Dear Sasha,
I’m 21 and have been dating one of my brother’s friends/co-workers (J) for the past seven months. He’s 29 and my brother’s the one who actually introduced us. He invited him to my birthday party, and we just clicked. We’ve decided not to tell my brother until we got serious. To me we’re serious, but I don’t know about him. We haven’t had an official talk about us, but I’d say he feels the same too.
But anyway, my brother caught me talking to J on the phone, and when he asked, I just told him, cause truthfully I was getting tired of feeling like I was doing something wrong. I didn’t set out to fall for his friend to hurt him. He then asked me if I thought J was the one, and when I said I don’t know, but I really like him, he asked me to break up with J because me fooling around with someone he works with was the last thing he needed right now… our talk escalated fast, and we both said mean things to each other.
Now, J wants us to take a step back until things cool down a bit because my brother’s being a dick to him at work… I really, really care about him Sasha. We’re not just fooling around, and I know he cares about me too. So, I guess my question is, do you have any advice for me on how to fix my situation? I love my brother, but after what he’s done, but I feel like by acting the way he is, he’s completely disrespecting me.
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You ready for a dose of devil’s advocate? So you know those emotions you have right now – the feeling of frustration and disrespect, well, heads up, your bro is feeling the exact same way. He’s frustrated that you’ve been hiding this from him and he feels disrespected that you would jeopardize his career for this relationship. Now who’s right and who’s wrong?
Well M, I have your back on this one because from what you’ve told me this relationship seems on the up and up. It’s not like you're taking this J character on a joy ride just for the hell of it, and it’s not like you’re flaunting the relationship around his work place; so in all honesty I have no idea why your brother is being so sensitive.
But M, if you want to smooth things over then it’s time to have a chill conversation with your brother. You need to let him know that you will always have his best interests at heart and the last thing you want to do is screw anything up for him. He needs to understand that you kept things on the down low, precisely because you didn't want your relationship with J interfere with his career. Now what you didn’t communicate properly last time was how much you actually like J. So this time around hammer home the point that things between you two are indeed serious and that you’ve never been so happy. M, what I’m asking you to do here is turn on the little sister act and guilt the crap out of him. It should work in your favor.
Thanks for writing in and keep me posted on how all of this pans out! xx Keep your questions coming to [email protected]
