Category: Life Advice

I’m a 38 year old woman who has been dating a 40 year old man for 16 years. I feel so depressed and disposable because he won’t marry me.

We have been together for 16 whole years. We have two daughters (4 and 8). I wanted to be married before having kids but he basically said he thought that if he married me first then I might decide not to have any kids and he would be stuck never having any. So I was guilted into having them before being married.

I have felt horrible about my situation for years but last summer, about a month before our 16 year anniversary, I started to feel much worse. I’m depressed and I think about it multiple times a day. I feel like a joke. Like a disposable piece of trash. Like I’m not good enough to be loved completely.

Let’s face it, guys. We’ve been conditioned to believe that expressing our emotions is a sign of weakness, that “real men” are supposed to be stoic and unflappable in the face of life’s challenges. We’re taught to suck it up, to push down our feelings, to never let ’em see us sweat.

Well, I call B.S. on that. Not only is this emotional repression unhealthy, it’s also a one-way ticket to a miserable existence filled with broken relationships, stunted personal growth, and a gnawing sense of disconnection from ourselves and others.

My Mother is 65 years old and for many years now my Wife and I have been telling her that she needs to sell her house or rent it and move closer to us. She never has listened. In the past I have also told her there are things she shouldn’t be spending money on.

TODAY….she calls me and says there’s a problem I can resolve and proceeds to tell me she can’t pay her mortgage so to give her $5000 dollars. So as the finance guru I am I start asking her the real questions since she makes less than 30k a year.