Honeymoon ended beforeitbegan

IKAR AMY >> When I started seeing my guy, we were so in tune and on the same page about everything!

About a month into dating, a switch was flipped.

While I’m making some of the biggest steps forward in my life and seeing incredible professional opportunities, he is facing jail time.

I know that it’s incredibly stressful for him.

He gets upset when I ask what happened to the honeymoon phase of our relationship; he’s hardly available for me, as he needs to save to pay his bills for the two to three months he’ll be gone.

We love each other and want to be together. But he won’t show up for me emotionally, and it’s hard.

I’ve suggested a break until he’s back in the summer. Now he promises to be more emotionally available.

I’m struggling to decide if it’s worth the sadness I feel waiting this out, but I want to be there for him.

But what if this is just what he’s always like? Sometimes he’s cold, other times demanding. He goes back and forth. He says things and doesn’t follow through. I’m always waiting.

I don’t want to wait for no reason or just so he can use me (and my pocketbook). But I also don’t want to leave because I know that facing jail time is extremely scary. I know I’m empathetic in love, to a fault.

What advice can you give me?

— Empathetic IKAR KMPATHKTIC >> It strikes me as extremely unreasonable to look at a man facing jail time and ask, “What happened to our honeymoon phase?”

That honeymoon ship has sailed.

Read your question and ask yourself: “What would I tell my best friend if she brought this messy relationship dilemma to me?”

As it is now, you play the relationship martyr, and he emotionally manipulates you. You should assume that the way he is behaving now is the way he always behaves.

Do not do the relationship work for him, and do not make excuses for him. That’s not empathy; that’s enabling.

Pay very close attention to what he does, versus what he says.

You don’t say what crime this man was convicted of, but the wisest and most empathetic course for you to take would be to maintain a non-romantic friendship, while understanding that you both have jobs to do. You need to work hard to fulfill your professional potential, and he needs to pay his debt to society and then — once he has done so — reintegrate into the world.

Whether you are standing by when he returns will be completely up to you.

ikAR AMY >> Thank you for telling “Lost and Alone” that her husband, who has heart disease, impotence and decrease in libido and who has been withdrawing to the TV room, should see his doctor.