Just need to get this out there- Long
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| Thu, 11-03-2005 - 6:10pm |
Hello all. I don't really share a lot of my problems with my friends (about my boyfriend anyways) but I feel like the situation has gotten a little out of hand so I wanted some impartial opinions.
Anyhow, I had been with my boyfriend for 4 years (1 on them living together) when I decided that he was a major mamma's boy and really needed to live by himself in order to gain some self-sufficiency. So we moved out/took a break etc.
We remained close (basically like before) until he met someone. I was OK with this because he hasn't had a lot of dating experience and we weren't technically together. Well he dated her for a bit and became completely distant from me. Not calling me, not wanting to see me etc. He told me he didn't love me anymore and really wanted to focus on building a relationship with her. This was pretty devastating for me and I basically fell apart. School and work were hard for me and I was severely depressed. Eventually he ended things with her, told me he always did love me and promised he would show me how stupid he was and how much I meant to him. We got back together, moved back in and went back to how things were.
The problem is that I cannot get over what happened between us for that 1-2 months. It really hurt me to hear him say things like that. I just don't know what to do about it. Every time we have a disagreement I throw it in his face (terrible I know!). I always feel as if he should show me how much he loves me, and work hard to make me feel secure. But he doesn't, he just acts like it never happened.
I know to him it was not as a big of a deal as it was to me. I mean he dated someone new, got to sleep with her, got me out of the picture for a while and then got to go back to him long term relationship. The best of both worlds.
To me, while I dated people causually during that time I didn't sleep with anyone else, I never told him I didn't love him, or totally reject him or anything like that. I still think about this period of time every single day of my life and its been a year. I just don't know what the problem is.
Its not that he treats me badly, he doesn't treat me worse then he did before. I just still feel so much anger towards him about this its like it just happened yesterday. In many aspects our relationship is great, but this is truly a sticking point.
I am committed to make my relationship work. I just need help addressing this issue. When I bring it up he sighs and rolls his eyes because its been brought up so many times. But no conversation has helped me deal with this at all. I don't know what I need to hear or what I need from him to get over this. I wonder if I ever will. It definetly prevents the level of intimacy and closeness that I want from then relationship.
Does anyone have any ideas for me. How can we work through this? I want to work on this together, I just don't know how to productively approach this.
Thanks :)

To be honest, I'm wondering if your relationship is truly meant to be. You said that you always raise this issue when you have a fight. And that you've raised it so many times that he just rolls his eyes now. So, just how often do you fight? And what type of things do you fight about?
That aside, I can understand why you were hurt by him but it's not really a logical feeling, is it. You broke off the relationship and he moved on. It's quite normal to stop frequent contact with an ex when you've met someone else.
I'm also wondering what prompted him to tell you that he didn't love you. It's not the kind of thing that one says without being pushed. I don't suppose that you were wanting more phone contact and he said it to get you off his case?
All in all, given that you had ended the relationship, I don't think that he's actually done anything wrong here. And I think that you know that too - which could be why nothing he says is helping you.
Perhaps this is more of an ego issue for you? Or perhaps the fact that he moved on so easily is bothering you? Either way, this is something that you have to resolve yourself.
So, in your mind....he cheated. Eventhough you weren't technically together, he cheated. IMO...
1) You need to realize he didn't.
~~~OR~~~
2) You need to forgive him and move on. (Probably better for your ego-and I'm not saying its big, but we all have one.)
If you can't do either...the relationship will be very tough and will end up being a never-ending cycle of blame and the same ole same old fights.
April Lew-------
Piano Teacher, Fur-mom Extraordinaire!
Welcome to the board, Marinadca ~
You seem to feel what he did wasn't cheating, and I agree, you weren't together, he was free to see anyone, do anything he chose. I think the issue you're struggling with is maybe the fact that he said he no longer loved you, then said he did after all. I think that may have caused a lot of doubt for you, after all, if his love for you could end so quickly and easily, what's to say it won't again. Then again, he said later that he always did love you, even thought he said he didn't and even though he wanted to end your relationship in favor of a relationship with someone else. How can you feel confident in your relationship? Can you really believe that he always loved you when his actions and his words pretty clearly said otherwise? You have good reason to doubt the sincerity of what he says and you have good reason to doubt the stability of your relationship. You believed it once and he pulled it all away, quite quickly and unexpectedly You said no amount of talking about this has made you feel any better. I wonder what he's said and done to make this better? What's his involvement been in addressing your concerns? Before the eye rolling, I mean. See, to me, eye rolling is an act that, in a situation like this, would give me more reason to doubt the strength and stability of our relationship. The implication is that he's fed up with your feelings. That's not supportive or assuring at all. Beyond all that, I think if you've been struggling over this for a year, it's clear that you're not going to get through it by yourself, if you could, you'd have done that by now. I think it's time for you to make an appointment to see a therapist to work on this issue so that you can resolve it, get it out of your life and move on without it. A year is more than enough time to have this dragging along with you, you deserve to move on without it.
You didn't ask for this, and you may not like it, but I couldn't help but notice some interesting actions in your relationship. I'm presuming a bit, so please correct me where I'm wrong:
1) You move out and (temporarily) break up due to problems in the relationship.
2) He tells you he wants to end your relationship to move forward with his new one, which devastates you.
3) His new relationship ends, you move back together and "everything goes back to how things were."
Regardless, I think a therapist is the way to go to work through the issues. It may not take many appointments to get through what you need to get through, and it'll sure be a quicker and easier resolution than continuing to stay stuck.In short, you move out because you realize he's not a capable, self-sufficient, independent person. He reacts by replacing you and behaving immaturely in the process. Your reaction is to take him back, even though he's shown you more examples of poor behavior, character and capabilities. In other words, you have less reason to want to be with him, less reason to be confident in him and in his ability to be a competent partner, not more. It's as though his action in replacing you (shows immaturity and incompetency) "threatened" you into taking him back for fear of losing him. You broke up originally because he was a "major mamma's boy", what changed? What problems that you had upon breakup were resolved before you moved back in together? It seems that replacing you with a new "love" exemplifies the fact that he is a needy mamma's boy who can't be alone. If it's not you, it'll be someone else and frankly, if I were posed with that I'd suggest he move on to girl #2 and thank my lucky stars to be out of it. His whole statement of no longer loving you then always having loved you is another immature, incompetent statement of who he is, what he thinks and how he operates. I think it's interesting that you'd jump back in over the threat of losing what was problematic enough for you to separate and that you'd be willing to do so without resolution to those issues, and the ones that surfaced during your break up.
~ cl-2nd_life"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."
~ Author unknown

my signature exchange partner:"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
Thanks for your moment (all of you).
I do of course realize he didn't cheat on me. What gets to me isn't that he was with another girl but that he could treat me so cruelly in the process, have no little care for my feelings. Its not that he owed anything to me, but I ste deserved for him to be truthful with me.
The reason we moved out originially was that he had never lived by myself (he lived with his family and then moved in with me). He didn't understand paying rent, bills, etc so I wanted him to live with a roommate and try to do this on his own to prove that he could.
I guess my problem lies mostly in him telling me when we got back together that he would show me how much he loved me and how much I meant to him, and he doesn't really. I am mean he's OK to me. I get affection and I love yous a lot But it was never really enough to overcome that.
I was suprised that everyone here told me to work this out on my own. I don't see how I could without his participation but I guess I will try that. I can repeat to myself that he does love me all I want, but I need to actions from him though.
Thanks again everyone.
Marinadca, I think if you'd explained more fully that your problem is that he promised to show you how much he cared but isn't doing that in your first post your responses would have been quite different.
"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
Thanks for the follow up questions. We decided to take a break/break up when we moved out. He was angry that I didnt want to live with him for a year. And I felt angry that he wasn't paying his portion of rent to me ontime (leaving me to cover the distance for several days to a week). I also felt that he was too comfortable, taking advantage of me and assuming that I would always be there. I thought the break up would give us a chance to see if we really did want to be together or not.
We we took a break and realized we did not miss the other person, it would be time to move on. If we ended up back together, then we did share something bigger then a high school crush.
Immature? Maybe. But it was helpful to him to be responsible to a roommate that refused to accept late rent, and to have to actually write out checks for the cable. And it was helpful for me to meet other guys and all that.
Thats why my problem wasn't this other girl. He had every right to date her, I dated around as well. I am not jealous of her or what they shared at all.
I guess my issue revolves around the "I don't love you" that he told me and his promise to show me he really did. When I ask him why he said it, he said it was because I seemed to have obviously moved on (I casually dated many guys while we were apart) and he wanted to convince himself that he had too.
I don't know if thats enough information. I definetly have not done things perfectly. Also, when I say we "fight" I dont mean fall out arguements,just the every day "you didn't do the dishes and you said you would" type of small disagreements.
So him saying "I don't love you anymore" back then and now saying 'I always loved you' you are wondering which statement is the LIE? And if he could say it so easily back then, what's to prevent him from saying it again?
My guess is that he needed to say it so he could continue the relationship with the other girl, to give that relationship a chance....but that's neither here nor there. It's about your anger that he could say it all, meaning it or not.
I'm not sure what would help you get over the anger. Maybe venting to a counselor, or on paper telling him how you feel about it and why or talking to him about how insecure it makes you feel in his love now because those words were said and they really can't be taken back.
Carrie
I guess my problem lies mostly in him telling me when we got back together that he would show me how much he loved me and how much I meant to him, and he doesn't really.
It sounds like you have a number things to work through but the above statement speaks to what you expected to happen during your time apart.
Peace,
Di
***If you cannot define yourself, your circumstances will.***
Thanks for explaining further, it helps a lot. I hope you can stick with me on this one, I have a feeling this is going to take communication back and forth a few times to get it right....
He said he'd show you how much he loved you and how much you meant to him, but he hasn't really. By that I'm guessing that your relationship (the way he treats you) is pretty much the same as it was before your break up. You don't see any effort on his part, it's like it was before. Is that right? Do you feel loved and do his words and actions show you that you mean a lot to him? It's important that actions match the words, words are easy, the proof's in the action. But I'm also wondering what you expected vs. what you're getting and if you felt loved and if you felt that you meant a lot to him before your break up.
I think his actions are significant. I can understand why you continue to have problems, his behavior has raised a lot of questions, doubts and specifically, questions about how much you can trust him. I think even if he showered you with love and showed you how much you meant to him 24/7 you'd still have issues, because what he did quite clearly told you that his actions and words can be taken away quickly, he can "change his mind" and be off in a totally new direction in the blink of an eye. How can you trust what he says when you have actual experience with him that proves how quickly he can "change his mind" and his "love" can be completely gone? He tells you he just said that to try to convince himself. You're hearing many different things, "I love you", "I don't love you", and "I only said that because I was trying to break away". Exactly what is it you're supposed to believe? The more stories or excuses you hear the more reason for doubt there is. All you know is he wasn't truthful some of the time, whether he's currently being truthful or not you don't know. How can you let the issue go when you don't really know where you stand because you don't really trust him and can't rely on what he says. What has he done since, and what is he doing now to help build your belief in his believability?
Another important issue is that his "I only said that because I was trying to break away" is extremely juvenile and immature. He also said he did it because you were casually dating other guys. More immaturity and juvenile behavior. He was dating too, and if I understand correctly, when you broke up the agreement was that you were free to date. You also suggest (I could be wrong) that he dated to try to "get back" at you. Very juvenile and immature. Trying to build a relationship with an immature child is pretty much impossible. If you want a child, great, but I get the feeling you're looking for a partner. You said he was irresponsible (also an immature act) before. Has that changed? When you got back together, what had changed to make that happen, and what's different about your relationship now - as far as the issues that had you breaking up go, I mean? And if my assessments of his actions and reasons for them are correct, why do you want to be with someone who's so immature? Along those lines, Dirextor posed some great questions to you.
Your thoughts and answers?
~ cl-2nd_life"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."
~ Author unknown

my signature exchange partner:"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"