend, he said what matters is our present. He does not mind my past, but that makes me feel I’m not on a par with him. How can I get away from the deep hatred and emotional wound I suffered due to the breakup?

I even wondered, if the jerk apologized about the hurt he caused, will it close the case? But I think it’s impossible. When I bumped into him last year, I tried to open up and communicate with him, but it didn’t go well.

Lee

Lee, when a cake falls off the table, some people bake another cake, while others stand around wishing the cake hadn’t fallen. You can’t spend your life in “if only.” As long as you focus on the past, something you cannot change, you will not focus on the present.

Start over, work on yourself, and stop being intimate with men you aren’t in love with. If you want marriage, if you want a lifetime relationship, then live like that is what you want.

Thinking you can change your sexual history by getting the first man back, or by changing the past, only allows you to avoid doing things differently now. You were intimate with men who didn’t marry you, so you have a history you don’t want. That is what is upsetting you.

With your current boyfriend, be fair. Either you love him or you don’t, and if you don’t, let him go. But an apology from your first lover won’t fix a thing. It won’t erase what he did to you. In a fairy tale Pinocchio became a real boy, but in life a jerk does not become a gentleman.

Wayne & Tamara