I’ve been completely consumed with guilt and remorse. I feel so bad.

I was in a very serious relationship, on-again of-again, for the last year and a half…We have this crazy chemistry and this intense connection…but we view the world completely different and so we fight…and break up. Often. And forget about the fighting…and try again.

So it’s generally him that comes back. I try my best to move on. I date. So does he. So twice now, he’s come back when he’s in a new relationship and told me he misses me. I always tell him to bugger off until he’s single…and he always is within a few days. Well, this last time he came back pleading after he had been dating someone for about a month…telling me he loved me and he missed me and that he couldn’t remember why we broke up…and that thing with her would be ending soon. The sex was horrible, she was boring…all that. I told him to bugger off until he was single.

He persistently texted me everyday professing his love. I kept telling him “that’s nice, come back when you’re single.” Two weeks into this, I took an ambien, went to bed…and I woke up to a bunch of confusing texts the next morning. He had showed up at my house the previous night….and we had sex. It slowly has come back to me in like weird flashbacks…it was totally consensual…I just wouldn’t have done that while he was in a relationship.

He told me he wanted to try again with me. But he couldn’t end things with his current gf because he worked directly with her. He had to wait or work would be awful. He promised it would end soon. I told him to f-off and for 2 weeks I completely ignored him. After that the texts from him intensified. He was sending gifts to me. His confessions of love, his promises that we would figure something out…that things were ending soon with her persisted.

I talked to a few friends of mine. They said, it’s already happened. Who cares? “Go, have fun! Have sex and enjoy him….but he’s not relationship material anymore. A cheater is going to cheat…and he’s great in bed..Go for it!” …and…well, I do have a lot of fun with him. So I went with it. We met at hotels…and it was fun. But I noticed his gf changed her fb picture to one of them together…and I noticed he stopped talking about ending things with her. Two weeks ago (a month into this fiasco) I asked him if things were going to end with her. He told me things had been going well with her- they didn’t fight like we did…he was going to see how things went. I then questioned him (which I regret now)… Among the many questions, I asked him if he still loved me…and he said he didn’t know. Which means no.

I cut off all contact with him. I feel horrible. I really thought things with her would end. He completely led me to believe that it would. I’m not upset that I don’t get him back…I was just enjoying it for what it was. But I feel sooooo horrible for what I did to his gf. I feel so much guilt.

Do I tell her what happened? I would want to know. But he’ll know it’s me that told her…and I’m sure there will be some kind of repercussion…and I’m scared of that. Would you want to know? How would you feel about “the other woman” telling you?

This is a bit of a messed up situation – but Im getting lost in my own made up thoughts, and ideas and need some help.

My boyfriend omitted some serious information ( female friend living with him for a while; he agreed to this when we broke up earlier this year) to me when we got back together, and I found out because SHE got curious and messaged me on Facebook. How did she pick me out of over 900 ppl he’s friends with? I don’t know but I don’t blame her! Turns out she’s 19 and they have mutual family friends and she’s under the impression that she’s his gf. Why is she under this impression? He says she likes him, and has a crush on him.

Now – Im 27 as is he, and I remember being 19 and young and impressionable, but he swears to me that nothing has happened and that she is living on the couch. He was away from home for about a month, so he assumed that while he was doing that, she was looking for other accommodations. Apparently, all the information I’ve received from her ( they’ve been dating since march, shes met his parents, she’s living there permanently) is false, and she’s delusional.

I have dated tons, and I mean TONS of douchebags, and he is not one of them. I can usually figure this out quite soon, and aside from some scheduling conflicts when we first started dating due to work commitments, we have been a strong couple.

He is asking me to trust him, he wants to be with me, no one else and I want to believe him. Im at the point right now, where I do love this man, and perhaps he did say some things he shouldn’t have to an impressionable 19 year old, however is it worth just throwing it all away and not trusting him based on my past experiences?

Im tempted to just tell him to deal with it, and deal with whatever situation he has got himself into QUICKLY, and then be with me, as he’s said he wants to be. Regardless of what the ‘truth’ behind the story is, he chooses me, and crawled back to me begging for forgiveness for not telling me about her staying there.

Im torn between my heart ( telling me to love him and trust him no matter what) and my mind ( which is protecting my heart and telling me to be beyond careful and don’t trust).

I have never been in a situation where I choose to turn a blind eye to a possible sticky situation that arose while I wasn’t in the picture. No matter what the issue is with her, he wants to be with me. End of story.

I see a future with this man, one beyond Christmas ( haven’t thought that in over 7 years), and it breaks my heart to think that Im being an idiot about all of this, but on the other hand, it would break my heart to never speak to him again because some asshole in my past shattered my trust in men.

Should I trust him to deal with the situation and move on, working on our communication and full disclosure as he’s fully volunteered to do? Or should I just tell him to shove it, and move on without him?

I developed a crush on my teacher (a graduate assistant 4 years older than me, both of us over 25 – nothing scandalous!) in January of this year. While I was in his class, I had a boyfriend so I never showed any interest or tried to get to know him, but now that I am single (4 months in) I am curious about how I should approach getting in contact with him, or if I should at all.

He has always been friendly, shared personal stories with me, and been somewhat flirty – remembering things I said and referencing them, joking around with me during class, coming up to me to say hi when he sees me around town, and giving me a tour of his studio space.

I didn’t see him over the summer, but recently ran into him at a school function. For the hour that I was there, he talked to me the entire time, said we should hang out, and put his number in my phone. I generally get the vibe that he is interested, but he is never TOO overt (no compliments on how I look or telling me he wants to take me on a date or anything). The way he treats me could be deemed “friendly” by anyone who wants to look at it that way.

A good friend of mine told me recently that she was under the impression that he was dating someone long-term. I have never seen him with a girl, and he never mentioned having a girlfriend in the time that I’ve known him – she wasn’t in stories, or referenced at any point. I was getting the idea that he was single and possibly interested, so this threw me for a loop.

I texted him with information about a school event, which he quickly responded to, and it became a short and fun conversation about 4 days ago. We haven’t talked again since. I am wondering if I should try contacting him again. If he has a girlfriend, I DO NOT want to interfere, but I have no way of knowing (he doesn’t have a Facebook profile and we don’t have mutual friends, aside from the one who is unsure of his status).

I consider getting a hold of him just to make plans to do something, or to say hi… but then I think, he has my number now too. Should I wait to see if he initiates anything? Should I show him that I am interested? – (over the course of this, he has shown some interest in me but I really haven’t shown much in him, since I had a boyfriend for most of the time I’ve known him). Do I try to sneak in a question to see if he is single? I am sitting by my phone itching to talk to him, but I don’t want to make a fool of myself if I show interest and he didn’t mean it in that way, or potentially be seen in some kind of “home-wrecker” light if he in fact has a girlfriend and she sees me contacting him.

I was reflecting the other day on some of the patterns I have seen myself take with past relationships, and there have been two major paths. The first path was after meeting a girl, I immediately wrapped my head around getting romantic with her. Our relationship rocketed off, and I quickly dived deep into an intimate ordeal probably within a month. The other option I have taken was befriend a girl without ever really thinking about dating them, and a few years down the road realizing that there was great potential for something further to blossom.

I am not married so I suppose I can look at each relationship being a “failure”, although I have learned a great deal from each of them. There have been pros and cons that I have been weighing in my head at this fork in the road.

When it comes to dating immediately, I have noticed that most of the time (note that all of this I am drawing purely from personal experience) the relationship is much more exciting and new and passionate towards the beginning. I barely know this girl and I am getting to know her so very thoroughly– emotionally and physically. The unknown is quite exciting. However, this has often led to, in the later stages of the relationship, unpleasant surprises. Many people are not very open right away and tend to front-load their best qualities (which is understandable), but this can also leave one susceptible to deceit.

Whereas when I have dated really good friends of mine, there are really no surprises. I already know all of their strengths and vices and the relationship is much more comfortable. However, I am saddened by the fact that the friendship I have had with some of these girls was never the same after our romance ended. There is some discrepancy with this scenario; I am sure many people have been able to resume a normal friendship after a break-up splendidly, but I have not learned this secret art of not letting history affect the post-breakup friendship.

So I suppose I was curious to see what formula you guys have found between friendship and romance that has worked (in general) better for you. Can a good comparison even be made or is it just another one of those disappointing “it just always depends on the couple” sort of ordeals? Is there any rule of thumb that you follow before involving yourself in a romantic situation when it comes to getting to know them? Should I stave off the romantic impulses with every girl I meet and focus on building a backbone of friendship that could potentially be tarnished later or should I succumb to my emotional impulses and jump right in? OR is there even a clear line at all between the two? I have heard some people consider romance simply an intimate friendship with sex.

I would just be interested to hear some general thoughts on this matter.

This is a long post, but I don’t think I could post about it without including all the details. Honestly no one could have seen that this was going to happen. I’m 27, I’ve always loved men, and I have no prior history of dating a woman at all. Absolutely no one could have seen this coming. Well…I take that back. I always felt some attraction toward women physically. I’d always been…curious…about what it would be like to be with another girl. But as for actually being in a heartfelt relationship with one? Not at all. But then there was Lisa.

Lisa is this dreadlocked, hip-hop loving Jamaican med student who works like a horse and curses like a sailor. I absolutely adore her. About a year ago we met through Facebook. We both belonged to a group for poetry lovers, and coincidentally we both lived within an hour of each other. We hit it off fabulously. We made each other laugh and challenged each other intellectually. She had a tom boy kind of vibe, and later she told me she was a lesbian. I didn’t think much of it then. I was just happy to know someone as cool as her. As time went on we learned more about each other. She loves sleeping to classical music and watching old period movies. Hot peppers irritate her stomach…she thinks baseball is the most boring sport ever.

About six months on, I started to feel something stir inside of me. The stirrings increased to the point where I couldn’t ignore them anymore. I actually had a crush on Lisa. Another girl. Which was a huge deal for me…because it had never HAPPENED before. I jokingly told her about the crush, hoping we could both just laugh about it. And we did. I figured it would go away…maybe it was just a silly hero-worship thing. After all there was so much about her that I admired and wanted for myself.

Well the crush didn’t go away at all. It intensified. Against my better judgement, and my natural tendency, I started to get flirty with her. Or maybe she started flirting first…I don’t remember. But God, she was amazing at it. She was like a boy, except she had this soft tender feminine side. She didn’t let it show often, but when she did, I couldn’t get enough of it. It was like being on drugs. We started talking for hours every day. In the past few months I can only think of a handful of days when we didn’t have a lengthy, enjoyable conversation.

One day we were talking on the phone, and suddenly I felt very sad. Or lost…I don’t know how to describe it. She noticed that I went quiet and she asked what was wrong. I tried changing the subject, but she would have none of it. After a long silence, I said, “I’m in love with you, Lisa.” Another silence…a very long silence. All she could say was “Um…” and I felt my heart sink. For a long time, she has been phobic about relationships and the word “love” in general. Her ex was a real hag who nearly destroyed her life. But Lisa just graduated with her BSc and is currently living with the ex until she finds her own place, since she is the only one that Lisa really knows in the U.S (aside from me). Not only that, but she works as a home health aide in an upper class part of town, she is completing her Master’s degree in biology, and she has this insane work ethic that won’t easily let her have another person interfere with her carefully laid plans. But she knew how I felt. It was about a week before she said that she wanted to give us a try…so she did. She asked me if I wanted to date and I enthusiastically said yes.

That lasted all of four weeks. And most of our relationship was over the phone. That’s how long it was before we had our first argument. It was over something forgivable, and we resolved it, but I think the tension made her back out. I was really crushed when she broke up with me. But again, she just didn’t want to risk being vulnerable again.

I tried really hard to be friends with her. She still called nearly every day, most times with a new story about how her ex was making her life miserable. And she’d listen to my problems too. It was hard for me to keep my feelings subdued, but at the time, it was just too hard to say goodbye to her. I wasn’t even sure if a goodbye was necessary.

A couple months later, she finally had some room in her schedule for us to hang out. I was so happy because it had been so long since we last saw each other. But the night before, she called me to cancel. I was really hurt. I challenged her on it, told her that she was pushing me away on purpose, and that I didn’t think we should talk for awhile. She was really hurt over that. But I didn’t feel like hurting anymore. I just wanted distance from her so I could get on with my life.

An agonizing two days later (remember we normally talk every day), she IM’d me, asking me not to log off. And she told me she had seen the sun rise over the marina when she went to work and she was wishing that I was there with her to see it. She said that she had some time to really think about what I meant to her and how I felt about her, and that she’d even been crying the night before. My God, this woman never cries. So that surprised me. She just spilled everything, about how she was guarded and that she just wanted to see where things went with us. And that she’d bought a train ticket to come see me that week and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was so happy when she said that. I was thinking, there is a chance for us after all. The weight on my spirit just lifted.

The next day, she reminded me of something she’d told me earlier on. That she might be relocating out of state next year because of school. The weight on my spirit returned. I didn’t want a long distance relationship, but she said that we could visit each other. And if I couldn’t come to her then she could come to California once or twice a month. I asked her, with a lot of trepidation, “Are we dating? Because this is normally a discussion a couple would have.” She said that she still wanted to see how things went with us….which was a noncommittal answer. But seeing as she might be flying away soon, I guess there was no way to really know for sure what would happen.

So that leads me to now. I did see her over the weekend. Every time we get together I feel I love her some more. We cuddled in the movie theater and I kissed her, I mean really kissed her, for the first time. But this all just seems so impossible to me. I want to be in a relationship with her, but at the same time I don’t think it’s a good idea to try again. Not while she’s living with her ex. Not that I think there is anything going on between them. Lisa is transparent and always has been. But I don’t think that we would make a good couple with all that drama still close at hand and fresh in her mind. I’ve gotten use to her being busy…she calls me all the time, which is fine for me. But she might be moving soon…it’s just that her life is moving around so much and it doesn’t really have a place for me in it. Even though she wants me to be a part of it…I guess. *sigh*

I don’t know what to do. I’ve never loved anyone so much in my life. I try to focus on other things but my mind always comes back to her. Always waiting for her call. Always thinking about the future. I can barely picture my life without her in it. What on earth should I do? Cut her off completely? Still be friends and give up hope on romance? Wait and see what happens? Like I said, I never saw this coming (to which Lisa would reply “that’s because you’re not a psychic pornstar.” *snicker*). It was hard for me to admit that I loved another woman in the first place…now I’m wondering if I ever should have taken that leap at all.

Why is it that when it comes to dating, people make the same stupid decisions time and time again?

Why does my friend only date guys that will eventually smack her around? Why does my brother only date women that he turns into his mom? No matter how many times we tell this one friend that he’s being taken advantage of by a girl that will never be his girlfriend, he still goes back again and again.

Is there something in our genetic code that forces us to do this? Everybody makes the same mistakes, myself included.

Why?

Hi. Well I’m going through a hard dilemma. I’ve been dating this girl for about 2 months. She’s 23, I’m 28. We have the best time together. We decided to commit to each other for about a couple of weeks now, so we’re officially in a relationship. Things are going well, despite our differences.
A couple of days ago, she started asking me about how many girls I have kissed in my life, and with how many girls I’ve had sex. My answer to the latter question was “well with all of my girlfriends, which amounts to 6 probably”. Her reply left me cold. “Well I don’t do that. I can do many things, but not that (sex). So you’re still on time to change your mind, if you don’t want to continue with me”.
Is this normal? And I ask this in the most respectful way. Why would a 23 year old woman wouldn’t want to share her intimacy? I must sound like a stupid kid, but I’m 28 and I find sex as something essential in any adult relationship. I know I should talk all of this with her, but I could certainly use some advice. I really like her, and probably am falling in love with her. But at the same time, I don’t know how to manage the idea of no sex? Any advice?

So, my boyfriend and I have been dating since freshman year, but we’re going off to college next fall, and I want to hear people’s opinions on college (my actual questions are at the bottom):

Some background, academically: We’re both applying to pretty prestigious universities, him for engineering, me for biology or education. We both have high aspirations for our future; neither of us wants to hold the other back from getting the best education possible, & this means we’re moving apart, as much as we hate it.

Some background, relationship-ly: He is my best friend. We can talk about anything, always, and because of this we almost never fight— we’re just always on the same team. Things have always been simple and down-to-earth with him, and I love who I am around him. We’re happy around each other— we go to the same school and we still hang out almost every weekend. I know he’s got my back and I’ve never once worried about us breaking up— we’re inseparable best friends, and I don’t want to lose him. He makes me smile, he’s gotten me interested in things I’ve never dreamed of being interested in, and he gets along with my mom and sister like a member of the family. He and I spend a LOT of time together– we have the same friends, go to the same social events, and do many things as a pair (although we do have our own extracurriculars).

That being said, I’ve heard that it’s naïve to think that we’ll “be together forever”. I’ve heard it said that I’ll miss out on a lot of the “college experience” if I have a high school sweetheart at home, and that one can’t have a mature relationship at our age because we’re simply too young.

Now, we talk about everything, so I know that if either of us was feeling trapped, we’d be able to talk about it and figure out a solution. Neither of us is particularly jealous or possessive in general, but we are very attached to one another.

I think I’m rambling… anyway, my final questions: Is it possible that I’ve met somebody worth staying with at my age? Do you have any advice for long-distance relationships? Or– and you can be blunt– am I being lovestruck/ having cloudy judgement/ over-romanticizing this?

Help me, adults in the real world!

I have gone on a couple dates with a really nice guy. We seem to be hitting it off pretty well, and I can see this being a serious relationship in the future. But, I don’t want to rush it, and chance messing things up. So, my question might seem silly, but I have thought and thought about it and I can’t seem to figure it out on my own. When do you “friend” the guy you are dating on Facebook? I don’t want to come across as too pushy or rushing things, but I also really like this guy and think eventually we could go somewhere. And, I want to see his profile!!

Hello everyone- I am new to this site and have a question. I think I already know what the right answer is, but I just need some advice before I make my choice.
Here’s my situation:
First, a little background- I’ve known the guy I’m dating for a while but we were just friends- because he was with someone. Well, they broke up and he was very assertive about wanting to hang out with me. He was on the rebound so I didn’t get my hopes up, but we did end up becoming romantically involved. Right before we became more than “just friends” he admitted that he had a bit of a fling with another woman when he was out of town for work.
Cut to 6 months later- things have been going so great with this guy. I don’t have any long term expectations with him, but I really enjoy the time we spend together. To be honest, the sex is great and I think I am really falling for him.
Well, he is about to go out of town on business again for 6 weeks. So I had to bite the bullet and have the “where do we stand” talk. I just need to know that he isn’t sleeping around, because at this point I am pretty invested in him and don’t want to get hurt.
He said that he hasn’t been dating anyone else while we have been together (yay!) but that he wanted us to both be able to date other people (boo!)
Long story somewhat short, he won’t make me any promises that he won’t sleep around when he is out of town.
So, here’s my dilemma:
Do I end things now with a guy who I have really fallen for because he might sleep with someone? Or is that like Minority Report? Am I arresting someone for a crime that they haven’t yet committed?
Or do I stay with him and see what happens? I am afraid that I am giving him permission to sleep around if I let things continue.
Before you all jump to answer, please consider what it feels like to be completely infatuated with someone who you find attractive, intelligent, and funny- someone who makes you feel attractive, intelligent and funny too! Imagine being with someone like that, and then tell me what you would really do.
Thanks!