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long term relationship: Can I heal the pain jealousy and years of insecurity?


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I'me 25 had a good life and have always tried to do the right thing and be a good person. I view myself as a caring, compassionate, understanding and honest boyfriend.

 

 

Trouble is: this is the first relationship i've ever been in. I met her when I moved up north and we fell in love right away. I was getting kicked out of my apartment and she was at a crossroads in her life.

 

We met in a chat-room and fell in love at first sight. Right away she told me she had issues. I ignored this and thought I could change her by giving all of my love and pent up romantic ideals. My dreams of having a girlfriend a reality and I absorbed and attached myself fully into being totally there for her. We dated and lived together right away while I was looking for work. I showered her with my affection, all my life-long dreams of having someone to love and having someone love me back were intense. I came on like a hurricane of pent-up romanticism and affection.

 

I thought everything was fine. I loved her, she loved me and we were happy with each other. When it came time for me to meet her

college friends...things started getting wierd. She had been dumped by her boyfriend a year ago and the girl whom she though was her best friend ended up with him.

 

I was surprised at how many women were attracted to me. I found it flattering and felt akward since with some wine and in a festive atmosphere she quickly grew jealous. This jealousy continues to this day. I thought then that it would change since my sincere devotion and honesty would prove to her that she could rely on me.

 

She always had been weak in the trust department. It was hard for her to trust since her life was filled with examples of people being a**h***s and leaving her when it was convenient, people claiming it was for the better good and being selfish about breaking her trust. (i won't go into her personal details out of respect to her)

 

I had all of this to confront as well as look for work and find a place of my own to live at when she decided to move down south (600 miles away to her dad's house).

 

I was torn.

 

I didn't know what to do. I felt lost and alone and wanted desperately to stay with her..but i knew i couldn't stay with her at her dad's and couldn't go back to living at my parents. (I had just escaped that. I didn't want to go back now.)

 

Needless to say my love for her is strong and I followed her here. We've been here already 1 year and 4 months. I've found work at last and have been working hard at proving to her that i'm honest, dependable and trustworthy.

 

The trouble is....now i think sometimes that she's right. That i'm too young (she's 2 years older than me). and that i'm "settling".

 

I pay rent. I work hard at a job I know I dn't like to be near her. We live together now yet I feel like my every move is watched.. I don't even know if she'll find out I posted this right now and get angry at me. I'm at my wits end. I've tried everything. I now want us to see a professional relationship counselor and try to work things out.

 

When we fight., which we do often now (almost a fight per day or every other day) we make up and promise to change and help heal each other. I admit all my wrongdoings such as my fears and doubts and the one time i got weak and emailed someone with the intent to cheat (although I never did). and i'm made to feel like an a**h*** for not "leaving". I end up crying like a baby and imagine I hold all the world's pain, sorrow and grief in my heart...since the emotions are so intense. :(

 

Yet i love her. I don't want to hurt her and leave her by herself. Sometimes I feel like i have no friends and feel really sad and depressed. I'm not advancing my career. I'm not going to school.

 

she tells me to go do the things that make me happy. often our fights are about whether or not i'm leaving and which of her friends i'll go to. I feel like i'm stuck in a double bind. Our plan all along was to move up north to be together and live together "With a roof right over our head". I'm afraid of doing anything social such as going to school since of the jealousy issue. I don't want to feel like i'm in a prison. And i find it hard to deal with being apart from her. I've never lost anyone I loved so dearly...

 

My friends are estranged because I've told them about my sadness sometimes and she feels I talk **it about her to them. so she doesn't want to have anything to do with the few friends i used to keep close to me.

 

Now once in a while i try to contact her friends and I'm made to feel like an a**h*** because i'm doing that behind her back.

Why can't we just have mutual friends without th fear that i'll leave her for one of her friends?

 

I feel like I want to work on things and try to explain to her that it's a self fullfilling prophecy to always be jealous and accuse me of cheating without any proof. I'm almost in fear of looking at women sometimes, since a stray glance can make me feel like i'm being trampled upon and my sensitivity is strong. It's expensive to get counseling. I'm at my wits end. I don't want to go through the fights the humiliation of being made to cry in public and the feeling of desperate sadness that haunts me. I love her still and feel awful about leaving. :confused:

 

Yet sometimes i feel we rushed into things too soon. She's had several relationships. I never so had as much as a highschool girlfriend. My fear is that i'm giving up my happiness and sacrificing my life for her. Is this love? sigh..i hope you all can listen to what i have to say and not judge..but give me sound advice.

 

I like to think of myself as a kind, compassionate person with great altruism and ideals of peace, beauty, respect for all life, love of all humans, brothers and sisters. I guess i'm still young but i feel like i'll loose her forever and miss out if i give up and I want her to know that I will do all I can to make our relationship survive.

 

so with that I leave you and hope you can help me find some peace.

 

:(

 

-luciano

 

 

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds"

 

-Bob Marley, Redemption Song

 

Redemption Song

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you need to move out and live by yourself, immediately. this is what shocked me in your post:

 

"I'm afraid of doing anything social such as going to school since of the jealousy issue. I don't want to feel like i'm in a prison."

 

Are you kidding?? School isn't a "social place". it's a place where you get an education so that you can have a normal career, and live a normal life, as opposed to working a job you hate just to live with a girl who tells you to leave, anyway.

 

You can't give up everything in your life just to be with a girl, no matter how good she is! That's madness.

 

So my advice would be ... move out, and go to school. There, you'll meet girls who will like you, won't have so many "issues", and will not accept you putting your whole life on hold for them.

 

I don't know what else to tell you, but what you're doing is madness, really...

 

-yes

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thanks for the honest feedback...

 

I guess I'm not sure..

 

i feeel like I could still work on things... I appreciate alot of things about her.

I'm open to counseling and seeing a therapist...yet she feels very resentful to any idea relating to psychology...

 

I'm hoping we can work on things so we aren't always fighting and can find a way to be happy together. I know she's not a horrible person and I appreciate her in my life.

 

I just don't know how to go about doing this.. I guess I've known this for a while and she's sort of psychic so she knows something like this is coming.

 

but that's part of the reason for the fights recently... fear, doubt, insecurity.

 

I guess I'm asking for hope in terms of me and her staying together. I don't want to just leave her alone and prove her right with all of the doubts and insecurities: someone's always going to leave her... this is all she's experienced in her life.

 

Many friends, aquantances and people close to me have told me about this...yet it's kind of a touchy subject since anyone who mentions anything about us moving apart is no longer a friend of hers. She feels vulnerable and attacked by any kind of criticism....

 

I forgot to mention in my last post how many things I appreciate about her. How she pushes me to be responsible and tries to support me in my dreams. Yet I still feel like a lot of my dreams and aspirations are being stifled.

 

In short I don't know what to do or how to do it. .. Thanks for listening.

Maybe this post should have been in the Breakup section. I just didn't want to already be giving up on us. On our relationship. Sometimes it feels like i'm the only one who wants to stay....yet then she get's really distant and says she doesn't care waht I do. As long as I tell her... anyhow...

 

more honest input is appreciated.

 

Many thanks,

-luciano

 

(names changed to protect the people in this drama)

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Just A Girl2

Sorry to say it, be she has tons of huge issues.......probably doesn't even realize it, or maybe she does and that's why she's so opposed to counselling/therapy.....knowing that they'll come to the surface and then she'll have to a) either deal with them or b) find some other excuse for how she controls/manipulates/abuses you.

 

So what she's had a tough past and bad relationships, most of us in this world have. Nobody said life or love was going to be easy. I myself (though not saying everyone should be like me) had an abusive childhood, a very abusive and cheating husband, and numerous bad relationships. Do I think all men are the same? NO! Do I get into a relationship and watch my guy's every single move, wanting to isolate him from life/friends/family all because I'm afraid he'll "be like the others"? NO! Did I used to have issues of fearing I'd be "abandoned, again"? YES...but over time, I got over them.......

 

I don't like the way you are emotionally trapped by this dame. Part of it's your fault, part of it's her fault.

 

What kind of LIFE do you have if you don't even feel the freedom to go to school (to further your life) for God's sake? Yes, it does sound like a prison that you're living in.

 

I agree w/ Yes..I think you need to get out on your own, live on your own...have some freedom, do the things you can't do now (have friends, have hobbies/interests, etc)...find yourself, date different people, learn what a "healthy" relationship is all about. What you have now sounds very unhealthy. She sounds very emotionally, mentally and verbally abusive to you...and she's making YOU PAY for all the sh*t that's been done to her in the past. You do NOT HAVE TO PAY for this, you were not the one who hurt her. If she can't stop living in the past and having all these insecurities and issues, then she shouldn't be in a relationship.

 

Yes, she may have some good qualities, but the negative ones she has, they sound horrible.........and ones that will only bring you further down, til the point where you feel more like a prisoner and have no self esteem, no self identity.

 

Trust has to be the basic foundation for a good relationship, it's a non-negotiable. She obviously has HUGE trust issues. That's not YOUR problem, that's hers to recognize, acknowledge and deal with.

 

What kind of relationship do you have if you're fighting every day or every second day? And these fights consistently revolved around jealousy, mistrust (on her part) and her issues? That sounds like total misery to me. Don't you think you deserve better? Of course you do. Everyone does.

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ThisGirlNameKD

Your girlfriend has abandonment issues. She's always been abandoned in her life, and she lives in fear that you will abandon her also. When a person has been emotionally scarred from being abandoned, and they get in a relationship, they don't want to be abaondoned, but they feel that they would be. So what they do is try to eliminate any outside influence that they can't control that they feel may take you "away" from them. That could be your friends, your own family, they may not want you to hang out in social settings that they are not around because they can't control it or anyone in it. Also when it comes to a person that has abandonment issues, nothing you say--you can talk until you are blue in the face--nothing you say will make them believe you enough to put their trust in you, because they are constantly fighting the process of putting trust in you just in case you hurt them. If they don't trust you, they won't be hurt that much. Yet at the same time, they don't want you to hurt them. Confusing isn't it? But this is what your girlfriend is going through. So you can be the most caring person, compassionate person in the world, it does not matter, you can not fix someone else's problem. She has a serious problem. And it may not have always been that people have abandoned her. She may have pushed them away just like she's doing with you, and miscontruing it as them abandoning her, because she's not seeing her hand in it.

 

If she's not up to seeing a psychologist (which she should), or a counselor, why don't both you go to the book store, research some books on abandonment, and sit down and read them together. If she's adamant about that and she wants to do it, sad to say, not very much else will help the both of you. She's not going to wake up one day and start treating you right UNTIL she seeks some counseling or treatment. If she doesn't want to do that, you just may have to go your own way, and if you do, it's important that you let her know why so she can clearly see that she has a problem, and that her problem led to the break up of your relationship.

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thanks...i'm so full of regret and pain..but it's going to be better this way..i hope

 

I'm going to be leaving. We've hurt each other too much for me to trust her not to hurt me and her to trust me not to leave.

 

It's better this way. I just wish I could have learned this another way. Thank you for your advice ThisGirlNameKD and Just A Girl2.

 

I'm learing to appreciate myself as a human and this is part of my learning process.

 

It's a double-bind when I can't leave to make her feel more sadness and being with her gives me sadness.

 

I guess my fear was that if I left I would just confirm all of her fears and doubts and her abandonment thing would just get worse....

 

it's hard.

 

maybe we can be good to each other in the future....

 

Blessed Love and

Peace be with you all,

-luciano

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