Question submitted via Formspring:
“My boyfriend doesn’t listen to me at all especially when it comes to financial matters. I don’t trust me due to past issues and his womanizing. He tends to keep women numbers in his wallet then tells me they were there before he moved in?”

“When a person shows you who they are, believe them the first time”
-Maya Angelou

Once again, let’s review:
1. He doesn’t listen to you
2. You appear to be having some sort of financial issues, since why would you be upset that he doesn’t listen when things go well?
3. You live together, but apparently not for very long since he believes having just arrived is a cover story.
4. You don’t trust you (?) because of ‘past issues’.
5. You called him a womanizer.
6. He admits to womanizing (since he didn’t deny collecting the numbers).
7. You clearly don’t trust him. Why? You were snooping in his wallet.

The short answer is: break up.
The longer answer is the three pillars of a successful relationship are trust, respect, and communication; love is a byproduct of these three things.
And what is your relationship lacking? Trust, respect, and communication.

You don’t trust him because he cheated in the past, and you suspect he’s cheating now…and with good reason. You also don’t trust him in financial matters, perhaps rightly so. You don’t even trust *you* because of ‘past issues’ of some sort.
There’s no respect, because if he respected you he wouldn’t be trying to pick up other women, and you clearly don’t respect yourself or you wouldn’t put up with it. He also apparently doesn’t respect you enough to stop, since you said he ‘tends’ to keep women’s numbers, which would seem to indicate you’ve caught him doing it more than once. In this day of cell phones and computers it’s pretty easy to do dirt without getting caught, but he doesn’t seem to care enough to even cover his tracks.

And finally, you have no communication; and if you can’t communicate, you don’t have a relationship.
Now, in his defense, you say “he doesn’t listen to you”, but how are you communicating with him? Are you clearly and directly laying out your concerns, and suggestions for how you can improve, or do you nag and complain, or even worse, yell and scream? Same thing for the other women’s numbers, have you clearly told him how him doing this makes you feel and how much it hurts you? Or do you just complain…or worst of all, say nothing?

At any rate, you seem to have fundamental issues in all the areas that matter: trust, respect, and communication, so the solution remains the same: break up.
If he moved in for financial reasons rather than romantic ones, it may take some time; but make a plan and get out as soon as possible.

And if you’re thinking “but I love him”, you may want to ask yourself: why is it you feel like you can’t leave someone who doesn’t listen to you, lies, betrays your trust, and runs around behind your back? Since if he doesn’t care enough to cover up something as easy as getting numbers, who knows what else he is doing that you don’t know about.

And by the way: if you’re thinking “but he can change”, why would he? Right now he’s getting everything he wants and you just take it.

Take some time to focus on loving yourself first, and you’ll start to see that you deserve much better. If you are worried that you won’t be able to find a better man…cheating womanizers who don’t listen are pretty easy to come by.

What do you think she should do? Feel free to comment down below!

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B. Dave Walters
Writer, Life Coach, and Talk Radio Host

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