MY GIRLFRIEND LOVES ME BUT ISN'T 'IN LOVE'

by MIKE
(ROCKAWAY,N.Y.)

my girlfriend and i have been together for a year. we met 4 years ago. she came into my shop. i'm a tattoo artist,47. she is 31.

we first met when i tattooed her 4 years ago. we were both with other people. she came into the shop a few times over the 3 years before we got together to say hi and drop off a holiday gift or to just say hi.

well, a couple weeks before we hooked up she called to make an appt. for a new tattoo. it just so happened that the morning of the day she came in for that appt. my girlfriend of 3 years broke up with me.

well i guess it looked like i was a little off while we were doing the new tattoo so i told her what happened. she immediately let it be known that she was interested and we have been together since.

i had always thought she was very beautiful and sweet so i fell in love with her. i would always give her roses which were the first tattoo i had done on her.(she told me that over the 3 years since i had done those roses everytime she would look at herself in the mirror it would remind her of me) she fell in love with me too and after a few months together alot i took her to the virgin islands for a couple weeks and gave her a diamond ring.

she was so in love with me and said she wanted to marry me. there are many circumstances of her upbringing and family that are influential to her and it is very hard. i love her very much and would do anything for her.

right now she has given me back the ring but tells me she loves me very much,but is not 'in love'. her father is a preacher and her mother an old fashioned person. they are divorced. i have never met them. i have only met her sister.

we don't have the holidays together but we speak everyday and she spends every weekend with me. i love her and really want to have her be my happiness and my forever. what should i do?

i have been married before, many years ago. she has never been married and is scared. how can i make this work?