I have been in a relationship for the past year and a half and have a five-month-old baby. My problem is with the child's father. He provides for us, but that is all he does. I try to show interest in his life, but he tells me not to worry about him but to focus on raising the baby.
Sometimes, he lets me in on what is happening in his life, but it is usually after it has already happened. He relocated to another town and informed me after he had settled there. This has been going on for about 10 months now. It hurts me.
I have tried sharing my predicament with people, but they dismiss me saying I should be grateful that this man provides for us. Should I just quit this relationship?
The worst thing you can do as a woman is to expect a man to respect you more than you respect yourself. That's not how the world operates. People only hold you to the standard of honour that you hold yourself to.
If you let people get away with lying to you and ignoring you until it's convenient for them, they will do just that.
You shouldn't think that by being nice and easygoing, you'll attract respect and being treated right. Being too nice only leads to being taken for granted.
The first thing you need in relationships and life is not love. It's respect. But respect is not given but earned. You must insist on being treated a certain way or else you're out. That's how you win respect.
This means you cannot attract respect when you're too needy and unable to stand by yourself. When you're needy, you have no options and no room to refuse anything.
Knowing this, you should avoid putting yourself in the hands of a man and allowing him to give you something you can't give yourself yet.
Do not accept to be put in a house and the bills to be paid by him because you'll be creating dependency and powerlessness on your side.
Someone must know that you can easily walk out to worry about offending you or losing you. When they know you can go nowhere, they won't worry about hurting you.
Do not allow a man to provide for you before you can provide for yourself. In fact, you should flee any kind of romantic relationship until you can live within your means. It is only when you're standing on your own feet that can you negotiate for a decent relationship.
When a man can't buy you with goodies and pennies, he's forced to bring true love. To show affection, consideration, communication, and true intimacy.
Respect comes from a touch of fear. Fear of knowing that you can live without them and that you have something they can't easily find elsewhere.
This means you should never come to relationships until you have real value that comes from self-investment and growth and boundaries that come from self-love and self-esteem.
Also, you shouldn't be having sex or getting a baby during dating. If your goal is marriage, you should study the person with no strings attached and keep moving until you meet the person who fits your description.
Yes, you should have a description of what you're looking for, the same way you'd shop for anything in the market. You should know what you want and be prepared to pay the price for it.
Your habit of giving your body to boyfriends could easily scare away your husband. One man's meat is another man's poison.
Also, there's no point in counting years in dating. You shouldn't be saying you've been dating a person for this number of years.
Dating is meant to be an interview if marriage is the goal. You never hear a company saying that they've been interviewing a candidate for two or three years. You would just ask them whether they know what they want or not.
You should never make your dating an investment by putting in your money, your feelings, or even so much of your time. You'll end up getting attached and changing the purpose from investigation to investment.
You're looking for a person of a particular character and vibe, and your goal is to study every one you're dating to make sure they have it. The purpose of dating is character analysis.
You should keep your options open and meet as many people as you can until you meet the one who fits you. That's the time you become exclusive and start moving towards getting married.
You keep sex as a package for marriage, even if you're not a virgin by the time you wake up to these principles. You should give yourself permission to change how you think at any point in life, and anyone who can't take it simply doesn't belong to your life.
Lastly, when a person doesn't communicate to you about their movements or keep you updated about what they're up to, that's a message in itself. They simply don't want you on the inside of their life.
If you're already in an exclusive relationship or you're engaged for marriage, you should already be working as a team. If you bring up how excluded you feel and they're still defensive, ask yourself whether that's the kind of marriage you want.
This is why you should keep no strings attached even during courtship and engagement because there are things you can only observe once you start working together towards getting married.
Things like inclusion and openness, consistent communication and how ready the person is to take negative feedback.
