A million things need improvement...

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-2007
A million things need improvement...
2
Fri, 02-15-2008 - 12:55pm

Hey everyone, My boyfriend and I have been together for about..a year. There was a period that we were split up for awhile, but we still had intentions of getting back together. I wont get into the reasons why we broke up, Im just going to focus on our current relationship progress right now.

My boyfriend is in a financial slump right now, and I know that can make things rough. But he lets his work life run his personal life, and it effects me. He seems as though hes always down in the dumps, always depressed, always tired. Sometimes I feel as if he doesnt pay enough attention to me, and I know I am asking too much of him right now. But, the flame doesnt seem to be burning anymore. I love him very much, he is a kind man. Things just seem routine and boring for me. I sometimes feel lonely. I wanna know how to put that spark back into our relationship. There are a few more things...

Before we broke up, I had a horrible problem with jealousy and snooping. It was one of those cases where I couldnt even see a pretty girl on T.V without feeling that jealous rage. He has dated very beautiful women before in the past, and a lot of my jealousy comes from my low self-esteem and insecurities. I never feel like I can even compare to those beautiful women..Im small, normal body weight, small breasts, brunette...the complete opposite from any girl hes been with before. Hes always gone for the tall, big breasts, blonde hair supermodel type of girls. Aside from that, my jealousy caused sooo many problems in our relationship. It caused me to pretty much become addicted to snooping. Anything I could think of, Id snoop for. Id look thru his laptop, email accounts, cell phone. Although I never found any trace of him cheating on me or suspicious behavior, I did notice that he was a little overly-friendly to some of the girls he talked to. I confronted him about this and he changed his ways. Now, I dont have access to any of his email accounts, cell phone, anything, and it literally drives me insane to not snoop!! Sometimes I make rude comments to him about talking to girls behind my back, and he denies it everytime. He is a pretty trustworthy man, never cheated on anyone before in his life. Its like being put in withdrawal from not being able to check up on him and to snoop thru his personal stuff. He hates it when I nag about checking up on him, and he gets even more angry when he catches me snooping. He just wants me to trust him, and several times he has thought about breaking up again recently because of my jealous/snooping problem. I guess you can also say its a control problem too.

Another problem we have is communication. We talk things out, but when we try to work out fights, its always the blame game. We always point fingers at eachother. Every fight escalates into frivolous things that shouldnt even be an issue. And we both have a problem about getting defensive when one of us wants to talk about an issue. For example...I will tell my boyfriend that I feel like he sometimes neglects me..and he automatically gets defensive and puts his gaurd up. We just really need to work on our communication..sometimes we have misunderstandings that can lead to huge fights, or sometimes lack of communication just builds up and then we will start fighting about how things are never resolved because we never talk about them.

Then there is trust: When we broke up, I had a problem lying to him about some crucial things, and eventually I got caught. He is trying to build up that trust, and I know it is hard for him. I lied to him about talking to a guy, and I was hanging out with a guy and lied to him about who I was with and where I was because I didnt want him to know. This was about 5 months ago. Since then, I havent done anything to really make him distrust me, and he hasnt done anything to make me not trust him. I have always had trouble trusting men in the past, and that affects the way I trust my boyfriend too. He has never done anything to completely cut off my trust, except be overly-friendly to girls, but he changed his ways a while ago. We need to learn some effective ways to build up that trust in eachother.

I know this a lot of stuff that we need to work on..but a lot of it is because we have tons of unresolved issues. I want this relationship to work, and so does he. We dont know where to start or what to do. We know we can reach a wonderful, loving relationship, like we once had, we just need advice and to word hard on achieving that goal! Thank you for anyone whose read thru this LONG message!

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-30-2005
Fri, 02-15-2008 - 1:23pm

Welcome to the board brunette_bmbshl,


I have to say that I find your screen name (which I assume means brunette bombshell) very strange since you said that you have self-esteem problems.


Anyways. There is a post in the second folder titled 10 Rules to Fighting Fair (or something close to that) that I think for be good for you to read. It might also be a good idea for you seek some individual counseling to help with your self-esteem and your snooping issues.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-05-2007
Fri, 02-15-2008 - 1:28pm

Welcome to the board brunette_bmbshl,


My guess is to some degree you snoop because you've lied to him.