Help! we're not saying I love and there's no sex

[bethz9]

I could use any advice I can get. If people think I am hopeless and pathetic please let me know. I feel like I have so much at stake I need advice! MY boyfriend and I were together for 4 years this past July. Things were great. We both bought each other nice gifts($$$) and he even told my best friend that he was thinking about proposing by the end of the summer. In stead, Labor Day weekend, he broke up with me. Later that day I took a pregnancy test. It waspositive. We were both so confused.

 

I just graduated college and he had a year to go. For two months we would fight, talk about getting back together( which is what I truely want), and go LONG periods without even speaking. He was also seeing someone else, whom he has confessed to having slept with. A day after finding out he had slept with her I got really sick. I had to be medivaced with possible liver and kiddney failure due as a complication of the pregnancy. I had to have an emergency c-section as a result. The baby was 3 months early and only 2 lbs.

 

While I recovered in the hospital, he never left my side. HE even went to the chaple and prayed while I wasin surgery. Now it has been a month, and the baby is doing well. He takes me every weekend to the NICU to see her and we stay for hours. We both adore her, which makes me want this to work even more!

 

He says there are things about me he doesn't know if he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. But I am willing to work on some of things. IE he hates my job, so do i, and now that I have a baby I want a better one. But he feels liek he should not have to change me and that we shoudl both be with people who want us for us. He doesn't seem to understand that relationships are work and compromise, he thinks it should be wine and roses all the time.

 

The other factor working agaisnt me is that he just turned 21 and I am 23, all his friends are going out bar-hopping etc. I have already done that. I think he wants time to find out if the "grass is greener" I just really want him to come back so that we can be a family. I do not want to be really good friends who have a kid together. He is also totally confusing me. HE calls everyday a few times a day, which is something he hasn't done since we broke up and he talks to me like we used to. Its like everything feels the same as when we were a couple except we're not saying I love and there's no sex (and I think part of that is because I can't yet). When we part ways he hugs tight and long and kisses my forehead. WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?? PLEASE HELP!

[RescueDiver]

Hi Beth,

I feel really bad for your situation. It seems that everything that could possibly go wrong, has gone wrong.

About his actions... he still cares about you, after all you're the mother of his child and he probably still has feelings for you. Unfortunately about his being a 21 year old you're right, he's just getting into the bar scene and that's always a really "fun" time for most 21 year olds. I have seen very few relationships make it through the "turning-21" transition (whether it's a guy turning or a woman turning). The reason obviously is that just like when you make the transition from high school to college you're exposed to so many new and interesting people that you think you've been missing out on something. Some guys just need to get it out of their systems, while others realize that meat markets like bars aren't always the best place to meet people.

Whether he'll come back or not, I don't know. Most 21 y/o guys are still pretty immature and a life-changing event like an unplanned pregnancy can spook them really bad. The problem is that when something becomes "required" even if it's something they may have wanted in the first place... it can turn it into something they don't want. I am of course referring to his telling his friend that he was thinking about proposing.

The bottom line is, that the two of you need to figure out if you want to be together because you love each other and want to spend the rest of your lives together. Being together only because you have a child together while noble, is a recipe for disaster. The next part is going to be really hard for you. Because you need to tell him that unless he wants a relationship with you, he needs to stop with all the physical affection because it's just confusing you and is going to give you false hopes.