Relationship Advice

1,5 years ago I’ve moved 1000 km to live with my man and and his two girls, 6 and 7 years old, which we have every other week. His kids is the only thing we argue about. He doesn’t understand at all that I somethimes feel left out. This is very hard for me cause since he doesn’t understand, he can’t give me the help and support I need. I’m 24 years old (he is 37) and before I moved here I had no experiense at all from kids. Can someone tell me how speed the process up a bit, cause it’s getting better, but to slow. I don’t wanna feel jealous for the rest of my life. I feel like I’m sharing his love with two other girls. He tells me that the love he feels for them isn’t the same love that he feels for me. ( Tell me if you don’t follow, I’m from Sweden so be patiant). But since I don’t have any kids I only know one love. What is the differense, and I don’t wanna hear that his kids are the love of his life. Cause I wanna be and right now it does’nt feel that way.

This is a hard situation My friend. First of all I want to encourage you in your recovery. It’s hard, I know. I have seen first hand what ALcohol and drugs can do to a family coming from a Prescription drug dependant mother who is recovered herself for years now.

After a time of dealing with a person going through this, your soul get’s tired. You need to be alone and heal yourself. Give her the space she needs. Sit her down and say this. " I know that I have not been the best husband or father that I could have been. Im trying to change that, to be a different person for you and our child. I love you and miss you both very much and i am willing to do what it takes, give up whatever it takes to bring our family back together. And if that means giving you your space, I will, but I want you to know that I am here for you when your ready to try again, and that is all Im asking, is another chance to prove to you that Ic an be the husband and father the both of you need." Then seek counseling if you don’t already have it. Make sure she knows that you are doing this.

If you really want this work in your life you may have to give up a lot of things. That’s what love is about, being willing to give up what you normally might not to be with those you love.

Now I also want to let you know that you may not get her back. the street can go both ways on this. Sometimes after such a trying road you have put her down, women just cant do it anymore and need to pay attention to themselves for once. The woman psyche is strong, but like anything else, needs nourishment and comfort. In order to do that, she may have to go a separate path from your marriage. You may have to come into acceptance of that and learn to live your life without her and booze.

"If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, set it on fire."

Sorry, but I have always found the original statement idiotic beyond belief. It is impossible to "set free" another adult. It’s simply not your decision. You never owned him/her and you never will, regardless of any love or lack thereof between you.

If you HONESTLY BELIEVE you have any personal/emotional power whatsoever over another adult — i.e., you DO think you own or control them — you need your head examined. What is making you unhappy is not your lover’s behavior. It is simply the frustration that inevitably ensues when unrealistic expectations ("if I do THIS, then s/he will do THAT") collide with reality ("s/he does what s/he does for his/her own reasons, and nothing I say or do will, or SHOULD, necessarily change this").

I wish I could remember which mid-80s Human Potential seminar/speaker I picked this particularly pithy formulation up from, but with full credit to its alas anonymous originator (grrrr!) here’s the paraphrase: Unhappiness and frustration are the result of your expectations being in conflict with Reality. If you want to eliminate the unhappiness, either change Reality — which is usually impossible for most of us!, or just change your expectations — and we can ALL do THAT."

I am Indian and worked in the Navy.Unfortunately I am also an alcoholic.I am working hard at overcoming this illness with a reasonable degree of sucess.My wife of 16 yrs has decided to "grow" just at the time I was really overcoming my problems.There is no other man on the scene or anything like that, its just that she has suddenly " found " herself.She now claims that she wants to concentrate on our child 14 yrs old.She has spent the earlier part of our marriage concentrating on me.We are at the moment seperated by circumstances, I have a job in another city nearby.The job is prestigeous, I am the head of an institution giving pre sea training.

My problem is that I still love her very much and at times I feel that life is quite meaningless the way it is going.I work hard and have job satisfaction, but I feel the need to share my life and my achievements with someone. My wife however wants to keep a distance from me as she says I upset her psyche.We have had a lot of happy moments and a very active and satisfying sex life, there have however also been those times that I have been drunk for days and behaved like a pig.Due to this we hardly had a social life.I miss her a lot and also know that I am to blame for the situation I am in.Can anyone out there suugest some way out ?

Answer:Just give it time, my man. During this time, let her see through your actions that you are not drinking anymore. Keep in touch with her and your child. Don’t push it with the wife. But let her know how sorry you are for the way things have gone. Admit your faults. Accept responsibility for your actions. Apologize when appropriate. Let her know that you are not ready to give up on this marriage yet.

I haven’t tried to judge anyone on this list. But here’s how I saw it: the fellow whose wife is gone seemed remorseful about the way he had been toward his wife as well as his alcoholism. That’s how I read it from the information he gave us. From the information you gave us, it seemed to me that you were creating a problem where there wasn’t and shouldn’t be a problem in the first place. I stand by all of the advice I have given on this list whether it was to you or anyone else. You can do with that advice what you want with it. But from now on, I’ll try to be kinder and gentler.

Most of the people here are young professional people who are living the "good life" in Colorado and all that. But at any given time there is a very significant number of people just visiting the area on vacation, I think of them as "the lookers" because they just come here to see all the freaky Boulder people, check the place out, buy some silly $800 souvenir from one of the gift shops, and then they are gone. There are also a lot of scruffy homeless people and street performers. You get the picture.

But anyway, most of the girls here are in their 20s, some in their 30s. It’s a very young town and I like young people. There are more guys than girls though, except for the college students, but I don’t hang out with the college crowd. I would say that most of the girls here are, as you say, "beautiful" (as opposed to "attractive" like you said in your message). In fact, there are no girls here who are not good looking, I mean almost zero. They do a good job of blending that cover-girl image with the all-natural Colorado look. Any guy would be very impressed if he came here and looked around. And they are all nice and friendly enough, but some vital quality is missing. Most of the girls just go out and sit around with no expression on their faces and wait for guys to talk to them. I talk to some of them sometimes, but I can’t just have twenty minutes of meaningless smalltalk and then go jump into bed with them.

I’m not explaining this very well because it is so much more complex than that. When I go out, it seems like everyone is looking at each other waiting for someone else to make the first move, like they are all afraid of each other. It is a very skittish atmosphere and after living here for a few years, it’s really hard not to fall into that rut. And I was never the most outgoing person in the first place. Whenever I do talk to girls it turns out to be a mistake. Sometimes they just play along and lead me on until I admit that I’m attracted to them, just to boost their ego at the expense of my emotional well-being (those are the "ego girls", they never wind up with boyfriends but they think they are the hottest things this side of the sun). With other girls, I get the impression that it will take a lot more than just a simple introduction to crack their code, like I would have to tell them that I am a movie producer or something. Some girls I talk to can’t even look at me, they just glance around the room and give me one-word responses to my feeble attempts at conversation until I finally just say, "Well, it was nice meeting you." and I walk away. A lot of people here seem to have that "on the go" way about them, where they either don’t even have time to hang out or else they are just afraid of real human interaction. After a while, you develop defense strategies like just never talking to any girls at all. But then I see all those damn beautiful girls all over town flaunting and taunting and it is really frustrating.

I am going to move to Portland OR but not until next year. My worst fear is that I will discover that girls are the same way everywhere else. But I go to Oregon a lot and the people there seem much more natural and real. That’s what I’m hoping anyway. If I am around natural people, I should be able lose my embedded fears and defense strategies over time and break out of this rut. A friend asked why I would leave Boulder where there is so much to do and the sun shines 320 days per year just to go to a place where it rains all of the time. I said, "My happiness comes from the people around me. There are a lot of cloudy days for me in Boulder."

Any advice, anyone? And hey, thanks everyone for caring and emailing me. Sorry if I sound gloomy but this whole relationship thing wears on me and affects every aspect of my life.

ive a couple of them to me. I haven’t had a girlfriend for 4 years, only had sex a few times during that time and it was with one girl. And I’m a really great person, fun to be around, not bad looking, responsible and successful, my friends all think I’m really cool. I just never find girls who seem natural and genuine. And they seem to shy away from me like I have some horrible disease. Are there any girls out there who don’t play games, who are don’t pretend to be something they are not, who are not so shy that they can’t even look at a guy when he makes a sincere attempt just to meet them, who can just relax, feel free, and enjoy the moment? I guess that is too much to expect, at least in the town that I live in. There are a lot of really beautiful girls here but it seems like the only enjoyment I will get from them is to watch them walking by.