Dear Miss Emily:

Please help me. I have been having some problems. I will give the quick version of the story and would really appreciate anything you can tell me I am a 17 year old married mother.  I started dating my husband August 22, 2009. We were quite in love or so I thought. Our relationship has always just had commitment issues. He was a crazy flirt:/ and I acted the same. I cheated on him several times. Not sex. But close. I can't explain my actions other than saying I didn't love him -- but late January 2010, I stopped. Because I realized he meant a lot to me and I had made a mistake, or a few I guess. But anyway, I got pregnant and it was the scariest thing ever. 16 and pregnant after dating a guy for 9 months:/ crazy! Well he was already signed up for the Air Force so, unfortunately, the hard part was being without him. I waited for him. I loved him. I wanted him an my baby all together happy. Well, he wrote to me while in training,  and promised his love. Unfortunately, I found out later, after we got married at a courthouse that he had written to another girl -- the same girl that when he came back from tech school he dumped for "pregnant" me.  He had sex with several girls while not together and lied to me. I had our baby by myself. He treated me like shit, and barely saw our daughter. Well he ended up dumping his gf and we got back together. I just kept finding things out throughout our relationship. In tech school, while together, he had sex with another girl, signed up for many chatting sites, sexted with several girls and blah blah. Well after knowing all that I've stayed with him. I love him, we are married, and he tells me he's different. But I'm still afraid I will get hurt, again, andI can't. Just today, I read an email that he wrote to his dad saying how he wished someone else had his baby. He wrote it back when we werent together but it still hurts. Please just help me.

--------------------------Miss Emily's advice------------------------

You've learned a hard lesson about life. Choices often have dire consequences. Don't feel alone -- it happens to everyone. But in your case, it has lasting consequences. This baby wasn't planned. And when that happens, especially in the teen years, it's not easy to choose to alter your entire life around family. It wasn't long ago that you were a child yourself, and your husband, as well. Growing up is hard enough without the encumbrances of a huge commitment like marriage and family. I hope he has changed, but the jury is out. At this age, few want to be tied down and the temptation to be with other people and have experiences that don't include family, loom large. I think all you can do is take things a day at a time. You can hope he will be faithful, want to settle down for a life-time, but the odds of it are not good. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, and some of them start out free of the pressures that you and your husband have. I wish I could be more optimistic. However, if you find you want more than what he, ultimately, offers, you're going to have to make a hard choice. And that would be to stay, and put up with his "single" life behavior -- if that were to rear its ugly head, again, or leave him. Each of you deserves to have the type of relationship that has all the elements that can make it work long-term. The elements are trust, respect, common interests and values, open communication, and a commitment to form a lasting partnership. And if you don't have trust, you have nothing. And, please, never entertain the idea of getting pregnant until you are sure this relationship has a solid chance of staying together -- and he wants another child. Having one child as a single parent (were that to happen) is manageable -- two, extremely difficult. Use your head, pay lots of attention to your daughter, and make her a priority. She didn't ask to be born, and it's your obligation to make her life as easy as possible. Wise future choices will ensure that, with or without being married to this man.