In response to Always — aside from all the confidence boosting, if she is looking for a more systematic approach to finding a new city to live in, she should check out What Color Is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bowles (or his web site). It has a good section on this particular question.

Thanks for the great reading.
Ruth

Please let “Tired of Dealing with Exes in Texas” know that “Tom” should have the same parental rights, even if he and his child’s mother were never married. Tom needs to talk to a lawyer about having permanent visitation hours established. Once a court order is in place, Ann can be charged with contempt of court should the mother refuse him visitation. I’m not extremely familiar with Texas law, but I’ve worked on custody cases in both the District of Columbia and Virginia (as a paralegal, not lawyer). Parental rights and responsibilities are given by virtue of the fact that a party is a child’s biological parent, not by marital status. The mother will probably continue to jerk Tom around until he asserts his rights. It sounds like he is very involved in his child’s life, and courts usually look favorably upon that.

This is the section of the Texas code that deals with family issues including the establishment of parentage and custody matters.

Best of luck to Tired and to Tom.

Rye

I was seeing this guy about six months ago. It was pretty casual (we went out a couple of times, it never really moved past the “let’s get together and make out” stage), but I had expressed at the beginning that if we were going to hook up with each other, even if it was going to be casual, that neither of us could see other people at the same time. He agreed.

This seemed to run well for a couple of weeks. We were having fun and it was no big deal. Until I found out that he was in a similar arrangement with another girl on campus (we go to a fairly small university, and word travels fast). I asked her about it, she confirmed, and I decided he was a jerk.

A couple of days later, he came over looking for a booty call and I was very cold with him, eventually kicking him out because I was “tired.” I proceeded not to confront him about it (because I just didn’t feel like it was worth the effort) and generally went about ignoring him, which, I admit, was immature.

Fast forward to today. He’s graduating in a couple of weeks and all of a sudden has a newfound interest in me. And did I mention that he just broke up with his girlfriend? And really misses “the fun we used to have together”? So he’s calling me and pestering me about how he really wants to “hang out” (read: hook up) with me before he graduates, and I’m completely grossed out by the concept.

My question: Should I tell him I know he cheated on me? Is it even worth the time? Or should I continue to blow him off? He has no idea how unctuous and disgusting I find him, but I feel bad having to actively avoid his advances all the time.

Help!

Confused Co-ed