Someone Please help me

[FireFlyLight]

Hi, I need advice about Christian dating. I have a boyfriend, but we live 3 hours apart from each other and I was gone for a few weeks in vacation and we hadn't seen each other in 5 weeks and we just had this big discussion about it the other day about whether we should stay together, take a break, or break up. After lots of tears and lots of pain, we decided neither of us want to break up, nor take a break for fear we might break up because of the distance straining, so we are toughing it out for now. I explained that maybe since after 5 weeks of not seeing each other we just were a bit strained and maybe this is supposed to test our relationship. We've made plans to see each other a lot for the rest of the summer on weekends since we both work 5 days a week, which worked fine at the beginning, but then I left for so long and we didn't see each other for 5 weeks straight. So, we're waiting and praying, and playing everything by ear for now. He wants me to move to a school closer to him, but I just changed schools once, and both him and I don't believe in moving just for a person, unless it's that serious, and we've only been together for 5 months, so I told him it was too soon to say. If anyone moved, it'd be me because he has a rather permanent job. I know my parents won't like the idea of me moving again and the process it is. And I just don't think it's wise to try to make that decision anytime soon. But this distance is only half my problem! (Sorry Sad )

The second part for this desperate plea for HELP is he's told me about another girl he's becoming friends with- which sorta bothers me. I am thankful he was open and honest about her, and he says that they are just friends, and she supposedly has other interests. But she goes over to his place all the time, texts non-stop (at least 12-15 times Sat) and I think she has a crush on him. I don't blame her, because she was homeschooled and doesn't feel very welcomed at the church group they met at and she doesn't feel welcomed at work either- she seems needy/clingy to any positive attention which is what my boyfriend has been for her. I am proud of him for being a good friend and close and welcoming- but it still worries me because he and I are in a fairly vulnerable state. Also, my boyfriend has some ahem...issues with girls...he doesn't cheat, but as with I imagine with most guys doesn't take much to turn him on. I trust him not to cheat on me, but I can't help but worry that after time passes and they become close, he will lose interest in me fast and break up with me, not just because of her looks, but just she's available to him and easy to maintain the relationship. It kills me to think like that. I trust him not to cheat because before I started to date him I asked his best friend what he was like in relationships and his friend said that "He's committed, he's in for the long haul and attaches himself quickly to the girl he is with for as long as he can and when it ends, recovery takes forever" So, right now I am more worried about how this new girl is around my boyfriend. I am jealous of her- I won't lie, not jealous of who she is, but just the simple fact she's THERE and I'm NOT!

Last night reassured me though I guess, my boy said that this girl came over and ate dinner and watched Lost (their normal thing now) and I was about to cry and there was a long pause in our convo, and then he said solemnly how much he missed me and wish I had been there with him.

I don't want this girl hurt or anything- she needs his friendship, but I don't want her to think that just because he and I have had some issues earlier, that it means she can pursue him. I don't trust her. I trust him, but it's so hard.

I just need I guess first of all prayer to stay strong, faithful, and trustful. Second, I need prayer for my jealousy- I know it will only make everything worse! Third, I just need advice as to what to actually do- I feel so helpless. I know I should trust God, but this is the hardest it's ever been to just let go and let God. Someone please help.

[janine]

For whatever it's worth, these are the thoughts that come to my mind.

I look back on my younger self, knowing what I know now, being quite a bit older both in years and in the Lord, than I was back then --

And I think of things I've tried to discuss with my (25-year-old, engaged) daughter, my married son and his wife, and my 15-year-old son --

And here's the stuff that comes to my mind.  Here's the thoughts of my heart, as it were.  I will pull no punches and I will not try to make things more gentle or sweeter-sounding than my natural way of speech.

If you are old enough to have a man of your own then you are old enough for some straight talk.

Don't tell me, let me guess, you guys are just barely barely barely over the line into your 20's, right?

God help you if you're younger.

What is there between you that there could even be the possibility of "cheating"?  Is there an engagement?  If you guys have some sort of formal arrangement between you, exactly what is it?

Even if you guys were 60 and married for 40 years, it would be wrong wrong wrong for the boy to have a girl, even just a friend, over often for alone time just the two of them.  Especially if she's all needy.

Especially if you guys were apart for weeks at a time.  It would be wrong just because it opens the door for several great big fat purple-polka-dot licorice-scented sequin-covered temptations, even if nothing actually wrong ever happened.

Not to mention, even if your guy felt nothing romantic for the girl, SHE feels it for HIM, you can bet, and he will end up either breaking her heart, or yours, or both.

But you're not 60 and married for 40.  I have underwear older than you two kids.

So why have you tried to bind the boy to you, and why has he tried to bind you to him?

If it's not a commitment to marry, an engagement, what is it?

Are the two of you bound to each other because you're in love or something like it, but yet you have not committed to marry?

If you have not gone through a courtship phase, or some modern version of it, and decided that the two of you are marriage material, then why are you trying to tie each other down like this, when you're still in school?

And if you have decided that there is at least a good possibility of marriage in your future, then why are you so far apart?

If your parents are supporting you -- if they pay your way -- if that is why their opinion matters, re: whether or not you should move to be near Your Boy -- you said you'd moved already, what was the reason for that first move?

If your parents still control your business, then you are still a dependent child and do not "own" your own self yet -- so how can you give yourself to the boyfriend?

If you are grown enough to know your own mind on this and if you control your own finances, what is stopping you from moving near this guy?  I mean, if you are so sure he's engagement material.

If he's not engagement material, if you are not hearing wedding bells already, then why have you tied your heart to him?  What are you doing building up a soul-tie with a man you cannot give yourself to?

When you boil it down, when you think of all the possibilities for heartache and distraction from goals like finishing school --

Chaining your heart and your soul and your mind to your crush is not all that much different from flopping around offering yourself to him for wanton rampant sex all over Kingdom Come.

There, I have spoken the thoughts, in no special order, just as I would to my own daughter.

Hah!  Do you wonder how my daughter lived through a lifetime of this stuff?   

[johntwayne]

 

[janine]

And I still say I have underwear older than you people.   

Step back and take a deep breath.

Don't play games.  And if you try some variant on the suggested visit-him-while-she's-there thing, don't be all junior-high-school about it -- no need to go there and ignore her.  Just be "you".  Given the distance bewtween you I'm not sure how easy that would be anyway.

I've forgotten already what the connection was to home-schooling.  I'd better go re-read.  Has she blamed that for her warped self-image and neediness?

********************************************************

No -- I guess the mention was to make the point that her church youth group is warped enough to not accept her (maybe because most of them went to the sames school{s}).

Could have been for any reason.  She has a big nose, she is too fat or too thin or too tall or too short or too smart or too dumb or too wealthy or too poor or whatever, and the church kids hate her.

Well, life is hard, chickas.  She needs to find a church with actual loving people in it.  Perhaps your boyfriend could help her find one.

(I should have remembered that without looking -- My kids and nephews have all been homeschooled at one time or another, and it has only made them smart and confident and able to relate well to all sorts of people, not just their tight little age-group, rather than making them needy and "unsocialized".)

Anyway -- let me get off my hobbyhorse and back to the point.

There is nothing wrong with asking for what you want and need.  Nothing wrong with trying to get things defined between you.  Just do not try to play psychological/personality games to force people's hands.  It will only make you look like the needy one.  Like you are trying to stake out your territory -- pee-marking everything like an animal.

If he is yours then you should not need to mark him.  On the other hand, marking him, trying to control and manipulate and dominate the "dating potential" around him -- won't magically make him yours -- men are called abusers when they try to secure their women that way. 

My bottom-line concern about it all is this -- if you guys are so young that you do not control your own finances, you are still in school, and thus cannot be together --

You need to either be in an actual, committed engagement, with all the pre-marital fidelity that implies, arranged and agreed-upon and building and planning toward the days when you graduate ad go to work and are free to control your own living arrangements and get married --

Or else you need to not be tied to each other in any way at all this early.

This boyfriend/girlfriend stuff never has looked right to me.  Especially trying to do something so nebulous at that from a distance.

[janine]

I wasn't saying anything about your age, lady.  That was a reference to my previous comment about the OP's apparent age and that of her love-interest.

Going over to visit the boyfriend when NeedyGirl is there is probably not an option.  Distance, finances, etc., would make that not very easy to accomplish.

I contend that there is no such thing as a proper expectation of any sort of devotion, fidelity, loyalty, or anything like that, beyond what one Christian friend owes another, between the OP and her guy -- unless they have "an understanding" of some sort -- which is pretty much the same thing as an engagement.  Perhaps we could call it "engaged to be engaged to be married".

Unless the arrangement between them is of that type -- if not a full engagement-ring-and-wedding-date engagement, then at least a "we sure are sweet on each other, let's 'go steady' while we look at the possibilities for our future" -- unless there's that sort of arrangement between them, she's got no right to demand anything at all from him re: NeedyGirl.

If they do have that sort of understanding, then she had better demand some accountability from him re: NeedyGirl, or any other girl.

[janine]

Since she expressed that it was a problem that she'd already moved once and her parents would not approve of her moving again to be close to the boy, that is why I make assumptions about her age and/or finances being part of the equation.

She wouldn't be so worried about Mom & Dad and what they had to say about it if she were a free, self-supporting adult.

[janine]

*snerk*

Perhaps she did drop back in at some point and wasn't terribly interested in being told what to do by a bunch of strangers.

She downplays the importance of her job compared to his -- his is "permanent".

Thus I got the impression that she'd going to school full time and working a bit to finance those little extras like eating, toilet paper, etc., along the way.  That and the parents' expected disapproval if she'd move closer to him still make her look a) young and b) not in control of her schedule enough that she could easily go hang out. 

Why don't you see if you can email her, invite her to come review all these stances we're taking on principles and theories and past experience?

[janine]

Why do the moderators have to always do everything?

[Nevertheless]

It's not the moderators, Janine.  It's just you!

[janine]

It's not the moderators, Janine.  It's just you!

Can I have that in writing?



I do, right there!  Thanks, Nevertheless!

That'll show those other moderators who works hardest.  Hah!

Oh, BTW -- I've emailed our glow worm. 

No thanks to any of you!  Hmph!

[admin]

So if you two are in love, why not move to be closer to each other and get married?