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Today, 22 November 2009

› SACP attacks Malema

› Meteor 'flash' in Gauteng

› Malema attack 'racist'

› Govt settles with Pikoli

› Will cops play brokers?

Yesterday, 21 November 2009

› SACP attacks Malema

› Match-fixing stuns Europe

› JZ hails Miss World effect

› Henry offers replay

› No armchair ride for Boks

Question
Hello! My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost three years.

He has six children. During this time, I have given him the opportunity to meet the people I love and who love me. He has a great relationship with my friends and family; he always comes to my house.

On the contrary I have been kept away from his children, family, and friends.

Never have I been to his house. I have spoken to him but there is always an excuse, or the conversation is changed or I am completely ignored.

What do you think the problem is? Something is wrong, and I feel I need a third person's opinion!

Answer
Yes, it seems that common sense would agree with what your emotions are telling you: that something is wrong here.

You say he makes "excuses" — what excuses? And somehow, he's already disqualified you as a person who can be trusted to understand and build bridges to his family and especially his children.

There must be some very strong influence, like fear of rejection or guilt, or even fear of them driving you away, which is keeping him "stuck" in what would normally be the beginning phase of a relationship — the stage when everything happens in a private world-for-two...

It's as though your relationship is being prevented from growing into its natural shape, like a tree that is being trained against a wall, to grow flat instead of round!

It's difficult to see how a relationship which is one-sided in a very important sense, can survive or grow in the long term. What must this be doing to your mutual sense of trust, intimacy or the hope that "maybe this is my life partner"?

You seem to be saying that, for you, the situation is not emotionally nurturing, and is causing you to become discouraged.

How, I wonder, is it for him? Does your exclusion from his family, and the resulting necessity of making excuses and avoiding the topic, make him feel? More or less secure with you? Is security or future hope an issue for him at all?

It might also be useful to look at the messages you're "not" giving him.

You're telling him you would love to be involved with his "other" people, but is he getting the clear message that this persistent exclusion is undermining your confidence in the relationship?

And if he is, what would he prefer to do about that? What would you prefer to do? (For instance, take the initiative, do a little detective work, and call someone from "his side" yourself to find out if something is being hidden from you. Maybe it would be useful to brainstorm a whole range of possible responses you might make, just to bash through the feelings of helplessness, not necessarily to do all of them!)

Perhaps you need some "time out", to think about what it is that YOU really want out of this relationship, and how to go about getting it. It is difficult to give someone else a clear message when you're busy confusing yourself with the different, conflicting things that you want, or when you're distracted by voices of fear and insecurity.

He may be the type of person who only deals with a problem when it is presented to him as an emergency or (at the least) as urgent and needing to be seen to "right now". Busy people often are like that.

So perhaps to get his attention, this problem needs to be made more urgent and pressing — not something that can be comfortably put off until tomorrow.

You don't have to know what the problem is to give him that message loud and clear!