Down in the dumps

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

My girlfriend of a year and seven months just dumped me. She says she needs to spend time with her friends and to have a good time, but she hangs out with her friend more then me. She’s 15 and her idea of a good time is to go to Rockin’ Bowl with her friends and drink and smoke. I don’t want her to do that, but I’m not going to stop her.

She has so much going for her, yet I’m afraid she might fall off track. I love her with all my heart. I’m not very outgoing and I’m very shy. I don’t drink or smoke, so does that makes me "boring?" Is there anything I can do to get her back? I will do anything — please help me.

— Josh

Dear Josh,

At the moment, there’s nothing more you can do. She’s 15 and doesn’t sound like she has reached a level of maturity to sustain an exclusive relationship with you. Of course, she doesn’t need to spend time smoking and drinking with her friends at the Rockin’ Bowl, but she wants to.

Yes, she is in danger of falling "off track" but the only thing you can do to straighten her out is what you’ve already done. That is, tell her you think that smoking and drinking aren’t cool, and that you don’t wish to do this yourself, but that you do care a great deal about her. You have to let her go because this will either drag you down or cause nothing but further heartache.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I’m writing because I’ve been seeing a girl for about two years and I feel that she cheated on me about 18 months ago with someone she met while she was away for a month and a half after we had met.

At the time our relationship was casual and other people were an option, but I later found out that this person continued coming here to visit her. She reassured me that they would just be friends, but everything changed and I was shut out when she went out with this person. After a lot of fighting and pain on my part we eventually got back together. Her "excuse" was that she was confused about the nature of our relationship at the time and didn’t want to be involved in something so serious. My argument was that although we hadn’t discussed our situation, we certainly were acting as if things were moving in the right direction.

We have since gone through some rough patches, always coming back to this incident, but we’ve also fallen in love. My problem is that I love this girl and a rational side of me says we are young, free, and eager to experience all the things the world has to offer. This is what attracts us to each other and I should move past this and be happy with her (she truly is a great woman or I wouldn’t be wasting my time worrying), but another part of me is furious that she would treat me so callously. It makes me doubt her feelings toward me and this other person.

How can I cope with these negative feelings and is it even worth it? Am I being blind and just not letting myself believe that, if the circumstances were different, she would rather be with someone else? She says she wouldn’t, but she also refuses to feel like she used poor judgment. I can tell that she feels guilty about this, but won’t admit she was wrong.

— Confused

Dear Confused,

If you continue to obsess about this issue, I can almost guarantee that this relationship will dissolve. Let it go. It happened early on and her explanation — that she was confused about the nature of your relationship at the time and was unsure if she wanted to get into something serious — sounds quite honest and understandable.

You’ve progressed from then and the relationship is more serious and solid. Is this not true? Well, then, why keep bringing it up? It’s bad baggage and you have to forget about it. It’s the past. It doesn’t matter what you or she thought then. What matters is now.