Am I Wrong to Want More from a Relationship?

Reader’s Question

I hope you can help me. I think I am in a relationship with no future but am not sure and need an outside opinion.

I have been with my partner for a little over a year, although we’ve known each other since I was a child. He’s 10 years older than I, and we got together after the death of his identical twin brother. He then left his wife and long-term foster daughter after his brother’s death, saying that the relationship was, in his words, “dead” and had been so for years. Still, he and his wife keep up a friendly contact, and he goes to stay and see his 10-year-old daughter and help out there from time to time.

While I am sure that it is over between him and his wife, it feels that he is living two lives. On one hand he is with me and is reliable, faithful and supportive; and in general we have a good relationship. However he won’t display public affection with me, claiming to do so is “not him” (both his parents were brought up in orphanages, and physical contact was lacking through his childhood). And although we’ve been together a while, I’ve not met his daughter. I brought the topic up the other day and asked if it would be a possibility, but he was cool to the idea. She was sexually abused when she was young, and he’s worried about how meeting his girlfriend would affect her. So basically when he goes to stay there, I don’t call him or text him. He never calls me (occasionally he’ll text). He still sees a lot of his ex-mother-in-law, and I’m sure she doesn’t even know I exist.

My boyfriend never discusses divorcing his wife or what sort of future he sees for us, and I am sort of scared to bring it up. Am I being unreasonable? I feel confused, as he’s going through a hard time (his dad is now dying of cancer), and I feel selfish for worrying whether I’m in a relationship that has no future. But I’m 35, I want to get married, and I sense from him that he wants things to remain as they are. He feels a lot of guilt for leaving, although it was the right thing to do (he says), so he’s scared of rocking the boat further by planning a future with me. I also am confused as to why I don’t want to question this. I have a chronic health condition which has never been an issue for us, and he’s totally supportive of it, but it means I find it very hard to meet new people when single, and I suspect my fear of being alone is stopping me asking these questions. Please advise me! I’m so confused!

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

You seem to be one of those persons who always wants to understand. You cite your “partner’s” guilt for leaving, his emotionally distant upbringing, his tragic losses, his daughter’s sexual abuse, and just about every other “reason” you can think of for why he’s conducting a relationship with you that he keeps hidden while remaining married and involved with a woman with whom he claims the relationship is “dead.” In all your excessive need to understand, you inadvertently excuse and accept what should rightfully be non-acceptable. It’s up to you to recognize limits and boundaries and to tend to your own emotional needs. You have a right to a relationship with someone who is not only free of other commitments but also wants to openly commit to you. You need only ask yourself with some brutal honesty why you’re not demanding more for yourself. You indicate that you have a fear of being alone and an awareness of how your chronic health condition makes it difficult for you to meet people and cultivate a relationship. Only you can decide whether you will allow your fear to govern your decisions in life and prompt you to accept much less in a relationship than you deserve.