Dear Dr. Loveland,

I have been involved with a guy, K, off and on for the last 15 years. We met in college and dated, moved in together, and then broke up after 5 years as he was irresponsible and never worked in a traditional sense. His money was always tight and when he had it he spent it extravagantly. This always bothered me as I have been working since I was 14, and am very responsible, and have always had a good work ethic. Other than this, we have a very strong connection that has grown stronger over time and has never been the same with anyone else. He has been there for me through some very difficult times in my life and I am afraid not to have him in some capacity. He makes me feel completely comfortable and knows me better than I seem to know myself at times.

We broke up for a few years and dated other people- I think I was always critical of him and not supportive of his lifestyle. I always felt like he cared about himself more than me or anything else, and like I have to push him to do nice things for me. I think we both want the other person to do more for each other. He has since moved to LA to work as an artist, which he is doing, and slowly, very slowly, building a career of sorts. He wants me to move with him but I do not trust that he would be financially dependable, but would again be dependent on me.

I really want to have a family and as I am now 34, I feel pressure to get started. Do I break it off or give it one last try? I don’t want to move to LA, I was hoping he would get his stuff together and prove that he can be responsible as he assures me he wants to, but things remain in perpetual limbo. I can’t move forward and date other people until I resolve this with him, and I am growing tired of waiting for my life to begin.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thank you,
Restlessly Waiting

Dear Restlessly Waiting,
Thank so much for writing in and reaching out. It is lovely to hear from you. I am probably about to say a lot of conflicting things, but my feeling is one them will fit for you and help you. First of all, 34 is not old. When I turned 30 I felt the same way, like a clock was ticking for me to make this dream come true of having children and someone very close to me said, “My sister is 50 and just got pregnant for the first time, with some medical help but yes pregnant at 50!” This gave me huge relief. I still had 20 years to have children. Thank God for medicine when a woman needs a back-up plan. Years later this woman at age 53 also gave birth to twins, so she wasn’t done at 50 either. SO I would recommend you open your mind and heart to the time you still have. With all the being said, if your goal is children it does not sound like this man is making life choices in line with heading towards co-parenting with you anytime soon. LA is a fabulous place to live, full of life experiences to be had. It also can be a shallow place full of lost people and having lived there myself, in my opinion is not an ideal place to raise children. Since K is not known for being responsible or financially dependable it is very unlikely a life as an artist in expensive LA is going to be a place where he becomes more of those things. People have dreams. Let him have his but not at the expense of yours which is to grow a life and family with someone who knows you and is responsible with the skills to match you. I have come across many women, including myself, who have felt terrified to throw in the towel on a relationship that has taken up 3, 6, or 15 years of your life. It is hard to believe this when one is single, but very often the relationships that can take up some years are soul mates giving us lessons we are meant to learn and grow from. Perhaps it is taking you 15+ years to learn the lessons K has to teach you. Soul mates come into our lives to stretch and change our souls, but are often the types of intense relationships that would be too painful to spend our entire lives in. Of course you are both very attached. That is a lot of time to spend with someone, even if it has been on and off. No one can ever make anyone ready to walk away from someone they love until they are good and ready, when that magical day comes where courage and faith make you take that step towards something different, someone you have not even met yet. Walking away hurts. There are always memories but send K love through your thoughts and then just keep on walking. You will not make room for the next partner in your life if he is still present in yours. You can try to be friends, etc but usually some time apart, perhaps forever is the best choice for getting over someone sooner. Sliding to the other side of your options, you could move to LA (even though I recognize you said here that you do not want to move there). You can give it one last shot. I would put an internal, private timeline on it. “I will give myself one year.” Honestly, it is a lot to ask of yourself. Your home is here, your life, your friends, your career and to walk away from all that for this man who was willing to walk over a 1000 miles away from you for his dream that is not you, that is a lot to ask. But if you feel unfinished, if you feel you need to explore more with him until you can completely embrace him or completely let him go then go after him. You are a capable woman of rebuilding your life in LA and then rebuilding it again if you come back. No regrets! You need to decide if you have the time. Yes, there are medical or adoption back-up plans that open the doors for motherhood for you for many more years but ideally perhaps you have something more traditional and sooner in mind. I also wanted to say one thing about your self-aware comment about how you think you were always critical and not supportive of his lifestyle. Good job for being aware of this and owning up to it. But also, sometimes people just grow apart. I look back in shame of the endless relationships I was in with men I thought I was helping, teaching to grow up or be responsible or find direction but honestly I never respected them. I maybe treated them respectfully but in my mind, I really didn’t have respect for their lifestyles and choices and that had to make them feel bad on some level even though I never said it outloud. Perhaps I did help them and some other woman is benefiting from that now and that makes me happy or maybe I just hurt them because I was trying to make something work for years and years when it was never meant to work. Either way, we all learned and grew and are better off. It is hard to see things this way when still entangled in the love part. I have never left someone or had someone leave me and me still not be in love with them. That is a lot to ask of yourself Restlessly Waiting. Know if you walk away, do it with flair, with faith! I don’t know if this helps you but I was 32 when I walked away from a great love that was absolutely breaking me. Through knowing and loving him I was forced into the best lessons of my life, shaping me undoubtedly. I spent many, many years torturing myself to make us fit. Finally one sacred night, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and took the final leap away. About 7 months later I opened my eyes and heart to a new type of man, and this man turned out to be everything I never knew I always needed. I do not suffer anymore or long for something I don’t have because he gave it all to me, including children I was so fearful I was too old for. Had my first at age 35 which under doctor’s care is considered “advanced maternal age” but have had flawless pregnancies and healthy, happy perfect deliveries and babies. I share this all with you because sometimes all a woman needs to hear is a story of hope. I never, ever thought I could find this so fast when I walked away from my years and years invested in previous relationships but I did. It is cliche and everyone says it only because it is true, when it is right you WILL know. Everything else is us just forcing things to be that aren’t meant to be any longer. I want you to feel you have choices because you do. You probably already have the answer but may just be really struggling to admit it to yourself and everyone all around you. I believe in you. I believe in your future. Miracles happen. Good luck, Restlessly Waiting… now stop waiting and go vibrantly live your life attracting into it all that you have always wanted for yourself and more.

With Hope,

Doctor Loveland