Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr. Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in three continents, he has been training with Dr. Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer:

Last January I wrote you a letter about “Peter” who was asking me to wait until he broke up with his current girlfriend until we could be together.

Last week I got this text from him:

“This week is the last day I will visit her. And in the day I drive back home on Sunday I will give this letter to her.  I am expecting all hell will break loose and I know she will ask a lot of questions. I will answer her honestly. No holds barred. I am ready.

After so many failed relationships, including the first one with you when I wasn’t fully committed, I have learned many lessons. Matanda na tayo (we are already old).  I just hope It is not too late to make up for the first one. Yes, I will be the one to take responsibility for our first break up and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Have faith in me, please… “

What do you think po?  Should I give him a chance? After I read your answer to my letter, and saw things through your eyes, I ended things with him.  But then he sent me this text and now I do not know what to do.  He seems to be moving towards ending his relationship with her.

Thank you for any guidance you can give me.

– ANA

Dear Ana,

This Peter seems to be a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde. On the one hand, he is carrying on with multiple women at the same time, promising to end relationships but always coming up with reasons not to do so definitively, yet on the other, he is offering commitment to an exclusive relationship.

You, Ana, of course know him well and are best placed to decide whether he has the necessary qualities for a relationship with you. However, you have already ended it with him once and now the decision rests on whether you truly believe he is capable of living up to the commitment he is proposing to make.

His track record is undoubtedly tainted and so caution is obviously desirable. After all, this declaration of his is pure drama, full of promises for the future rather than a demonstration of actual action. And it’s all about him with no mention of you or his view of your future together. It is reminiscent of the past: he is still keeping his options open while avoiding difficult conversations until he has no option.

So if and when he finally disentangles himself from his other relationship, think long and hard about how he has treated you to date, your breakup and how he has a history of managing multiple women simultaneously. You deserve to be someone’s first choice, not their backup.

All the best.

– JAFBaer

Dear ANA: 

Than you very much for this, your second letter about Peter.

You are right that he has shown movement in the right direction.  Instead of his first text saying “I am trying my best to come out with an appropriate solution”; in this current text, he has actually come up with a plan (tell her by letter which he will give personally) and  an actual deadline (“this” Sunday).

The simplest solution is just to wait. Peter unequivocally told you that on March 9,(today) he will give his current girlfriend the letter breaking up with her.  

If he still has not given her the letter then it is obvious that he is who Mr Baer described him to be and breaking up would be the best solution.  At least, the waiting and wondering will be over.  He will have proven a second time that he cannot keep his promises and thus isn’t worth it.

If, however, he does give her the letter, he will prove that, after the second try, he can be true to his word BUT that is still not the end of it! 

Giving the letter will mean breaking up with her if and only if he is insistent, since he has already telegraphed that she will not accept things calmly.

Others, like Mr Baer, lack the patience and the trust to give him yet another chance. They may be right…

At least, they will be “more right” than I am. I am willing to give him another chance to prove he will actually break up with her clearly and cleanly.  

This is not to say, however, that I am not exasperated with his inability to end things once he decided ending things was the best thing to do.  Why subject you to all this doubt, all his questions about if, why, or wherefore.  At the very least, it would be far more “gentlemanly” if he presented you with a fait accompli: “I’ve left her, we are now free to be together openly.”

Be that as it may, if you want to wait till the end of today to see what happens, who are we to say otherwise?  I only ask that you not consider his “final goodbye” as the end of this situation.  

I have no way of knowing, of course, if Peter is like some other men who have had so much professed guilt about breaking up with another woman to be with someone else, only to feel even guiltier and return to the ex to assuage said guilt.  

But perhaps that is something to consider.  Not necessarily to keep you from taking up with him, but just to remind yourself that hinay hinay lang (take it easy, don’t do things too quickly). This way, unlike Peter, the trajectory of your relationship with him will not be willy-nilly (unless he remains true to form in which case you can leave him) but firm and steadfast.  

Rooting for you no matter what your decision is.

– MG Holmes

– Rappler.com

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