Keeps saying he is leaving
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Keeps saying he is leaving
| Tue, 08-31-2004 - 11:34am |
My live in boyfriend and I just moved to a new state. Ever since we have left, we have argued quite a bit. That doesnt both me the most though. Argueing is natural and sometimes good for a relationship. What bothers me is every time we do argue he says he is going to leave me. Is this something I should be concerned about, well i am concerned obviously but is it something that is embedded into a person throughout their life? To just run from their problems? What should i do about this? I love this man and after his divorce is final we plan on getting married. We have been together almost a year this month. I cant live with the fact that at any given moment he can just up and take off on me and my daughter (she is 14). I moved with him, far away from where I was and away from my two oldest sons to be with him. I would think that would show him just how much in love i am with him. What should I do? Some say counceling. Any opinions on why he does this all the time????? HELP!

He does it to:
1) scare you
2) get control of the situation and over you
3) because he doesn't know how to properly deal with conflict
He could 1 day leave for good, or for 1 week, or for 1 day. Who knows? You should get into couples counseling immediately because this is very unhealthy for your daughter to be in the middle of. It obviously makes you feel unstable in the relationship. You can imagine how she feels inside. And whether or not you think she knows - believe me, kids know!
By the way, his poor skills have absolutely nothing to do with how much you love him, so I would not waste anymore of your time on wondering why he doesn't handle the situation better after you have 'proven' your love to him. Unless he develops (through counseling) healthier conflict resolution skills to replace the poor ones he has, he is going to keep doing it and doing it until either he really does leave or until you get fed up and tell him to get out. My ex-husband was (and still is) a great guy, but he use to tell me whenever we had an argument that if things didn't change he was just going to leave. I would tell him that 1 day he was going to say that once too many times and that I was going to tell him to go. That day came and I stopped what I was doing (ironing) and calmly said 'well then, you are gone'. And that was that. I just didn't care anymore. Luckily there were no children involved.
Oh, and arguing all the time is NOT natural. Every couple does have arguments and it is a healthy way to get issues out before resentment sets in, but a couple should not be arguing constantly. If they are and they don’t deal with it, it will eventually suck out the love. A move can put tremendous strain on a couple and lead to a season of arguments, but I imagine that his way of handling things (threatening to leave) has been there prior to this move. It would have been better if you had dealt with this before the move and not made such a drastic change in your daughter’s life prior to making absolutely sure that this was a strong, healthy relationship that could survive, but you have to deal with the choices you have already made. If you want to improve the situation, I strongly recommend that you get both of you into counseling since this is currently not a healthy environment for your child – or you! Counseling is probably the only thing that has a chance to save your relationship.
After I posted this I read another reply from you on this thread that you were in an abusive marriage prior to this one. Based on that, I VERY STRONGLY recommend that you immediately get yourself into personal counseling in addition to the 2 of you doing couples counseling. You need to see what your motivations are for the decisions you make or you are likely to repeat them in 1 fasion or another. I wish you the best.
Edited 8/31/2004 1:45 pm ET ET by jschaedler
Carrie
God I feel sorry for these kids.
TY again.
I like that! I am going to try that line....because it does feel like that. Thanks
uncalled for remark!