Dear Karen

Hi, Karen
I’ve been seeing a co-worker, he lives with his girlfriend he says that he doesn’t love her and hasn’t slept with for 9 months now. He says that he loves me and he wants me to wait until income tax so he can pay her a big sum of money that he owes her, then we will move in together. What should I do? Should I wait 5 more months? When he’s home on the weekends he doesn’t call me because she is home. I really love this guy and when we are at work he treats me very well. Can you advise me please. Thanks

Hi There,
You don’t give me that much information but honestly, if I were you, I would stop seeing him until he has made a commitment to you. Someone said this to me recently. “Never believe what a man says, watch what he does” You can’t believe what he is saying to you until he acts on it. He may be telling the truth but he may not be. I think if you really believed him, you wouldn’t be writing to me. You could say to him that you can’t see him until he has left her. You’ll still see him at work but you’ll be protecting yourself. Also, don’t you worry about the way he’s treating his girlfriend. If he can lie to her then he can lie to you. Sorry but, it doesn’t sound like a great situation. It sounds like he’s having his cake and eating it. Good luck.
Love Karen

Hello Karen

You probably don’t remember me but I was inspired by your last piece of
advice. I met someone once through a mutual friend six months ago and we
exchanged numbers , e-mails after one hello, a handshake and a brief
conversation. We have been talking and e-mailing but beginning to think that
I am putting too many eggs in this particular basket. To add to the mix,
they live abroad . I have family there and had arranged to holiday there in
6 weeks time before we even met. Now the doubts and butterflies have set in.
I have always felt I am too grounded to fall for someone on the internet, but
many phone calls and e-mails later I am beginning to wonder where this is
heading. There is no agenda on their part as they are financially
independent and reliant on nothing from me which makes it all the more
worrying. By the way, one of my biggest faults is second guessing
situations. What do you think ?

Nicole

Hi Nicole, I’m a little bit confused by what you mean when you say that he is independent with no financial agenda etc. Isn’t that a good thing. Wouldn’t it be worse if he did want something from you. If he just likes you for you and nothing else that sounds like a good thing.
Like you, I love second guessing but I’m beginning to learn that people are all so different that it’s impossible to know what other people are doing and why.
It sounds to me like he must be interested in some way because he is emailing and you are in contact after only a brief meeting but you have no idea what this means. Until you see his life a bit more it will be impossible to tell.
You were going where he is anyway so go not expecting too much and see what happens. Chance encounters are all for a reason but yes, you are putting too many eggs in one basket. Try and think about it less and enjoy yourself here until your holiday comes. Remember, it takes a long time to get to know someone.
Your email doesn’t say much about whether your contact has been romantic or friendly so it’s hard for me to tell not knowing too much.
Relax and know that if it doesn’t work out then it wasn’t meant to be and he isn’t the right one for you. Enjoy it while you go though.
Love Karen

i’ve broke up with ex for almost half a year already. but i still can’t forget him. he knows that i still like him. but he kept asking me to forget about him, and i should move on with my life. i know i should stop thinking about him. but i can’t. i still like him. what should i do, karen?

I know this is really hard. He’s right though. You should take his advice and forget about him. If it’s not meant to be then it’s not meant to be. You need someone who really wants to be with you and even though you really like your ex, you can be with someone who actually wants you as much as you want them.
Liking someone more than they like you is very bad for your self esteem.
Put him behind you and know in your heart that you will love someone else as much again and that you weren’t supposed to be with your ex. Allow yourself to feel sad but try not to dwell on thoughts of him. Be kind to yourself. When you put him behind you, you will open the door for someone new. Good luck

Dear Karen,
How are you? I’ve read in your site that you give advice on several matters and I decided to get an advice for myself!!
My name is Christina, I am from Greece and I live in Greece. I am 22 years old and my “problem” is that I want to become a singer and a succesful one if possible!!
The thing is, that I do not know what to do, how to begin. There is this summer course in London Music School which is very interesting but also quite expensive for me. Moreover, I found a couple of lessons in Goldsmiths university but they told me to wait until their new schedule is out.
The truth is that my parents don’t really like the idea of me becoming a singer or even pursuing such a career and they also don’t like me living in another country alone.
Honestly, I could use your help!!
What would you advise me to do? What would you do?
I look forward to hearing from you soon!!

Ps: I would like to remain anonymous.

Love Christina!!

Hey there.
This is a bit tricky for me to answer because I think that everyone’s path is so different but if you want to be a singer then GO FOR IT. If you believe in yourself and it feels like the right thing then you have to follow your heart. When I was younger my parents also didn’t want me to be a singer but now they are 100% supportive.
On a practical level I don’t really know what to say to you because for me it was something that I fell into when I was much older than you. For me it happened because someone played my songs to someone and things snowballed. It was never a decision as such.
I have singing lessons and I have had to work really hard on that.
The music schools that you mention over here, I’m sure are very good. I know it is very expensive for a foreign student but London is somewhere where you can make things happen.
Whatever you do, work really hard, practice hard and maybe prove to your parents that you are really going to do it properly and then maybe their support will grow.
At the moment I’m not sure what else to suggest as I don’t know anything about music courses here or the best way in. I do believe though that if you want something enough then it will happen.
Good luck and let me know if I can help more in any way.
Love Karen

Dear Karen,

I am a 25 year old woman whom has just entered, what I feel, is my first serious adult relationship. I swear, if you put all of my
ideal qualities into a blender, you would have come up with this man…he’s intelligent, caring, trustworthy, passionate about
traveling and cross-cultural misadventures same as me (we were both teachers in Japan), and he treats me like, in his words,
“the sun shines out of my *rse.” I genuinely love him. There is nothing about him that I wouldn’t be able to deal with today,
tomorrow or 20 years from now (as far as I can tell), and we both feel very similarly about each other. Currently, our relationship is
long distance while I’m working out a way to move so that we can be closer together (by applying to grad school).

The issue lies here: I have a GIANT phobia of opening up to men. My first major relationship was with a man when I was very young.
I was only 15, and he was 18. It lasted on and off for 4 years and, honestly, I wouldn’t even credit this as a “serious” relationship because of
my age at the time, if it weren’t for the fact that SO much transgressed in those 4 years. It was textbook abusive. I was abused by my father,
and continuously brutalized by my brother, and so I treated him as a refuge in which to hide on and off until I went away to college on my own.
What I failed to realize at the time, was that my boyfriend was ten times worse than any other man I’ve met to date. I didn’t
even put a term to describe the behavior until he raped me at age 19, and gave me an STD. When I went to therapy afterwards, and discussed
all the things that happened (being beaten, slapped, forced to do humiliating things and wear humiliating clothes, and eat/act in certain ways),
did I put phrases like “sexual assault” and “domestic violence” into my vocabulary.

Needless to say, since then, I’ve been very cautious upon entering relationships. In between this one I am currently in, and that first one, I
was in several smaller less meaningful relationships that, in retrospect, I see really meant nothing at all to me. I’ve been single for nearly 4 years up
until my current boyfriend…and find it indescribably difficult to open up to him. He knows about the rape and the STD, but he does not know
about everything that led up to it…including events that transpired between the male members of my family and I. I still have nightmares about
things that have happened. I can’t watch scenes of rape in movies or on TV. Sometimes, I disappear without telling him where I go for several
days at a time…and being long distance at the moment, this is especially cruel. I get very sensitive to comments about women being “illogical”
or “overly sensitive.” As I feel these are just cop outs and, irregardless of the the joking nature in which they may have been said, really p*ss me off.
I suppose that part of the reason why I get cold, is because I miss him so much, and it hurts that we cannot be together right now.
I feel like I’m hurting the relationship, but I don’t know how to stop. I feel like he’s the kind of person who would listen if I asked him to,
but I also feel like opening up about how much all of this still affects me would label me as a basket case, and perhaps cause him to worry more
about me than necessary. I don’t want him to see me as weak.

My question is this: Is there a point of no return, when someone has been hurt so much that they cannot engage in a normal relationship with another
human being? Sometimes, I feel like, no matter how far I’ve come since that naive little girl so long ago, I am still struggling to deal with the things that
happened…and I can’t be all happy-go-lucky. And I just get stuck in this rut.

Thank you,

Anonymous.

Okay, sometimes I think that there is a point of no return where people can’t engage in a normal relationship because we see it all around us. People become murderers and rapists and I would pretty much bet that no one who has had a happy and secure childhood ends up this way. However my belief is this. EVERYONE has a choice, to choose evil and to destroy their own lives and the lives of others OR to choose the right path, which by the way, you are already on.

You have been through horrendous trauma and yet you have managed to break the cycle by finding a wonderful and caring man. Many women go from one abusive relationship to another. I think that you can really make this relationship work. It will be hard for you but I truly believe that you can do it. Your letter really touched me and shows how much you want to recover and have a healthy relationship.
You have opened up to him a certain amount telling him about the abusive relationship, which it seems he understood. I don’t know whether or not you have contact with your Father and brother anymore but my bet would be that your boyfriend would understand. It’s quite a lot to keep to yourself but having said that it will be difficult for him to hear. If you need to tell him, then I think you should tell him.

If this man is really wonderful then you need to think really hard about the ways in which you sabotage the relationship. Deep down you may not believe you deserve this relationship because of the abuse that you have suffered by the men who should have cared for you the most. But you DO deserve this relationship. DON’T do disappearing acts. They are very hard to be on the receiving end of. Don’t be cruel to him. Care for him as you want him to care for you. Make a list of all the damaging behaviour that you do when you become scared or fragile so that you can recognise it and STOP when you feel it happening. My feeling is that the more you open up to him, the easier this will become because instead of acting out your fear, you can talk about it. You’ve broken the cycle so don’t ruin it. Tell him you don’t want him to see you as weak. Tell him you don’t want him to see you as a basket case, and remember that he already loves you. You’ve been through an enormous amount. You’d be odd if it DIDN’T affect you.

I’m really pleased that you can recognise a good man when you see one and that you haven’t tarred them all with the same brush. By the same token, wonderful men are not everywhere (I can vouch) and if you love each other then trust in it.

However, if it doesn’t work out, you have to trust in that too. Everything happens for a reason. I really believe this. I don’t know what you do, but perhaps you could help those who have been through similar experiences to you. This might make more sense of it for you. Just a suggestion.

By the way, there is a school of thought that says a separation such as yours can be very healthy for a relationship. It tests a couple and lets them know if they really want to be together.

Finally I want to say that it may also be a good idea (if it’s possible) for you to have some more therapy. I’m sure you will be dealing with your past for a long time. I hope you can.

Your letter was beautiful and I really believe that you want a good relationship, and that means you will.

Love Karen