Strawberry Letter: My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 years now, and of course every relationship has its ups and downs. In my case, it’s more downs than ups, but I’m one never to give up if there's potential. During the course of our relationship, one of his closest friends approached me on Facebook, and I chose to ignore him the first time. Some months go by and he approached me again, but this time I responded and we’ve been inseparable ever since. Now that things are in full effect, I’ve fallen deeply for this man. I’ve started to ignore my relationship and even worse, sometimes not coming home and spending weekends with this man. We’ve talked about leaving our significant others, but that was a one time discussion, so I figured it was just wrong timing. The "I Love You" word recently surfaced and I’m lost on what road I should take. I’m not happy with the person that I’m with, nor am I happy that my Secret Lover has not made a decision. We are slightly distant now since I dread the break up word. What should I do?
She wasn't lying when she said every relationship has its ups & downs, because they do. I'm a firm believer that if a relationship has more downs than ups, it's time to end the relationship. Why continue staying in a dead-end relationship where both parties aren't happy? Contrary to what many people think, the purpose of a relationship is to build a life with someone. Part of building a life with someone involves being happy with that person. You look forward to waking up next to them every morning; you can't stand being apart from them for longer than 30 minutes, etc. I don't care what anyone says, relationships require a level of committment & HAPPINESS in order to thrive. It's ridiculous to stay in a relationship where you're not happy with someone, yet many people do. It sounds like this woman has already checked out of her relationship: She doesn't come home and spends weekends with this other man. Your relationship is pretty much over when a couple acts like strangers. Given her feelings toward her current man, I can imagine their lack of interaction. At least when a couple is arguing, there's interaction because both people are committed to working through their issues. When a (wo)man feels more comfortable with another (wo)man than her own, something's wrong. I think she should break up with her man. There's no sense in her staying with someone she's not happy with. The other man hasn't made a decision because he's waiting for her to end her current relationship. No man wants to compete with another man for a woman, he's going to wait until she's available and move in.
