|
 Q
I want to say hi first Dr. Callahan.
I also want you to know that I watch you on The Ricki Lake Show and you
are truly beautiful on both the inside and out. But I do need some expert
advice. My name is Jean and I have been with my boyfriend for two years.
About two months ago he cheated on me with another lady and now she says
that she is pregnant with his child. When he told me about the situation I
asked him first of all "why did he do it and second of all why didn't
he use some protection". His response was that :"we were going
through some things and he didn't use protection because I do not ever
have unprotected sex with him". This is true, I do make him use
condoms, ALWAYS!! Dr. Callahan I am 21 years old and I'm a full time
college student, I don't know if I can handle this kind of situation right
now but I love him and it's hard for me to let him just go. I don't know
what to do, I feel disrespected and second when I used to be first. Many
guys are interested in me but I'm so used to him. He tells me he's sorry
and that he loves me. Dr. I have listened and read your advice to others
and you are a very smart lady. I want you to give me some advice. I
DON'T WANT TO JUST LIVE MY LIFE BASED ON EMOTIONS, I WANT TO LIVE IN
REALITY!
Thank YOU,
P.S.
I don't want him to keep hurting me.
A The
last line of your email to me states that you don't want this guy to
keep hurting you, and there is almost no way to stay in this relationship
and not continue to get hurt. Before I tell you why you have
to move on, I have to congratulate you on being so strong and acknowledging
that voice in your head that tells you when something is not right.
Your own intuition and sense of self-worth and self-esteem are telling you
that to remain in this situation is emotionally and sexually
unhealthy and it breaks your own personal rules about how you know you
deserve to be treated.
Now back to
reality. Staying with this guy is going to be exactly what you don't
want--more and more hurt. The reality is, you feel second
because in many ways now you will be second. It is very hard to
compete with a baby or child. Sometimes even when the man is no
longer romantically involved with the mother of his child he may want to
be actively involved in the pregnancy and go with the mother to doctor
visits and Lamaze classes. After the child is born, he will need to
become very active in the baby's life both practically and financially,
especially while the child is very young. Can you handle knowing
that he is going to be spending time with the baby's mother from now on?
Most of all now, during the pregnancy, and while the child is younger, but
he and this woman will be connected to each other for the rest of their
lives through this child. Can you deal with that? Will you be
comfortable when he tells you he has to go to the doctor with her or go
see her and the baby because it won't be until the baby gets a little
older that he will take the baby outside on his own? And I am asking
you this assuming you feel totally confident that the two are no longer
romantically involved. If you won't feel comfortable with them
spending this much time together and you don't even think they are fooling
around anymore, imagine how impossible it will be for you to tolerate if
you thought that at least one of the two of them still had feelings for
the other person and that they were still messing around on the side.
Remember, a lot of women have a very strong
romantic bond with the father of their children. Some women even
have children just to create a lifetime connection with a man, so the
chances of this woman just feeling like she doesn't want any more to do
with him are slim (even if he tells you he doesn't want anything
to do with her). On top of that, even if he isn't interested in
having a relationship with her, many men just like to continue to have sex
with their baby's mama (the men tell me that if for no other reason than
it's easy and convenient). Do you want to be up late at night
worrying about where he is and if he is still having sex with his baby's
mama? If he claims he slept with her because you two were going
through some things, do you want to have to worry that arguing will lead
to him going out to cheat on you with her? Sometimes when people
have problems in relationships they look for that one person who they can
always run back to for sex or to just take their mind off of their current
relationship--is this what you want to live with?
Don't make the mistake of thinking that
this is a competition between you and her for who will get the man--you
don't have to compete with her for anything. First of all she is
having his baby so there is no win or lose, she is in the picture
permanently. And second of all, even if she wasn't having a baby,
why choose a man who isn't choosing you?
You have been so sexually responsible with
your body--it keeps you healthy and alive (avoiding STDs and HIV), do you
want to risk that by sleeping with someone who you know isn't being
monogamous which could result in him giving you something he got from
someone else? Don't bend your rules about always using condoms
otherwise you will may end up with an STD or a baby yourself and if you
aren't ready for either one, stay protected. You have your whole
life ahead of you. You need to stay mentally and physically healthy
to finish college and start building a good life for yourself. It
will be hard being without him but I suspect that the pain of staying with
him will be greater than the pain of leaving him. You have so much
to offer a good man who is willing to stick to his commitments, so why
don't you treat yourself the way you think you deserve to be treated and
only offer yourself the best. Move on and heal yourself. Don't
let this guy bring you down, keep your head up and do the difficult work
of starting over.
|
Dr.
Michelle
Ask Dr. Michelle