Old Habits
My boyfriend of one year and I moved in together. We are both 34. I am single, and he is divorced with a 7-year-old son (split custody).
The relationship between the three of us is fine, but now I’m worried about my relationship with my boyfriend. We’re having a terrible time communicating.
Since I moved into his home, my boyfriend has stopped cleaning up the way he used to. Before I moved in we discussed finances and sharing responsibilities around the house. Now it’s like he has completely forgotten those talks.
If I buy groceries, he eats half of everything within two days. There are soda cans lying around our bedroom, which will continue to sit there because I am not a maid. He likes a clean towel every day, so now I have seven to wash this week.
Two days ago his truck broke down and he rented one. I usually wake up at 6 a.m., but at 5:15 he flicked on the lights. He said he wanted me to drive him to the rental agency to drop off the truck. I asked why he didn’t ask the night before. He said he was too tired.
I don’t mind doing favors for people, but this rude awakening got us off to a bad start. Now I’m the bad guy. He says he won’t lift a finger next time I ask him for a favor.
I have been known in the past for spoiling boyfriends, so this time around I made sure I wouldn’t do it. I do my fair share, but I’m also allowing him to make his own mistakes. I think he is resentful of this. His ex-wife waited on him hand and foot. His mom does the same.
I feel like I’m in a constant battle with him and it’s tiring. When I moved in, we discussed how we would share. Now it looks like he is reneging. Just how many more talks do I need to have with him? I thought we had settled this already!
He took me shopping for wedding rings two months ago and discussed his intentions with my parents. He introduces me to everyone as his fiancee. He told his ex-wife, who is getting remarried this year, we will be getting hitched next year.
I don’t think it’s an example of shacking up or “why buy the cow.” Or maybe now that I’m moved in, it is. You know what? With the way he’s acting, I don’t know if our wedding day will ever come because I’m sick and tired already!
Yvette
Yvette, your boyfriend’s behavior is practically in his genes.
He was born to a woman who catered to him and showed him what to expect. He married a woman who filled the same role, at least for awhile. He spotted you, a woman with a tendency to spoil boyfriends.
He can take care of himself. He was cleaning house before you moved in. Why has he stopped? Because the maid has arrived. He has done just enough to get things back to his old familiar pattern. Why should he change? He likes things this way, and it works for him. He doesn’t have a problem, you do.
Why don’t you have an engagement ring yet? He is waiting to see if you accept the role he has carved out for you. He is waiting to see if you accept the apron, like a horse trainer waiting to see if the horse will accept the bit. He is not going to argue with you, he will just wait to see if you fill the bill.
You’ve seen the future—years of arguing and struggle wasted on this issue. Before the wedding people are on their best behavior. If you accept a ring from this man, you won’t just be signing a marriage license. You’ll be signing a job contract.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of October 18, 1999)
Who’s To Blame
I’ve been married 16 years and thought my wife and I had a good relationship. We used to talk for hours on end. Most of her requests I would fulfill. For example, she loved steamed crabs and beer, and even though it was expensive, I would get it for her on an almost daily basis.
When she wasn’t working, which was most of our marriage, I asked her to cook and clean, but she told me she didn’t like that kind of work and rarely did it. Both of us were religious and took marriage seriously. I tried to make her happy. For example, if she said she was sad, I would carry her off to a hotel. She loved to stay in hotels.
In about January 2005 my wife was once again working. I noticed she mentioned a guy’s name a lot, but I didn’t think much of it mainly because of our relationship and my wife is gregarious by nature. As the months went on I noticed she was always on the cell phone, and if the kids were in the vicinity, she would tell them to go away.
So I got real curious as to what she was talking about that was so secretive. I put a mini-recorder in the car. When I retrieved the recorder, I got the shock of my life. On the recorder she was relaying to a friend her affair with her coworker, and how he wanted to break it off because he felt bad about being unfaithful to his girlfriend.
Just to imagine some other man doing things to your wife is a horrible feeling. She didn’t have him use protection, and she would kiss me afterward. It was just unimaginable. I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I always prided myself so much on my marriage and family other people would come to me for advice. I feel like a failure.
I reasoned my feeling for her would come back, but it didn’t. I saw many articles that said my anger would subside, but it only subsided when we parted. I know what the experts say, but it would never have been the same. All the experts say something was lacking, but I go over and over and over this in my head. Why does it seem I put up with her, and she kicked me to the curb?
Nate
Nate, you have been abused twice by the “experts.” First, by their suggestion there is a surefire way to make any relationship work, and second, by making you feel like a failure. Since they have defined themselves as experts, they have defined you as the problem.
We’ve mentioned before that the best-selling relationship author of the last 20 years has a “Ph.D.” from a school which was shut down by the state of California as a diploma mill. His ex-wife and former business partner is the author of more than a dozen relationship books. Last time we checked she was married to her fifth husband.
This whole field rests on a very shaky foundation. About problems in marriage, most of us would agree, “There is available in modern science a large body of facts bearing on these points: enough to clear up most of the problems that arise.” That sounds like a contemporary statement.
It isn’t. It was written in 1925 by Paul Popenoe, the father of marriage counseling. The same advice is dressed up for each generation as a cure-all, but the divorce rate is a silent witness to the truth. We cannot control what others may do, and no one has the power to manufacture love in another.
We find no fault in you. Your marriage looks like the classic case of a giver and a taker, and there is nothing more you could have done to keep this spoiled woman from kicking you to the curb.
Wayne and Tamara
(From the column for the week of May 7, 2007)
© 1996-2011 Wayne & Tamara Mitchell
Privacy Policy / Terms of Service
