Dear Beans:

You’ve been in a 4.5 years relationship with Brad, ever since you were 19, having lived with him for some time. You are now 24 and he is about to turn 30. You refer to Brad as your “best friend”. You love him with all your heart, you wrote. And you will do anything for him.

But he wasn’t nice to you, called you a baby, knowing it hurts you to be called a baby (“probably why he did it so often”). Last year you broke up, he moved out but visited you afterwards, the relationship continued while you lived separately, you “absolutely loving the freedom, only having myself to cook and clean for- it was great!”.

While in a relationship with Brad, living separately, you got together with Matt and after some fun and drinking, you had sex with him. Next, Brad,  frustrated about living back with his parents as he was approaching 30, begged you to get back and move in together again, and you agreed to do so in October last year. What followed was “some really rocky times”, followed by him currently being “the perfect boyfriend”.

You wrote: “I truly think he’s terrified of losing me”.

You “miss being alone”, and you miss Matt, thinking a lot about Matt, “just miss having a friend”,  But you feel that you “can’t leave (Brad), it would shatter him.. he would be losing so much… I can’t hurt him”, and you “don’t want a relationship with Matt- he’s a dog”, you wrote. “I don’t even want a relationship with anyone else but damn, why can’t I stop thinking about Matt?”, you asked no one in particular.

My input: I think you should live alone. Just because it is convenient for Brad to live with you, is not a good enough reason for you to not live the way you want to live, which is Alone. Notice I separated the sentence: “I truly think he’s terrified of losing me”. I separated it because his fear of no longer living with you, and maybe moving back to his parents, may be the reason why he is currently “the perfect boyfriend”.

Once he is no longer terrified anymore, he may be a very.. imperfect boyfriend, maybe harassing you about your experience with Matt, trying to make you feel guilty about it, trying to cement a moral superiority over you because of what happened with Matt.

anita