Hello Msfuturdoctor,

You say that when your father passed away you were looking for a new family.  Do you have any siblings/mother in your life?  As you’ve found out, a new relationship does not dissolve the pain and loss that you felt and still feel at your father’s passing.  You had a life whilst your father was alive and you cannot invalidate that because he is no longer with you.  That part of your life will always exist and it will be carried with you wherever you go (even when you run away). Change is an inevitable part of life.  Denial is the opposite of acceptance.  Perhaps you could locate a bereavement counsellor to help you come to terms with your loss.

Why are you even considering breaking up with your boyfriend who has been loving and supportive of you and who you love in return?  Underneath it all, do you have doubts about this relationship? You are already living at a distance from him and that should give you some space to find your own identity and explore your own feelings.  You say it “hasn’t been too bad” yet it seems to have pressed some uncomfortable buttons for you which may also come under the heading of “loss”.

Lists:  Boyfriend – loving, supportive, wonderful, caring, quality, laughter, kind, wants the best for you 100%.

Lists:  Girlfriend – wants to give it all up so that she can be free thinking, independent, introspective, contemplate the inevitability of change, work on herself exclusively, and have a normal life with the new and improved variety of self.

I am the greatest advocate of nurturing the inner self but the fact remains that if you want relationships in your life you have to interact.  Only you can decide whether you want to make the journey of self discovery with him or without him.

Peggy

Hi Sara,

If only ……..you could turn the clock back and not lash out at his parents when they were bullying you, you would get married to this family and live miserably ever after with them dictating terms forever more to you and your imaginary children.  This is not a relationship in which you could have lived happily ever after or could you?

Your fiance was cheating on you.  Isn’t it better that you found that out before you married him?

This is not a question of religion.  They are not more well blessed than you because they are Catholic.  His mother did not want her son moving away from her or you coming between them and the control they have over him.  Why should you give up all your hopes, all your ambitions and all your dreams purely to fit in with his family?  Marriage is about compromise not submission.  So what if he’s found someone the family approve of and who, for the time being, will be just what they want him to have.  Everything changes.

Forgive yourself for being human.  Support works both ways and he was not supporting you.  Long distance relationships might work sometimes but for the most part they don’t.  The fact that he is blocking and unblocking you is just a red herring.  It doesn’t really matter what his motives might be when you know the relationship is over.  Regardless of where he stands on the ‘love’ chart, he doesn’t feel enough for you to continue being your fiance.

I understand that you are feeling very hurt at his behavior towards you but you don’t need all the answers to have closure.  You weren’t right for each other.  It’s that simple.

Physically shutting the door on this relationship is closure.  Put a mental picture in your head of him standing one side of the door and you standing the other.  Mentally, say your goodbyes and close the door on him and then proceed to open a door to your new life without him.

Peggy

Dear Barry,

Feelings happen whether we want them to or not.  Close friendships contain love.  Your love has turned ‘sour’.  You are bitter towards your friend who has a life independent of you.  She has chosen to date a man whom she considers more than a friend.  You have given us all a message that you don’t want to be more than a friend to her so I’m guessing that you have also given your friend that message.

Your friend feels ready to move on.  It might work out with this man that she is seeing or it might not.  There are no certainties but it is better to try and fail, than never to try at all.  She might be learning some valuable lessons from him and you might be learning some valuable lessons from her.  Instead of thinking she might get hurt, think that she might get happy.

Think about this.  You don’t want her but you don’t want anyone else to want her either.  That’s how it seems.  It’s interfering with your relationship with her and you don’t like it.  Losing people you care about is hard – it hurts!

Peggy

Dear Barry,

Your last message says everything that you need to say.  You have done as much as you can to keep this friendship alive.  Now you have to let it go.  Accept that she no longer wants to be your friend and move on.  You do not need to give anything more to this friendship – it is over!  It doesn’t have to make sense to you for it to be over.  It makes sense in her head and that is all that matters to her.

As I said in my earlier post, focus your energies on other friends, hobbies, interests and activities.  Be so busy that you’ll barely notice that she hasn’t contacted you.

Best Wishes

Peggy

Hi BeachGirl,

This state of affairs sounds very unhealthy indeed.  That last but one sentence “if he wanted to be with her he would” is aggressively pathetic.  He could have her if he wanted to!!  Is that supposed to be reassuring?  Boundaries have been crossed between what should have been a working relationship and what has become a personal relationship.

Counselling is not a quick fix.  I think this really is a case that if he wants your marriage to work then you both have to cut all contact with this third person.  It’s no good going through the motions.  You don’t trust him (for good reason) and you just want him for a meal ticket according to him.  You are not ready to listen to/respect each other’s point of view.

Counselling is there to help you open up  to more effective ways of communicating/relating to each other.  You probably need to explore together why he feels undervalued and why you see this woman as a threat to your marriage.

I hope you can work this out.

Peggy

Hi Jane,

For your sister to arrive unannounced and decide that she is going to stay for a month is downright rude.  I am assuming that she doesn’t live close by so what has happened in her life that she needs to take up residence with you.  I might be inclined to research local hotels where she can stay for the second two weeks before she gets the impression that she has a permanent home with you.

Two weeks is long enough to be the welcoming, accommodating younger sister.  You will have nothing to reproach yourself for and neither will your sister.  If she takes offence, then let her but stand firm.

Peggy

Hi Sara,

One thing that stands out to me is that your ex-fiance has controlling parents and he is not able to stand up to them.  There behavior is pretty poor.  For your ex fiance to suggest that you would have to invite his ex girlfriend to the wedding because her mother puts business his way is ludicrous.  I don’t think you were being immature.  I think he was being unreasonable to think he could treat his wedding like an extension of his business.

Rejection is painful.  You have a grieving process to go through where you let go of all the plans you’d made for the future and come to terms with what has happened.  You don’t believe you could have treated him the way he has treated you.  You believe you would have heard him out and eased his pain.  He isn’t you and he hasn’t behaved how you would have behaved.  Unfortunately, your ex fiance had already made his mind up so no amount of begging and crying was going to change it.  None of this has been helped by the attitude of his parents and advice supposedly given from his religious pilgrimage/priest who instructed him to put an end to his relationship with you.  Really!!

As painful as it is for you, Sara, you don’t have a choice in this matter.  The choice has already been made by others.  I really hope it doesn’t take you a long time to get over this because the sooner you can grieve and come to terms with this the better.

With regard to future partners, every situation you encounter will be different.  Hopefully, the man you eventually marry will have more supportive parents willing to welcome and accommodate their daughter in law into the family fold.

Peggy