[Kathy]

I’m going to try and say this all in as little words as possible. It’s a long and arduous story. I’ve been dating a man for five years. I lost my virginity to him at 21. I had sex with him anytime he wanted. I enjoyed it a lot, and he made me feel sexy, but he didn’t often compliment how I looked outside of it. I wanted to wait until marriage originally, but I stupidly gave in afraid of losing him–the first man I ever fell in love with. I started to notice in the first year something was up, that he was talking to women online. I believed him everytime he said “no” though. Come to find out, when we move in 1 1/2 years later, he was all along talking in detail about sex to these women and how good they looked. He said he didn’t tell me as much as he told them because he is insecure and wanted to see if other women find him attractive or I just felt sorry for him. (he’s attractive but said in high school he wasn’t) He never slept with them, only emotionally cheated. I believed him and still do because I am also his first and he never disappeared at strange times. I just couldn’t let go of this one thing though, that he lied. I would bring it up every day and remind him of it. 2 years into the relationship, he started to call me names when I questioned him. I know I should have left, but my self esteem got so low, because of the lying, and at this time, he worked at a bar open and close every day but sun and mon. I am sure of this because I would visit him at odd times and many of my friends would go and see him always there. We had diff schedules. Every night he came home I’d ask if he talked about girls, yell at him all the time telling him he was lying and fliriting with ppl behind my back. He called me names and yelled when I pestered him. He said I could leave him. He never really controlled if I left but sometimes would later beg me to stay if I thought about it. I stayed because, I know it was dumb but I love him. He went to therapy. He now doesn’t work at the bar all the time and works 9-5 in an office. 4 years in he no longer talks in the way he did as much and hasn’t at all in the past 6 months. Come to find out on the anniversary of year 4, he was flirting with MANY girls when he worked at the bar, every night–including lifting up girls over his head for pictures with skirts on and having them draped across him “because he said he was wrestling” in the pictures. He would come home and yelling back at me when I questioned him, being verbally hurtful–calling names etc.. often until I cried. I’m confused. He lies about virtually everything in the relationship except actually having sex, I really do believe he didn’t do that. I not only found out that he flirted in person and online, but he said he had a younger friend that was pultonic, I find out now in the relationship, she really used to be a love interest and supposedly beacuse she was too young he wanted to just be friends, but when someone was originally a love interest, to me, their not the same as a girl who is like your sister that you knew since kindergarten. He also said, older guys who hit on or try to be friends with much younger girls are losers, and one of the girls he was friends with was 18 when he was 24. I don’t see this as morally wrong, but hypocritical that he said he says doesn’t like that, then goes and maintains a close relationship with a girl much younger. He also told me he hates girls who like attention and they annoy him yet all the girls in his pictures from the bar are total attention girls who wear slutty clothes and act out. I don’t understand why he insists that he is this person, I feel he does not act like all the time. I don’t know what to do and why I still feel such an attachment to him. I know I always will and it makes me very deppressed. He now says, now that I have found out more lies, he doesn’t care if I leave and doesn’t want he living with him. He says I will never trust him and doesn’t care when I go. I feel very emotioanlly deppressed and like I am the only girl he did this to because of something I did wrong that let him think from day one he could act like this. I met him at 21 I’m 26 soon and hate the attachment I feel. I have no job, because I got laid off and haven’t been able to get one for 6 months. I have no where else to stay. I feel like I’m so attached because he was my first and I never really had a father ( he left when I was 14) so I am messed up with men anyways.

[Ask April Masini]

Your problem has very little to do with your boyfriend. Your problem has to do with you and your self esteem. You’re cluttering the problem with other issues to avoid dealing with it. So, stop talking about your boyfriend altogether. In fact, you can’t get well until you break up with him and find yourself alone. That’s when you’ll be able to do the work you need to get better.

So, break up with the boyfriend and don’t take his calls, or make any of your own. You need to let go of anything in your life that doesn’t support you — whether it’s a boyfriend, a friend, a relative or a neighbor. It’s obvious he isn’t interested in you any more, and you need to accept this and let him go.

Once you let him go, you’re going to be super sad and feel empty the same way you do now. So here’s how you help yourself feel better:

1. You need to focus all your energy on getting a job. If you’ve been out of work for six months, you’re going to be prone to depression. So, get a job. Even if it’s working in a coffee shop. You need someplace to go every day where you’re needed and where you can be productive and earn a paycheck.

2. You need to focus on your body. If you don’t exercise regularly, get into an exercise routine. Your chemistry will change and you’ll start feeling good about yourself — I promise. Eat well — no junk — and begin to really appreciate your body.

3. Take some pride in your appearance. Give yourself a manicure and a pedicure. Get a new hairstyle. Clean out your closet and get rid of the stuff that isn’t flattering any more.

4. Start surrounding yourself with supportive people. These should be girlfriends and family members. Go out once a week to a party, a movie, a dinner with friends — whatever it is, get out of the house once a week to something social. And if you don’t have anything to do, invite someone to dinner. Can’t cook? Make it a potluck.

You should start feeling really good about now, and you can start thinking about what it is you really want for yourself in a relationship. I STRONGLY suggest you buy and read my book, Think & Date Like A Man, so you can have a dating bible to refer to. You can read a chapter a day (they’re short!) so you know what to do and how to do it.

Remember, you can’t have a relationship if you’re not ready — and right now, you’re not ready. You have to do some work on yourself and you can only start that work when you dump this guy who you think you love, but who treats you badly. You’ll eventually figure out that men who treat you badly don’t love you and that you have the freedom — and the responsibility to yourself — to be treated well and to love well.

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