Dear DoubleTake,
I have been dating 52-year-old man for 3 months.
We get along great. We spend every weekend together. However we are not spending Thanksgiving together. He told me that he promised to spend Thanksgiving with a friend. He will not give me details or who it is.
I am hurt and confused. He is spending the whole weekend in another city.
I have children up here and I am spending it with them.
Should I pursue this issue or let it drop?

BETTY SAYS:

Catch up with your kids over football and turkey and don't ruin your Thanksgiving by worrying about what your romantic interest is up to. Besides, your family will be hurt if they find out that you're preoccupied with his absence, rather than enjoying good times with them.

He's already made plans for the holiday and it would be rude of him to break his commitment.

It's easy to speculate that this friend is another woman he's dating. Unfortunately, if you keep pushing him for details about who he's seeing in the city, he may decide to stop seeing you instead.

If you want to keep dating him, let his Thanksgiving visit slide. But if it continues to bother you, tell him that you won't stand for evasiveness in relationships and dump him.

EDDIE SAYS:

When you're very young, expecting someone you are dating to be able to drop everything for you may be reasonable. As a fully grown adult, it's creepy. He has a life, plans and traditions outside of his relationship with you.

After just one-quarter of a year, he probably doesn't feel compelled to get your approval for his travel arrangements, whether he wants to see a friend who may be more, just a friend or his grandmother. And you should not expect to be in a position to give the final say.

Basically, it's none of your business. It sounds like he told you well in advance -- probably when you were asking if he wants you to make cranberry jelly or get it from a can -- so you could make your own plans.

The bigger picture: You think that he's your boyfriend and you're starting to build your life together. He thinks of you as a woman he is dating. Maybe some day your visions of where you stand will come together, but it sounds like they're pretty far apart right now.

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Do you need a second -- and third -- opinion about a problem in your life? Ask Double Take and you'll get two points of view: one from Eddie, a married family man in his early 30s, and one from Betty, a single woman in her 20s.

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