Hello,

I agree with what Mark is saying. Have you ever considered that the “beauty and adorableness” of this new woman can also fade after 14 years? There is no guarantee that it will also last forever and at that point what will you do. You will also have to tell your wife that this has been happening so she can make preparations for a divorce, to take a break, or to move forward. It is terrible to be blindsided by someone you trust and that pain can do more harm than good in the future. I believe before you pursue this new woman you must sort it out with your wife. This isn’t an internal struggle as it affects more than yourself. It is her right to know and move forward from there.

Now, if you don’t want to tell her because you want to keep your wife as an option if the new woman doesn’t work out you should end the marriage now. Your wife isn’t an option, she is a person. She deserves to find someone that will give her the love she deserves through thick and thin.

Hello,

I’m sorry for what you are going through and how she is treating you so far.

I want you to ask yourself, if she does decided to work on the marriage for the sake of your kid will you be able to trust her again? Will you feel safe with letting her go out and not worry that she is sleeping with someone else? You can’t keep restraining her or set down these rules. Deciding not to be unfaithful is a choice that she needs to make and has failed to do so already once and maybe multiple times.

You are focusing on her perspective in all of this but I truly believe you should step back and focus on yourself wholeheartedly. Focus on the values and morals you wouldn’t budge in and realize she doesn’t fit in with those values. This was ultimately ruin your viewpoint of a relationship if you continue to stay and put up with it. You aren’t pathetic that you want to keep trying. You just don’t like giving up which is an admirable trait. I would put it towards the situation you are in rather than the person. You can change the situation but you can’t change someone’s personality. If you are a hard worker, I don’t think your father in law will want to lose you as an employee. Also, if he wants you to go then you can still leave and find something else with your 2 years of experience. Please keep us updated and find the strength to realize and know you need and deserve better.

Hello Simona,

I feel like you aren’t able to get past the one month contract because it feels like the end of the relationship. You are unsure if you need to mourn or keep pursuing him. I would take the one month as a challenge to yourself. You need to see who you are as a person and what you want from your own life. In the end, you might end up realizing that you want more time for yourself.

I especially think you need more time for yourself and would end the relationship. He has hurt you before (cheating on you) and has pushed you away when you have tried to talk to him. I believe when someone cheats on they ruin the trust you have for them. That isn’t something you can easily build back up and you shouldn’t have to feel that suspicious feeling time and time again. As a duty to yourself, recognize your own worth and ask yourself is this a person I really need in my life? Will the effort I give them be returned? If there isn’t a definite yes in your answer than I’m sorry to say you must move on. A relationship takes effort and it isn’t just your feelings about the person. Life has a variety of situations and effort in a relationship is needed to get past them. It isn’t fair to you when you can be there for him during that situation but he needs to “take time for himself” when you are going through a crisis.

Dear meganb,

Wearing your heart on your sleeve is completely dependent on the type of person you are. Different people have different personalities and have different perspectives on how to live their own lives. I feel like you are going through a similar feeling that I have went through time and time again. The most important thing to remember is you are sticking to the person you want to be and the person you are now. The world is filled with people that like to share their feelings, hide their feelings, have multiple romantic relationships, or just have one. You just have to figure out what type of person you are and to be comfortable with that. What makes you sad, happy, angry etc.? The most important job you have in the world is to figure yourself out and find answers to those questions. Some friends will advice you to let it go and if it works for them that’s great they figured that out. If that doesn’t work for you, it simply doesn’t work for you and that’s okay too. You just have to go and power through the emotions and in the end you will find out more about yourself and have more experience dealing with those emotions.

Hi Sammi,

I’ve had experience with this kind of abuse and also the emotional withdrawal from a parent also. I want to start off by saying please the next time you pick up a blade for the release think about yourself. The reason I am saying this is because my sister cut herself when the stress was too much which eventually led her to making the decision to kill herself. Luckily, my other sibling was there and we were able to save her. I want to tell you that self-harming is a form of release but it allows you to hurt yourself as a way of compensating for what is lacking in your life. When you experience that much pain, you will want anything to release you from the hold your pain has on you. Eventually, I’m scared you will make that same decision my sister did. I’m here to say it will FKIN (excuse my lang.) get better. In the end your life will be your own and your parents or your parents’ SOs will not have any control of it. Reading about everything you are going through I know you are damn strong. I just want you to know that it will definitely get better. I mean that as in you will slowly start healing from all of this once you separate yourself from the cause of your unhappiness. When I went through these feelings of hopelessness I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and focused on each of my senses one at a time. What I could taste, what I felt on my skin, what I heard, etc. Trust me, I know this is hard to do if you are bawling but it gives you a safe haven. It allows you to feel everything small that you can take for granted. This helped when I had every suicidal thought because I would miss even the small things if I wasn’t there to experience them. I hope this technique helps you because I want you to live.

Dear Learning,

I like the positivity in your post. Unconditionally loving someone to me is forgiving them despite any flaw or trial they have put you through. At one point that was a really hard test for me and it still is. I think it only applies to certain people though. There are some people that you accept a lot more hurt from then others and that isn’t necessarily bad, it depends on the meaning or significance that person has in your life. Conceptually, uconditonal love is beautiful and that perception helps me to forgive and care about others.