Dear Hillary,
I am in a very particular situation. Before I came to Thailand a few years ago, I just ended a relationship in Europe and dreamed of having this rampaging time of my life, to be fancy-free, to flirt around, to control my life, to meet whomever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
But, soon after I arrived, I met this wonderful woman, 2 years older than me (I am 26). She is not only older but wiser. She’d been in relationships and she’d done enough fooling around. After we’d been together for a year, she told me she wanted to marry me and settle down. Coming from her, it seemed perfectly natural: she displayed her love for all to see; she just wanted to be with me forever.
I love her too, but the idea of marriage seems about as logical to me then as the idea of climbing up Everest in boxer shorts. I’ve told her, I wish I could freeze her for a couple of years and then everything would be fine. Since then we had, besides brilliant times, many terrible fights, shouting over the most trivial things. Sometimes, it went so far, I’d tell her to leave me - which she did, once or twice, but, incredibly, her devotion always brought her back.
What do you think? Will she keep waiting for me until I am willing to settle down or should I marry her and always have the feeling, I missed out something?
Male Indecision.
Dear Male,
You have said it before, your girlfriend loves you and is devoted to you. Men always get carried away by the devotion women show: the love, the instinct towards monogamy, the willingness to forgive. And, because of this, men get fooled into believing that they can get away with anything, that emotion and not reason rules the complex female mind. However, it has been proven, it’s women who have a deeper, inner reserve of reason. A woman can stop and say: “Wait a minute. This isn’t working.” And, once a female mind is made up on this matter, there’s no changing it - not at men, they are hopeless at this - look at how few ever leave their wives for their mistresses.
If you love your girlfriend, make your decision fast. One way or the other. Never expect her to wait for you for eternity - even a few years can be eternity for a woman.
Watch out you don’t lose her for she probably is stretched so far by your quite unintentional cruelty and even though she has done so much to make you love her, can suddenly reach a point where she will abruptly cut off all ties. Don’t try to “freeze” a woman, for it might be, when you are ready to defrost her, you may just find that she’s melted away - slipped right through your fingers.
Dear Hillary,
Help! My husband is too demanding. He will clinch onto me until I get the feeling I can’t breath anymore. Where ever we go he will hold my hand or put his arm around my shoulder. He will show everybody that I belong to him. Nothing against that! Only sometimes it makes me feel sick. Even if I go shopping he will call me every 10 minutes (he bought me a mobile phone just for this purpose), not to control me but just to tell me what happened within that 10 minutes we hadn’t spoken together. When we met, he was one of those confident young business men. He still is but lately it seems he is not doing anything by himself anymore. Every single decision I have to make for him. Whenever he has to join a meeting or just a get-together with some colleague, I have to come along. Sometimes I like to go out with some women friends to escape - he will be waiting for me until I come back home.
He’s become a burden in that way. Where is the guy I met many years ago and fallen in love with for so many reasons? Many times I tried to talk to him about it - he just doesn’t seem to understand me. Seeing his face, the hurt look on it when I mention this to him makes me hesitate to carry on.
How can I change him? How can I explain to him he’s strangling me with too much love, protection and caring?
Strangled.
Dear Strangled,
You seem to be a very confident Lady. Have you always been like this? Maybe, at the beginning of your relationship, you needed him to care for you. Every person changes during the years and you might have changed to another person as well. It might be that your husband doesn’t realize that fact (or doesn’t want to), probably he believes you are still that helpless, young woman he has married, with everything depending on him.
You are doing the right thing by not offending him too openly. He seems to be one of those men who would feel useless if he realized that his wife is more confident than he ever will be. Try to loosen the ties very calmly and softly. Don’t show him that you actually don’t need his protection anymore, but try to make him understand you are a grown up girl now and not the kid he married.