Expert: Elise - 2/28/2010

Question
I really need somebody's advise and soon, I am in emotional rollercoaster.
I am with a guy for more than 4 years now. I am 23 and he is 26. About two years ago, I got pregnant by him, and we needed to make a big decision if we are keeping the baby or not. We both were always against abortions (nothing religious, just the way we are) and with consulting with both of our parents we decided to keep the baby. Now we both financially depend on our parents, he just started to work as an accountant, has huge debts and he helps to pay off the mortgage to his parents. The idea was that we would live together at his parents house, but when I gave birth me and his parents did not get along and I moved back to my parents home. My mom helps me with baby sitting when I am in school and she is 100% supportive of me. me and my partner we still together and he is very involved in baby's life (he is a good father and loves her)  but I can not call us a family since we don’t live together, it causes lots of problems in our relationship.
Anyways... even before the pregnancy we had our problems and broke up three time (but not for too long, for a few days). As soon as I gave birth our problems just got bigger. he puts me down because I gained weight, I don’t eat right (while other people tell me that he is crazy and that I am very skinny- i am 5'3 and weight 135lb which is ok).he always finds some reason to teach me things and criticize me and I stopped feeling like a woman with him but like a child. he also complains that i dont give him sex, but that’s because I am tired, we  don’t live together and I am so mad at him sometimes that i don’t feel like it. We talked about braking up a few times, but realized that with our baby it would be very complicated- I mean how our baby's life would look like after the brake up, how often would she see him, his parents and so on. So we did the easiest choice by not braking up, and work on our relationship even though we both admitted that we are not happy with each other. Big reason for it is because we don’t live together.
two weeks ago i met a guy that have not seen in 4 years. he knows everything about me. He looks very attractive. He gave me tons of compliments- something that I have not heard I in a while, and he just made feel like a whole woman again. I found my self craving for him to call me or text message and so on. The last time we met he told me that he feels very attracted to me, and he feels the same from me, he knows my situation and does not want to put pressure on me, but he wants to keep seeing me. We kissed, many times and I felt like I am in a high school again, it brought so much emotions to me: good and bad, as if I am committing a crime. I like seeing this guy, but I can not keep having double life. I hate lying to my partner, I hate cheaters, always judged cheaters and now I became a cheater. But I am not happy with my life, and this guy pulls me out of my  reality. I knew that me and my partner would brake up one day but did not know when...
The worst part is that my partner feels that something is wrong, he told me that I act differently  and he treats me nicer now, when I am giving him the cold shoulder.
I really don’t know what to do. I want my baby always to have a daddy and be happy as much as possible, but I am not happy. and its not like if I brake up from my partner I go to this guy, no. I don’t expect anything from this guy. I just feel good with him for now. I know that my parents would be behind me with whatever i'll do but I am wondering how it would affect my baby's life. I am terrified about it. If not the bay would probably be out of my relationship yesterday, as sad as it sounds.
I don’t know what to do.... HELP!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for being that long....

Answer
America is very pro-family... Hell the whole world is very pro-family. But there comes a point when we have to look at our history and judge it for what is instead of what should be.
What "is" is our entire generation grew up in either a broken home or watching our parents fight constantly... and we are both equally screwed up because of it. Generally speaking the only people I see that didn't come out with major issues are the ones with parents who stayed together and loved each other the whole time.  The key word there is not stayed - but loved. The others I see that are fine are the ones who had a positive male figure that the mother did not have tension with like her father, a brother or a good friend... that or a completely absent male figure.
In all hoestly, the 3 most normal people I know just so happend to be raised by their fathers with no mother... Perphas it's just them. But their fathers are very mellow.

By that observation it would seem the only ones who are not screwed in the head are the ones who did not witness fighiting thier whole life. In essence they learned to love, and learned to be happy from happy loving people. Which is completely contrary to what most of america is doing by saying - "grow to be happy - I am sufforing in this relationship for your betterment"

My sister once asked me this very quesiton - go for the man I love or stay with the father. I asked her if she would want my niece to be able to follow her heart when she is older, to which she of course said yes emphatically. I then asked her how my niece is ever going to learn to follow her heart if my shed did not.

Now with this new guy... do not have high expectations. Many people will chase what they can't have because it is better than being rejected or under the pressure of what they can. You may find that once he has you he may fizzle and dissapear again. HE MAY NOT! Just please when walking into this keep in mind that he is also a great excuse to free yourself from your current situation and hopefully will get your mind off of it long enough to break the spell. Mentally - he is still doing you a great favor... because deep down I do not believe (just by the way you are wording things) that he is so apealing to you so much as getting away from your current mate is.

As for your current mate. Of course he is being nicer now, they always get nicer when they feel you slipping. And to be honest, he will always be around to some extent and as long as you keep things nice than you always have a chance at more with him again... which may be better for the two of you once you've experience more of life.