Coleen Nolan advises a reader whose partner keeps walking out on her and their toddler, and she wonders if he will ever grow up and commit
Dear Coleen
I’m a 28-year-old woman and I’m currently in an on/off relationship with the father of my three-year-old son. We were living together in a small rented flat but he moved back to his mum’s house.
It’s a difficult situation because I really love this man, but I know I can’t rely on him. He’s walked out several times over the years – once when I was eight months pregnant.
He can’t do commitment and every time we have a good, stable patch, I fool myself into thinking he’s changed, then he leaves again.
He can’t cope with responsibility or any level of stress, which there’s a lot of with a child. His way of dealing with a setback is to avoid it completely by leaving.
He always returns and convinces me things will be different and, I’m ashamed to say, I always have him back.
My family and my friends can’t stand him, though, so if I try to talk to them about the situation, they immediately get angry and start yelling at me to dump him.
His mum is no help because she likes having him at home! She should be advising him to grow up and sort his life out, but she honestly doesn’t care.
I don’t know what to do. He’s called asking to talk, which means he wants to come home, but how can I trust him?
Coleen says
You can’t trust him unless he faces up to whatever issues are driving this behaviour and gets help. He keeps letting you down and you take him back, so break that cycle and say no to him coming home.
It might help him get his act together but honestly, if you were my daughter, I’d probably be advising you to end the relationship too. It doesn’t mean he can’t have a good relationship with your son and be a big part of his life.
But it’s hard to walk away. It’s easy for your family to tell you to leave him because they don’t love him. But they love you and hate to see you and their grandson getting messed about.
It’s important to think about the reality of a lifetime spent dealing with a partner you don’t trust and you can’t rely on. You deserve much better.
Unless he proves to you through his actions that he’s capable of change, then it’s a mistake to welcome him back. You have to accept that you’ll never change him – he’s got to do that himself.
If you tell your family you need support, not recriminations, hopefully they’ll soften their approach and you’ll be able to have helpful conversations instead of yelling matches.
