Have I made wrong decisions?

Joannie wrote:
In the last year and a half, I've gone through quite a bit that I never would have thought I'd allow to occur in my life. I met this guy who I thought was great when we first talked.

In the beginning of the relationship we had a hard time getting along. He chose his friends and his drug use over me, and continued to do so for about two to three months, until he got arrested for an unpaid traffic ticket. During his time in jail, he was unable to pay the rent for his apartment, and was also unable to "rescue" his belongings while there. So, the nice person that I was, I offered to retrieve his things and place them into a storage unit until he got out.

I had never had to deal with any sort of situations like this. I was the type who would just move on the minute that any guy gave me any hassle. While he was in jail, we spoke quite often and got through a lot of the problems that we had. Once he got out, he moved in with a friend and started to straighten himself out. We saw each other more, and I never felt like I was placed in last position. I felt like I was actually a priority, and our relationship grew stronger.

After about three months, seven months into our relationship, we decided to get married. two and a half months after our marriage I became pregnant. I am now five months pregnant, and there are a load of issues that I've been dwelling over. Right now we live with his brother, and plan on moving out a month before the baby's due to be born.

Lately I've been feeling really lonely and like there isn't anybody who cares to hear me out. After I got married, I seemed to have lost a major part of my life, my friends. They don't ever come around, and they never talk to me anymore. I try to talk to them, but they always seem to be short with me and they never return my phone calls, or pages. the only people that I have is my husband and my family, which isn't all bad, but there is a place where being able to go to a friend is necessary.

I do blame my husband for my loss of friends, mainly because he starts fights with me to keep me home. he doesn't like it when I go out and if I do go out, he tells me that's there's no problems, until i get home, where we argue for two days and he takes me to the point of tears. he accuses me of cheating in these arguments and tells me that he thinks I was desperate before we met because in his opinion I'd do anything to get a guy into bed. Comments like that make me feel ugly and worthless, when I know deep down inside isn't true. It just hurts to hear those sort of words from someone that I love so much.

I don't know if this is a relationship that I should get out of, or if I'm just being overly emotional about everything because I'm pregnant and I get lonely while he's at work, and I'm home alone with nobody to talk to. I am quite young to be going through all this, and I should be looking at my future and what I'm planning on doing for a career, rather then raising a child and being a wife.

I am only 19 years old and I will be 20 when I have my baby. I know that if I was to leave, with the help of my family I can accomplish my goals in life. Then again, I know that if I was to stay I would be able to do the same, just with not as much ease. I don't know what I should do really, and I'm just looking for advice about what I should do, and if maybe all together, I made the wrong decisions. What do you think?

Dear Joannie,
Who knows if you made good or bad decsions? No-one knows what would (or would not) have happened if you'd decided different. So don't torture yourself on that. You have quite enough to think about with the future.

It's hard to help you, because I have a strong feeling that you really are quite lost. So I'm not even going to attempt to push you one way or another. I'm going to concentrate on helping you to see the issues. You need to think about all these things, then, hopefully, you'll get a clearer idea what you want. Then, if you need to, write me again ...

1. What is the attraction to your man? Is it because he's different? Is it just physical? Is he strong - or does he control you because he's scared? Has he changed since you met, or has your vision changed?

2. Friends! who needs 'em? All of us, that's who. Why are you losing them? Are you embarassed because of your man? Are they just 'too good' for you now? Is he driving them away, are you, or perhaps they weren't good friends. Why aren't you making new friends?

3. Family: Do you tell your family the truth, the whole truth? Have their feelings changed to you, or yours to them? If they help you (perhaps to leave him) will there be conditions?

4. Future: Do you really have a future with a man who (mentally) tortures you and devalues you? A man whom you blame for losing your friends? Will he let you develop a career?

5. The Baby is your future.

Know what you want, and do it.