I Had a Nice Time And Other Lies...: How to find love & sh*t like that (24 page)

Dear Betches,

My relationship problems belong in a Shakespeare play, and I need your advice. I have been dating the same guy for the past five years and I am so in love with him. He’s my best friend, has a nice car, and buys me expensive presents. The problem is, he cheated on me . . . multiple times. This past time it was with a girl he basically had a sober relationship with—dinner dates, multiple sleepovers, etc.

My friends tell me I need to ditch him and move on, but I can’t bring myself to do it. He’s a few years younger than me, so I think he just cheated because he is young and dumb. Here is the other problem—this is a secret relationship. My family doesn’t even know we are dating. My family is very strict and has high expectations for me, and my boyfriend just doesn’t meet their qualifications (he is a different race than what my parents want for me, never went to college, works in a fast-food restaurant, etc.). My parents met him years ago when we were just friends, and they hated him so much I can’t even say his name in my house.

We have to sneak around like Romeo and Juliet. I lie about where I am going, where I am sleeping, the miles on my car, etc. Essentially, just a whole bunch of lies, and now I don’t know where to go from here. I just graduated college and am ready to start my adult life. I want to tell my parents about my boyfriend and live a normal, public life with him. My question is: Should I confess about my secret boyfriend? And if so, how and what should I tell them? I can’t ask my
friends for advice because they hate my boyfriend so much that I barely talk to them anymore. I got so sick of them lecturing me and now we have drifted apart. You Betches are my last hope. Please help!

Sincerely,

I Should Have Been Named Juliet

Hey Taylor,

Hold on while we turn on “No Scrubs” by TLC. Ugh, there is so much wrong with this situation that if we addressed it all this would turn from an advice column into a multiple page critical essay, so let’s tackle why this guy is literally the worst, in list form.

1. He cheated on you.

2. Multiple times.

3. With somebody he was basically having a second relationship with. Is that not the ultimate betrayal? And yet you still call this guy your best friend? How shitty are your friends?

4. You’re already making excuses for this guy’s shitty behavior. We know love is blind and all, but is it fucking delusional, too? You get cheated on multiple times but everything’s all good because “he is young and dumb” . . . K. Quit trying to be “Cool Girl,” that shit is not okay and you deserve better.

They say that if all your exes are crazy, the common denominator is you, and here a similar idea applies: If everybody you know hates this guy, the common
denominator is probably that he sucks. TBH, he sounds like the textbook definition of a scrub. Like, such a big scrub that the surviving members of TLC met this guy, and then invented a time machine and went back in time so they could write “No Scrubs” about him with Left Eye.

Oh, shit. We didn’t answer your question. Talking to your parents, right. We don’t think you should tell them about your boyfriend because, really, you should drop him and then it won’t matter. Even though your parents sound kinda shallow and even racist, we’re not seeing that this guy even treats you right, so it doesn’t seem worth the grief telling your parents would cause. If he was an all-around great guy who treated you like a princess and your parents just sucked, sure. But this guy? Not worth the fight.

At the same time, five years is a long fucking time to keep up a con, so we can see why you’d want to clear your conscience (good thing we don’t have those). Here’s what we think you should do: In the parental dynamic there’s usually one parent who’s more chill (however slightly) and whom you’re closer to—probs your mom. So, one day take her out to froyo or some shit and tell her that you have a problem and you need her help (moms eat that up). Then just break it to her. If your mom’s a betch she’ll help you think of ways to approach your dad, or she’ll just do the work for you. If your parents really are a united front, well shit, it might be time to call a family meeting and break out the PowerPoint.

Good luck. We kinda wanna know how this turns out but if things go south we’d like to maintain some plausible deniability.

You do know how
Romeo and Juliet
ends, right?

The Betches

SPARK NOTES

We know, this chapter was super long. But like, TBH, a relationship is even longer, and if you want to get through it like a betch you should have paid attention. But it’s okay, here’s the recap, just like “previously on
Mad Men
.”

Here’s the thing: A guy should
want
to be exclusive with
you
and not the other way around. If you take just any guy on as your boyfriend because he likes you, well, chances are he’s not right for you. But we’re human (
hot
humans, sure, but humans), and we tend to make a lot of mistakes. But you learn some new shit with each mistake. This means that every good, bad, long, or short relationship you were in taught you something about yourself, hence you are never really wasting your time.

The start of every relationship can be really fun if you do it right. So, don’t fuck up and declare you’re Instagram official before he even knows you’re his girlfriend. Have a lot of sex. Don’t say “I love you” first unless you feel super confident that if he doesn’t say it back you won’t become depressed and Van Gogh your ear off. Make an extremely good impression on his family. Never let him feel like he can do anything he wants, and you won’t break up with him. Because
you will and then you will get someone else who wants you more. If you fight, don’t fly over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Say what you want to say, but don’t go overboard because, don’t forget, you want sweet, sweet make-up sex in the end. That is unless he cheats. Then you’re allowed one flesh-wound stab . . . lol half-jk.

N
ow that you two have been dating for a while you’re probably beginning to wonder, could this guy be my future husband? Can I envision spending the rest of my life smelling this dude’s morning breath? Can I trust him to never cheat on me? To support me emotionally and probably financially, too? Will his last name look good next to my first name? Is his constant partying something I can learn to deal with, or will I have to pull a Kourtney Kardashian on him and bounce after kid #3?

At this stage of the relationship, we’ll assume you’ve been dating for over a year. You know your guy pretty well and you’re past the honeymoon stage of glossing over all of his weaknesses. His habits are his habits, and if he hasn’t changed them by now there’s a 99 percent chance he’s going to be this way forever. It’s at this point that you need to ask yourself:
If this man never changes, will I still love him just the way he is for the rest of my life?

Answering that question involves being extremely real with yourself and deciphering if the things that really annoy you are things that you can get over or if they’ll only make you resent your choice in a few years. What you need in someone at twenty-two is not what you need when you’re twenty-eight, and definitely not what you need when you’re thirty-four. You have to be able to foresee how your needs will change. Your boyfriend/fiancé/husband should be his strongest self for fulfilling your current needs so that when you’re thirty-plus and your ass has dropped three inches and really
need
that thoughtful person, they’re there for you.

The hope is that every guy matures with age, but with that logic you wind up
as Charlie Sheen’s deluded baby mama. Some guys grow up, and other guys stay young and immature forever because they can. The good part about this fact is that it shouldn’t matter to you whether your boyfriend is at the height of his maturity or is only going to grow and evolve like the extremely expensive wine you expect him to order at every minor celebration. You should be content with him being at the exact maturity level he is when you decide to marry him, because then you won’t be disappointed if he’s one of the nonchangers.

Relationships are about a combination of sex, similar interests, and timing. If a guy is not the right person for you at the exact time that you are the right person for him, then it will never work because you both are at different places in your lives. Maybe your guy will be the guy you want him to be in five years but that’s a big, fat maybe. Do you want to build a life on a maybe? It’s like that barre class you took that morning you were insanely hungover from fifteen tequila shots the previous night. No matter how good your intentions for going were or how bad you wanted a great class, that was never going to be your best class because the timing wasn’t right. You’ll have to wait for the next class to master your plank.

Likewise, if two people are great together but are at points in their lives where they want different things, it’s never going to work. Maybe you’re ready to settle down, but he feels like he’s too young to get married? Wrong timing. Maybe you’re a hot mess and you still crave toxic people, but he is ready for something deeper? Wrong timing. Maybe he
wants to move to Boston for a job opportunity but you would literally rather shoot yourself in the face than leave New York. Wrong timing.

It will be very obvious when your relationship is moving forward because you both will be excited about going on new adventures together (maybe you decide to go to Phuket in a
year) and embarking on major milestones (i.e., excuses for housewarming presents) in your life together. You should both be ecstatic at the thought of moving in together, and if engagement is on the table you should obviously be overjoyed at the thought of a legally binding contract securing yourself and your assets to this person for the rest of your life. Cue panic attack for the rest of us, but whatever, you do you.

If you have a solid relationship, you can talk about anything and you can initiate any conversation you want. If your relationship is strong enough that you’re talking about moving in, then you should be able to move in together. Don’t demand, but feel free to broach the topic. Ask him where his head is at, etc. Ideally you want men to initiate, but a major way you can know if your relationship is real is by noticing whether or not you can say what you want to say when you want to say it.

Communication cannot be underestimated. If you don’t say what’s bothering you the minute, or day, it happens, then after a while it’ll come spewing out of you like a betch who’s overdone it on the vodka sodas. So if your boyfriend says you’ve been a cold-hearted bitch for the past few weeks (above and beyond the fact that that’s your usual personality and like, your period is on its way) then it’s probably because
of some unspoken thing in your relationship that you’re hesitant to bring up but are frustrated about. A betch who doesn’t say how she feels will ruminate, and before she knows it, she’s screaming at her BF at her cousin’s bar mitzvah when someone asks if she ordered the chicken or the fish.

Allure and mystery are much more important for your sex life than for real-life relationships. If he’s really into you, he’ll want to live with you. He won’t be terrified that you even asked. But don’t be a psycho about it. One guideline: You shouldn’t move in together before at least nine months of dating, and that’s obviously if you’re out of college and have lived alone or with a roommate for a while. Not living together after two years of dating at twenty-two is different than not living together after two years of dating at thirty. But if you’ve been dating for more than two years and you consider yourself an adult (probs like, over twenty-six), and neither of you have even talked about a future together, then it’s probably time to ask why. We’re not saying that you should be naming your babies after two years, but your boyfriend should at least show small signs he sees
something
long term. An example of a sign: He makes a joke like “We’re going to need two TVs when we live together, there is no way you will ever get me to watch reruns of
One Tree Hill
with you.” (Don’t worry, he will.)

And sometimes relationships simply hit a wall. One person
or both realize that to stay in the relationship would be settling or that they are unhappy with what the other person provides. This usually happens when the next step seems obvious and/or imminent and one person (or both) seems hesitant. If all your friends who have been together around the same amount of time as you are getting engaged or moving in together, and you and your guy haven’t even approached the subject, someone is about to go on a break. Heads up, though: The stress that other couples’ engagement parties and celebratory Instagram hashtags put on a couple who’s on the brink of a breakup is very, very real.