Dear Lady. Ann:
Firstly, I want to thank you for your teachings and prayers that have been a great insight and feel a lot of what I was blinded to before is clear to me. I do have a question and would appreciate your opinion on this. I dated a man for about a year, throughout the year we had issues because his ex was still in his life and didn’t put any boundaries to her in our relationship, his reasoning was because she helped him a lot while he was foreign to America from England. I decided to respect his reasoning and moved on from the arguments even though I disliked it. Few months later a female friend of his invited him to coffee date, a day after him and I ran into her at church and introduced me as his girlfriend, he responded correctly by declining the invitation but continued to entertain her pursue for him, asking if she can use his house pool, use him as a model for her business as she didn’t have many friends and if she had some they were all male.
I even offered myself as a model since she shared that information but she never acknowledged me, constantly contacting him as her confidant and ect. For his birthday since he couldn’t go back home, I had his family members from Nigeria and England send me a short clip wishing him a happy birthday and prayers. One of his “close female friends” ruined the surprise and told him before his birthday and expressed her true feelings for him that were more than friendship although all along she was not being real with me and had a fake kind gesture saying that it was sweet of me to do this for him. We decided to break up for those reasons as I didn’t feel protected emotionally by him and more. We remained friends and spend a lot of time together as I helped him open a non profit.
He did apologize after some time of the breakup and acknowledged that he should have had boundaries for his ex, but I would hear him questioning our friends why they also didn’t agree for opposite sex friendships and made me feel as even though he apologized, he didn’t see the danger of it. We had started going to a different church together as covid happened during the time, we had spent time together, we were seeing if things could work out again, especially since we had been going to premarital classes and had future plans together before we broke up. As we started getting involved at the church and another young girl started to pursue him and he would entertain her flirtatious, he reassured me nothing was going on but excused his actions of flirtatious as being friendly and/ or it’s my insecurities talking or/ and culture difference; We are a biracial couple.
He went back to England but planning on returning at the end of January. During the time he was gone, I was mistreated at a church event by the young girl as she is the pastors sister and coordinated the event. I told myself enough is enough therefore I spoke to the girl and other people that were involved and expressed myself. She apologized and did acknowledge that she struggles with flirting with different men. I spoke to him and decided to have a healthy separation from him and to have minimal communication only if needed. Being part of this journey on here has helped me realize my worth. I wouldn’t want to work things out with him. Do you have any suggestions or advise to avoid this in the future? I greatly appreciate you. Thank you🥰♥️.