Should I Give Him Time?
Ask FreeloveMD | April 27, 2009
1 Comment
Should I give him any more time? I have been with my boyfriend for 3 years now, we live apart and share a 5 month old son. For the most part we get along well and he says he loves me very much. We are both in our 30’s and have been previously divorced. He never really mentions our future together and I recently asked him if he ever considers us raising our son together and he said he didn’t know yet. After being with someone 3 years, shouldn’t you know if you want to be with them or not? Should I give him time to figure it out or press the issue?
He’s had enough time. But be careful how you “press the issue.” You need to do it unemotionally and have some kind of realistic time line for your objective. How much of that time line you want to reveal to him depends on how receptive he is. In other words a 1 or 2 year plan is less threatening than a 10 year or marriage for life image. However, unless you can get some information from him on his thoughts for the future with you nothing will change and your relationship is liable to go stale and probably disappear altogether.
Sal says:
April 28, 2009 at 3:34 pm
This type of irresponsible parenting really irks me. How is it that you decided to have a child with this man without having the conversation that goes “Darling, do you see us raising this child together?” How selfish of you to bring a little boy into this world without knowing for sure that his father is committed, long term, to his upbringing.
I am disappointed in ‘Michael’s’ advice. He completely overlooks the welfare of the little boy, in favor of far more flimsey elements like whether the relationship is “liable to go stale”. Then he says that you should talk about plans for the next 1-2 years, seemingly suggesting that becoming parents did not obligate you both to a lifelong commitment at all. Like having a little boy was like buying a fridge or a dog or some other unwanted side-product that y’all can just walk away from, no strings attached, whenever you decide you don’t really like each other any more.