Trust yourself and your instincts
Q: I’ve been involved for three years with a man who’s unhappy with his life.
He’s often and increasingly insensitive and mean to me.
He searches out women on social media. His behaviour and comments could be considered “microcheating.”
He pretends he’s not in a relationship when women ask about his status.
He’s been repeatedly caught and called out for his actions but always turns it on me, calling me possessive and distrusting.
He’s outright lied that he hasn’t done anything wrong despite the evidence.
I don’t trust him.
I feel ashamed and humiliated that he’s repeatedly disrespected me. And that I’ve allowed it to happen for this long.
I know I should end things but it’s been very difficult to leave.
Can you win trust back, and what’s the best way?
Hanging On
A: You’re asking the wrong question.
HE’s the one who has to win back your trust in him.
But he’s making no effort to do so. Instead, he’s trying to make you the bad one in the relationship.
Until he deals with his own depression and his escapist online cheating, he’s offering you nothing but humiliation and disrespect.
It gets harder for you to leave because he’s pulling you down too, creating your own insecurity and low spirits.
Leave. Surround yourself with supportive family and friends. If needed, get counselling.
Unfortunately for him, he may never deal with his own serious issues. He prefers to be a user of others, such as you, rather than try to heal himself or get professional help to do so.
Q: I donate regularly to many street animal feeding, spay/neuter, medical care, and adoption enterprises in Europe and Asia.
Last spring I was contacted online by a young man who said that he was rescuing cats in the streets of
Cairo.
He asked me to send him some money because he had to travel out of Cairo to find work.
I sent him a small amount. The next month he wanted more because he hadn’t found work and needed money to live.
He said he had no family and his friends couldn’t help him.
The next month he said he’d been hit by a car and his leg was broken. He couldn’t work and needed money. Next, his leg wasn’t healing properly and he needed money for medical tests and medicine.
I have no way of knowing whether he’s scamming me or if his need is genuine.
I’m by no means in a financial position to support him and have told him so.
Should I keep helping him with small amounts or cut him off.
Uncertain Donor
A: You’ve done enough.
Your kindness to a total stranger has been exemplary.
However, you have no certainty that he’s been telling the truth, and you can’t afford to support him indefinitely.
Unfortunately, there’ve been far
too many Internet scams played on good-hearted people like you to not need to question whether this is the case too.
What’s typical of such scams is this man’s continuing and escalating needs.
Tell him you wish him well but have had some financial difficulties of your own and can no longer send money.
Given that you can’t keep up responding to his demands, this is not really a lie.
Then end contact.
Q: Whenever we ask my in-laws (husband’s parents) to babysit (with one-to-two weeks’ notice), they say they’ll “let us know,” then later, “we made plans/we’re busy.”
They’ve only babysat our two-yearold daughter four times since she was born! Yet they get upset if they hear that my parents babysat her. Even my husband gave up asking his parents and suggests I ask mine. Also, we usually only ask any grandparents to babysit two days a month, if my husband and I are both working on the same day, and occasionally once a month if we want to have a date night.
Yet they expect us to spend every weekend with them despite that they drop in unannounced once or twice a week.
We want to spend time together as a family and do activities with our toddler.
Babysitting Dilemma
A: In-law and grandparent issues can be very complex – and hurtful on all sides – if you don’t find some compromises early on.
Especially since the value of developing another healthy grandparent relationship for your daughter can outweigh some of these annoyances. If his parents are older and/or frailer than yours, or conversely, more active and busy with their own social life, the reactions of both couples are going to differ.
Yes, his parents do present some difficulties for you.
They clearly want to see their granddaughter, but not that open to setting defined dates outside of their weekend.
They’re also not easy about leaving their comfort zone for whole days while you two are working.
Work with that knowledge, but be upfront about your choices as a couple: that you and your husband plan to spend one of your weekend days with your child on your own.