A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Hi everyone, i'd like to thank in advance for help. This is going to be quite long so bare with me.I feel as though it's time to ask for somebodies advice about whether my relationship with my boyfriend is a recipe for success, or disaster. I never like to discuss problems with friends or with my mum simply because I don't want people to think our relationship is falling apart, i'd rather speak with people who I don't know who I can openly spill all about the issues i'm facing.We've been together 6 months now, it all started the day we first met. This is because we had been chatting online for a few months before meeting up. He seemed so perfect for me, and always seemed to find time for me. He made himself out to be somewhat of a romantic person, and quite the charmer. Another thing he said was that he was the type of person to walk the talk, he would promise the world and always be able to give it.An important thing to mention would be that he is in the British Army, living abroad at the moment. It was his camp abroad that I flew to, to meet him. At first I found this exciting, I've been out there several times since for week long visits. The very first time we met was a struggle, because he had been home on leave over Christmas for a couple of weeks, the week before I flew out. We had tried to arrange to meet up here in England, but due to horrendous snowfall, all our options of travel were out of the question. I do remember however, getting quite annoyed with him at the time (without letting him know) because he didn't actually seem to want to try to get to me, it almost felt like the snow gave him an excuse not to make an effort to see me. It always seemed to be me nagging for a date to meet up, whereas if I didn't mention it, he wouldn't have bothered. So anyway, the next week he finally decided to do something about it and paid for me to fly out to him.After a wonderful first weekend together, I arrived home to a bunch of red roses he'd sent to my house for when I got home, and I completely forgot about the annoyance of trying to meet up before. We then didn't see each other for a month as he was on exercise, and Valentine's Day was coming up. As my present, he promised me a fancy trip to Paris where we could stay in a 5* hotel, he even linked me to some hotels online. He really bigged this up and made me really look forward to it. I also went out and bought an expensive dress for the occasion. And as you can imagine, it never happened. I reminded him a few times because he seemed to have forgotten about his promise, and made excuses. So anyway I was unsure as to whether we were going or not. I flew out to his camp anyway on a late evening flight, only to be told his 2 male friends from back home had arrived as a surprise for him. As soon as we got in, I was told we were going out with all the lads and his friends. I wasn't impressed as I was knackered from my flight. I simply had no choice in the matter (I didn't want to be boring and put up a fuss because I wanted his friends to like me and we'd not been together very long).The next day I had been feeling ill all day, hungover mainly but I was sick all day. And yes I had to go out again with everyone, not once did my boyfriend say oh if you don't feel well we won't go. Instead I had to go out without a possible way home until 7am - while still really ill. It was just a horrible weekend, I had no time to myself to even get dressed properly because people were coming in and out of his room every 2 minutes. The days went on and still no trip to Paris.Anyway, that week ended and I flew home, by the end i'd actually had a pretty good week and wasn't really too bothered that Paris didn't happen. It ended a lot better than it started, we were quite loved up. So I got home and he told me he had been put on a course in the UK so he'll be over here for 3 months which I was very happy about. First things first, i'd seen him the week before so he flew straight home to his Mums house, which is fair enough of course. He spent a few days there with his family and friends, but mostly all he did was go out and get wasted every single night that he was home. I would normally be ok with this, but he did the exact same thing on his Christmas leave - leaving very little room for time for me. It sounds selfish, but you can't just suddenly forget your girlfriend exists when your with your friends surely? It would get to 7pm and he'd stop texting me for the rest of the night, he wouldn't even tell me he's gone out, i'd have to guess. So anyway one of the nights he was busy out getting drunk, he phoned me up on his way home at about 5 am telling me he didn't wana wait til sunday to see me, and that he will come and see me on Saturday instead. Like an idiot I believed him, but even when sober the next day he was all for coming to see me on the saturday. It got to Saturday and I'd heard nothing from him, so I phoned up and he made up yet another excuse as to why he had no intention of coming to see me that day. He said he was gonna stay at his Dads house that night and catch up with him. I thought fair enough, though I was still annoyed as I had told my family he was visiting and i'd bought ingredients for making dinner for him. Later that night his mum spoke to me on facebook, and told me he'd gone out to town with his friends. Another drunken night out that he'd chosen instead of me and lied about.I forgot to mention he is 23, and i'm 19 soon to be starting University, whereas he's already been through that stage of his life.His drunken-everynight-of-every-weekend continued through most of his stay at home, with some weekends staying round my house like at Easter. I went to his twice to meet his mum and his friends, which I think went.. okayish haha. His mum is the type of person who has a very tidy house and doesn't like mess, and in all honesty i'm not a messy person - but she made me feel uncomfortable as though I actually am messy (if that makes sense). She constantly just walked into his bedroom and kept tidying all my things away into my bag, she would casually walk in when I had just showered as well and needed to get dressed. She kept trying to make me wear her clothes as well for a night out, thinking she was a young cool mum (she's 50). I just wanted to be left alone. I also got the vibe that his friends didn't like me, he has a mixture of girl and boy friends and the girls seemed fairly stuck up. His boy mates always call him whipped aswell. I almost feel like they dislike me because i'm taking their friend anyway from them. (Even though i'm not I give him so much time with his friends it's ridiculous).It's a shame because I get along with his army friends soo well, and they like me too.Moving on!Recently i've been doubting whether this relationship is worth the amount of effort I put in. He promised me Paris for Valentine's and I never got anything, whereas I spent my entire months wages (i only work in a shop part time) on his valentine's and birthday present. It's not about the money, it's the broken promises I hate.He's been promising me a holiday for months now, and I've been making a real huge effort to try and get it booked up and out the way so we can organize it and go shopping. The dates have changed about a million times because he's too scared to ask for leave, and now that he has been given leave he's made another excuse as to why we can't book it. Basically, I get the impression he doesn't want a holiday with me because he'd rather go and get drunk every night of his leave with all his friends at home. He constantly lets me down. It's the fact that he promised we'd do this together time and time again, and I actually have to nag him to get his arse into gear. He won't do anything unless I moan at him, and even then he has no rush to do things. By the way I don't enjoy moaning at him, i'd much rather not have to.He's back at his camp abroad now, and we rarely have time to chat during the week because of his job and how tired he is at the end of the day, but at the weekend he goes out and gets drunk every night like he does back home and it really really annoys me and I wish it didn't. I never want to be the kind of girlfriend who stops their boyfriend going out and enjoying themselves, but it's like as soon as the weekend arrives i'm forgotten about. He'd rather go and get drunk than spend any time with me. We never see each other because of the long distance, so a chance to chat all night some weekends is what I want. But he's not interested in that at all. In fact we argue about it a lot, and he promises he'll stay in with me or says 'next week we'll skype everynight' and nope, as per usual he finds other things to do as priority before me.Another thing that bothers me is his facebook account. This part makes me cringe inside because I hate it when people moan about facebook in their relationship... but it truly does affect some relationships. He's got over a thousand friends, and most of his mutual friends only have about 500 (similar to me) which I find odd. He's constantly added by random girls with no mutual friends. This wouldn't bother me, but sometimes when he goes out back home he makes drunken statuses and he gets old friends commenting calling him things like 'lady pulling legend' and I find it so disrespectful as they know he has a girlfriend who can see that comment. He doesn't say anything about it to them though, like excuse me i've got a gf or something. He's still tagged in pictures with an ex girlfriend and girls he's got with on nights out, and I can only assume he was a bit of a womanizer before he met me. It really bothers me because what am I? Just another one on his list. I've been with my fair share of men before but I don't go round broadcasting it to everyone or have all my friends acting like i'm some kind of legend, which is the same for many people. I find it quite sad the way people seem to look up to him really, he's arrogant too which I really don't like. Also, you'd think to act like that you'd have to be super hot and well built - in fact he's just like any other bloke.His mum treats me like a child sometimes, I have a nervous laugh and she showed me her ASCOT dress and I just gave an innocent giggle and I actually liked the dress - but she said to me 'Don't laugh please it's not funny'. I was taken aback I even apologised. She's even got drunken pictures on facebook of her on the toilet at ASCOT with her dress all pulled up. It's embarressing!! And what's worse is he thinks it's normal and just says 'oh shes crazy'. She even got into our bed the morning after she'd first met me!! While we were still in bed!His job and not being able to plan anything in advance I find really really hard, the long distance is really difficult, and the lack of effort on his part is difficult. We've had many many arguments about his habits and when he upsets me, but he only ever gets defensive and justifies that what he's doing is fine. He always says 'I've done nothing wrong'. I can't get through to him, and even when I think I have... he'll promise the world, then never ever give it.I apologize for the length of this but I needed to give detail to get people to understand. Please I need advice on what to do!
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christmas, drunk, ex girlfriend, facebook, has a girlfriend, long distance, money, text, university, womaniser Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, anonymous, writes (13 July 2011): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks everyone for the great advice. I'm taking it all, very seriously and I've now got a lot of thinking to do! You've all been a big help and it's helped me to realize i'm not being silly about any of it. You've made me feel a lot better, especially because you understand how I feel in that it's not a normal way to behave in a relationship. I'm going to see how things go with a step back, and if nothing changes, then he's getting the boot :) Thanks for giving me the confidence to realize that if that decision need come about, it's the right one :)
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (12 July 2011): Thanks for sharing, u r a good writer.Ok, first that is the most bothersome in your story is the fact that your man doesn't seem to care much of your feelings. That's not a good sign. If he keeps on ignoring how you feel it will end up in breakup. As his girlfriend you are entitled to share with him your worries and feel what you feel.All these cancelations indicate that he is flaky, goes with the flow and doesn't stand behind his words.He is still very young, and it seems like this period of his life is a big drunken party. It might go away but it might stay, so watch out for his drinking habits.His mom is a bit strange woman. Not very sophisticated I assume. Deside for yourself how long you ll have patience for her weird behavior. Facebook friends indicate that he meets girls all the time when he goes partying with his bodies, and asks them to join him on Facebook. A question here why, if he has you?What I see here is a young fellow who doesn't want to commit just yet to a serios relationship, likes to party a lot, and god only knows what he does on those nites when he doesn't have you around, getting drunk, and all these pretty girls everywhere.You are very young too, also you putting way too much effort of maintaining the relationship. Here will be my advice to you, it works all the time. Try not to contact him at all and see what happens. You will see a picture very clearly right away. If he interested he will contact you and he will make those phone calls. The other thing could be that he just likes the chase, and will pay attention to you only to get you back and then will cool off again. But you ll see how it goes. It will take out of your con fussed state in which u r now. Hope that will help
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A
female
reader, Loiselle  +, writes (12 July 2011):
 Forgive me if this sounds insensitive, but it almost sounds like you are making this up.
But since truth is usually stranger than fiction, I will assume you are actually in a relationship with this person.
Why on earth would you want to be anywhere near him?
He is not only a recipe for disaster, he is already a disaster.
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A
male
reader, ironman777  +, writes (12 July 2011):
Hi- it sounds like even though you meet him online and he promised the world, as youdo... you have quite different values. these take time to come out and you discover that maybe you werent as compatible as you first thought.His drinking sounds a bit of a worry! I'm no stranger to getting drunk myself but to go out every weekend and get totally drunk is kind of abnormal! It will catch up with later in life - he'll be fat and killed so many brain cells!So I think that you need to sit him down and have a open heart to heart with him and see what he says. show him this post if your afraid of doing it face to face - communicate with him your concerns. if he shrugs them off then I would say you need to consider thats hes not right for you.If he appreciates your concerns and says hell address them, give him a chance but only three months or so - dont hang on for ever hoping he'll change - most people dont.
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A
female
reader, sleepingbeauty +, writes (12 July 2011):
After reading ALL of this, I've come to this conclusion.
You have built him up to be something he's not. This happened in the very beginning when you guys were chatting and did not know each other at all. It's easy to be romantic and sweet via social networking sites because it's on the other side of the screen...you don't get a real reaction. For four months, he was telling you all these kind things and now he's an angel. So when you finally meet, and he's really a douche, you can't accept that because of what you've hoped he is or what he would be. If he's not wanting to spend time with you when you finally unite, then it's NOT worth it.
You also seem to be really uncomfortable whenever you're around people that are close to him...his mom, friends. Imagine having to deal with these people all the time if things got serious.
The deal with Paris...he keeps promising and promising. Paris seems like a pretty big deal but doesn't it seem like that's kind of keeping you attached to him? You keep hoping he'll pull through with it. I know you probably want to see the best outcome but that's not going to happen. If it was going to happen, it would have happened on Valentine's Day.
One of the cool things about being 19, there are so many guys you're going to meet. You're still young. I say ditch him, move on. :)
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