Just getting back your confidence!

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-02-2006
Just getting back your confidence!
3
Thu, 05-31-2007 - 3:10pm

Hello -

Either I am venting or just looking for advice. But the main thing is trying to understand who I should be and what I should expect in my second marriage.

I've been divorced for nearly 6 years now! I am in a new relationship (of 3 years) and engaged to another man. He is wonderfully thoughtful and loving.

But I feel like I still carry so much baggage from this divorce. Particularly in two areas...

1) My ex-husband had a long-term affair starting 3 years into our marriage, which just never got it resolved even though I tried to talk with him about what had happened between us that led up to it.

To this day, I still am completely sensitive and actually distrustful of other women...and I have a partner who likes female attention himself. I finally asked him to quash his ongoing friendship with an ex-girlfriend because she called for him constantly, and finally wrote a postcard from her travels saying she "missed him." Also, my fiance lets me use his computer. The idiot left his Yahoo messenger open with his fantasy chat with women online. I'm very liberal with online porn (just because I think men will do it anyway), but I draw the line at chatting and fantasizing about seeing someone. That's just plain disrespectful to me, I think. And my fiance would not want me to do that to him.

2) Secondly, my ex-husband was very critical and impatient. For example, if I was fixing something and he happened to be watching, he would grab it out of my hand and say "What's wrong with you! Let me just do it, you are so slow!" My current fiance tends to have the same kind of impatience. If it's not perfect, he jokes about my abilities to be lighthearted and tries to accomplish things for me. I don't want to sound like I have no confidence, but it just bothers me.

For both of the above issues, I always let my fiance know immediately if something is upsetting to me. My current fiance can be arrogant, so I just try to take him with a grain of salt. But, I feel like it's hard for me to get over being upset! I carry my grudges for days!

Is it me not getting over the past? My heart feels a mixture of just wanting to make a man happy...and feeling like men do such annoying things.

I just want to be happy and patient with people. I feel like it's a battle!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Fri, 06-01-2007 - 10:28am

Well... for me, finding that confidence in other people meant that I had to learn to be confident with myself... trust myself.... and learn that it's OK to have a voice, an opinion and that saying how I really feel (even if it's not what the other person wants to hear).


I read a couple of books that really helped me...
In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and the Love You Want --Iyanla Vanzant
Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out --Phillip C. McGraw


These are also great books...
Relationship Rescue --Phillip C. McGraw -- that spends several chapters talking about your relationship with yourself
The 7 Best Things (Happy) Couples Do --John C. Friel, Linda D. Friel


Maybe those will help :-)


Karen ~ wildlucky4me


Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-01-2007
Fri, 06-01-2007 - 2:50pm
I found that I often answer my own questions but don't listen to myself. I am gathering that you found another relationship like your first one from what and how you say it. I believe in intuition 100%!
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2006
Fri, 06-01-2007 - 3:24pm

Mohala

i am not a therapist by any means, however, it sounds to me, an outsider, that you are attracted to a certain type of man.

consider me:

i raised by an alcoholic, married an alcoholic, had an affair with an alcoholic.

all three men, controlling, drunk, incapable of showing love, and NOT GOOD for me.

as you move forward toward your upcoming marriage, maybe you should seek help from a counselor/therapist. before you make the leap again into marriage, you should be 100% sure that this person is the right match for you, not just a substitute for the xh you left behind.

you deserve to be happy, not codependent.

what

what