Reunited with crush, but I have no intention of marrying a single mother

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:47 JST, January 21, 2022

Dear Troubleshooter:

I’m a male university student in my 20s, and about a month ago, I reunited with the woman I had a crush on in junior high. She is a single mother of a 1-year-old boy.

At first, only the two of us would meet. After a bit, she started bringing her son and it would be the three of us, and I think her son is starting to like me. However, I don’t plan to marry a single mother, and recently, I’m finding it annoying to hang out with her.

My friends tell me I’m being too nice, or that I’m actually being pretty terrible since I don’t plan to marry her. I’m aware that I can be too nice. Even though I’m unsure about the whole situation, I can’t say no to her and end up meeting up with her and her son.

I like spending time with her. I think if she didn’t have a kid, I would have told her what I was thinking and maybe we would have thought about getting married.

How should I view our relationship moving forward?

—S, Chiba Prefecture

Dear Mr. S:

Once you find hanging out with her to be “annoying,” your relationship is on the verge of being over. You write that you’re “too nice,” but from what I can gather, you seem to be an incredibly cold person. You don’t seem to have any intention of treating the single mother or her son with any sort of kindness or sincerity.

Maybe you want to end your relationship with them as soon as possible, and that’s why you wrote a letter asking a question with a predictable answer. If that’s the case, then I want you to read the rest of this column with her.

This man completely lacks the capacity and the determination to take on the responsibility of caring for a mother and her son. In other words, he’s just a boy over 20. If he meets someone new, he will quickly leave you.

It’s only been a month since you two reunited. His feelings toward your son might change in the future, but that will take time. It’s also possible that his feeling of annoyance will only grow.

Take a step back and really think about whether you two actually need each other right now. Don’t take your son with you when you speak to each other honestly. But both parties should keep his unquestioning smile in mind at all times.

—Shinji Ishii, writer