[Layla]

Hi

I have been with my boyfriend for 16 months now and everything seems really perfect. He tells me how much he loves me, I had to meet his family and dearest friends pretty much at the beginning. He asked me to move in with him after three months although he had never lived with a woman before and he says I am the best thing that ever happened to him. He really really makes me happy! Whenever I meet his oldest and dearest friends and he doesn't listen they say they have never seen him like this and that they are really happy for us. Also, I found a letter from a friend of his saying:" the money is on you to crumple next". So far, so good. Then again he has NEVER brought up marriage or kids at all! I assumed it is because he has been very busy but also very successful in his job, is currently building a house and there is just generally happening a lot in his life. And Girls adore him, which sucks! I mean yes, he may enjoy hanging out with me and I guess his love for me is real, but what would be the signs that he intends to one day ask me to marry him?? My opinion is that if he loved me as much as he and his friends say, shouldn't he know after 16 months that I am the woman of his life?

He also has this desk in a room of OUR (!!) appartment where he keeps all his pictures of old friends and all his exes. Trust me it's tons of them!! Ok, I shouldn't have looked at them, but he really doesn't seem to mind??!! One picture even shows him nude-bathing with a girl!

Another horrendous thing is that his mother is moving house and wanted him to move all his stuff out of her house. So for the last 4 weeks that room in OUR appartment was full of old love letters of his and notes he once wrote saying:"God, I love her so much etc.)

Don't you feel this is the most respectless thing he can possibly do to me?

I am so pissed off, thought that I was special and now feel like just another number :-(

I mean, we have all had our past. But we keep it inside our hearts and not in an appartment we share with our boyfriend/girlfriend?!

Does this mean, he is far from being ready to marry me?

What do you reckon guys?

Thanks

[moimeme]

I firmly believe that people ought to be allowed to keep their mementoes, including memories of exes, though I might prefer they kept a single nude photo rather than a whole collection. I agree, however, that they shouldn't be within easy access to the point that you see them. Maybe you can ask him to buy some of those photo boxe gizmos and ask him to box up his memories for storage out of your sight.

[niko1999]

First, take a deep breath. YOu yourself said we all have pasts. YOu dont somewhere still have pictures of old boyfreinds, notes you wrote back and forth? Its mearly a memory. Yes, I would be angry if I found naked pictures of ex's with my boyfreind. He doesnt have any here, he has them on his computer, and they are still there. He doesnt look at them anymore. So you ask, what is the point in having them? I ask myself that too. If I could, I would probably get onto his computer and delete them all. Best thing you can do, is just let him know that it bothers you, makes you feel insignificant. Guys think differently than we do. A LOT differently than we do. He doesnt see the significance of keeping old pictures of his ex's, doesnt think anything about them. GUys dont dwell on the past, they concentrate on the here and now. SO just let him know that it bothers you, and go from htere. Im sure he will have no problem.

[Layla]

Hey moimene

Thanks for your reply. I see it exactly the same way! No one should be forced to "forget" about their past and we may as well be allowed to keep pictures and stuff. But what the hell do we have attics and cellars for?

[2SidestoStories]

What is in the past is in the past. That you are willing to get yourself all in a tizzy over the fact that your man has had experiences of love in the time before he was with you is absurd to me.

You say: He also has this desk in a room of OUR (!!) appartment where he keeps all his pictures of old friends and all his exes.

These are his memories. Do you begrudge him his memories? Do you wish him to begrudge you yours? Also, if this is an apartment that the two of you share, should you not have respect for it as the HOME you share, and therefore a place of sanctity?

You say: Don't you feel this is the most respectless thing he can possibly do to me?

Not at all. It would be respectless were he to be seeing all of these exes while he was with you.

I am so pissed off, thought that I was special and now feel like just another number :-(

This is ENTIRELY YOUR reaction. You say on one hand that you've been with him for sixteen months and "everything seems really perfect ; yet you're this upset by something that is not worth the energy you're placing into it. This indicates to me that there's something underlying your upset. I suggest that you may have something else bothering you, and the old pictures and letters are simply an excuse? I guess I'm just confused as to why a representation of your boyfriend's ability to love and be open is so bothersome to you.

[moimeme]

Layla, have you asked him to store them out of your sight? I agree with Niko; he probably hasn't given it a thought at all. You are taking the presence of this stuff to mean that he isn't committed to you, I think but that's not likely the case. It's just stuff hanging around to him.

[Layla]

I will actually ask him to store it out of my sight. It has bothered me since I have moved in about a year ago and today I just exploded and sent him an incredibly nasty email about it. (We're about to move house and my bookshelf, which I was trying to sort out is just beside his bloody desk and I kept staring at it).

Anyway, my email was so rude that he will probably be quite offensive when he comes home at night.

To the other response I got. I don't think there is anything underlying in my strong reaction. I have been brought up in a VERY catholic way, have never had a one night stand and LOVE having sex with my boyfriend!! He is the best :-)

it bothers me that he doesn't respect my feelings and beliefs. He also just doesn't understand that it makes me fall out of love with him when I see him "snoging" other girls.(sorry, my mother tongue isn't English) It just shows me that he has had a past I can't and I don't want to approve of!

I've read your other posts and you mentioned that you went straight into the arms of this man after ending a 5 year relationship with your previous boyfriend.

Is it possible that unresolved issues from your previous relationship are just now manifesting themselves? You keep talking about how great everything else is but your doubts about this relationship seem to be increasing.

I hate to bring up the word rebound, but it may be a possibility.

[moimeme]

Anyway, my email was so rude that he will probably be quite offensive when he comes home at night.

It is completely unfair of you to be angry with him for something you didn't mention to him before at all. Had you asked him several times to move the stuff and he refused or ignored you, that's one thing, but blowing up at him is unfair and he'll think you unfair for doing it. Stop him at the door and ask him to delete the email without reading it.

it bothers me that he doesn't respect my feelings and beliefs. He also just doesn't understand that it makes me fall out of love with him when I see him "snoging" other girls.(sorry, my mother tongue isn't English) It just shows me that he has had a past I can't and I don't want to approve of!

I don't understand it, either. In choosing him, you have chosen a man with a past. You have the option to leave him if you can't deal, but you can't be mad at him for things he did before he ever meant you. Again, this is completely unfair. I'm Catholic, by the way. Don't blame Catholicism for this issue. You can choose to forgive him. It's entirely up to you. I think you are being unfair to not.

[Layla]

By the way I meant "defensive" before, not "offensive". My boyfriend is never offensive or rude.

Anyway, thanks for bringing up the rebound thing. Fact is that I was DEEPLY hurt by my last boyfriend (he cheated on me three times, once with a colleague of mine), was abusive and a deeply unhappy person.

I haven't experienced any of that with my current boyfriend. He really does treat me very very well. But maybe, my frustrations towards him have their origin in my last relationship, as it was literally a matter of a few days after I left my last boyfriend that I went out with my current one.

[moimeme]

You really have to be careful not to visit the sins of one boyfriend on the next! It can be hard to do for sure but worth the effort.

[midori]

Hi Layla,

I'm jumping in here to observe that when you pair what you've said in this post with what you said in your post about using cocaine, I think you get a picture of a relationship that might be happy on the surface, but which seems to have a lot of issues underneath.

Someone just raised the possibility that this is a rebound relationship that you've thrown yourself into before you dealt with the feelings you had for your ex. Seems like there might be something to that.

I'm not trying to suggest that your current relationship is superficial or doomed to failure. But it sounds like you were determined from the very start that it was going to be Fantastic, and you got caught up in the whirlwind of passion such that you weren't acknowledging the fault lines and issues that any relationship will have. Maybe it's time to drop the superlatives like "crazy in love" and start dealing with the issues in the relationship: there's some mistrust, some insecurity and I'm sure other things that you need to confront. Not to mention the cocaine...

"Fact is that I was DEEPLY hurt by my last boyfriend (he cheated on me three times, once with a colleague of mine), was abusive and a deeply unhappy person."

It sounds like you're still hurting from this experience. I'm not sure you've had sufficient time to heal. It's more difficult to examine and acknowledge our thoughts and feelings when we're with another.

Some soul-searching might be in order. Be prepared though to find answers you weren't looking for or didn't want to hear and for more questions which might raise more questions.

I have no doubt that you love this man, but if you love yourself, you will take the time to figure out what's causing you to have misgivings about this relationship.

[Layla]

I am a bit confused now.

I think that I can categorically say that we do have a beautiful relationship with a lot of kindness, smiles, letters, etc in it. Yes, there have been a few shed tears from both sides and it is definitely not all roses.

To mention on the cocaine. It has been three times in 16 months that I have done some with my boyfriend. (He had done it before). Yes, that probably wasn't smart and I always felt uneasy about it, even considered telling him to never take it again.

But we don't take the stuff a lot.

But Midori, maybe you are right that I didn't give the relationship a good thought but just jumped in it. After my BAD last relationship I wanted to be happy. (By the way I remember two Christmases ago, when I looked at my Ex-boyfriend who was such a tyrann on Christmas eve and I thought "next Christmas will be a happy).

Last Christmas indeed was very happy as I had found this wonderful person, who would just give me what I wanted/needed. Lots of attention, cuddles, talks,and love.

Now, things seem to come out that frustrate me. You're right. I would still say, that we have potential to make it work though?!

"I had found this wonderful person, who would just give me what I wanted/needed. Lots of attention, cuddles, talks,and love."

"Now, things seem to come out that frustrate me."

A band-aid is no solution to a gushing wound. It is a temporary fix and sooner or later steps must be taken to heal the wound.

Your band-aid is coming off, but the wound is still there. You can ignore it and let it fester or you can acknowledge that more needs to be done to heal the wound.