hi Anita

Thank you for your input. No I don’t care what anyone thinks. When I was younger I did. But not now. I really don’t care. My bf is actually coming back next month. Early. He was able to hire someone and is training them now. As far as Islam, I did tell him that I was open to conversion if I could learn more about it. He isn’t asking me to convert but I am interested in learning about his religion. He likes it when I ask questions about his religion and he gladly answers my questions. His dad passed away years ago. So it’s just his mom and siblings. He has told me repeatedly that it doesn’t matter what they think and he will prove it to me. He is definitely loyal to me. I sometimes think he is naive in not seeing our differences. He truly does not care. His brother married outside his race and religion and his family accepted his wife.

That’s such a beautiful story about your grand-parents. I honestly did not want anymore children until I met my bf. We have talked about what that will mean and what it would look like for both of us.

Your input is always ok Anita 🙂

Hi All.

I hope those of you in America had a good thanksgiving.

I needed to come back here and vent a little.

This is more about my family and their opinion about my relationship with my man. Remember my sister and I had a falling out about how I handled the whole blocking issue. She wanted me to break up with my man without hearing him out first and I wasn’t gonna do that. So anyway we have not spoken since then. My mom was at my house for thanksgiving and has been feeling uneasy that I’m not speaking to my sister. I had not told my mom about my relationship with my man till thanksgiving because I was not sure where it was going. So I am feeling more confident about my relationship so I told my mom about him. She didn’t say anything but kinda just listened. From the beginning me and my man already know that our families won’t be too pleased with our relationship for a few reasons. Firstly on his side, I am black, I’m 10 yrs older than him and I not a muslim. On my side the fact that he is muslim and our age difference. Me and him talked about this from the very first day and decided we don’t really care and we will pursue a relationship. Anyway. I wanted my mom to talk to him over thanksgiving, but it didn’t happen. Time difference and other things didn’t line up.

My mom was able to speak to my sister about what happened between us. I honestly didn’t want my mom to hear any of the negative things my sister had to say about my man. Because it is irrelevant at this point since we have moved past it. But my sister spilled it all out to my mom. Up until this point my mom hadn’t really said much about my relationship. But after she spoke to my sister these are the things that she picked up on.

1. He won’t be faithful to me because well his religion allows him to have multiple women. I told my mom. First off no one in his family has ever been involved with more than one woman at a time (my mom was surprised when I told her this). So I am not concerned about that. Secondly his religion? Really mother? Dad is a Christian and his religion did not “allow” for him to have multiple women. BUT HE DID!!! So lets move on…

2. He is Muslim and I am atheist. Well we talked about it and its a non issue. He does his thing and I do mine. She is worried that I will convert to Islam since I gave up on Christianity years ago. Told her if I do it will be my choice and my business not hers.

3. My age. He is too young. He is in his mid 30s and I mid 40s. He has never been married and has no children. I am divorced and have children of my own that are college age and high school age. She was like does he want to have children? I said yes we talked about that already. Just 1. Mom was like but what about your age? I am like what about it? Women my age have children these days and I am willing to make that “sacrifice” for the right man. So?

4. My sister told her that he may be talking to “multiple” women. She said this because an ex of his got in touch with me via FB and claimed they were still dating. I offered my man an opportunity to explain himself to me which he did. I told him to handle the “situation” if he still wanted to continue dating me. Which he did. I was satisfied with the steps he took and we haven’t talked about it again. My sister wasn’t happy that I kept talking to him because he can’t be trusted. She wanted me to start dating other people as well.

This just made me feel really bad that now my mom has a preconceived notion about him even before she gets to meet him. Which we were planning on meeting our families when he gets back. I didn’t tell him any of this stuff because I do not want him to feel uncomfortable when he does meet my family.

Sorry I just needed to vent.

Hi Anita

When I was married, I was married to a man that I trusted 100%. He was nothing like my father. But there was this thing I always felt he was missing. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The marriage ended and we spent the last decade or so co parenting our children together.

I believe where my childhood wounds reared it’s head was when I met my ex bf. He reminded me so much of my father. For some reason that didn’t deter me from dating him. It was one traumatic relationship. Prior to him I had never been in a relationship with a man that cheated on me. The sad part is I knew he was doing it and I just acted like I didn’t know. Which is what my mother did with my father. I finally decided to walk away when the evidence just came to me and when I confronted him he acted like so what? You are here and she’s there so why are you worried about what am doing with her. In that moment I knew it was time for me to walk away. Which I did. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done.

The last 5 yrs after that breakup I had a general distrust for men and just assumed that they all cheat. Until I went into therapy and realized that the friends I had were all in very unhealthy marriages with cheating spouses and all. I decided it was time for me to break away from those relationships. In the 5 years 3 of my siblings got married and started families. I can say that my brothers are wonderful husbands to their wives and my brother in law adores my sister. I realized that it is possible to be in a relationship with someone that will be faithful to me. Looking at my siblings relationships with their spouses I realized that it’s better to wait for the right person for you. It’s like they were meant to be together.

I realize that it’s a process to overcome this. I’m still in therapy.  The first step is me being aware of it. I told my bf of the trust issues I have because of my past bruises and he has been very patient dealing with my “crazy”. He has given me everything to make me trust him other than passwords to his accounts which I don’t think it’s necessary because he hasn’t given me any reason not to trust him.

Just like John said I am really working on realizing that my bf is not my ex. Everything about him is NOTHING like my ex. And has you’ve pointed out I need to observe him overtime which requires a lot of patience. I’m really looking forward to him coming back for good so we can continue to grow our relationship.

Hi John

I laughed when I read your first post. No I am not in my early twenties. I am actually in my mid 40s. I lived a very sheltered life growing up. Went to an all girls boarding school. Got married young and divorced young and never really dated till I met my cheating ex. So I would say that my experience with men is sadly limited. But I am learning and growing day by day.

You are correct on the knee jerk thing. Also wanted to add that a month prior to all of this happening right before he travelled we got into a disagreement. Totally my fault. First time I had ever seen him upset. I sort of gave him space to cool off and reach out to me when he was ready.

Part of it was what Gia talked about and thinking that my fear is my intuition or my gut when in reality it’s not. Part of the argument was me finding “clues” that he is cheating when he wasn’t and really convincing myself that he was because I know the “patterns” from my past relationship with my ex. Since then I started journaling. I also remind myself that the “stories” I make up are all in my head and are not actual reality. So instead of calling him or messaging him with crap. I just journal instead and write all my thoughts down. The funny thing is when I go back and read my journal entry I realize how insane I sound.

T

Hi Anita/Gia

This May sound silly. But remember how I said my bf never has time for me and I was thinking about breaking up with him? Instead I just took a few steps back and gave him space. 2 days went by and I didn’t hear from him. When he did reach out it felt great and we talked. Another day went by without contact. Since then he’s been attentive to me. Calling me every morning. He said he knows he hasn’t been what I wanted but he will do his best to be the best for me ?. Meaning making time for us. It’s been a week and he is still attentive to my needs  I told him I love this version of him. Now here’s the crazy part  I’m suspicious of his change in behavior. Like really dude “what happened “ I didn’t ask him but I’m finding it hard to relax and just enjoy the attention he’s giving me.

He’s even started talking about getting married ?. We are from different religious backgrounds and different races as well. He brought that up and how he feels we should manage it in our relationship and if we have children we should celebrate both sides of our religion and culture.

ok  so I’m like where is my bf? What have you done to him?

What do you all think?

Hey Michelle,

I struggle between what you have said and what Anita has said. 🙂

When he went overseas his communication started dwindling. The 7 hour time difference didn’t help either. I would message him. He’d read the message and won’t respond sometimes. One time we made a Skype date and he didn’t show up. I started getting really frustrated with him. So I told him how I felt. Maybe not in the most matured way. So he told me he was managing an office with 1200 employees. Now he is managing 2 offices with 2000 employees. He has several WhatsApp groups on his phone for work. His phone is constantly buzzing with messages from his employees. So atimes he’d read my message and say he’d respond later but then forget. That’s when I would feel like he’s ignoring me. Or I would see him online but he won’t read my message till the next day. He said he’s phone buzzes all night since he works for a global company so sometimes he just puts it on silent. So then I feel ignored yet again. He sent me a screen print of his phone and he had 96 unread messages waiting for him to go through. Just to show me that he is truly overwhelmed with work at the moment. He’s is planning to hire someone else while he’s overseas to manage that office so he doesn’t have to do it.

To be honest I have considered ending it with him because of his work schedule. Now this may sound selfish of me. But he has 2 nights a week when he hangs out with his friends. My thought process is so if you can carve out that time for them then why can’t you do the same for me. Once a week for an hour on video just so we can see each other and catch up. He hasn’t been able to do it. Maybe he’s done it once since he travelled. This makes me feel unimportant. We do communicate via chat. But I feel that is not enough. He doesn’t understand why I feel that way. So I just stopped nagging him. I’m not a nagger and this situation was making me one. I got really mad once and told him to go away and leave me alone. So he did. We didn’t speak for 5 days and I spent those days asking myself if I was asking for too much out of him. Of course it didn’t help that my sister told me to dump him.

So after 5 days I reached out to him and we talked. He told me that he really wants to give me the attention I deserve BUT work is killing him now. All I heard from him was he was making excuses. I feel like people make time for what they feel is important to them. He doesn’t make time for me because he doesn’t feel the need to. Because he knows I will always pick up the phone when he calls. Respond to his texts right away so why would he feel the need to make time for me when he knows I’m not going anywhere.

I truly love this man. But I’m honestly considering walking away because I just don’t feel like he cares for me as much as he says he does 🙁

Yes Gia, Anita

thank you for the support these past few days. It just didn’t make sense. Lol