helpmewithmygirlproblems

Never try to make life or death decisions when you’re feeling suicidal.

Today’s e-mail comes from a returning Anon, who apparently actually appreciated my advice for him in his first e-mail. Read over that one first to get a better picture of the whole situation. Hope I can help again! (I would also like to mention that this was sent to me less than 12 hours ago. Take that, world! I’m back!)

We broke up about a month ago. Being with me really opened up a lot of questions about what she wants in life and the things she believes and desires. She tells me that she’s not sure whether she wants a man who doesn’t have similar beliefs toward god, and she’s going to find out for herself what she wants in life and go for it. Objectively this sounds great to me, and is what I’ve been advocating the entire time we were together, and I genuinely feel happy for her and the fact that she has a chance to find what exactly she wants in her life and pursue it. We still talk every once in a while but not very often.

Here’s where the problem comes in, however. During the time that I’ve been away from her, I’ve come to realize that she is the person I want in my life. I don’t think I’ve met another girl in my life who has so many qualities that I desire in a woman. I want to do whatever I can to show her this, on the chance that she’ll come around and perhaps realize that religion doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker. The problem with this obviously is that there’s nothing I can do to make her do any such thing, and she’s going to have to come to this realization herself, if at all. I also don’t want to pressure her on the chance that she’ll relent only to end up regretting it.

Right now I’m playing it cool and giving her space, but how do I show her that I really want her without making her feel trapped?

Thanks again!

My initial reading immediately brought to mind a number of specific instances with some of my closest friends, where within weeks of a (in most cases, well-needed) breakup they came to the conclusion that it was a mistake. The problem is that it usually isn’t a mistake. After dating for a certain amount of time, you really get the feel for whether or not the relationship can really endure. Then, when you break up, you feel a bit of relief for a while. And then you forget the bad things, and you remember the good things. It’s no one’s fault, really… but the blinders truly do exist. You start to feel like you could work through the differences , that they really weren’t as bad as you were making them out to be in the situation. Sometimes it’s true, I’m sure of that. But most of the time, it’s the combination of a wound plus time plus loneliness.

Like I mentioned, I have specifically helped a few people deal with similar situations. My advice to them was not to push, for two reasons. First of all, it took you a certain amount of time to arrive to this conclusion for yourself. She might have different turnaround times when it comes to making decisions, or she might have completely different factors affecting her life right now. She deserves the same space and respect that you were given. Second of all, you might not be fully considering the implications of getting back together. This includes not entirely recognizing the implications of the differences that broke you up in the first place. I’m not really going to go into everything I could regarding that; personally, I’ve seen disconnections in faith be a huge detriment to a romantic relationship. Especially a long-term one; as soon as you start thinking about the future and marriage and children, the situation gets even more complicated. For both of these reasons, it’s logical to spend at least a little more time living life separately. If she really is the one you want in your life forever, she’ll still be that person in a couple of months. People might say “act on it now or else she’ll be gone!” but that’s crap. If she doesn’t come to the same conclusion on her own, it wouldn’t have worked out if she came to the same conclusion with some prodding from you.

As for making her feel like you really do want her back… I’m not entirely sure I can give you that advice, given what I’ve already said. You could sit down with her and explain the conclusions you’ve come to and why you’ve come to them. Why she is special, why you think you could work through the issues, why you want her to TRY to work through the issues with you. Lay everything out on the line. But, as you mentioned, she might feel trapped or pressured that way. Even if you ended with an explanation of why she doesn’t have to make a decision now but you wanted her to know this and that and blah blah blah, she might feel like she HAS to speed up her decision. The other option is just to let her figure it out on her own. BUT, she might not make the choice you want if you don’t lay everything out. I guess this is the option I lean more towards, mostly just because it gives both of you more time to consider everything, but also because it respects that she is able to come to her own emotional and logical conclusions without a guiding influence. It’s a calculated risk one way or the other. My opinion tends to lean to the one that takes out the risk of ending up in a relationship with the same shortcomings as the one you e-mailed about a few months ago… which means taking more time to think is a good idea.

Good luck, and keep in touch!

You say impressive, I already know it.

Hey guys! I’m still alive. Please e-mail me some girl problems! Or even just suggestions for the blog. Right now, I’m working on some product reviews I think might be helpful. Hopefully, I’ll be posting more soon! Today’s caller wishes to remain anonymous, so please read his entire story in the voice of Stephen Hawking.

I met a girl and we seemed to hit it off pretty well almost right away. She’s a friend of my house mate and she’s from a town about an 40mins away and she has no car. As such when she came over to see him, she came by train and she decided to stay over on our couch rather than travel home. We end up in this conversation about this guy she used to work with that she likes and how she wishes she had a bf like all her friends and how she’s bored on her own etc.

The following morning me and her chat again from 8am until about mid day before I walked her to the train station. She offered me her number and I asked if she wanted to come to a gig the following week and she said she would like to. She claims that she’s not sure why she was talking about the other guy so much as she doesn’t really even like him.

Next week rolls round (so this is Last Friday now). She turns up and me, her and my house mate head to the gig. We get on well again and discover we have a fair few things in common – she suggests we go home and watch Aliens (holy fucking shit, I love that movie). It’s 1am when we get in and we are both pretty drunk.

We watch the film on the sofa and cuddle up under a blanket. The film ends at 4am, my house mate goes to bed and then so do we. Aside from a 5 year relationship which ended about 8 months ago I’ve only been with a couple of girls – none since – and during that relationship she had a coil thing that meant that I didn’t have to use condoms. So basically this was the first time I’d used one in about 6 years. There is not a lot sexy about failing to put on a condom, half drunk at 4am and it takes a minute at which point I’m embarresed and feel the mood slipping. We have sex and it goes on and on and in the end I am completely exhausted and can’t finish, it feels totally weird with the condom. Epic fail. God damn. This has never happened to me before…

The next morning I wake up at 9am and she’s not in bed. I go for a glass of water and she’s sleeping on the sofa. I leave her there. My house mate wakes up and we sit around and talk some more. He goes out and we carry on talking. I cook her dinner and we go to blockbuster to rent yet another film – both a little to hung over to go out to a bar or whatever.

After the film I say, in a jokey manner “I suppose we should go on a date or something” and instantly the mood changes and she kinda goes “hmmmm” then she says she’s sorry and she’s sure that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. She says that she’s not really looking for a relationship and would like to just be friends – despite her saying just last week that she did! We talk for another hour or so during which time things are kinda flirty again but she says “I’m looking for someone really assertive”, my housemate comes home about 11pm drunk and sits right in between us. I go to bed, she sleeps on the couch again.

Next morning we have breakfast and she heads home.
6pm:she text’s me saying “don’t tell marc (my house mate, her friend) about what happened, I don’t want him telling anyone else”. I didn’t get the message until about 5 hours later – so I obviously don’t reply
6:30pm she texts my house mate saying “I don’t know if he’s said what happened, but please don’t tell anyone else, I don’t want it to damage my reputation”
10pm she texts me again saying “office space is on film 4, bet you wish you had TV now! x”

I don’t reply to either text and neither does my house mate.

I spoke to her on MSN yesterday and suggested we watch the Grudge round at my place (we’d talked about it before and she said she hadn’t seen it) and she said yeah, but it was pretty non-committal on both sides.

I seem to have really fallen for her but I don’t know where I stand or if it’s salvageable. I wish I could explain to her why the sex was terrible, but I kinda hope she’s not shallow enough to let that get in the way.. I dunno. I’m going away for 5 days tomorrow – I figured I’d give her some space and not talk to her til I get back, but I’m not sure.

Lost cause? Can I pull some romantic gesture out of my ass and save the day?

XOXO,

The fucking Quake master.

This is a weird situation. I had to read it a couple of times because the first time I was like “oh shit, did she fuck the housemate too?” I’m not entirely sure why she’s so keen on making sure no one tells anyone what happened, that seems a bit suspicious to me.

Anyway, I’d say just ride it out (that means wait and see what happens, not… any other connotation of riding). I figure you’re already on your 5 days away from town by now, but I’d say just avoid initiating contact during that time. If she texts or calls, don’t ignore her, but don’t be the initiator. It sounds like she’s not exactly comfortable with what happened, so I’d give her some time to get over that.

If you are really truly interested and if her attitude readjusts by the time you talk to her again, I think you CAN pull a romantic gesture out of your ass and save the day. But be aware of how she’s handling this situation before you decide whether or not you’re really going to want a relationship with this chick. Instead of talking to you about something that’s making her feel uncomfortable, she’s essentially sweeping it under the rug. Not really a rock solid foundation for the start of a new relationship. And you have to be aware of the fact that something might have happened to make her feel like you are no longer relationship material. It sucks, but most chicks have a switch in their head, and once some random event turns off the romantic attraction, it’s incredibly difficult to turn it back on again. So my advice is to ride it out. It seems like you’re having fun with her even without the sexy stuff, so worst comes to worst you’ve got a cool new friend out of it. Take it slow until it seems like she’s taking whatever wall down that she’s suddenly thrown up. Hopefully then things will just come naturally.

Get it? Come? Naturally? I am so so sorry. That was horrible. I quit.

Sex Before Marriage

Glug glug. Happy holidays, I’m back. This update is brought to you in part because… I’m engaged now! Yeay!

I’m also late to the girls game, and now I’ve a girlfriend I love, and it’s great. However, she’s highly religious and I’m agnostic. She’s gotten over the initial disinclination to date me in the first place, since ideally she’d like someone who shares her passion for her faith, and now we’re together. I’ve been with her for a couple months now, and we’ve talked about sex and our desires and intentions. The short of it: she intends to wait to have sex until marriage (she’s a virgin), while I think it’s a terrible idea to marry somebody before you have sex with them (since I hope to stay married for life, and I don’t really want there to be any large surprises in the relationship before agreeing to marry). I’m also a virgin, and a little bit worried about what to do here, since I don’t think this is such a deal-breaker as to call it off (else I’d have already done that). I don’t think sex should define a relationship, but it seems like an important component, enough so that there would be something wrong were it to be missing.

That said, I’m highly interested in what sex will be like, and I’m hoping to try as many ways as I can think of when I get a willing partner (blame ShackNWS?). – Anonymous

Sex is part of a good, healthy relationship. Whether that be a good, healthy relationship before marriage or a good, healthy relationship after marriage is surely up for debate. But I firmly believe that to really succeed as a couple, two people must see eye-to-eye when it comes to sex.

If one person wants it a lot more than the other, it can lead to serious resentment issues and problems communicating. If one person wants to just FUCK sometimes but the other person would just rather make slow and sensual love every single time, again, serious issues.

It’s just like some of the other “BIG” things that people butt heads over. If one person is really messy and another person is anal retentively clean, this can present problems. Fuck, if one person squeezes the toothpaste from the top and the other one from the bottom this can be a DEALBREAKER for some people. The only way to figure out how to work through those problems is to see how you deal with the other person in that situation. Maybe the clean one decides that they can live with cleaning up after the messy one as long as the messy one helps out a bit. Maybe the messy one decides they absolutely can not live with someone so freakishly organized. Maybe they stop using toothpaste altogether.

It makes the most sense to try out something before you make a lifelong commitment to it. I don’t understand people or religions who have issues against cohabitation or sex before marriage for this reason. In my mind, the founders of religion came up with these kinds of weird hangups so that people worked harder to make their marriage work once they were stuck. But it’s not like that anymore. People have realized that divorce is, sadly, a likely possibility when they get married, so cohabitation and sex before marriage (in a committed relationship) isn’t quite so taboo. The REAL reason to value marriage isn’t necessarily so that person will be the “first” or the “only” love or lover or cohabitator, it should be because they are the best and the last.

Sex shouldn’t necessarily define a relationship, but it has the potential to ruin one. I’ve seen people stuck and unhappy in marriages because they did not have sex before and they realized too late that they did not really mesh with their now-wife or husband. They justify being unhappy because they made a commitment and want to stick to it and it’s not a deal-breaker. So when asked to give advice on the subject, my automatic thought goes to them, and how I’m sure if given the chance they would have MADE it a deal-breaker before they made a deal they REALLY didn’t want to break. I’ve also seen couples in relationships who just aren’t sure if they are with the right person. A guy or a girl who has only ever had sex with one person then wonders what it would be like to have sex with ANYONE else. Until both people jump in with both feet, it’s not really fair to anyone. Those insecurities and unsureities aren’t going to go away until you either turn a corner mentally and decide that the one you’re with is worth not having sex with anyone else, you cheat on her, or you break up with her to figure out exactly what the hell you want before you commit to something you’re not sure about but are stuck with after that.

I would try having that discussion with her and find out what her reasons really are for valuing what she values. It’s not an attack on what she believes and she should be willing to explain to you her justification, just as you should explain yours. If this is a relationship that is really going to go somewhere, these are conversations you will have to have at some point anyway, about pretty much everything. Talk openly and honestly. Both her answers and her reaction to the conversation can tell you a lot about her.

Whatever happens, there is a decision to be made. No, it would not be wise for you to try to get her to go against her beliefs just to save your relationship… but it would also not be wise for you to do something that doesn’t sit well with you just because you don’t want to feel like you are pressuring her. Not saying that she will, but I’ve seen girls who are like this use their beliefs as a way to be a victim. Don’t fall for it. She has beliefs that she would like to stick to, but make sure she also knows that you have feelings that are to be just as much respected. If you simply stand up for yourself, you are doing exactly what she is doing. But people with “convictions” often wield them as weapons; just because your opinions aren’t necessarily the same doesn’t mean they are any less valid even if they aren’t accepted by her, her religion, or whatever else.

Good luck!!

Goodbye, Lois.

I don’t know if this is true or if it’s a literary or pop culture reference that I’m totally missing or if it’s just made up… but I thought it was a pretty beautiful story. Thanks for sharing, anonymous e-mailer.

Hi Laurgasms,

Goodbye, Lois.

Sup.

Content coming soon!

…if you want it to be.

Please e-mail me with stuff.

helpmewithmygirlproblems@laurgasms.com