Dear Anne
I'm 17 and have been dating my current boyfriend since I was 14. It started as an internet relationship but grew into a more serious one. He moved countries to live with me and has now been here for 2 years. But lately I've been having doubts about our relationship. We always seem to fight. He always makes it my fault, puts me down, says how miserable I am, that I should be more positive and that I never give him attention. I've tried to give him attention but the only kind he wants is sexual. Cuddling is 'boring' to him. I'm starting to see him as more of a best friend but he can't just be that to me. We've been planning to move back to his original country together in a year which will cost a lot of money. I'd love to but I'm not sure I'd like to with him. I'm very worried that if I leave him I'll be lonely. I don't have a close family and there's nobody else to really depend on. I cheated on him for 6 months with another guy when I was 15. It was a horrible mistake which I often regret. I've recently met another guy on the internet who also lives in another country also. I'm starting to develop feelings for him and he says he is too. But he says that I need to make a decision about my current relationship because he doesn't want to get hurt. I'm not sure what to do. I'm unhappy in my current relationship but I have built up such a good friendship and a lot of trust with him. I know he'd treat me well in life but will I regret choosing him? Also he's quite controlling and because he is my first proper relationship I suppose he gets away with telling me what to do. I'm a very independent person who does not like to be told what to do so this is a big issue to me. I think that if I choose the online person things will be a lot tougher: telling friends and family, moving to his country or him moving here. I've been too embarrassed to tell many of my friends I met my current boyfriend online. I don't want to hurt my boyfriend. He would have to go back to his country alone, heartbroken, have to sell a lot of things here and would have wasted a lot of time and effort with me trying to make this work for the past 4 years. Have you got any advice for me as I can't get this out of my mind? Natalie
Dear Natalie
No wonder you keep going over and over this hamster-wheel of thoughts! You're trying to find a way out. It is confusing - unless you change the way you look at things. Do you have to think of all this in either/or terms? Do you have to stick with a guy because it's him or nothing? That it's only A or B? These are not the only two guys in the world. You don't have to move abroad only to be with some guy. Nor do you have to stay there forever. Or because you feel you owe him. Doesn't he owe you something too? After all, he's had your love and affection for four years, so that's not a waste for either of you. Is it fair to him to make shared plans when actually you're not happy with him? Whether you want to accept it or not, you've been unhappy enough to look beyond this relationship twice.
I suspect your answer to that last question is "no". I'm not sure how much self-esteem you started with. Let's face it, most of us lack confidence at 14. But since then you've been put down, controlled, criticised and blamed for his actions, none of which can have helped you feel good about yourself. And your cuddly affections have been rejected because he only wants sex. You don't have a close family or friends who can help you hold onto your sense of being a lovable person, but that doesn't mean he's right.
Rather than going for more internet dating with distant guys, how about building up your confidence and learning some relationship skills? After all, a good boyfriend is a supportive, nourishing friend who's also romantically attracted to you. You could start with www.confidenceclub.net and www.coping.org, where you'll learn lots of useful emotional tools. You could read books like The Art of Friendship by Roger Horchow and Sally Horchow, and Assert Yourself by Gael Lindenfield. But then it's time to transfer those skills to real relationships in the real world. Because getting all your attention from one person, even the most perfect partner, is bad for you and unfair on them.
As you develop confidence and invite nurturing people into your life, you'll have more choices. One of them might be to start standing up for yourself with your current feller, assertively (with mutual respect) rather than being passive or aggressive. Then you can start being more honest with him, which is the true measure of intimacy. And if you and he can't work it out, don't share similar views and don't demonstrate mutual respect and affection, then you can decide whether you want to stay in this half a relationship. Or find a better one. Learning to be close means learning who's safe to be close to!
So where does that leave the other guy from cyberspace? Nobody can ever know what someone's really like until they've spent a lot of time face to face. There's nothing wrong with meeting people on the net, but real-time relationships aren't the same at all. So how about making your life where you are more rewarding? Learning to trust your instincts rather than trusting blindly to the hope it'll turn out OK? The present is where you live! Once you've started putting down roots in your life and widening your social circle in the flesh, those guys with built-in distance factors won't be so appealing.
I wish you the courage to become your own wonderful self, making your own choices and finding people who like what you like.
