He was Flirting with Other Women

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Do you have some advice for this person?

Visitor's Question:
Just over a month ago, my boyfriend and I broke-up. We were together for 5 years and we have a 1 year old son together. Another woman, from his study group was leaving "I was thinking about you" messages on his phone. I also found out that he and his friend's ex-girlfriend were having 30-60 minute telephone conversations plenty of times he was away from home. He says that the girl from class had the number because of school and he didn't know why she left such message. He also says that the other girl is just a friend and someone to talk to and he didn't tell me because it was no big deal and he knew I'd blow it out of proportion.

I couldn't deal with him not telling me about all of this, especially if it was so innocent. He made time to talk to her, but when I wanted to discuss something, he was always too busy.

The problem I'm facing now is if I'm really ready to move on? If so, then how do I get over him? If not, then how can I get him back and we fix the problem?

Our Suggestion:
On one hand, it's healthy for all of us to have friends of all types, male and female, black and white, etc. So for him to have female friends is normal and healthy.

But on the other hand, the partner you have in life should always be THE most important person in your life, and you shouldn't be hiding things from them! If these friendships WERE innocent, why wouldn't he tell you about them and that he talked to them? If they were innocent, you would have understood. But if he felt they were something you would consider a threat, and starts hiding them, then now he's actively lying to you about a part of his life and building a separate life. That is NO way to maintain a healthy relationship.

You're completely right - if he had things to talk about, he should have talked to YOU about them. Sure, having a female friend to bounce ideas off of is great! But that should always be in ADDITION to what he talks about with you, not INSTEAD OF. The moment he puts her before you, he is compromising his relationship with you.

I would seriously sit down and talk with him - I have tips on it here -

http://www.romanceclass.com/miscr/howto/hardtalk.asp

and discuss this with him. It's not that he was "cheating" necessarily in the physical sense. But he had stopped making you and your relationship the main focus of his life. He was spreading his attentions around to other women and letting them be the focus. Meaning your relationship naturally suffered. ALL of life is full of temptation, there will always be other people of interest to all of us. The point of being in a relationship is that you VOLUNTARILY CHOOSE to put your time and attention into your chosen partner despite those temptations. He wasn't able to do that.

So either this is a learning experience for him and together you can do better going forward, or if he just doesn't see what was wrong, he is going to be doomed going forward to always being unhappy in relationships. Because no matter WHO he hooks up with, there will always be women that seem interesting. And if he is incapable of working out issues with his "chosen partner", he won't be with her for long.

--Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com

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