The Bitter Single Guy’s Relationship Advice

The Wedding’s in Two Weeks

Dear Bitter Single Guy: I’m a 27 year old female and am getting married in two weeks. He’s a good guy and we already have a house together. We don’t fight and everything’s fine. But I can’t say right now that I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I feel like I should be excited to get married but I’m really upset. We went through the motions because our relationship is stable and happy.

The truth is I’ve been intensely in-love with someone else for the last 12 years. He’s a friend of mine and there’s always been more. He has been in a serious relationship for 6 of those years and got married a year ago. His marriage fell apart already. We’ve tried to end our friendship many time for the sake of each other’s happiness but I can’t imagine my life without him. Help me. Am I just afraid because this is a big step or am I unhappy? ~Hearing the Ticking Clock~

Dear HTC: Don’t get married. The Bitter Single Guy knows as he writes those words that you’re probably going to go through with it. Weddings, as many of the BSG’s readers know, are juggernauts…building speed and destructive power until they sweep through the lives of everyone involved with a mind of their own. Often…maybe even usually…the wedding juggernaut leaves happiness in its wake, but sometimes it’s just carnage. The BSG predicts carnage in your case HTC.

OK, the BSG will say what is probably obvious or you wouldn’t have written. If you’ve been in love with someone for 12 years who has also been in love with you for some portion of that time, AND if that person is available AND if you’re about to become (some would argue) permanently UNavailable,then you have a recipe for despair on your hands. The BSG thinks you should not get married and should see what’s up with The Other Guy. Of course, this will leave your fiancé emotionally destitute and isn’t likely to make you many new friends, but it’s likely to be less painful in the long run.

All that said, if the marriage proceeds as the BSG predicts it will, you’re going to have to make the difficult long-term decision to let your love for The Other Guy fizzle out over however many years it takes, while you find a way to appreciate your actual husband.

Of course, the BSG also predicts that none of this will happen. The BSG predicts that you’ll get married and will make a valiant attempt at forgetting The Other Guy, but that it won’t work. The BSG gives you maybe 3 – 5 years before the pressure wins out and you’re divorced or are cheating (if those are the choices, choose divorce HTC).

It’s sad, but the BSG thinks that the sacred institution of marriage is an archaic leftover from when people were willing to be unhappy in their relationships for their entire lives. These days we all have the gall to desire actual happiness more days than not and that’s not always conducive to a ‘better or worse’ kind of relationship. So we say words in front of friends, family and sometimes clergy about commitment and forever when neither the friends, the family, nor the clergy really believe it. But there you have it.

OK, off the soap box. Let us know how it turns out, HTC.

~BSG~

Soon-To-Be Long Distance Relationship

Dear Bitter Single Guy:  I have been dating this guy for about 8 months, on a recent trip to meet his family we got into a huge fight and he decided to end it. But now I get an email saying that he misses me and wants me back, the things is he’s in the military and will be gone for about 7 months…what can a girl do to find out if it’s true love or if it’s just loneliness? ~Not Sure I’m Ready~

Dear NSIR: The Bitter Single Guy thinks that it could be both true love and loneliness, but that doesn’t help does it? NSIR , GI Joe is going to be gone for nearly as long as you were together before the Big Fight. Even if you had not had the Big Fight, the BSG wouldn’t give your relationship much hope to last when you haven’t had enough time to build a foundation that can survive a 7 month absence. When the Big Fight gets added to that, the BSG is concerned that you will remember being dumped as the last big event in your relationship before GI Joe headed off to war.

All that said, if you’re willing to take 7 months out of the dating pool (the BSG thinks sometimes a break from the dating pool is extremely healthy) this could be the perfect opportunity. You could make up with GI Joe, which would give him something wonderful to think about while he’s protecting our freedom (the BSG knows that there are bitter folks who will be thinking that he’s protecting oil interests and stuff instead of freedom, but it’s his experience that the nice folks in the armed services are usually passionate about their mission…it’s the leaders who are a bit dicey in the BSG’s opinion).

During the time you’re waiting for GI Joe to come home you can take a pottery class, read the classics, tutor school kids, or otherwise do something good for yourself and the world. Tempting, the BSG thinks. ~BSG~

Rapunzel and The Bitter Old Troll

Dear Bitter Single Guy: My ex-fiancé and I dated for 7 years.  We broke up a couple of times during this 7 years and have had a lot of problems.

He is selfish and thinks that everything he does is right.  He expects me to be perfect and never wants to work out/talk about any problems because he believes they’re all my fault.  If I do bring up an issue, he will say I’m ruining the mood for the day.  If I get upset and not talk to him, he blames me for not letting him know that I’m upset about something.

We broke up about a month ago over an argument.  During that time, he told me “he knew and that I should’ve known that this was never going to work”. All my friends think that I deserve better but I just can’t seem to let it go.  I wake up every day feeling like sh*t. ~Lost and Directionless~

Dear LAD: The Bitter Single Guy is usually hesitant to bash one half of a relationship when he only hears from the other half. In other words, it would be easy, based on your description, to conclude that your ex-fiancé is a bitter old troll and you’re a sad tragic princess locked in a tall tower…but it’s rarely that clear (although the BSG loves the imagery there, don’t you?).

So in the absence of clarity about Bitter Old Troll’s behavior, the BSG will focus on one point: you wake up every day feeling like shit (the BSG is OK with minor cursing). The BSG assumes that you feel like shit since the breakup and based on your description he assumes that you felt like shit a lot while you were in the relationship, too. That’s enough LAD. If you’ll recall from your fairy tale training, whether the princess in the tower is looking down at a Bitter Old Troll or at Prince Charming, locked in a tower is locked in a tower.

What the BSG means with all this Rapunzel-let-down-your-hair reference is that it’s not OK to be treated, or believe that you’re being treated like you describe.  You will find yourself saying that if you bail on this relationship now you will have wasted 7 years. The BSG thinks this is the biggest bunch of horse-poop imaginable. The logic there is that if you’ve invested 7 years in your unhappiness you deserve to be unhappy…what…forever?

Let it go. You don’t marry a man, whether he’s a Bitter Old Troll or Prince Charming, who makes you feel like you’re imprisoned.

LAD it also seems that you may be in need of some self-esteem building. You’re coming out of a relationship where you believe you’ve been berated and made to take responsibility for everything that went wrong, so you’re not likely to be feeling a good bit of personal power. The BSG recommends getting some healthy control over your personal environment as a way to get some healing going on. This could look like getting an apartment or house on your own, getting a pet who you can treat responsibly, or…not always the healthiest choice, but an incredibly effective choice…a rebound relationship with someone you can stomp on a little then dump when you feel powerful again. ~BSG~

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

Dear Bitter Single Guy:  4yr relationship ends badly.

Curiosity leads to online dating.  Met some dudes.  Some great dudes. One seemingly particularly great dude.

Six months of heaven with awesome online dude ends suddenly, with a no-show and severed contact.  No, he was not hospitalized or dead in a ditch, just an asshole.  A 35yr old asshole with kids.

In my dismayed idiocy, I on the one hand contacted a previous great dude, and on the other ran headlong into the arms of a good friend who had professed love for me.  Kill me.  Kill me now.

I have no trust or optimism for a long term relationship right now.  I thought our friendship could bridge that, it can’t.  I need a break.  Or at least, I’m back to needing that break from serious that I never really took.  Long time friend = instant serious.  Sigh.

Dude #2 from online is many wonderful things including very sexy.  I will have a hard time putting that down to take a break especially since *I* initiated the contact…  but if something meaningful grows between us it would be so hurtful to my friend, who is also many wonderful things and is, well, my friend…

OPTIONS:  do I have to ditch both of them and play the asshole card twice (I know, I know, I already did.)?   Do I let down my friend and see what happens with online dude?  If things develop with online dude, do I just hope my friend’s feelings change??  Ugh. ~Disgusted With Myself~

Dear DWM: Gracious, you DO need a break! OK, the Bitter Single Guy is glad you wrote him…triage is required when there are as many bleeders as you have going on here. Let’s divide and conquer shall we, DWM?

Friend Who Is Now Serious: Here’s how you’ll break it off (and you must break it off). You’ll invite him for coffee (the BSG does not recommend alcohol) at a place that is public but provides sufficient privacy for a conversation and sufficient proximity to a door for him to stalk out angrily without breaking anything. This is his right.

At the coffee shop, acknowledge that you turned to him in your heartbroken despair because you knew he was safe and because you knew he had feelings for you. Acknowledge that you were inconsiderate of his feelings and that you realize you have seriously damaged your friendship with him. Your reason for talking about all of this up front is that no amount of mewling and whining about your fragile state will prevent him from coming to these exact conclusions once he’s stalked out of the coffee shop. If you admit and acknowledge your errors, the BSG thinks you’re much more likely to save your friendship.

Online Dude #2: Similarly meet Online Dude #2 at a coffee shop, but the BSG recommends switching coffee shops so the employees don’t think you’re some compulsive breakup person. At coffee with Online Dude #2, tell him that you find him ridiculously sexy and friendly, but that you realize that you’ve created a bit of a relationship morass between your recently ended relationships and the ones you’re managing now (the BSG really hopes you didn’t tell him you were exclusive). Tell him that you’d like to call him in a month once you have a chance to clear your head.

If Online Dude #2 is interested, then truly don’t call him for a month and after that the BSG recommends taking it somewhat slowly.

Overall DWM, you and the BSG seem to have come to the same conclusion. You were in whirlwind of rebound relationships that resembled Dorothy in the tornado. Naturally, when things get that out of control it’s time to sit the hell down and stop the madness. Stop the madness, DWM. ~BSG~

How Do I Move On?

Dear Bitter Single Guy: My ex and I decided to see other people recently. We still live together, pay bills together, share a car. I’ve started seeing someone new and he’s been really good about the situation. I want to begin a relationship with this new guy but my ex still thinks of us as a couple and that we’ll get back together. What can I do? ~Confused About Next Steps~

Dear CANS: Move out.

~BSG~