Hi,

My boyfriend and I have been going out for over a year now and I love him to bits but he’s so frustrating.At the moment we are on a one-week break trying to sort out everything.My boyfriend is very jealous of other boys liking me and he thinks we’re going to break up over that.I keep trying to tell him that it will never happen but it doesn’t work.We had been fighting quit a lot lately, so that’s why we decided to have a break.

It’s really hard not talking to him but that’s just the way it has to be.It’s my birthday next week and that’s when I will see him again.I just want our relationship to be happy for once with no arguing over stupid things.

Have you got any ideas on what to avoid, say or not do, et cetera?

Confused

Dear Confused,

Call him a day or two before your birthday; tell him that you just want to spend a nice peaceful evening with him and not argue or talk about your relationship, but that the two of you do need to talk at some point.Then the two of you can sit down another time and see if you can clear some things up.

In the meantime, think hard about your relationship with your boyfriend.Do you really spend a lot of time fighting – more time than you spend laughing or smooching or just hanging out?Do you stay with him because you love him, or do you stay with him because you’ve gotten used to having him around?You need to ask yourself these questions and to answer yourself honestly, because there’s a difference between love and force of habit, and if you expend most of your energy trying not to set him off, that’s a big problem.

Jealousy is slow-acting and invariably fatal poison to a romance.You need to make your boyfriend see that it isn’t other boys that will choke the life out of your feelings for him, it’s his own neurosis.Tell him to rein it in or you’ll walk, and if he doesn’t rein it in, make good on the threat.I know you love him, but people don’t change, I’m afraid.

[8/31/00]

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