Dear Coleen
I’m worried I got together with my partner too soon and now I don’t know how to get out of the relationship.
Basically, it was a case of lust at first sight back in August. We met in a bar at a party thrown by mutual friends, slept together on the first night and went headlong into a passionate affair.
We moved in together in October after a little over two months of dating and now I’m regretting it. I’m 32 and he’s 35, and I think we were both desperate for a relationship after being single for a while, so we went into it too quickly.
I’m starting to get irritated by everything he does – from the way he eats his cereal to just the way he looks, generally. The honeymoon is definitely over for me, although he seems to think everything is fine.
I made a big deal of introducing him to my friends and family, telling them he was “the one” and so on. I’m so embarrassed!
Now I’m facing moving out and moving in with my parents before Christmas, but I’d rather that than be with him over the holidays – I’d be living a lie and I don’t think I could keep up the pretence. I can’t believe I’ve been such a fool – how should I handle it?
Coleen says
I think the only thing stopping you from ending it is the worry (or embarrassment) over what other people will think. So, forget the other people and just learn from this experience.
And don’t give yourself a hard time – it’s very easy to get wrapped in passion and romance when you get together with someone you really like, and your brain can go AWOL.
I think your ages and stage in life probably played a part in moving things along too quickly. If both of you are keen to find a lasting relationship, particularly if you’re seeing friends settling down, getting married and having kids, the temptation can be to jump on the bandwagon.
It’s hard to break someone’s heart and to admit it’s not working, but you can’t stay in a relationship for those reasons. All you have to say to him – and to anyone else – is that after moving in together you realised the relationship wasn’t going to work.
I think it’s better to do it now rather than eek it out over the holidays and have an even more miserable time.
