Should I give a cheat another chance?

DEAR BEL I’VE very recently been back in touch with my ex. I ended our relationship the day before my 19th birthday (I’m now 21), but we finished on awful terms because I could no longer deal with his cheating.

I’d put up with it for a long time and I refuse to do that again, although he says he has learnt his lesson. The sad thing is, I’ve never been as close or loved anyone as much as him since.

I’m now a single mother of a beautiful 16-month-old. Her dad sees her regularly and we get on very well, although we split up seven months ago.

Currently I’m seeing someone else, but I’m not sure how I feel about my previous ex, and talking to him has confused me even more. I feel like I’m falling back in love with him, even though he’s not said anything about wanting to get back together with me.

I don’t want to bring up the topic with him, only to get rejected, and I don’t want to string my boyfriend along.

And even worse, if my ex and I did get back together, I don’t want everyone’s judgement! What shall I do?

KIM

WHAT is interesting is that you bother to write about this confusion yet end with a defiant rejection of what you call ‘judgments’. Recently I received an email from reader Lynne who accused me of being ‘full of judgments’.

I wrote this in reply: ‘. . . the nature of my page is that people are asking for my honest opinion . . . But I don’t think it is my job to murmur: “There, there, you poor thing,” when something tougher may be more useful.’

So here we go. My first response to your letter was exasperation. It’s odd that you’ve had a conversation with Boyfriend 1 (let’s call him that since the father of your child is also an ‘ex’) in which he says he has changed, yet you add that he hasn’t mentioned getting back with you.

What’s happening? Is he just flirting and exercising control over your feelings, as he always did?

You think you’re ‘falling back in love with him’, which means that you are already being mentally unfaithful to the current boyfriend. It’s a mess with an impressionable little girl in the middle . . .

Look at the timescale. Within under three years you finish with a cheating boyfriend, then bounce into the arms of another boyfriend and get pregnant almost immediately, only to finish with him when your baby daughter is 11 months old. Then you bounce into yet another relationship — which means a different bloke’s face at breakfast — even though you don’t know how you ‘feel about him’.

What exactly would ‘everyone’ say if you did get back with Boyfriend 1?

That you are a fool to trust a cheat again? That he’s unlikely to make any sort of father-figure to Boyfriend 2’s child? That you’re being very dishonest with Boyfriend 3 which hardly adds to the stability of a toddler at a crucial stage of development. That it’s about time you calmed down and stopped ricocheting from bloke to bloke and only valuing yourself in terms of whether or not you have a man in tow?

Are we looking at a future in which Boyfriend 4 and Boyfriend 5 drift in and out of this child’s life?

I don’t care if I sound ‘judgmental’; what matters is the welfare of that ‘beautiful’ child you have brought into this world.

At 16 months her brain is fizzing with new words, new impressions, new needs. She understands far more than her vocabulary would indicate and she’s responding with excitement to the world around.

She requires calm routine (including a rest after lunch), new words, picture books, learning-games, playtime with other children and plenty of cuddles.

This is a glorious time in child-development (although tiring for parents) and won’t ever come back. Which means you need to focus.

I suggest you stop seeing Boyfriend 1 (because he will only hurt you again — which will rebound on your child) and also Boyfriend 3 (because you will hurt him and the inevitable rows will upset your daughter).

I can’t help wondering if there’s any chance of reconciliation with Boyfriend 2. Have you worked through with him exactly why you split up, discussing whether it might be better for the toddler to try again?

I’m sorry, but the tone of your email is culpably cheerful and extremely immature. You’re probably a loving mother, but you also need to slow down and start thinking seriously about your whole life.