Girlfriend’s fun and sexy but has zero interest in my kids
MONSTER JAM STEEL TITANS 2 (PS4, Xbox One, Switch ◆◆◆)
Dear Coleen
I’M a 35-year-old divorced man with two young children. My girlfriend, who’s only 26, moved in with me because of lockdown and I’m now questioning the relationship.
Things are fine when it’s just the two of us, but it’s pretty clear that she has no interest in my children when they come to stay.
She doesn’t help with anything – she basically sits on her phone or goes for walks with her friends and leaves me to deal with my kids.
I’m not expecting her to be a surrogate mum or to do anything for them at all, but the fact that she shows zero interest and has just opted out really worries me. It’s like she thinks of them as an annoyance or a necessary evil that she has to put up with in order to date me.
On the other side of things, she’s fun, sexy and I love being with her.
After a horrendous divorce and a lot of stress over the kids, this relationship has brought me back to life and I’m happy for the first time in ages. But I love my kids and they come first, so what do I do?
Coleen says
YOU have to try to think realistically about the future – with your brain and not your “you know what”!
Do you really want to spend your life with someone so disinterested in your children? Maybe it’s time to talk to her about where she sees things going – she’s young and might just be looking for a fun fling.
If you both decide the relationship is “fun for now”, but don’t see a long-term future in it, then it might take the pressure off and you can relax a bit and enjoy it. However, you might have to rethink living arrangements because your kids will still be coming to stay with you.
However, if you have hopes of a serious relationship with her and even marriage down the line, then you have to put your cards on the table and be clear that your kids are your priority, they’ll always be in the picture and she would need to embrace that and find a way to make it work.
The bottom line is, if she can’t accept your children and be prepared to put some effort into a relationship with them, then her relationship with you is never going to work.
She has just opted out which really worries me
MONSTER truck games should be great fun on consoles but we’ve never really had a real stunner.
And sadly, that trend continues with this latest foray into the genre on the ageing generation of machines.
Monster Jam is fun but you’ll find yourself growing bored of it quite quickly. The reason is simple, there’s not really enough to do in the “five big open worlds” the game has to offer.
And even though the races and tasks are varied, it’s just too sparse to catch your attention and keep hold of it.
Monster Jam plays well at least, the gameplay physics are about right and you’ll love swinging 38 different types of big old monster truck around race tracks and backdrops like a lunatic. Basic tricks can be mastered quickly thanks to a handy tutorial, so donuts and truck flips are in your armoury early. But it can get annoying when you’re trying to traverse certain rocky uphill and off-road areas, resulting in annoying and costly slips and falls.
The graphics are sub-par. I tried playing this on a swanky Xbox Series X, the most powerful console out there, and there were a lot of textures and visuals popping in and out of the screen as the game struggled to cope with its own speed.
It should be smooth as it’s focused on the older consoles and not the SX or PS5.
And ultimately, it feels a bit second rate when you compare it to the Forza and Dirt racing series.
It’s a decent effort, one that monster truck fans alone will get the best out of. But if you’re a gamer looking for a top-rated car and racing experience, there’s better out there.