Do I have a problem?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-21-2004
Do I have a problem?
2
Tue, 02-03-2004 - 10:34am
I'm very confused as to what I should do in my current relationship. I should start by saying that I'm going through a divorce and have been for almost a year. My soon-to-be-ex was a verbally, emotionally, and sometimes physically abusive person who ended up cheating on me. I'm 28 years old and back living with my parents until things are settled with the divorce. I've been dating a guy for about 8 months. He's someone that I knew from childhood and highschool and we kind of re-connected when I moved back with my parents. At first, I thought he was great. But now that things are moving along, I seem to have trust issues with him. He has a few female friends that he hangs out with.

One case in particular that really bothered me was last Friday. We were at his apartment watching a movie and a female friend called him. She is the sister of my boyfriend's best friend. She was going over to another mutual friends house and wanted to know if he'd be going over. When he got off the phone, he said he really wanted to go see her because he hadn't seen her in a while. I was tired anyway so I told him if he wanted to go, then go, I'd just go to sleep. He went. And even though I told him I didn't mind, I did. I still do.

It's almost like I'm waiting for him to screw up somehow. Last night, after my kickboxing class I drove by his apartment and his truck was gone. So I decided to drive by his best friend's house and see if his truck was there. I figured if it wasn't there, he was out with some other girl. So I was going to call him if his truck wasn't there and ask him where he was and if he told me he was at his best friend's house, I could catch him in a lie. Am I totally mental or what???? His truck was at his best friend's house so I just went home without calling him.

I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like breaking up with him because I have issues that I need to work on but I don't know how. I feel like just being alone a lot of the time. I avoid his phone calls sometimes or make excuses not to see him. It's like as soon as this relationship got too "real" I started backing away and I'm not sure why.

Somebody please help me understand what I'm doing...

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Tue, 02-03-2004 - 11:19am

It sounds like that is exactly what you need to do, you need to get your life in order before attempting to connect with someone on this level.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-02-2004
Wed, 02-04-2004 - 10:37pm
I understand where you're coming from and what I would suggest is like James suggested,to work on your own issues first. Go see a counselor and work on your trust issues. It would not be fair to your current boyfriend if you kept doing things like that, checking where he is all the time because he may not be doing anything wrong. Or have a talk with him. Tell him how you feel, what frustrates you and see what he says. Maybe next time you can go with him to his friend's house especially if the girl is there, and once you see that there's nothing going on with them, that they're just friends, perhaps that would make you feel better. I was in a similar situation where I got out of a bad relationship but in my other future relationships I did not trust my boyfriends at all because I thought all men are pigs and they'll all cheat on me, but they're not all that bad. You gotta give a relationship a try and how can you do that if you're constantly worrying about your boyfriend and if he's going to cheat on you? Relationship is like a house,you need to have foundation in order to build the rest of the house, right? Same goes for the relationships, you need to have trust as your foundation in order to build on that relationship. I hope it works out for you.