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I DEEPLY regret introducing my flirty cousin to my colleagues.
She’s just over from Australia and is like a human fireball. She’s loud, funny and everyone fancies her.
Now she gets invited out all the time and has even been to my boss’s country pile for the weekend, something I’ve never done.
Recently, a whole gang of them went up to London for a wild weekend and I wasn’t included.
They all got very drunk and she got off with a bloke she knows I’ve been flirting with for ages. I feel betrayed and am beyond furious.
When I ask her to “cool it” she tells me to relax but she is trampling all over my life.
I’VE made a terrible mistake. I should never have moved in with my new partner.
He’s driving me mad. I thought he’d be loving, kind and generous.
Instead he’s sex mad, unpredictable and seriously weird.
He eats odd food, has strange views and always walks around our rented place in the nude.
I’m in over my head here and don’t know how to get out. Before Easter I left my partner of three years telling him I was bored and wanted an exciting new life.
He begged me to stay but I walked away without a backward glance, breaking his heart and cutting myself off from most of my family and friends.
Wild
I’d convinced myself that my new man (a colleague) was the one for me.
Unlike my old partner he flattered me, told me that I was beautiful and deserved a better life.
For a while we had a ball. The sex was wild and he made me feel alive. Now he and I eat, work and sleep together – and it’s hell.
I’m living with a man I barely know – or like. He expects me to do everything he says.
We’re rowing all the time and his family hate me.
I have tried getting back with my ex-partner but he’s told me to get stuffed.
The other week a van arrived with every single item of my stuff – right down to the unwashed mug I left on the side the day I did my moonlight flit. My problem is that I can never find a man who truly appreciates me. I’m fit and good-looking.
I’m a great cook and brilliant at sex, yet I can’t keep a relationship together. This is my third failure in five years and there were more than 20 men before that.
Why doesn’t any man appreciate what a great catch I am? Would the internet be a good place for me to start my search again?
JANE SAYS: I suggest you front up this tricky woman, show your teeth and make it clear that she’s treading on your toes.
You were kind enough to introduce her to a new bunch of people.
Now she is friendly with some of your colleagues and that’s fine but you don’t expect to be excluded.
And you will certainly not appreciate being humiliated by her bedding the guy you like.
Doesn’t she know about boundaries, friendship and respect? How would she like it if you trampled all over her life?
Don’t include her in any of your plans. Is she an ally or just an opportunist and user?
Just because she’s your relative doesn’t mean that you have to indulge her or like her. JANE SAYS: Turn off your computer, stop allowing yourself to be distracted by other men and start putting your house in order. Insist that you and your new partner really talk about your relationship. Be honest with each other. Where is it all going wrong and why?
Give each other a chance to speak without interrupting and consider relationship counselling if you think it will help.
My take on your situation is that you’re a woman who simply doesn’t learn from her mistakes.
If you have an endless stream of failed relationships behind you, then what do they all have in common? What are the patterns?
Heaven forbid that YOU should ever admit you’re wrong, but what do you do that winds your men up? There are always two sides to every story, no matter how perfect you think you are.
I don’t mean to sound harsh or cruel, but you must start accepting that relationships have to be worked at.
There’s no point in running to the internet for flattery because your current relationship has gone belly up. You have to face your problems full-on and stop burying your head in the sand.
Only when you know where you’re going wrong will you be able to put things right.