I never intended to run a lovelorn column, but really the formula for problem solving is the same for you as it is for the intergenerationally challenged people who usually write to me. So here goes:
You love this lady and she loves somebody else. You say she is caught between you and that other two-timing, abusive chap, but remember that he is, as you say, her boyfriend. Well, maybe you'd like to call him her former boyfriend, but in fact she is still very much attracted to him and keeps taking him back. Even though you think she doesn't know what to do, in actual fact she does know what to do and she is doing it. She is stringing you along because it suits her to have you around for all the good things that happen when you are with her, and at the same time she is reuniting with the man she has known for a while, enjoying whatever he has to give her as well.
Like the song says, Reunited and it Feels so Good!
Your lovely friend is in tears, of course. She has a very difficult problem to solve and while she is doing that she is making two men miserable. What a power trip!
Why don't you get yourself another girl. The world is full of wonderful women. Don't comit to anyone else right away but just make it quite obvious that you are playing the field and have no time at present for the one who is ripping your heart out. You will have helped this present so-called girlfriend to make her decision by removing yourself from her life. Quite soon she will know for sure whether she wants to stick it out with the other fellow or leave him for good and come to you. Then it will be her decision. And here's the message I've been telling everyone here in over 100 letters since I started this project: You can not change other people; you can only change yourself.
Try going out with other girls for a while. Double date with friends, or join in group activities, whatever you can do which will not put you in a serious and vulnerable position with another girl. Of course, you might find someone else who grabs your heart too - and hopefully if that happens she will not come to you with a whole lot of previous baggage from previous boyfriends.
Your situation is not hopeless. Don't sweat it. Just ride your own wagon. Life presents enough problems for each of us; we don't have to borrow other people's worries. Do her a huge favour by getting out of her life until she has sorted out her previous affair.
And a note of caution. If she has been in the habit of breaking off and then reuniting with that other chap, can't get him off her mind, imagine what marriage to her might be.
Yours sincerely,
GG
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