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Ask the Loveologist: Taking Him Back
My on-again, off-again boyfriend just came back into my life for the third time. I really love him, and believe he loves me, but as soon as things start to get settled between us, his eyes start to stray. He never ends up with the other woman, but it still really hurts me. After the last breakup I promised myself that I wouldn’t take him back. This time he says he wants to get married, that he realizes that I really am the woman he wants to be with. I don’t know if I should or can trust him. Any advice?
The issue of commitment is a complicated one. Many people struggle with their ability to keep their relationship promises. The problem does not usually stem from the partner they are choosing, but rather from the realization that this choice precludes any others. For many people, it isn’t the fact of loving or not loving the partner they choose that drives them away, but rather some unnamed and even unknown fear of being trapped by their own choices that makes them unable to follow through.
The one-foot out the door syndrome has a million faces and shows up not just in personal relationships but also colors people’s career paths as well. The nagging idea that there is someone or something else better than the life they have chosen comes from the gambler brain in all of us. The television game show Deal or No Deal regularly displays this irrational tendency that we have to throw away a sure win for the idea of something bigger and better even if the odds are not in our favor.
What is really unfortunate about keeping one foot out the door is that the chosen relationship never really has an opportunity to succeed. The insecurities from maintaining the lingering doubt about your commitments prevents both people from truly experiencing and growing the relationship. It took me years in my own marriage to get both feet in the door and I was amazed at how much the relationship flourished, just by the act of both people deciding that they are staying.
People take a long time to learn their lessons. How many times we need to make the same mistake and re-learn the truth about our behavior and choices is one of the biggest frailties of being human. I frequently find myself choosing between forgiveness and resentment for deeds that I thought were resolved and not just with my growing children.
Trust is harder to build than break and so no one but you can decide where you want to invest your heart’s efforts. I am the first to say that loving people and taking the risk to be loved is the hardest work we do in our life. Our efforts to love are never wasted even though it may sometimes seem so. I have argued with myself over this question many a time and I am sure there are many who would disagree.
I would advise this: As you balance the gifts and shortcomings of the love you have had with your boyfriend, make sure that you are measuring against the true marker of what you are working to create in your life and not the most recent memory or wound. It is easy to get stuck on the little stuff and entirely overlook the real questions in our life.
Wendy Strgar is a loveologist who writes and lectures on Making Love Sustainable, a green philosophy of relationships which teaches the importance of valuing the renewable resources of love and family. she helps couples tackle the questions and concerns of intimacy and relationships, providing honest answers and innovative advice. Wendy lives in Eugene, Oregon with her husband, a psychiatrist, and their four children ages 11-20.
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15 comments
add your comment »Taking the risk of sounding too off track by referring to the "nature of the species"...in anthropology..the findings are there to see that perhaps, just perhaps, women and men were never meant to be together in long term relationships...and marriage is a modern (last 10 thousand years) contraption to ensure the paternity of the child. Men apparently do not like to put all their resources into a child unless they know it's theirs. Hence the exclusivity of the marriage bed... (It took a lot of time and resources that are were not easily found, to help in growing up a child--food, shelter, teaching, safety, etc. ) Women, on the other hand, always know the child is theirs, and might have desired to be with men (not necessarily one person) who displayed the qualities they needed in helping to raise children who were strong and healthy. Once children can run with the tribe, gather food, create shelter, it may be the woman/man chooses another to be with.?? It would be helpful to know what our true instincts really are, it could put marriage into a different light altogether.
Some animals herd up for the winter under the protection of a strong male leader, maybe we did that thousands of years ago?
Why do we insist in marriage anyway? I have never understood the importance of it unless it is to ensure the protection of children and perhaps yourself???
If people are in love, and maintain that love, then great, stay together....if not, go on your way. It could be a lot of this ins
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I knew this question would bring up a lot of strong feelings and reactions. While past behavior does often predict future behavior, I have also seen people who actually do learn the value of the relationship they're in and build commitments. I would say as much about my own relationship over time.
As ever I appreciate the depth and intensity of the discussion and the people who had the courage to be vulnerable and share their experiences.
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At the risk of quoting Dr. Phil, may I reiterate: "The best predictor of future behavior, is past behavior."
On this quote, I, completely, agree with him.
People who choose abusers, must ask themselves, WHY. Why do they associate with those that would hurt them, repeatedly? Are we or are we not, worth more than that?
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What started out as advice to the lovelorn has devolved into a flame war.
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David Harmon, you are a living dichotomy! You say - using caps - that females "generalize" too much, yet your entire "flame" is generalizing about women's attitudes and behavior. Your final blast against feminists is the most blatant example of YOUR tendency to lump everyone into the same category when it suits your purpose. I'm so glad I'm not the poor woman in YOUR life (see, I can yell, too). You are a true dunce, and a very poor example of a man.
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Hmm I think it depends on You, the person in the relationship. How much are you willing to tolerate? Straying eyes are not straying hands and body. But it can lead to exactly that. I am intolerant of men acting like whores. I had one once he had to go. I am unwilling to invest time and emotion into a relationship with a guy who is unwilling to devote ANY time into being faithful. If he seriously wants a relationship, he will seriously stop acting like he is free for the taking...
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This relationship sounds too much like "Come here/Go away". An unhealthy pattern has already ben established, and short of both people getting into some heavy therapy, I don't see them as ahaving a snowball's chance in hell of making it work. Either that, or they simply need to end it and move on, but the problem there is that they'll take their baggage right with them into another relationship. First time, shame on them; second time, shame on me.
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I'm a woman and I'm the one afraid of relationships. When I feel too close I reject my boyfriend. I love him but I won't be part of a couple. I'm like a pendulum. We get very close and I reject him. And then I starting working to get close again. He is very patient and faithful and is still there for me whenever after nearly 8 years. I know it's because of the way men treated me before I met him and that he is absolutely not like any other man but I am trapped in this cycle which controls me.
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Personally speaking you need to stop as do many women of today, wanting it all YOUR WAY. 2 individuals are just that. INDIVIDUAL. No matter how much you love or are with another you are still an INDIVIDUAL. YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE. Want respect, GIVE IT. This is a problem with relationships. FEMALES all they think about is MARRAIGE, TOTAL COMMITMENT. Look up the definition: COMMIT: TO PUT IN CUSTODY OR CONFINEMENT. Perhaps you need to see what appeals to him about what he is eyeballing. HAPPINESS, MAKING HAPPY has been disregaurded in todays relations. If a woman does something to make her MAN happy, she is considered by feminists as a sell-out. SLAVE to her man. This is the problem. YET those same ignorant females want the MAN to be their passive slave/whipping post. In my relationship I cook, Clean, Shop whatever I can do to help, BUT if my lady stops doing what I need to be happy, (specially SEX wise) IM DONE! Then like most of these relationships the battles on. Looking at others is HEALTHY. It is society HERE in the USA that says its wrong. Our DNA says its not. The trick? Change your routine ladies. No one likes to see the same old sweats day after day. STOP GENERALIZING about men. WE are NOT all alike just as YOU are NOT. Dont fall for the FEMINIST CRAP about all men. They are just FRIGID,LONELY LOSERS who blame others for their OWN PROBLEMS. REAL LOVE means TRUE ACCEPTANCE without HESITATION.
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It didn't sound like the guy had a wandering eye--if they broke up, something else was wandering. Sounds like the guy is immature and/or is attracted to what he can't get, ie the woman is fine and great when he can't have her, but once he gets her, he wants something else. These bozos are not worth it. Let them waste someone else's time, but move on for your own sanity. I interpreted "he never ends up with the other woman" as simply they didn't get married and/or move in together, not that they didn't sleep with one another.
Would you seriously want yourself or your mother/sister/brother/father/best friend to have to deal with an on-again/off-again frustration which involves wandering parts? Trust, disease, the potential for additions to the family which weren't planned...
There's nothing wrong with looking. I look, my husband looks, and we comment, just as we comment on watches, food, houses, tile...
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