Setting myself up for more heartache???

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-07-2004
Setting myself up for more heartache???
5
Fri, 05-07-2004 - 1:07pm
Hello Everyone,

Please bare with me as this is my first time posting on a message board like this one. I've lurked here for quite a while and you guys give great advice and insight so I was wondering if you all could provide some for me. Here goes:

I'm 28 years old. I ended a pretty bad relationship with my exbf of 2 years less than 6 months ago. I truely loved this man and gave everything I had to him emmotionally,physically etc. the entire time we were together.In return he cheated on me and lied to me constantly. Our relationship was very off and on the entire 2 years. When he wasn't lying to me and cheating on me he was telling me that he wanted me in his life but had no intention to have a future with me. Then another day he would say that it was possible that we might one day look toward a future together. It was all very confusing and extremely painful for me. He was very emmotionally and verbally abusive to me as well and often accused me of doing all the things he had done to me to him. He got me to a point where I was no longer myself and in fact didn't know who I was. I started questioning whether I was a good person or not and began to think that maybe I deserved to be treated that way by him. By the time things were said and done between he and I I pretty much felt defeated although relieved that I was away from him. I missed him terribly within the first month of breaking up and felt very lonely but still relieved. I knew/know it was 100% the right thing to do. The problem was that in my mind I felt like all the things he said to me and the way he constantly made me feel like I wasn't good enough no matter what I did was probably true. I felt like as Smart, successful and handsome etc. as he was I should have been glad that he was even with me despite how bad he was treating me. It led me to believe that I would be alone for a very long time because no decent man would ever be interested in me.

Well, about a month after the breakup I went out of town with one of my best friends. We decided that we both needed a little weekend getaway and we went to a big city in the mid west(we're from the tri-state area). While away we decided to attend a professional sporting event that neither of us had even been interested in before. However we just thought it would be a blast to go since it was being held so close to where we were staying. We ended up having a great time and at the end of the event we got to meet some of the top atheletes in that sport. One in particular was very nice and I found him to be extremely attractive. He showed interest in me as well and before we left the event we were stopped by some promoters of the event who said that a couple of the atheletes wanted to have dinner with us.My friend and I were so shocked and pleased too. She has a bf already and would never do anything to jeapardize their relationship but she thought this was just what I needed and ofcourse I couldn't go alone. So we accepted the offer and went back to our hotel to change and wait for the car to pick us up. We had a wonderful dinner with the guys and they were perfect gentlemen. The one that I had been interested in and he with me talked to me the entire not and paid me so much attention. We discovered that we had a lot in common for instance our birthdays our on the same exact day.We exchanged email addresses as well as phone numbers. After I returned home he and I kept in touch.We'll just call him 21. He resides in the deep south which is where he recently purchased his home. He travels a lot for work obviously and we've seen eachother several times since that day.Things are going really well between us. I'm happy about where we are and for the first time in ages I'm feeling like my strong and healthy self again. THe insecurity that I had with my ex is just not there with him and neither is the paranoia. He's very good and kind to me and makes me feel like I'm his equal.His patience is amazing to me. He seems to adore me but I can't help but to be a little afraid. I have this fear that he will wake up one day and turn into my ex. I've expressed my issues with him and he's expressed his with me ad we said that both want to see this work and we are both willing to do what it takes to help eachother and to have a good and honest relationship.I don't feel anything wrong about us at all. Are our expectations realistic. Can this man really love me after knowing eachother 5 months and dating exclusively for 3 months? Should I be worried because he's an athelete although he's done nothing that I know of to make me question him? Or is it possible that subconsciously I sought him out because of my insecurity and lack of self esteem for him to eventually hurt me as bad as if not more than my exbf did and continue this pattern of mine? I have read about this kind of thing. Is this an extension of this pattern or could it have been broken? I want to be optimistic because he wants me to move to where he is so that we can be together but I'm so scared that he'll get used to me and get bored once he's able to see and be with me all the time. Please help me. I don't want to ruin something beautiful and discourage probably the first man to truely love me for me and want to go the distance with me because of my fears and insecurities. Are there steps I can take now? Should I be asking him any specific questions? I think we've talked about every possible scenerio in the book.I just don't know what to do. I want to be with him and I'm really happy which I didn't think would be possible but am I setting myself up for more heartache???

Thanks,

Tru

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2003
Fri, 05-07-2004 - 1:55pm
Regardless of whether this new guy is a perfect gentleman or an axe murderer, whether you berak up tomorrow or marry him, you have to deal with your issues. Have you really delved into why you were attracted to someone who treated you so poorly? Why you have such low self-esteem? Where you learned it was o.k. to be abused by someone?

A man made you feel horrible about yourself and now a man is making you feel better about yourself. You have to find a way to do that for yourself, to know that you deserve to be treated well by all people and to be comfortable being single.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2003
Fri, 05-07-2004 - 2:14pm
Did you know that you only have to hear a negative thing 7 times and you believe it? It's true with self-esteem as well.

I get that you haven't really healed from the previous relationship - meaning your self-esteem wasn't back to where you would want it to be. That means you haven't dealt with self-worth issues. Overcoming abuse takes time and usually therapy.

You've identified your issues - self-esteem, abuse, insecurity - it's time to do something about them. Disbelief that he's speaking the truth and/or will turn into your ex...

The fastest way through all this is through therapy. The time and effort you invest in yourself will be well worth it.

My best to you.


Carrie

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2003
Fri, 05-07-2004 - 2:21pm
hi true...

Its pretty evident that you went through some emotional abuse, so many of the things that you stated and worried over about yourself are typical, and unfortunately, they can stay for a LONG LONG time. Im so very proud of you for being able to find the strength within yourself to leave the former situation. Dont sell that short in the slightest. YOU PROVED THAT YOU WERE SMART, WOMAN! Look at what you did!!! :) That is so great and Im impressed that you didnt let him keep going. You would be amazed how many women get into the trap that he set for you and marry the men that abuse them. (...raising hand)

I want you to see what it is that you did. You noticed what he was doing to you, you heard all that abuse that he put into your head of "you're second rate and will get no one else to look at you but I will because I feel sorry for you" and you said NO, I dont believe you, Im not taking it, I dont want this life, and no matter how much it hurts, Im gone! Though his words got to you, he didnt dominate you. People dont realize just how strong you have to be to leave.

Over his words, you've already seen that everything that he told you is a lie, isnt it? This new man, handsome and sweet as he is thinks you are a great woman, evidently finds you highly attractive, worth his efforts, his heart and his dreams.... so you want to think him wrong after listening to someone who couldnt feel like a man without belittling your existence? No, honey. Dont let him keep the power over you. You know he was wrong on alot, tell him that he's wrong on it all.

He had you pretty conditioned already, the thoughts that you'd be alone, the horrible self-esteem he handed you, etc, and yet you left. Now comes the harder part, which is trusting again. God, its very very hard.

I went through alot of that too, and like you, I left and though its been ten years there are residual things that stay. The self-esteem is the worst of it. I had gotten so bad that i wouldnt look a man in the eye if he talked to me. My eyes still wander all around when I talk, lol, but not to my new husband. This man calls me one of the smartest people he's ever met, and he's not stupid, so I think thats so sweet, he tells me Im beautiful, (which Im not but evidently Im not going to cure his dementia or fix his glasses prescription, lmao) that Im a good mother, that Im a good woman, that Im worth knowing. But its still covered with the haze of my ex husbands words.

That is the hardest thing to accept, I guess. If you are so great, and such a great person as the new one says, then you think "Then WHY did this happen to me?" My reason that it happened to me is because I let it happen. I cant say about you, but that was mine. I had plenty of times that I could have left, knew that I should, and didnt. Because I luuuuuuuuved him. (makes me sick now, lmao) For my situation, staying = accepting and because of that, I took much more than my brain told me that I should. I was still in the mindset of "Yeah, I know its wrong, yeah its bad for me, yeah its horrible sometimes, BUT I WANT IT" - teenager mentality. Id had no experience with this type of thing before, this bad. My parents are still together, still honeymooners lol, and were always wonderful, so what did I get myself into. I was very ill-equipped to handle it.

For me, I would date a little after my marriage and the first one (through my own fault again, I hadnt learned) I got with the same man in a different body, but he didnt get in as far because I HAD learned a little. I never married him, and I took a WHOLE lot less. Id learned a little about my boundaries. The three or four guys afterward solidified them and I stuck to them. So, I got to the point of "Yes I might not be great, but Id rather be alone than to let you do that."So, some of...alot of ...my self-respect came back.

But then came my husband six years later, and for once, everything fit. When he used to tell me that I was pretty or smart or a good person, all I felt was 'does not compute'. But more so than telling me, he showed me, and in time I came out to trust. Now Id trust him with my life.

The thing is that this relationship might not be the one that you settle for, but he does seem to care for you, love you, and find you worth it. That in itself should make it easier for you to realize that you arent some horrible thing. Someone finds you loveable and a good person. Even if it doesnt work out, at least you know that you can be those things to some people, and i'd wager more than just a few.

If you want to, you might try therapy to work through some of this. I know its hard. My mother tried to get me to go but I wouldnt and Ill never know if it might have helped. Im an ocean better than before, but there is still that residue. I just am able to turn away from it easier now.

Have you told him about your past and that you suffer from low self-esteem because of it? I actually told my husband (then bf) when we started dating what I had been through and what I would not, in any situation, tolerate. He hasnt broken those.

I wish you luck hon.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-07-2004
Fri, 05-07-2004 - 3:35pm
Thank you guys so much for your replies!

Just to let you know, I've been in therapy for about a year now. I can honestly say that my therapy is a big part of what helped me to get away from my exbf. It was so very hard to do because I really did love him. In the end I was just so miserable with him and I saw no change in sight. It's strange because he never came out and said "You're nothing" or "You're stupid and no one else will ever want you".He would instead talk to me as if I meant nothing. If I told him that I needed something from him(emmotionally) he told me that I complained too much and wanted too much. I invited him to every family function there was and always invited him out with my friends but he always made excuses about why I couldn't come to holidays and family events with him. He hid everything from me. If I confronted him about something he was doing he completely turned things around and by the end of the conversation I was defending myself about things that I didn't even do. I was a basket case with him. If I said the slightest thing he told me that it made no sense and that I made no sense. If I made a comment or gave my opinion about something he would say things like "Where's your degree?I didn't think so!"

Slowly I'm overcoming all of this but I know it's going to take a lot more time and therapy. I've talked to current bf about my fears and issues and how I was treated in the past and he can't believe it. Mostly he can't believe that I was with the guy for as long as I was. He said that he wants me to be whole no matter if we end up together forever or if for some reason we decide that we're not meant to be(which he says he doubts). He just gives freely to me. I never thought I could be with someone that gives as much in a relationship(if not more) as I do.

Randa thank you so much for acknowleding my leaving the ex. I sure didn't feel so smart at the time. I was soooo unsure of myself and my decision. My biggest fear(although it shouldn't have been) was that I would leave him and he would immediately start dating someone else and he would treat her really well and be good to her. He would then marry her. I was so afraid because I thought that if that happened which I just knew it would that would mean that everything he said about me was true and that I really wasn't good enough for him and he met someone better and more of a woman than I could ever be. I know it may sound really stupid to all of you but that was what I thought at the time. I now realize that no matter what his life is like and who he decides to be with it has nothing to do with me and who I am and it never will. I also realize that he will treat anyone that way who actually puts up with it. I'm so happy to have met my bf but mostly I feel good about MYSELF.Someone mentioned that I should be happy with myself whether or not I stay with current bf and this is true. I do know that I would be very sad and hurt if things didn't work out. At the same time I know for a fact that if it doesn't work out it won't be because he doesn't think I'm "Good enough" or smart enough or anything like that. He never misses an opp. to tell me how wonderful Iam and special and how blessed he is to have me in his life and I'm really starting to believe these things. I really want to stop thinking negative thoughts and I'm working so hard. I want to go as far as possible with this guy but I also want my love for myself to reach new hights. Thanks so much for your words everyone!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-06-2003
Sat, 05-08-2004 - 9:46am
Have been where you were and where you are. I separated from an abusive H in Jan 2002 after 12 years of steadily worsening tactics like you describe here. Yes, it takes enormous courage, in the midst of the metaphoric foot on your neck, to say, "I'm not going to take this anymore!" Congratulations. Counselling definately helps especially if your counsellor has specific training in the dynamics of abuse.

I have a wonderful bf now who knows some of what I went through. He is not an abuser. I had a real hard time trusting him though and any off handed or questionable comment by him would have me putting up the wall and kicking into "I will survive you" mode. Not condusive to a healthy relationship at all but, something that took a long time to get over.

There's a board here at ivillage that's called 'Recognizing and dealing with Domestic abuse' and on the board's home page you'll find info on the profile of an abuser and warning signs to look for. I have to say that by far the best resource I've found for learning how to spot an abuser is a book by Lundy Bancroft called; "Why does he do that?, Inside the minds of angry and controlling men."

I would caution you that 3 months of exculusivity seems a bit soon for contemplating moving to where he lives. Not to scare you but that is one of the hallmarks of abusers, they move extremely fast in relationships. They get you to the 'depend on me only'(therefore I'm in control) point as quickly as possible.

Good luck and keep looking up^, Susan.