My on and off relationship with my boyfriend is getting boring but he always says he loves me.

Hello again, thank you very much for the advice. I never considered couples counseling but now I want to try it.

As for Cary, your questions really hit me hard and got me to understand what I truly want out of working on our relationship and why I love him. I don't have all my answers but just those questions are forcing me to clear my mind and really answer them from my heart and not to just cough up an answer. Thank you so much again.

Also, to Susan, I will keep you posted on what we are going to do. My own childhood wasn't as I wanted it to be. I lived with my father and only visited my mother in another when ever I had a break from school. So I understand what you are saying by providing stablity for our children. I want to be there 100% for our children, I believe they deserve the best but I also want us, their parents, happy together. So with that in mind, I am going to look for places that offer couples counseling and hope that it fits into our schedules.

Lastly, to the anonymous comment, for that I would have to say that the man your daughter is pregnant by is somewhat how my boyfriend was when we first met. He is really insecure, so was my boyfriend. What my boyfriend tells me now is that I mothered him. He changed alot and doesn't think like he used to about me being with my friends or even about working. At first he didn't let me do anything but just sit in front of the t.v. with him. During our alone time he would tell me that his mother would say the most awful and degrading things to him and about him. I would talk to him and tell him I loved him because he does matter and he is a good father no matter what anyone says to him or how they say it. So with that in mind, again, he probably has had some kind of neglect in his own life that has made him insecure about what is real. Meaning, like in my boyfriend's situation, he loves his mother and took care of her, like he had to spoon feed her and miss school during his middle school years to take care of his mother. In his mind, he thought that his mother would appreciated that and would show him she loved him. BUT later she begin to say she hated him and he was a mistake. So he thought he was being lied to in a way, therefore trust was an issue with me for him. I was making up something that was in his childhood. I hope you understand what I am trying to say....

Again, I am so thankful I came upon finding his website and having my questions answered honestly. I will keep in contact.

My comment about this is that I care for my mom and that is very difficult under any circumstance so if this is interfering with your relationship, try to make some time to get away.
Right now, I have a daughter that is with a man and she is expecting her first child. Their relationship is rocky all of the time. I'm trying to understand what she is getting out of the relationship and wanting to advise her as best I can without telling her to completely get out of the relationship. I know that I am hearing only the bad about the relationship. We went the other day to see the first ultrasound for the baby and he is such a jealous man that all of the way up there, he told me that he was going to leave her that day and that he didn't think the baby was his. (This is not true but he has always been so jealous that he was just being argumentative.) and he is in his early 30s and should be old enough but to my mind he does not offer much. He does not drive, does not have a license, or a job and seems to be somewhat unwilling to put forth much effort to get one. I told my daughter to get a DNA test done and that way he will shut up about that. But I'm really afraid that his argumentative nature will completely ruin the relationship. He doesn't like any of her friends and forbids her to go with them, and got mad when she took someone home from work the other night and she's currently "not telling" him when she sees her friends because she believes that she has a right to friends. He feels that because he is not working, he sits home all day long just waiting for her. (I think he has too much time on his hands)

Any opinions??

Hi NoSecrets-

It sounds like you have a pretty complicated situation there. That puts a lot of stress on a relationship. Your boyfriend is probably very stressed out knowing his relationship with you isn't solid on top of trying to care for his mother, but really it comes down to a couple of things.

1. Why is your relationship on and off? Why have you broken up before? Why did you get back together?

2. You say you want it to work out. Why? What do you get out of the relationship?

If you can sit down and think about why you are there, what brought you to be with this man in the first place, and why you want things to work out, it will help motivate you to work on it. Relationships are difficult under the best circumstances. There is give and take and sometimes one partner does all the giving for a while before things even out again. It's just the nature of life. It is emotionally difficult to have a sick mother whether that relationship is good or bad, and often men have a hard time caring for a mother physically just as women can have difficulty physically caring for a father. It can be awkward and unsettling.

There are so many dynamics here. Have you considered some kind of couples counseling? If you truly want things to work out, decide why you love him and want to be there, and open communication with him. Talk to him about how you are feeling. Listen to him explain what he is feeling with all of his responsibilities. Validate each other's feelings. We all need validation. Then consider counseling.

If you do all this thinking and the reasons you have broken up are still there and valid, then you have to decide whether you really want to be there. There aren't too many things more depressing than being in a relationship you don't want to be in. So as Ann Landers used to say, think about whether you are better off or happier with or without him. Only you can do that. Couples counseling can help you either way.