Hi Mark,

There is a thin line between being taken advantage of and being understanding, and the deciding factor on which side your situation falls is your wife’s intentions.  It sounds to me like they have been trying to find her mother many different places where she can go and where she does go and then it doesn’t work out, so she comes back. I can understand why your wife would feel that she needs to give her mom a place to stay when things don’t work out. Now, with the green card situation, you are all between a rock and a hard place. I’m not sure your wife’s intentions are on the side of taking advantage of you, but I don’t know your wife at all, so that’s something you’re going to have to really evaluate. If it were me, I think I’d probably try to wait it out a bit longer, as long as the intention is still to get her a green card so that she may come and go rather than intending for your mother-in-law to live with you forever.  It might help to have another discussion with your wife just to make this boundary clear, but I fear if you give her an ultimatum, she’s going to choose her mother because NOT choosing her mother likely means she won’t see her for 10 years unless she goes and visits her in her home country, and I know if I were in that situation, I would hate that idea and would do anything I could to avoid it. Just something to think about.

Your feelings about this situation may just require a perspective shift… and perhaps if you decide to stay in this situation until your mother-in-law gets a green card, you and your wife could figure out something that makes you feel better, such as your wife taking your mother-in-law for visits to other family members’ houses for a few days so you get the house to yourself once in a while, things like that.

I think you should just explain to him what you explained here. You can soften it if you want by telling him you love spending time with him and understand why he wants to come, but you really want to dedicate the week solely to professional development so that you can get the most out of it that you possibly can, and you don’t want him to feel neglected or to worry about not giving him enough attention. Hopefully he will understand, because I think what you want is reasonable.

Hi Felix!

It’s likely she keeps rejecting boys because she hasn’t found any that she connects with in that way, and it’s possible she’s the type of girl who doesn’t mind being single, so she will stay single until she finds that connection. If she doesn’t feel that connection with you after being such close friends already, I would not count on it ever happening.

Do you think it’s possible that you keep feeling like she wants to get your attention because that’s what you are hoping for? It would make you feel good if that were true? It seems to me, though, if she wanted your attention, she would just message you because you haven’t blocked her or asked for time apart yet, right?

I think the best way for you to get over this is to look at the situation exactly as it is without reading into anything. If you are close friends and she isn’t making any effort to talk to you other than liking or commenting on social media (which typically doesn’t mean anything more than friendship to most people), it’s likely she isn’t interested in anything more with you and I wouldn’t assume or wonder if there’s more at this point, given her behavior. If she’s not interested as it is, you not looking at her stuff on social media won’t likely decrease your chances of her being interested, and you looking at her stuff won’t increase it either because it would’ve worked by now if that were the case. You’ve been active in her life for a long time and she still isn’t interested…. so I would quit worrying about what will or won’t affect her interest in you and just focusing on becoming your best self for you.

If, in the future, when you are both older and she is out of high school, you two become close again and she seems more interested and ready to date, then I think it would okay to tell her how you feel, but as for right now, I would just try to move on, and, who knows, maybe you will attract someone you like even better and will forget all about her.

I remember your previous threads, as well, and I think it’s very important that you accept that she is not interested in you romantically. She is trying to be nice about it, though, by saying she’s just not interested in dating. That is her trying to let you down easy without hurting your feelings, but if someone comes along that she is truly interested in dating, be prepared for her to start dating him.

I am telling you this because I want you to realize that you blocking her for your own self-care is not going to affect whether or not she dates or gets close someone else in the future. That is likely going to happen regardless of what you do, but you will probably feel less pain when she does if you take the time to detach from her some. So I would just explain to her that you need time apart, then block her on all outlets and don’t talk to her for a while, at least until you are able to stop thinking about her all the time, are feeling better, and have accepted that she is not interested.

I think when I say I’m insecure about my looks, what I mean is that I feel invisible, and I so want to be seen. And maybe if the woman who loves me doesn’t see me anymore, or perhaps never did see me as I hoped to be seen, then I have to let go of the hope that anyone ever will. And I don’t believe that words spring from my mind accidentally. When I write “seen” I suspect I mean the word more broadly than as it pertains to seeing or attractiveness. Being noticed too. Important? Worthy? Real?

Have you ever heard of love languages?  It seems, from what you’ve been saying in your posts, that yours is words. You tell your partner that she is attractive and you so wish that she would tell you that she finds you attractive, because that’s how you would know and feel it.

The thing is with attractiveness from strangers or even friends, you wouldn’t know whether they noticed you unless they came up and told you that they did, right? There could have been plenty of people who noticed you throughout your life and thought you were handsome, but if your mind was focused on feeling invisible, you wouldn’t notice them noticing you unless they told you directly, which people don’t often do (unless you’re a woman in a bar filled with drunk men. haha). But I think women as a whole often don’t go up to male strangers or even male friends and say they find them attractive. So you probably don’t even realize how many people have “seen” you over the years because people haven’t came up to you and told you, so as far as your mind was concerned, it just didn’t happen because it didn’t have solid proof in words. Does that make sense?

Check out the love languages when you get a minute and see if the words one resonates with you. It might also be a way for you to tell your partner what you need from her. Even if she works on verbalizing any of the wonderful qualities that makes her want to be in a relationship with you, I think that would surely help you to feel better.

Honestly, I really think the healthier thing to do for the kids would be to separate completely but get them into counseling so that they have someone to talk to and can learn healthy coping mechanisms related to this situation..  If the parents stay living together for the kids’ sake, they probably shouldn’t date other people for the kids’ sake either, because them dating other people is also likely going to have a negative effect. They may have to accept that they cannot separate without it having SOME negative effect on the kids, and if they are completely worried about them being damaged, they need to just stay together for the next 13 years. This whole thing seems well intentioned but still unhealthy as it’s likely to set an odd example for the kids growing up and can you imagine what their friends are going to say when they get older?  I guess it depends on the country though, I don’t know much of the culture in Croatia, so perhaps this is more normal there? Still, it might be a good idea that they at least talk to a psychologist who specializes in children’s clinical psychology to get an opinion on what is actually the best thing to do in this situation if they don’t want to stay together and committed only to each other.

I’m so sorry to hear about your job situation. Perhaps if you do end up moving, you will find better options that will be more stable commitment-wise in the place you move to.

Hi Natalija,

I’m 37 and single, so I get what you’re saying about dating (although I’m really not looking and have a lot of guy friends that treat their girls very, very well), but I would still definitely look at this situation as objectively (and nonemotionally) as you can because it’s likely to blow up on someone (or all of you) in the future if it doesn’t change, which would mean he’s not actually much better than the other guys you’ve been out with if you’re still ending up in a bad or hurtful situation. I think it’s a good idea to give it more time, though, if you’re truly unclear. I’m sort of just hoping they will change their minds, and I’m sure you are too, but there are no guarantees with this, and 13 years is a REALLY long time. Maybe he isn’t thinking in terms of just how long that is either and isn’t fully grasping it.

If he does get counseling, it might be good to talk to a counselor or psychologist about the effects on children in situations like this, if it’s REALLY better for them for the parents to stay living together while dating other people or if it’s actually healthier to really separate. I’d have to wonder if any studies have been done on this.