Dear Marie,

You seem to be giving up a fight which you have not even started yet. I know sometimes it feels safer to sacrifice what we feel than to be open about it and be rejected in the end. But, as the saying goes, it’s better to have loved and failed than not to have loved at all because we were afraid of what it could have brought us.

There are a lot of people who get into the “friendship with benefits” kind of relationship. They enjoy the benefits of having a boyfriend or girlfriend minus the commitment that would compulsorily bind them. This kind of arrangement could work fine for as long as the couples are focused on each other. But, the moment one deviates his or her attention to someone else, the imbalance tips the relationship off and puts the aggrieved party on the losing edge.

Any relationship entails some form of emotional investment. We just can’t give up someone without feeling some kind of a loss. Marie, you seem like you are giving up on Mark even when you haven’t really started seriously talking to him about your relationship. Intimacy is never a stable foundation for a relationship because real relationships are built on feelings and not only physical convenience. You may be enjoying the perks of having a boyfriend but you really haven’t been talking about your real role in Mark’s life.

This initiative should come from you, Marie. Be prepared for what he has to say. If he truly loves you then you have to do your best to keep him. If he loves you just because of what you can give him then you should be thinking more of learning to let him go. Marie, I have always believed in fighting for the people we love for as long as we can, and within the bounds of reason. If we win it then it means that we deserve it but if we lose it then it means it is not for us. We do not fail when we lose the love that we have fought for. We only fail when we lose the courage to try.