Quickies: “My Boyfriend Lies About His Relationship with His Ex”
Yeah, if you’ve tried numerous times to work through an issue with your boyfriend with no resolution, that’s probably because there isn’t going to be a resolution. At seven months in, if your boyfriend hasn’t told his ex-girlfriend, who is still very present in his life, that he has a new girlfriend, he is keeping you a secret for a reason. That, and the fact that he lies consistently to you, he gaslights you when you try to discuss the lies (he tries to “make you feel you are remembering it all wrong”), and you don’t trust the guy are all clear signs that you need to move on. It’s not going to work out. And in the future, don’t let someone “stay at your apartment” if your relationship isn’t solid and at an appropriate place to discuss living together.
P.S. No one is perfect. If you continue believing a boyfriend is “perfect,” you will 100% be let down when you discover he is not.
He got busier — added school, work, his side business, his sick mom, gym, and other stuff. We live 45 minutes away from each other, and I drove to see him twice while he didn’t drive to see me at all. I did the texting, and he did the responding. He never called, but he said I could call him any time. I broke it off two times, and he chased me both times until I went back to him; however, nothing changed.
Finally, two days ago he broke it off with me, through a text, because he saw I was unhappy and he said he was overwhelmed with everything. After his break-up text, I told him it hurt me because he texted it instead of calling me. He texted back saying he was sorry I felt that way, he wished things were different, and to enjoy my evening. Then he sent “xo❤.”
I’m trying to move forward, but my friend said he will text me because he’s a narcissist. Do you think he will text me? Why would he send the heart and xo? I felt that was mean to do after he broke it off!! — Trying to Move Forward
He was trying to soften the blow – it literally means nothing. There is zero relationship between you — there never has been and never will be. You saw each other twice in a year and a half? He never came to visit you, never called you, never actively even texted you except to break up. He does not care about you and only liked the attention he got from you until he started feeling guilty or inconvenienced by you. Please MOA. It shouldn’t be hard since he wasn’t a part of your life at all. Simply block his number and block him on social media and the problem is solved.
You are about to have “children” (twins?) with a man you were only dating a few months before you got pregnant, who is recently released from prison and still legally married to a drug addict. You already have four children between you, and you admit to “doubts” and “hiccups” in the relationship. The likelihood of the soon-to-be wife and her daughter being the only source of those hiccups — at least for much longer — is zero, and you would be wise to focus on the challenges you have some control over that actually matter in the long run. For example, I think limiting the number of children who call your boyfriend “daddy” is a great idea, and I hope you will do your part to make that happen by practicing birth control from here on out and suggesting that your boyfriend get a vasectomy.
You Might Also Like:
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“I Hung Out With My Ex for a Whole Day. Should We Move in Together Now?”
LW3: OMG do not move in with and get pregnant a ex con who is still married who you barely know. WTF. Why did that even seem like a good idea. The relationship with the child is the least of your concerns. You are not in love with someone you just met, you are infatuated. Love requires knowing the person on a much deeper level and loving and accepting all of that. It simply isn’t possible in a few months. I’d start your exit plan now as it will end and will end badly.
Oh and LW1 he is lying and likely still seeing her but why would YOU get a gift from his ex? Even if she knew about you? I am in no way bitter toward my ex and we still speak but I won’t be sending the new chick an xmas present. I mean, I won’t be sending him one either but that comment struck me as odd as though you felt left out. You should have felt anger over his lies not left out of the gifts.
I don’t umderstand her part about the gift. What did she really mean. I resd it the way you did. That’s weird if you expect your mans ex to give you a gift. It was also weird he passed those out during the time she was there and the fact he accepted these gifts. Also, she says theyve been together 7 months so of I go back to Dec. Than they were only dating for maybe a little over a month maybe 2 months.
A lot of misspelling today, sorry.
(this was my question) I didn’t want a gift from his ex, I only meant it was extra awkward because they all opened gifts from her at the same time as I sat there feeling like a total idiot.
Okay, I am a teensy bit hungover and I’ve had a crappy week mourning a family member, and trying to console everyone else…forgive me for my stinging sarcasm, but I can’t squeeze any sympathy out for any one of these letter writers today.
LW1:
Does he introduce you as his “friend?” I laughed at your sentence, “On our first Christmas together, his family handed out gifts for everyone but me from his ex!”
LOL, did you feel left out? What did you gift your bf’s real girlfriend? Sorry, but WTH are you doing with him? It’s unreal how many red flags you’ve chosen to ignore.
LW2:
How did he chase you, if he never drives to see you or even calls you?
Emojis aren’t really indicative of real emotions.
I mean, sometimes they are, but it takes a fraction of a second to text a heart to someone. It’s mindless.
LW3:
Out of all the issues and insanely fast, huge, life altering decisions you’ve made, the girl is what you are hung up on!?!? Really? How do you both support 4, 5, (soon to be 7?) children? It boggles the mind.
JFC, people. Condoms are free at Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood isn’t close to all people. It’s a four hour drive to get to the closest one from where I grew up. Poor women in rural areas have trouble accessing free healthcare which includes having trouble getting birth control. Where I currently live it is an hours drive to the closest Planned Parenthood and there is no public transportation in my area.
As a country I think we make a huge mistake in not providing free birth control to every person in the country. We pay for our cheapness over birth control at every following step. We pay for WIC and Headstart and then IEPs all the way through school with special tutoring and free or subsidized lunches. Plus we pay for the delivery of the children and cover a minimal amount of well child visits. Most of these women would use the birth control if we would just give it to them and it would make their lives so much better and the lives of their planned children better and would save a huge amount of money for our country. We are stupidly cheap and, of course, have the religious right screaming that birth control is abortion. The same people who want no birth control also don’t want to help the children that are born.
Box of condoms is a lot cheaper than raisising a kid.
Condoms are also something that a) needs to be done in the heat of the moment and b) the man needs to be very involved in. Plenty of people are stupid when they’re about to have sex and decide to throw caution to the wind. Also plenty of men (like, say, the type that have multiple baby mamas) don’t like condoms because they don’t feel as good and you can’t exactly use one without them knowing.
Long acting contraceptives are a good choice, especially for women who are not in safe, committed relationships where they can trust their intimate partner to use a condom. Long acting contraceptives are also more expensive and require a prescription or medical procedure, so they are inaccessible for people who would benefit most from them.
Saying “just use a condom” is dismissive and ignores so much about the situations women, especially women in poverty, find themselves in.
It’s called personal responsibility. I want to never work again and have Mai Tais all day. It is not our governments job to keep someone from making stupid choices and not using birth control regardless of what they are. Short of being raped a woman can say “no not without a condom”. It was her choice not to. She made the stupid mistake…and obviously numerous times as she already has 3 kids. Frankly, since she has three kids she is already aware of how much it costs to raise him so something should have clicked by now.
It may not be our government’s responsibility (about which we will have to agree to disagree) but it IS in our government’s best interest.
It’s safe to assume that there will be some amount of unwanted children born every year in this country, the majority of them to people who are not in the financial position to have them. We then have 2 options as a nation:
1) allow those children to starve, die from preventable diseases, etc. or
2) provide at least a minimum amount of food, medical care, a foster system, etc. in order to partially or completely support those unwanted children until they reach adulthood.
I’m sure some conservatives wouldn’t pick #1 but assuming that the majority still doesn’t want us to leave poor children to die in the streets we will end up with option 2 which, as you mention, is a lot more expensive of an option than just providing contraceptives to begin with. It just makes financial sense.
Yes. If you are unable to do it out of compassion then do it out of financial self-interest. Families who can’t afford birth control will have trouble providing food and clothing for their children. We can allow those children to suffer and we can help provide for their basic needs.
Saying just don’t have sex has never worked. The teen pregnancy rate is down because birth control has been more available. Many women end up in relationships where they need to have sex to maintain the relationship and they need the relationship to keep a roof over their head and the heads of their children. Saying no isn’t always easy and the sex drive is strong.
She just met this guy. She could’ve chose to not do that and then she wouldn’t be stuck under his roof if that is the case. I do feel for the kids since their parents have no self control but I don’t feel for people who make stupid, conscious decisions to screw up their and their kids lives.
If imploring the readers of DW to use condoms (given the influx of pregnant ex gfs, etc lately) is dismissive, what would your advice be?
No its not are government’s responsibility or my responsibility two handout contraceptives to ensure people practice safe sex, however there is truth in that educating a person and being able to have them accessible to contraceptives helps the decline of people producing children that they do not want or need. (Which this does puts burden on states to have to take care of children when parents don’t want to be responsible for them . )But also in saying that if they have the ability to get on Dear Wendy and write in tells me that they have access to the internet which then tells me that they are not living below their means in which they can afford to go by contraceptives to prevent making babies that they don’t want or need. Or at least they can get to the health department and get some birth control. People should also be held to a moral standard as well given that there are diseases that do come when you start having multiple sex partners. Mind you the average smartphone cost about $800 along with your monthly bill.its all about prorities and morals.
Yeah, I agree. If you can afford a phone and/or WiFi, you can afford condoms or something else. And despite bc not being free, a lot are very low cost.
I also hate the idea that rural and poor must mean ignorant. That’s not true. People know how babies are made. It’s easily avoided for most.
I’m extremely skeptical that the couples involved in all these “unplanned” pregnancies we hear about on DW would actually use free birth control if they had access to it.
I’m also all for free condoms, but honestly I think it’s a slippery slope from offering free implants or shots, to giving them involuntarily to women the government may want to keep from reproducing.
Honestly? I am all for stopping about 90 percent of DW letter writers from breeding. Seriously. If your IQ is below a certain level, I fail to see any benefit in all you making more dumb kids.
Yeah, exactly.
I see little relevance to blame the government/politics in the case of two consenting adults in a blended family relationship. They both know having unprotected sex, during the small window of fertility during the month would result in a child. I have a feeling it wasn’t the access to birth control or sexual coercion.
Was my comment blunt and out of line? Maybe, but I have an innate rage toward poor decision making, especially with children involved.
I don’t think that offering free birth control is connected to forced sterilization at all. If a government wanted to force women to do that, it would do it regardless of whether low-income folks were offered free contraception. It’s not like they’d be like, “Oh. Well, people still have to pay for this kind of thing, so I guess we won’t create this policy.”
Its fine to advocate for condom use, and not only for birth control but also for protection from STIs.
But if you don’t want to assume people are stupid about where babies come from, then you can also assume they know condoms exist and how they work. Obviously there’s some reason that these people who know where babies come from and know what condoms are still wind up pregnant. Whether that’s coercion, lack of resources, or whatever.
And I also don’t think that making prescription birth control available for no charge is the same as eugenics.
My imploring people to use free condoms wasn’t because I think they are stupid, it’s because having children with men you barely know is stupid and lacks foresight.
I wrote my comment quickly, whilst hungover. Someone who comments on this site nearly always recommends condom usage- I didn’t realize it was so mean and dismissive to remind people of the existence of free condoms in the world. I also don’t see how telling people to use condoms is different than Wendy advising them to use bc and get a vasectomy. There’s a lot of kids who grow up in shitty situations, and I’d rather have less of that in the world.
If you’re interested,
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter, Question # five Does saving kids’ lives lead to overpopulation? Is interesting because the Gates site evidence that having more children tends to be tied to having less probability that they will survive past the age of five.
What’s interesting to me is that I think optimism is based on the goals one hopes humanity realistically achieve. If the goal is life into adulthood, the world has gotten better. Being in the United States, I think we tend to focus on preventing cycles of poverty.
@ anonymousse, I was thinking about you and your family yesterday. My sympathies for all the recent trauma and loss you’ve experienced. I hope Mother’s Day went okay and you had some enjoyment.
Thanks, @keyblade, I appreciate that. ♥️
Oh, LW2. Don’y believe his story that he broke up with you because he could tell you were unhappy. This is not a man who loves you and cares about your happiness. He broke up with you for one of two reasons: 1) he got bored of you and moved on to the next girl he can string along in an internet relationship for a year or 2) your being unhappy (and the resultant trying to talk about it/fix it/work on the “relationship”) was making it less enjoyable for him. That’s it.
He sent you a heart to make himself feel better. The best revenge is living well, so block him and go do that. Preferably with a boyfriend you see more than twice a year.
Could not agree with this more. You stroked his ego. It was absolutely no work or effort for him. You made him work so it’s over.
Be with someone who wants to actually be with you
How desperate are these women? Dear god buy a vibrator and stop chasing these red flag conventions.
Her friends say he’a a “narcissist” . . . Heard that one recently.
LW1). Aim HIGHER.
LW2). He’s just not THAT into you.
LW3). Forget condoms. Have an abortion and tie your fucking tubes….
LW #1-the guy has all the classic hallmarks of a narcissistic psychopath. Just read a book about a woman who married a guy like this. RUN.
LW#2-You were never really in a relationship. The next time ,never waste a year or actually more than a week or two texting with someone before you have a firm plan to meet. Then,a relationship requires actually going on regular dates and getting to know e ach other in person. What a waste of time/energy-people can pretend anything on line. .
#3 This guy sounds like bad news. You resenting a poor kid with a druggie mom and a jailbird dad is even worse.
L1-He is obviously using you for a place to crash and is still seeing(or wants to be) the “ex”. Lock the door and stop being a doormat.
L2- There wasn’t anything to break off cause you weren’t in a relationship with this person.
L3- No comment. Pathetic.
BTW I moved from the city to a semi rural area outside of Atlanta. There are no PP locations here, but the local health department offers free implants.
In my state Medicaid does pay for sterilization, long term birth control, etc. I think many women don’t want to be sterilized because they want to continue to use pregnancy as a tool to get a unstable guy to stay with them. (NEVER WORKS)It all goes back to women that are so desperate for a man that nearly anyone with a pulse can drive by, impregnate them and then go right back to their criminal activity, other baby mamas etc without missing a beat and the women are there just begging for more mistreatment. They are ignorant and that is their fault…but the kids, her’s, his and their’s are the ones that pay the price.
At least we could read and understand what LW 3 had to say unlike the unbelievably ignorant woman (who couldn’t write a complete sentence to save her life…my grammar isn’t perfect, but geezus!) who for some obviously self centered reason couldn’t wait another second to unload a bunch of crap about a convict
father(baby daddy) onto a 13 year old girl. ??♀️Well, I mean, I assume that these women want kids at some point, just like many other people, and that’s why they wouldn’t get sterilized, despite the rest of society deciding they are too ignorant and poor to have babies.
I’m not sure folks from areas like that would even know what an IUD is or at least wouldn’t know that they are safe now, etc. We didn’t have sex ed in my high school. (Our health teacher was supposed to do it, but he was uncomfortable, so he didn’t.) I grew up in a suburb of 25,000 outside of a state capital. Of course, it was the South, too. But I can’t imagine that rural areas are going to get much better education than I did.
LW1: When a person lies, you can’t know if they are telling the truth. If you are dating a guy and he is dishonest, stop seeing him. I don’t know why you’d stay with someone who lies to you.
LW2: Why are you asking these questions? It doesn’t matter if he puts XO or texts you. He doesn’t want to be with you and has ended things multiple times. You need to move on.
LW3: She’s either his daughter or she isn’t. I assume you mean she’s not his bio kid, but he’s been raising her. That makes him her dad. The end. You don’t get to decide for them. You chose to get involved with him and have kids with this man. Don’t punish her because you chose to put yourself into a situation that you have issues with.
Sorry to say, but, the majority of commenters on this site lack empathy and compassion. Week after week, I see the same commenters saying horribly rude and callous things. Judging people without knowing their entire situation. Judging people without ever having lived in their situations.
Many LWs writing in with these questions are obviously a bit lost and confused, and instead of offering a wee bit of understanding and helpful advice, most commenters make disparaging and judgemental remarks.
I used to love this site, but I’m done. Reading peoples’ comments here makes me think the world is full of un-empathic folks who’d rather walk right past someone who’s fallen on the ground instead of offering them a helping hand.
I’m sure I’ll get flamed for this comment, too. Which will just prove my point. (When people scream at you because you’re asking them to be a little compassionate, you know our society is in trouble.)
Of course, you are free to not like this site or the comments. I just find it ironic that as someone whose handle — B.B. — has never been used here before and whose email used to leave this comment has never been used before and whose IP address has only been used four times, under three different names, and only as far back as January, and only once to leave what might be considered an “empathetic” or “compassionate” comment, that YOU are complaining that this community lacks empathy and compassion. You say that “Reading peoples’ comments here makes me think the world is full of un-empathic folks who’d rather walk right past someone who’s fallen on the ground instead of offering them a helping hand” but where is YOUR helpful hand? Maybe you are someone who has left plenty of helpful comments and you’re incognito right now, which is fair enough, but I suspect that’s not the case. I suspect YOU are what is so wrong with society: you are someone who expects people to behave a certain way — in this case, leave solely empathetic and compassionate comments — when you don’t do that yourself.
I also think that while, yes, there are plenty of comments on DW that might be considered “harsh” or “rude” or whatever negative adjective you want to attach to them, that isn’t new — it goes back to the dawn of the site, over seven years ago — AND there are lots and lots of really positive, wise, helpful, compassionate, and empathetic comments, too. I, myself, have shared personal struggles over the years and was really heartened by the love I got from readers, both in comments and in personal messages. I don’t recall anything like that from you. But that’s not really my point. My point is that if you want to see negative here, you’ll find that. And if you want to see positive here, you’ll find lots of that, too. Like anything else in life: what you see around you, like really see, is a reflection of what’s going on internally. There are exceptions to that, but in general, I have found this to be pretty true.
I wonder if you aren’t feeling particularly lacking of empathy and compassion yourself. I wonder if you are feeling negative, like a hater. Stepping away from a website that doesn’t make you feel good, is a fine start. But I’d also suggest some soul-searching to figure out what changes you can make internally to help you start seeing the positive you feel is lacking in society. Good luck!
Yeah, two things. First, if you have been reading this site for years and loved it, yet never offered advice, who’s walking by people fallen on the ground and not offering a helping hand? You. At least all these commenters are taking time to offer advice.
And this: “Judging people without knowing their entire situation. Judging people without ever having lived in their situations.” Well, yeah. They’re ASKING us to evaluate *the information they provided* and offer an opinion. That’s… how Advice sites work.
B.B. is also making judgements about all those who leave comments without knowing their situations, let alone their entire situations.
I have thought about this issue a bit, mostly with regard to my own comments which can absolutely be harsh and bitchy. There is a common thread that brings out the harsh responses on DW—an utter lack of self awareness coupled with innocent people being negatively impacted. Anytime a LW’s staggeringly careless actions put kids in a position to suffer you’re going to see the claws come out…I’m ok with that.
B.B. is likely correct in the sense that few LWs actually want constructive advice. They want to be told that they are right and deserve to get what they want. The guy whom they think looks great but treats them like crap: they want to hear that their patience is justified; their love will eventually change him into the personality they want. That’s what they want, so the world should be set up to deliver that and we should all do our part by parroting how right they are, so they can wave the responses in the guy’s face. That would fix everything.
MOA is too hard to do, so it shouldn’t be suggested. If that’s what the LWs wanted, they would need a prompt from us. They just want the magic Harry Potter love potion or spell which will transform Mr. Nasty-but-sexy into the perfect bf/husband. This spell must exist, because they deserve it and finding a new bf is hard. Many LWs don’t ever want to do hard, so it is very unfair to give them advice which might be hard or sad to follow.
If you don’t like something do different. You sound like the candidate for my “tell LW’s whatever they want to hear even if it isn’t good advice site”. I’ll set you up to be the advice giver. Some people are harsh. LIFE IS HARSH! You really want us to tell someone who is making stupid and possibly dangerous decisions that it’s all ok and we support them? No. This is a site filled with people who aren’t 20, like you seem to be, who actually have experience with the situations they reply to. I am sure your school has a safe place for people like you who don’t want to hear the harsh truth, this is not it. Wendy, is not it, she is direct and straightforward.
B.B.
I will own that I definitely use a harsher, more critical tone on this site than I would if I were listening to someone in real life. I was fairly harsh on a letter writer who was pregnant and concerned about her boyfriend taking a trip right after her baby was born. I would never bring up the possibility that a boyfriend might hope for a miscarriage or an abortion. Even writing it made me uncomfortable. Sometimes my “advice” is sloppy. I don’t always take time to think through everything the way I might if I thought my opinion mattered in any specific way to whoever wrote in. But I’m not an expert; I think it’s unwise for people to put too much stock into stranger’s comments precisely because we cannot know the truth of their lives or situations based on a few characters. I do think sometimes reading opinions can spur people to consider what they have expressed more deeply than if they only asked the questions to themselves.
I was hard on that letter writer who seemed perfectly affable precisely because she had no investment in my opinion. I chose to be harsh because her writing suggested to me that she desperately wanted her interpretation of her boyfriend’s reactions to be true. She was disregarding her friends advice because she thought they were biased and she was in therapy for depression. My guess is people in her real life wouldn’t challenge her because her emotional reaction to such a challenge would be painful. But I have no qualm about her resenting me. And in the end, perhaps she might be better prepared to adjust to a diverging path in life. Maybe she won’t and of course I could be completely wrong.
My boyfriend was amazing, perfect in every way… but there was a problem. (Which didnt become a problem until later) He was bestfriends with my bestfriend. We broke up because he never really showed affection towards me and he always annoyed me on purpose. So the one day when I broke up with him I instantly regretted it. I mean we had been dating for about 4 months and we hadnt even held hands.. but i knew that i was in love with him and now I want him back so bad. Not only that he’s still besties with my best friend so we all still hang out with her and the air is always very awkard. I miss my boyfriends humor, the sound of his laugh, and even how he smelt, and i feel like i NEED him back soon.
You aren’t in love with him. You sound very young. You don’t need anyone. You will meet plenty of people over time.