Dear nova:

It helps me to understand when I retell parts of a member’s story (with quotes), so that’s what I’ll do:

For the first 7 years of your life, your parents were not in your life because of alcoholism. You never witnessed a healthy, stable relationship, they all “ended in, cheating, unhappiness, and divorce!”.

You got together with the man you are now engaged to when you were 19. It was a rocky relationship all along, the two of you have “broken up many many times”. Last time was in August 2019 (age 22). Following that breakup you were “quite happy” to live in your own apartment on your own, “working out, making friends, going out and just overall enjoying my life in a way I hadn’t experienced yet”. During the break, you dated G for a month: “things were good, I was very attracted to him on many levels especially sexually”.

You got back together with your now fiancé in November 2019, found out that you were pregnant Dec 31, 2019. had your first child “in the middle of the pandemic in 2020“, had your second child at the beginning of 2022, and reconnected with G a week later over social media. As of the last 1.5 weeks, since the end of June 2022, the communication with G on social media “absolutely crossed the lines of just being polite and friendly. We’ve talked about the feelings we have toward each other and things to that extent. More romantic. I know that this is wrong and we have both acknowledged that so we keep making attempts to end the connection we’re feeding and to cut off contact but one of us always ends up reaching back out”.

“I do love my fiancé but do not feel like I am IN LOVE. Sometimes I wonder if my fiancé is capable of loving me the way that I desire…  I will not agree to marriage until I know for certain that this is what I want. I will not put myself or fiancé through an unhappy marriage just to keep up appearances because we have children together. I know that what the right and moral thing to do is to completely cut contact with this individual And to move on. But it doesn’t feel so simple because of the feelings that I am having for him: I feel like I will always wonder ‘what if’. I am torn”-

-I took some time to think, or rather, to feel your story, taking into great consideration how you feel and what you think, so that my input is not a general what-should-a-woman-do in your place, but what should you do. Or rather, what I would do at your age, in your situation and with your thoughts and feelings.

I wouldn’t get married. I would break the engagement and co-parent my two children with their father, living separately from him, on your own once again. I would resume the relationship with G (I wouldn’t be able not to, my feelings being so strong), but I’ll be aware that I dated him for only a month, still don’t know him well enough, and that because of my background, the abandonment issues you mentioned etc., even if he is a decent guy, it will not be a smooth ride. But it could be a great ride. It could work out long-term… maybe.

I think that the.. unlived part of your life, (the lack of passion, the lack of adventure, the lack of living on your own) will not allow you at this time to settle for less than what you imagine life could be.

anita