How to respond to a proposal
My boyfriend and i have been dating for a little less than a year. We always brake up than get right back together. Not to long ago he asked me to be privately ingaged to him. What do I say? —Anon"
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Date: Sunday April 10, 2005
Time: 20:19 +0800
Hi Anon,
I have a problem with, "We always brake up then get right back together." No accident "brake" rather than break. Also, you aren't telling the truth. The truth would be, "I have had a pattern of intending us to break up and then initiating the getting back together again." Or, "I unconsciously set it up for him to initiate the breakup and the getting back together again." You come across as a wimpy victim, not in charge of your own life, pretending to be a puppet.
I see that you also have a problem with the word, "privately." Deceit always generates deceit. This private-withholding philosophy automatically grants the both of you permission to hide thoughts of choice from each other. The opposite philosophy is open, honest, and spontaneous communication, zero thoughts withheld from each other and close friends and family.
It appears that now is the time for you to begin to looking at your creations, the results you produce with your leadership communication-skills, from the point of view of cause, of responsibility. Presently you inspire deceit ("privately"). One of the pitfalls of lying, of telling the story from blame, such as he breaks up with me . . . or, "we" break up is that you can't complete the relationship. That is to say, you can't complete something your didn't create. If you walk around life lying, saying he picked you up, or, he chose you, or he got you pregnant, then you are in denial about your cause for things. "But judge, I didn't know he was a abusive."
The fact that you are writing me indicates that you have a communication problem with both of your parents. I recommend that you talk to a counselor and ask to schedule a series of sessions for the purpose of completing your relationship with your parents. If you don't, especially after reading this reply, you will be consciously choosing to drag into any and all outside relationships your inability to communicate through to mutual satisfaction with your parents. Notice that you have so many incompletes having to do with your parents that you cannot see the truth, that you set up your boyfriend to propose to you. Many girls do this unconsciously as a way of not having to study to get a profession. They set up life to have a boy take care of them financially, even get pregnant "accidentally." Later, they are stuck with the total cost of child raising.
You ask what to say, but I don't have any reality that you can/will take my advice. In any case here it is: "Thank you for your proposal. I get that you love me. However, at the advice of Dear Gabby, I have decided to not get married until I have graduated (either high school or college). Please respect my wishes to graduate and have a full-time job for at least a year before you propose again." If he won't take no, it's called harassment. In dating "no" means no, else it could lead to date rape. Keep in mind you are considering getting engaged to someone who advocates deceit to his own parents and friends. This is called abuse. He needs equally as much counseling (25 50-minute sessions) as you do, else you'll both make life miserable for each other and others.
If you had a wonderful loving supportive relationship with your parents, each would wish for you to date as many different boys as possible. Each date expands your ability to communicate thereby enabling you to experience much more from life. Getting tied down to one boy so early is symptomatic of neediness for which the cost is much abuse/sadness/disappointment and grief.
Thanks for reaching out. Do show him our communications. If you both enroll (separately) in counseling (each completing my recommended number of sessions) you have the potential for a rich and rewarding relationship, possibly even marriage. If only you do the counseling, you will clearly see that he is not the one for you and you will have saved the both of you much abuse. Presently your leadership-communication model, how you communicate, generates abuse.
With aloha, Kerry
