ya know, my baby is the same way. i guess as women we just want to nurture. not to mention you hear all the time about how men are big babies when it comes to being sick- guess you two are the exception.

Bloody big homes sounds like upper middle class to me. I felt I was middle class when my family rented an apartment in which my brother and I shared a bedroom and we all shared one bathroom. Times have changed, but not that bloody much.

When you marry someone, you marry their whole family unless they themselves are divorced from their roots. Are they smug or do you just expect them to be? Don't project too much. Wait and see how they really are. You might like them.

I have two tennis rackets, haven't used them yet, but now I have an idea.

You're lucky to have writing to turn to as a way of working things out. Knots in the stomach will only harm you ultimately. And smacking people with a tennis racket would get you charged with assault. But it's good that you can put the knot in the stomach and the desire to smack someone with a tennis racket into your writing. Doing so puts the feelings behind all this out in the open where you can examine it. When anger is an appropriate response, feeling that anger is healthy. What becomes so frustrating is not knowing what to do or where to go with that anger.

Perhaps one reason for wanting to keep your anger contained inside you, is that you sense you lack skills in resolving conflicts with others and therefore find it more workable to just avoid conflict altogether. You apparently want to be fair and civilized and respectful of others, which in the long run will work in your favor. What you need to learn, I suspect, is how to interact with others so as to be fair and civilized and respectful of yourself and to expect that others treat you in those ways as well.

You might help yourself by exploring some communication skills that include assertive behavior training, active listening, and behavior modification focused on reinforcing positive behaviors in others while extinguishing negative behaviors in others that strike you as inappropriate and sometimes as intrusions into your rights and privacy and which prevent the relationships that make you uncomfortable from becomng truly mutual. Developing that above skills changed my life for the better and saved me from utter despair at one time when I was younger and less experienced.

Ask her; is it gonna work out between us?

MERGING
 TRAFFIC
  AHEAD

You can't
You won't
I'm catching this vibe
Who are you
Who am I?
I don't like you
I don't hate you
I made you mine
And now should I run?
When this is no longer fun
When I'm living to die
Tell me should I
Love you?

Before I met my wife, I dated for an extended period a woman who was several years older than I, very attractive, wonderful legs, wonderful breasts, wonderful body in general. She was bright, witty, fun. We went out bar hopping and laughed a lot for a long time. She had had two relationships prior to ours with men 15-20 years older than she, sophisticated Europeans with comfortable wealth. I was 20, bright, witty, fun, young, inexperienced, curious, intrigued, excited, intoxicated with being surrounded by sophistication. When in the course of gathering at some of my friends she was clearly drawn to an older, European, sophisticated man, I knew where I stood, although she left the party with me. I loved the fun and being a part of a couple with her, but I wanted someone who loved me for me and I felt she didn't--that she couldn't--that her needs were such that she wasn't grounded enough to love anyone.

I stopped calling her. Eventually she called me. She asked me out. I told her I would go if she was asking me out as her guest and planned to pay for the evening. She said she would.

I couldn't find in within me to let her--women's lib was still relatively new and although I was trying to hold women accountable, I wasn't ready yet to do so. The times were such that I think we both would have been embarrassed at her paying, but if I had to do it again, I'd wait for her to take the check and pay. But I was young and had been merely trying bravado on for size. I paid as was my custom; she let me, as was hers.

But I knew that night that it was over. I didn't call again for a long time. I went my way. She went hers. About six months later she called to tell me that someone had asked her to marry him. She was undecided. She asked me to come over to talk. I did. She said she couldn't decide whetehr to marry the guy who wanted to marry her, but she thought she might. I made no romantic overture toward her. Instead I asked her if she loved him. She said no, but she wanted to get married. "Then don't marry him," I told her. They were married for about a year, maybe two; they had a child together before they divorced. She invited me and all the other guys who had ever flirted with her to her wedding. I wasn't going to go, but thought myself selfish for not going, and went, only to be sorry I did.

That was the summer I met my wife. I had intended not to date for a while, and hadn't. When I met my wife, I had intended for it only to be a friendship--our backgrounds were different, we were both still in school. I had an exciting, challenging summer job I really liked and some side activities as well about which I felt passionate, but so far I had no longterm plans for my life.

Chemistry works in strange ways. We were instantly comfortable with one another. We respected one another completely. We met each other's families from the start and there was real compatibility there. We liked each other's friends. And there was passion as well. We had known each other at school for two or three months before our first date. We were engaged a week after our first date and were to be married in 9 months but instead married in 3 months later because by chance we found the perfect apartment at the perfect rent on our first try. We knew it was right.

My suggestion to you would be that if you like going out with this young woman but don't like the way she treats you, be honest and tell her. There will be times when you can still go out as friends if you wish--and you can state terms that for that to happen, sometimes she will have to invite you out and pay for it. That's acceptable in these times. If she asks for 300 pounds to go to London, unless you're wealthy enough to give money away freely to casual friends, make it a loan for which she will sign an IOU with a specified schedule for repayment. (Sorry! I watch The People's Court too much.) Be prepared to part when one or the other of you gets involved with someone else--but at least that will be built into your relationship with her.

Better yet, let her go. Date casually or don't date. Let your life be open to possibilities. In order to eventually have a relationship with the right woman for you, you have to be free enough to be open to a relationship with that woman when she comes along.

I'm assuming Rachel is the one you've been talking about all along--is that correct?

If this is the same girl, looks to me like she's putting on a show. Your expectations reflect how she treats you when you're alone. Your surprise is based on behavior when others are present.

If Rachel is a DIFFERENT girl from the one you've been writing about, it would look AS IF you have other options.

If Rachel IS the girl you've been writing about--you DEFINITELY have other options.

"Suck Doup," tragicomedy, or farce? Marx my word--you're in for it--if you stay in for it.

"i don't want to know her, don't want her in my life right now. this isn't good. for me it's terrible."

Do you need the "You Bet Your Life" (Google the reference if you're too young to recognize it) duck to descend upon you to point out the secret words before you can be the winner you're capable of being?

Write down your words. You can later include them in the documents when filing for divorce.

[NightListener]

What's wrong with this picture?

• she's going to london on thursday, without me. but it cost me £300
• some of the things she says to me like she's excited to share her life with me. but this isn't sharing. it's lip service.
  -it's a lie
  -she's a liar
  -she's a con artist
  -she's a fake
  -she's using you
• i'm giving, she is taking--and you know it.
• You're allowing this to happen with your eyes open.
• She's not doing this to you; you're doing it to yourself.
• Can you distinguish between rewarding yourself and punishing yourself? If so, why are YOU making the choices YOU are making?
• Healthy is as healthy does.
• "Stupid is as stupid does." --Momma Gump
  

What's not enough for you:

• her saying last night "i really f***ing love you"
• just love
• being made to feel like a fool for thinking she has changed when she still is who she has always been

What is enough:

• wanting to spend time with the other person
• doing things together they like as well as the things you like
• making an effort--love is effortful

Wow! What an insightful person I am! Wish I could take credit for the insights, but they're all yours.

The DJ's mix of the "flavors of the month" isn't working for you. You need to start dancing to the tune that's in your head.

Do you want trust and fidelity from the person you commit to for life? for the next year? for now? If that matters to you, you have to open your eyes to what fidelity means. Women who would leave their boyfriends for you or carry on romantically with you behind their husband's back, may be sweet, may be ego building, may be fun, may be exciting, may have the right chemistry, but their situations are such that the first thing you learn about them is that they are capable of disloyalty and duplicity. Put yourself in the place of the person to whom they are originally being disloyal--because if you get involved with such women, that the exact place you'll find yourself.

Now that I've said that, I'll admit that it's a generalization. People in a bad relationship may be rightfully trying to figure out how to get out of that relationship, but until they are out of it, if you are involved with them romantically, you are still an experiment or a side trip. One must be free of emotional encumbrances before one can enter a new commitment in a healthy way.

Relationships are contracts. Always read the fine print with a clear head. Otherwise you'll wind up on "The People's Court."

Her focus on friends first, you second, may be that her friendships have had time to develop and your relationship with one another is still in the starting stages and perhaps not ready for the full range of intimate sharing one has with true friends. If it were that alone, time to open up with one another could make the difference. The question is what do you want her to give and when does she start giving it? I'm not talking about sex--unless of course that's the main content of YOUR answer. I am talking about learning to know and love the little idiosyncracies of one another, learning what is important to one another and learning to care enough to know what to hope for for one another as well as how to fulfill one another's relationship related needs.

Don't mistake your loving her for longterm, committed love. Commitment is a two-way street. If you are basically a loving person, it's natural for you to love her, but your loving her doesn't make it Love. You may like the way the two of you look in the mirror and by appearance to the world, but when you close your eyes when you're with her, are you alone in the dark? When you've said good night after an evening with her, do you walk on air or feel relief to be free? When you picture yourself truly happy, is she truly in the picture?

Being treated like sh*t and death warmed up would not be the way I'd want to go through life. You don't seem to like it either. If you're being treated badly now, what do you think it would be like when the juices stop flowing? Most people who get divorced because they find their spouses to be selfish and cold, knew that about them when they married them--and married them anyway. Perhaps they were blinded by outward attractions so much, that they were willing to put up with abusive treatment for a while in hope that they could change the abuser, the uncaring, the taker--but those are qualities that can only change by within with great determination based on increased self-knowledge. Those qualities don't change just because a partner wants them to change.

You wrote: "she certaintly isn't my friend. friends don't treat each other like this. but is it possible that the only reason i am unhappy is because of her? i will put it this way, if we were a real and proper and close couple, then i wouldn't be feeling like this."

Relationships take time to develop, as does character. Your relationship has not had time to develop, but her character has. So has yours. Based on what you say, your values are healthy and you are capable of being loving and giving. Is that true of her as well? Not according to you (pages 1-9). If that's the case, what is it about YOU that makes you want to be involved in a relationship with HER? I don't know your age, but you seem young. (I'm 61.) If so, your life lies ahead of you and there may be that she's providing you with companionship, sexual attraction, possibly sexual activity? (I'm not suggesting--I have no idea--it's just part of the eventual flow of a relationship that goes on), an opportunity to go out to places you enjoy going as a couple. Perhaps she makes you feel more adequate in group situations where you may be with other couples. You need to be honest about what it is you are getting out of this relationship that keeps you in it. You suggest some possibilities in later entries--particularly in being the focus of her attention in groups.

I started at page 9 and read backwards to page 1. You're a really good writer--concise. Not only that but you seem to have common sense. You ask good questions, which is a good thing to do even when you already know the answers as you do. Asking the right question eliminates a lot of nonsense.

Your wrote: "she promises me things... that she has no intention of keeping, she musn't, since she doesn't keep them. and our relationship is based on trust. how do you  trust someone who breaks promises? i go out of my way to make her happy but she can't do one simple thing for me."

I agree with you that a good relationship SHOULD be based on trust. If she makes promises she never keeps, how is that trust?--unless you mean you can trust her to disappoint you.

i'm sorry you're not happy. my friend had been having similar issues with her now ex. it could be because of your girlfriend that you're unhappy. but it could be other things too. i'll give you the advice my mom always gave me ;;  if you still feel unhappy 2 weeks from now, it probably wasn't meant to be. and that worked for me. hopefully it works for you too. best of luck!
love,
Jade

Peopl are never who you expect them to be,

in the end everyone gets disapointed!