Let’s get to your questions ….
Dr K,
I’ve been with this guy for almost a period of a year. We had been seeing each other a year before that but never dated due to other circumstances. I was always upfront about it and he accepted it. During the time we stopped talking and had no interaction he started seeing one of his ex’s, he told me he was trying to find what we had with her. This was a part of the past where I wasn’t in the picture so I didn’t give any importance to it. Now, this year that we’ve been together (exclusively though without a title) a few months back we had an issue. He told me he was dragged by friends out to a party. I didn’t think anything of it until he confessed it was with that same ex girlfriend and that he wasn’t dragged to the party and before the party they had gotten something to drink at a Starbucks to talk. I have always been honest with him and I was very upset with this. I told him I felt I couldn’t trust him if he kept lying. They have a long history together but when we spoke on that he assured me she meant nothing and that their relationship was meaningless to him. So much so he then told me that he didn’t care to have her as a friend and wouldn’t speak to her anymore, all on his own. I took this and tried to put it out of mind. A few months passed and during a night he slept over I thought he was awake when he began to talk about her. I asked if they had been talking and he admitted it along with other things I knew to be true. All this was him sleep talking but he was not lying. I asked him the same questions when he woke up and he lied about it. It wasn’t until I told him of his sleep talking that he came clean. It was a while before I gave him another chance. This time he stopped talking to her and we continued. More recently we were on a break of a few weeks and we started seeing each other again. I come to find out from him that he’s been not only talking to her but going out to places with her. I feel so disrespected not to mention like I don’t hold the same value as this girl. He wants to work this out but I can’t trust him if this girl is in our lives. Especially since he talks to her about us, he knows I don’t like it. I think I’m justified in giving him an ultimatum to choose between us but I wanted a nonpartisan opinion. Incredibly Frustrated
Incredibly Frustrated
I’m going to ask you one question and I don’t want you to be offended. Why have you been in a relationship without a title with a guy for a year? I mean, do you both agree whom you are to one another? And, what’s the hold up on making that relationship public? Given the way he has been acting relative to his ex and how his friends have responded to the way he has been acting, nobody sees the two of you as an exclusive couple but you. In my nonpartisan opinion, you are justified in being angry with your boyfriend, but not in giving him an ultimatum. What is he choosing between? She’s an ex and you are nobody. He’s kinda free to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants. I can appreciate that you don’t want to be lied to, but he did it because he didn’t want the drama, NOT because he thought he was cheating on you. Remember, you’re nobody and you can’t cheat on nobody. Squash the ultimatum–he knows you’re not going anywhere. Get this guy to admit he’s YOUR BOYFRIEND to you first and everybody else second. Until you get the title straight, you don’t have grounds to demand anything. Dr. K
Ask Dr. K 