Boyfriend is still on online dating and acts weird

A female age 41-50, anonymous writes:

I am 36, a marathon runner (my point is I'm in shape and not fat), and I am told that I am very attractive. I was in a relationship for 14 years, we were separated for 3, and he recently passed away from a heart attack after years of drug abuse. Other than that glaring problem, I was very, very happy for a very long time. Dating has been extremely difficult for me because I am not experienced at it and I seem to meet men who do not want real relationships or who lie and have another girlfriend, or in one case, a secret wife. I only have one single friend, and she doesn't go to bars, so I can't meet men in bars with her. So I tried online dating. I met a man online 4 months ago who seemed very interested in me, though a little strange. He brought his 5-year-old daughter on our first date. He introduced me to his family on our 3rd date by taking me to a cookout where 10 of them were, telling me their names, and running into the house immediately, leaving me to try to make conversation with a group of complete strangers who seemed utterly disinterested in talking to me. He has only one friend, who I have never met and who lives an hour away, and he has only met one of my friends and has no interest in meeting the others. He lives directly behind his sister and her family's house. I don't think they like me because I don't really have anything in common with their friends who constantly hang out - I am highly educated, and they are not. We also seem to have very different interests. We used to go to their house for socially awkward cookouts where everyone would talk about their kids (I don't have any) or other things I could not relate to, but since one particularly awkward incident, they have totally stopped speaking to me. My boyfriend and I went to take his daughter to the lake, and he was very tired on the way back. I tried to make light conversation with him, and he was very curt and dismissive, making belittling comments to me. It really hurt my feelings, and I planned to leave when we got back to his house. As we were pulling in the driveway, he announced that it was a family friend's birthday and that we should go say hi at his sister's. I was still hurt about how he had acted, but I did not know how to gracefully leave at that point and I could not discuss it because his child was in the car, so I went to the party. I tried to be friendly, but I was very hurt. (He did ask me what was wrong, which I couldn't respond to because we were surrounded by his child and family, and later apologized for being "grumpy" via e-mail.) I think his family thought I was uncomfortable around them, which I was to some extent because I can never participate in any of their conversational topics which include child-care and construction, but I was really just hurt and surprised by how my boyfriend had acted. He then left me with this weird woman who talks about her kids non-stop and is overly excited about American Idol, while he drove the neighborhood kids around in a 4-wheeler. I really wanted to talk to him about how I felt, but his daughter was there, or his family was there. I really like his sister and her husband a lot because we seem to have more in common and his sister is hilarious, but they have not really spoken to me since that incident, which is very uncomfortable since I see them all the time walking into my boyfriend's house. My boyfriend never comes to my house and invites me to come to his house. He said he would help me fix several things at my house because he does remodeling, but he never has. My boyfriend does not call me. He only sends me e-mails. I talked to him about it once, and he said he didn't realize it was such a problem and that he didn't like to talk on the phone. He made a greater effort for a few weeks after that to e-mail me, but he still does not call me. I don't feel that our relationship is going anywhere because he has shared custody of his child, which prevents us from having relationship-related conversations while she is there, or he is constantly working on his online business, even when I am at his house to see him when she is not there. He cooks for me and makes nice dinners, which is wonderful. He does not make a lot of money, but he pays for everything we do, which are always activities with his child for her benefit or very inexpensive fast-food. I took a significant pay-cut at the beginning of the recession, so I genuinely appreciate this. He is very attractive, although he doesn't seem to think so, and is an amazing lover. He is very intelligent, although he can be a poor listener at times. He is thoughtful in the way he speaks to me in person. He is as affectionate as someone who's constantly on the computer can be. We see each other two or three times a week. He is a good man, and a good father, which I appreciate. I had wanted to have a child for a long time, but my late husband was not at the stage of responsibility to do that with, so this is important to me. I had been patient with his lack of phone calls, irritating family friends, constant need to work on his business, and the fact that he is too tired to ever take me out anymore. I love his daughter, and I wake up very early in the morning when I am at his house and play with her for hours and hours. But I recently discovered that he is still online on the website we met on, never removed his profile, has added 3 new pictures, and was on 3 times last week. I removed my profile after we had been together for about 2 months and he called us a couple. It seemed like the logical and obvious thing to do, and I never discussed it with him, thinking he would notice I was no longer online. I have had some communication problems with him because of his inaccessibility and because it's hard for me to open up after my husband's death and after being lied to by so many guys. I had just started to open up when my friend pointed him out online when she was setting up her account. Finally, my point : should I just tolerate this behavior, should I try to talk to him about the online profile and why it's still there, or just plain run? I'm not sure there are many good guys my age left, and I'm honestly not sure I could do better.

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A female reader, LiveAnnLearn  +, writes (13 September 2010):

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