MEN!

Kiddo: He’s obviously depending on her / can’t leave her behind, possibly because he’s far too indulcent and can’t say no. I don’t think that he has to have stronger people around him, I think he has to learn to stand on his own feet first. Before he can look after someone else, he has to learn to look after himself and say „no“ if necessary. If you can’t take care of yourself, you cant care for someone else. A relationship inevitably falls out of balance that way.
If you keep looking after him, he probably won’t learn this and maybe unconciously counts on your goodwill and support, so he won’t have to change anything.
I know its extremely hard to let someone weak behind. But I think you do the right thing for it probably is for his own good.

Elin: That hurts!!! My ex-boyfriend used to do this too, though he never promised me to come home... He often drunk with his friends form the sports club and stayed away for hours. Then he bought some computergames and the rest of the time at home, he spent gaming. I told him to spend more time with me and he promised and promised and never changed anything. Well he couldn’t set his priorities but I did. Thats the most important thing after all, get clear about your needs and expectations, set your limits and don’t hesitate to draw the consequences. It’s difficult, but if you try to be true to yourself, you’ll find your way through!

All in all (also for KT) don’t wait for your boyfriends/ friends to come to a descision, make your own descisions (and that contains the time you are willing to give them for their descisions...) otherwise you’ll just get unhappy...
At least that was the thought that helped me...

Irma the all powerfull has great advice.

Yes I'm a know-it-all I just don't have anything better to do at the moment! so, sorry for getting on your nerves It's probably genetic But don't these wise words suit my avatar?

no u didn't, I want to nickname you Irma the all powerfull

because I admire you!

Thanks Wow I feel honoured! but there's no need for admiration, you're giving great advice too, as far as I've seen... I really like your direct nature!!

yeah, I am very direct, but it can be a downfall. sometimes I a the boss in the relationship. lol, I am very forthcomming and aggressive sometimes. I like to be in charge

My ex-boyfriend alway said that I was aggressive and I really was. But he never listend when I tried to discuss something in a rational way so I got loud... And he alway stayed cool, which made me even more aggressive because I got the impression that he didn't care.
But now I still get loud sometimes, but my girlfriend is a good listener so we can shout at each other and still find a solution Thats great, because sometimes I need an impassionate quarrel I think there's nothing bad about this. Just some italian genes somewhere in my gene pool As long as my partner has some italian genes too somewhere, nothing can go wrong!
(I love prejudices, they prevent me from taking the responsibility )
No, joking aside, I can be very aggressive but we all try to improve...
And I personally prefer directness and perhaps aggressiveness to softness and perhaps "talking behind your back -cruelties" or lying...
But I know many people who can't cope with directness... I scared many away...

Oh Irma, I so recognize the part with the vid-games boys and their little toys *sigh* ^___~
I think, in this particular situation, that I've got myself to blame (only a SMALL teeny-tiny-bit) because I didn't tell him straight out right away that I was mad, I just had my "angry-voice". As girls sometimes do, I kinda expected him to understand that I was hurting, without telling him.

I just want to say thank you for the encouragement, since I've lost pretty much all my girlfriends it's nice to get a little pick me up, female to female, even from a stranger ^____^

Have a great sunday!

oh gosh, my boyfriend is just like that Irma. Grrrrrrhhh. I am tired of that.

is it ok to be a bit worried that my boyfriend is scared of marriage? I really don't know if I should be, but I am ready to settle down

Oh girls, what are we taking upon us all the time... I could write a book about this! When I think about it, I know about 4 happy couples, among them one single man that I could imagine to live with. All the other girls I know are always telling me horrible stories and are not even aware of what they're going through.
I remember the last months with my ex-bf: I was so absorbed in trying to keep him interessted in me, I stopped listening to music (I LOVE music!! can’t explain me this!) I lost many of my friends and I never did all the creative things I used to do... I somehow forgot to live my life...
I tried to make everything the way he wanted, I made him small (or bigger...) presents, waiting for him to do the same sometimes.
Best was his silly excuse when I told him that i wanted more attention: " I can't give you more attention when I know that you're expecting it. I feel under pressure then" And so I kept waiting and some months later I tried again, just to prove him that I still was "expecting something"...
Hey, we are all „expecting something“ from our relationship? The problem is, we don’t know what we dare to expect... And as we always get into the same kind of relations, we can’t learnt through experience, at least not that fast.
Now, males got an important advantage: thousands of years spoiled by patriarchy... So most of the time they don’t have to think about what they can expect, they just take things for granted. But we tend to think that „well men just behave that way, it’s perfectly normal and I have to live with it, because all the other girls do this too“
And the spectrum goes from beeing forced to watch hours of formula 1 , waiting for him to come home, knowing that he needs to watch porns as soon as you’re out of the house etc. – to being put under pressure to try sexual practices you don’t want.
And I hear this almost every day!!! I heard things from my mom, from my sister, from my friends and from strangers in the train...
Sure, some of these things aren’t that bad, but taken together... where ist the limit?
We can’t expect a perfect relationship, but I now know, that it’s possible to achieve a balance of taking and giving without ever having the feeling of being forced to anything. I know that you can ask for good talks about all these things and for your partner to be listening. You can ask for changes as long as you are willing to take your part too. You can ask for talks to sort out all the things you are unhappy with and find viable compromises and you can expect these compromises to be strictly adhered to. Otherwise you’ll definitely find someone else who is willing to lead a mature, emancipated, balanced and rational relationship – and you definitely should!
And just for the record: I also know some „good men“ and some „bad women“... There are exceptions everywhere...
But women probably are genetically susceptible for taking all the suffering! Like I said thousands of years of patriarchy... must have left some marks in our DNA!!

So Elin: thanks! mostly I need some time to be able to tell what makes me angry... but I learned to give myself a little kick in the a**

And Michelle: that probably depends on his arguments! But first of all you have to know what you really want and what your priorities are. How important is it to you?

Omg that takes so much time to express myself in english! I hope it makes some sense

Sorry for the long post, I really should write a book!

Irma...I don't quite believe in the whole expect changes if you are willing to take on your part too....


...i believe if you love someone....you shouldn't have to ask them to change...and they shouldn't have to ask you to change either....

...i believe in living to be yourself...and nobody can take that away from you.

Sorry...I had to post it.

no prob... In the main point I absolutely agree. But my experience is, that living in a relationship you always meet problems and you have to solve them together, which normally means that you have to change some smaller or bigger things, if you want to keep up the relationship.
And I know that I am not perfect and make many mistakes, and I want my girlfriend to tell me, when she is suffering from anything, because sometimes we just don't notice and I do care for her. And I believe, that with the right partner, we can all overcome ourselves a little bit, for he/she can help us to become more and more the person we really want to be.
That's what I mean. Of course we should not change ourselves for our partner! Maybe I should have written something like everybody can learn?
Because nobody can tell me that he / she thinks that she's perfect...
After all, you can not expect someone to learn/change anything. But if your partner is not willing to help working on the relationship, then he/she's not worth it. Thats more what I meant. Hope you can see my point? I don't think of changes against someones will. Mostly we would be happy to be able to change those little things that are bothering ourselves..

Or to further clarify my point:
For example: my ex-bf told me not to yell at him. Like I wrote before I need impassionate quarrels sometime to some degree, but my ex made me so aggressive that I was really overreacting. Then after a year I tried and tried and finally I was so patient and calm, I wasn’t myself anymore. That’s the bad example.
With my girlfriend now it’s almost the same, she doesn’t like to be yelled at and I really learned to calm myself down to some degree, but I found some kind of balance between the rational and the impassionate part of me… I like myself much better now, because I practiced and tried and I knew that she was worth it, for she tries to respect my needs too.

When I make a step towards my partner, I can expect him/her to make one step into my direction too. But as soon as you have the feeling that you are the only one working on the relationship, there’s something wrong. This doesn’t mean that it necessarily is your partner’s fault. Maybe you’re just not made for each other.

When I’ve been together with my bf for half a year, we were preparing for the first exams at uni. Or better: I was preparing and he did nothing. I knew that becoming a psychologist was the dream of his life and I tried to help him and had double the work. I tried to help him being nice and I tried to force him. I knew that he would fail and it was hard for me too. He then really failed and he said “I don’t know what you did wrong. My ex-gf managed it to make me learn”.
I couldn’t believe he said that after all that I had done. I said, so maybe I’m just not the right one. But he asked for a second chance and we tried again.

A year later I was giving up my life trying to be the woman he wanted to have and that’s definitely not the way! I knew that I became someone that wasn’t me anymore.
Like I wrote before, I for instance stopped listening to music. This wasn’t his fault, he even told me to start again and take some time for me. But I couldn’t enjoy it anymore.
Then one day I saw that he had written to a friend that he “either had not found the love of his life yet”.
He could not understand why I was hurt by this, he thought it was obvious, but he never had told me that he was thinking like this.
At least now I could understand why he never really tried to work on the relationship (or tried, for 2 days and then forgot about everything… )
I told him that I didn’t want to waste my time if there wasn’t a small chance that it maybe worked out. It really was too exhausting..
He should have told me this before, but for the rest: we just didn’t fit together. I think taken together, that’s what happens when you’re in the wrong relationship. We both became persons we didn’t want to be and couldn’t help each other to solve our problems.

So, no, I can’t force someone to change anything. But I can expect this as a precondition for a well working relationship, maybe with another person then…
We are all willing to make some compromises and improve ourselves, if we think it’s worth it! – And that I think you can expect.

long post again...

Irma, I totally understand your point. Since there's (usually) two different individuals in a relationship, you have to compromise sometimes, if you really want it to work. It's all about prioritizing. A simplified example could be: if your bf/gf love thrillers, even if you hate them, would you watch one, just because you know it would make him/her happy? You have to decide what you can change/alter, without loosing yourself.

Btw, I just have to clarify my last post. I haven't lost my girlfriends because of my bf, but because I fell ill a couple of years ago (depression and social phobia) and now that I'm feeling better it feels like things have changed so much that I can't go back to them..

Peace and love, everybody! ^____^