Reader: “My boyfriend says that I don’t trust him. When I am not around he gives his cell-phone number to women without telling me that he has made a new friend. I find this out when I see messages on his phone. It upsets me when he can’t talk to me but can do so with a stranger and flirt with them. We are about to start our own home and family. I think he is afraid to commit to me. When he was an infant his parents gave him to relatives to raise and they kept their other two kids. He did not find out about this until he was older. He has resentment towards his mother. Maybe he feels that if his own parents can give him up, that I may do the same to him? I love him, so very much and I want to help him. Please help.” (Letter edited)

Rod: Analyzing his adolescent behavior will send you on a never-ending wild-goose chase that will have you justifying your pain, and excusing his irresponsibility, for many years. Don’t do it. Take a break. Give yourself time to see the gravity of what you want to enter, with a man, who is yet behaving as a young boy.