MARK!!!! Where are you?? I need your...

Avatar for myprecioustwo
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
MARK!!!! Where are you?? I need your...
134
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:46am

serious advice.

Not only because of the male perspective, but I met up with RF last night and OMG, I am seriously upset about the outcome.

You were totally right about how me saying what I said, made him think about if we did have problems and then he over analyzed the entire thing (darn, scorpion) and he turned it into such a snowball I was floored.

The main reason I need your advice is his soon to be X wife and your past marriage with your X wife. He talked to me about it last night and I felt like it was you talking. I wanted to cry because it seems his X has put some serious damage on him.

I guess from past conversations, she is a controlling person, but it seems that wasnt' the extent of it. RF told me that she would always make him feel bad and inadequate, no matter what he did. He told me that when I began to ask him last week if something was wrong, he felt bad and worried that I was disappointed, because he thought everything was great. However, he decided to shrug it off until I talked to him Monday night and questioned him about spending too much time together and that I didn't want him to think I was pressuring him to spend time with me, because he never asked me to spend time with him.

Anyway, obviously, he felt inadequate and bad that he disappointed me, which brought up past issues that his X made him feel. He suddenly started making me feel, that opening up and communicating with him, was going to always make him feel bad and inadequate. That wasn't my intention at all. I just wanted us to be on the same page.

He told me that he wants to be with me and with no one else. That he has strong feelings for me and would like to work on a long term relationship with me, but that we have to make it a healthy relationship and not one that is unhealthy. I told him that I can't live in the shadow of his soon to be X wife (they've been separated 18 months, divorce is final in November) and I cannot walk on egg shells, worrying if he is going to feel bad if I communicate my needs with him. I told him that I felt that it wouldn't be fair to me to feel like I have to watch my every move in fear of him breaking it off at some point, because I'm doing something that he feels reminds him of his X. UGH!

What did he do? He slowly got out his wallet, put money on the table and walked out. I followed him and he said, he can't believe I broke up with him and his head is spinning and he felt sick. That he was stunned that I broke up with him and that he can't talk to me anymore today. Then he got in his car and drove away, like a bat out of hell.

Now what do I do? I feel awful that he's going through these demons, but I am unsure if I can help him through this. I have my own demons of abandonement issues that I go through and last night I felt that if I didn't do exactly what he expected of me, that I would get the boot.

I need your wise advice, because I know you had some serious healing to do. Maybe a book that you suggest that I can give to him or something that I can say to him, to make him understand that his expectations of me, make me feel threatened as well.

WHAT A MESS!!!!!!!!




Edited 10/15/2008 9:48 am ET by myprecioustwo

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-30-2004
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:54am
Ishhhhhhhh!
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-23-2006
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:59am
OMG, I'm so sorry he did that to you! Is he in counseling? If not, then he should get himself into it ASAP. He needs it to deal with all this stuff. It sounds to me like he is not in a mentally stable place to deal with a serious relationship right now. Not until he deals with all this crap. What he did to you last night is really unacceptable. Walking out like that was just plain wrong and not a good way to deal with anything. Is that what he'll do every time the going gets rough? Huge hugs to you Cat!!
Avatar for myprecioustwo
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 10:01am

No Sh@#! Everything was going great! I tried to explain that when we met, he told me, that he is REALLY talkative and sometimes you can't get him to shut up. So that when I found out about all the things that were worrying him last week (see worry wart thread) that I assumed his extreme silence was a reflection of that or me.

Last night, he tells me that sometimes he can be extremely quiet and people have mentioned that. That he should have probably told me that, because then I wouldn't have jumped to conclusions. I told him that I can also be very talkative or very silent, so it doesn't bother me. However, when someone says they are very talkative and then I get silence for days, I assume something is upsetting them and then I worry.

Trying to be considerate and then landing in a pile of crap!

I told him last night that it seems that no matter what I do, it's always damned if I do, damned if I don't.

Avatar for myprecioustwo
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 10:05am
I don't know what to say! LOL. I'm so floored and shocked. It seems like such a small thing turned into an avalanche. And I kept thinking what you are saying now! Is he always going to do this? Will I never be able to communicate my feelings without feeling he is going to take it wrong or break up with me, because he feels like I'm making him feel bad? Like I told Mark: I told RF that he's making me feel like I would always have to walk on egg shells with him, because I might do "something" small and insignificant to me, but a huge issue to him, because it reminds him of his X. UGH
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-30-2004
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 10:15am
That's exactly it.
Avatar for mhash
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 10:23am

I've learned that the issue is rarely about me but it's the other person's baggage that affects the relationship. Our behavior can be interpreted in different ways depending on the baggage and filter.

This guy's baggage needs to be worked on (and not by you). That is why people need to divorce first and then live on their own for a year or so to heal, to know what it is like without a (usually bad/toxic) relationship, and work on themselves.

So it's not about you or anything you did but it's him.

This really seems like you need to let him go for he has told you explicitly how damaged he is and how can anyone who is emotionally healthy have a relationship with someone like that?

Take care,
Mark who is glad that he is not married to a controlling, angry woman anymore

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2007
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 10:54am

Not Mark here - lol - so I can't give you a male's perspective but will say ugghhh....what a mess!


No you do not deserve to walk on eggshells - totally not fair

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-14-2006
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 11:09am

You know I was actually thinking about you and RF this morning on my drive in to work.

Avatar for myprecioustwo
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 11:50am

I agree with everyone's posts, on a different level. So KUDOS to all!

Here is my thought process:

I see something very special in this man. I see he's been very hurt, but that he is a very good man. I feel that. Usually, I have a bad gut instinct and I will ignore it, but I never had one with him.

WE ALL, heal in different rates. It can be a year, two, eight or fifteen or never-(like my mom). I believe the difference helps, sometimes (only sometimes) with the person you are going into a new relationship with. When we enter, we all have our own issues and insecurities and then it all melts with the other persons insecurities and issues. Depending on what they are, it can either be fixed or it can't.

Assuming this isn't over with RF yet. I can either choose to get through this with him or I can choose to walk away.
If he comes back to talk to me, here are the options I can give him:
To seek counseling and heal from his past. To help him with hugs and support, but not be his crutch. To learn, understand and guide one another into a healthy relationship (that both of us want and need). To do that, we must learn that communication doesn't mean putting the blame on one another, but learning about each individuals wants, needs and fears. Working through those things and continue to focus on other activities and enjoying one another.

Like RF's X, Mark had a controlling and angry X wife. Those things take a lot of healing because it's mental abuse. It's RF's choice if he wants help or not to overcome this, but again, it would have to come from a professional (or this board! j/k), not from me alone.

Should RF want to try to work this out, he has to understand that I will not tolerate being compared to his past. I know this is hard, because I have done so in the past too, but I think he has to come to the terms that I am NOT his X wife. I am my own person, with my own personality and in a different body. That is where therapy is important.

OR:
I'm not the first person he dated. He's dated several. I'm just the first person he wants to be in a relationship with. I can choose to let him go, feeling I just threw in the towel and give up on someone that I feel is someone that I really strongly care about. If I throw in the towel now, because he has issues and needs my patience and understanding, then that means, I'm giving up on someone that for the first time in a long time I care about and that cares about me in a mutually strong way. He stated he wants a healthy relationship with me. It's obvious he wants this and his actions of walking out last night, were because he thought I gave up on him. Not understanding that I wasn't, but I think he just understood the words: I can't, I can't, I can't.
He was so in shock that didn't realize that my can'ts, meant: He should of countered my feelings by saying: I don't want you to do those things. I want you to be yourself. I don't want to compare you.

Instead, he walked out, because all he heard was: I can't.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I actually feel good inside, because I know for ONCE, this has nothing to do with me. LOL

I'm confident in myself that for the first time, I did everything as right as I possibly could and when that failed, I was not overreacting, not crying, not seeing the end of the world. All I did was remain calm, re-iterated my feelings of what I can and cannot do. Listened and empathized, but didn't allow to be clouded.

If he realizes that it's too much for him, then that is what it is. If he asks for my hand, because he cares to much to give up, then I too will give my hand to him and not give up on him. If I notice this continues to be a viscious cycle then I will have no choice but to leave. I will just have to learn to hold my heart back as things progress and make sure that we both remain on the same page with our wants and needs, without feeling attacked or hurt.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-07-2005
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 12:28pm

Ok, I actually had to laugh reading this post *sorry*.


OMG!!!


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