I am a big-time DOORMAT!

[skydancing]

I'm new here. I have reached a point in my life where I need serious help. I don't know really where to start, so I guess I will categorize myself and my experiences.

 

Early background: I grew up in a very emotional household. My parents were constantly fighting with each other, mostly over finances. My parents were very involved in my social life and gave me a lot of mixed feelings about myself. There were some pretty dramatic days, sometimes my parents would get violent with each other. I was a very quiet, introspective child who kept to herself and didn't have many friends. My siblings are all loud and outwardly emotional.

 

Early relationships: I started dating in 9th grade. I was the girl in high school that always had a boyfriend or a love interest, but I don't recall being exceptionally invested in them and was usually the one to break it off. I didn't like hooking up with my boyfriends, and I waited a long time before reaching certain stages with them in that regard. Emotionally, I was a very mellow girl and didn't have a lot of girlfriends. I started dating Chris at the end of my Junior year and for a year after, then I broke up with him in the spring of my Senior year to date someone else for a short while. I eventually got back together with Chris on my graduation day. I was the valedictorian of my class and I was accepted to an Ivy league school in my home state.

 

College: I continued to date Chris until the spring of my first year. I didn't make a lot of friends or join anything, mostly because Chris was really controlling and thought that I was going to cheat on him. He would send friends to spy on me or would try and catch me in lies, but I was never doing anything to betray his trust. I would say that I spent most of my time fighting with Chris and feeling really depressed about myself. My grades slipped for the first time in my life - I am a straight-A student. I tried everything to make Chris' life better, but he just made me feel so stifled. I also lost my virginity to him, but sex hurt me a lot and I suffered through it. He eventually broke up with me, saying that he wasn't in love with me anymore. He disappeared after that and I couldn't get a hold of him. At the same time I went off of my antidepressant medication and I went through a terrible withdrawal from it.

 

After about 2 months I made some friends and started dating Bob. Bob was nice, sweet, and incredibly insecure. We dated for about 8 months, into the winter of my Sophomore year. I kept trying to break it off for him because I just really didn't have feelings for him. We never hooked up because he had zero drive and zero experience. I spent a lot of time trying to boost his confidence - I even took him shopping for new clothes, which he seemed to deeply appreciate. At the end of our relationship (I dumped him) I befriended Matt, a friend of his who lived across the hall.

 

Matt and I started seeing each other a few weeks after the breakup. It was an intense affair, especially because we started off in secret to spare Bob's feelings. He was recovering from a relationship in which he was cheated on numerous times, but always got back together with the girl. Eventually people found out about us so we dated openly, but he was going away to study abroad for the entire year. We decided to do a LDR at that point, from the end of Sophomore year up until the winter of Junior year. The relationship turned emotionally abusive. He was from a family where his parents had each been married and divorced numerous times. He was also very involved with philosophy and told me that I wasn't very intelligent. We spent hours on the phone or on AIM arguing about how I needed to be smarter. I tried so hard to please him, prove myself to him, make him feel special. I was trying to win him over. We had an intense sexual relationship - the only thing he never complained about. I actually enjoyed it some, but still had some reservations about it. He would yell at me, call me retarded, and tell me that he wasn't in love with me like he was with his ex. When he came to visit, he spent half of his time with her. The criticism made me extremely depressed, but I was socially isolated and didn't have anyone to talk to about it. He broke up with me, claiming that he wasn't in love with me. But I found out later that he was cheating on me in Europe and he started openly dating the girl a week after he broke up with me.

 

I spent the spring of my senior year a total wreck. I had panic attacks so severe I thought I was going to die. I suffered through every single day. I also was reckless - I made contact with Chris, my high school boyfriend, and hooked up with him a couple of times (still no enjoyment). I didn't have any feelings for him at that point, after 2 years, but he did. He said that he was entirely sorry for doing what he did and that he thought I was too good for him. He said that he loved me. I also made out with a couple of other guys that semester, but I didn't like them at all. I got a tattoo and went on a couple of trips, drank a lot. I really wasn't myself.

 

The present situation: All of this brings me to my current situation. Just when I was starting to feel good and numb about my past, I met Jay. We worked together in the same lab, and we had some great, deep talks. I didn't think much about it, since he was a Senior and was going off to medical school in the fall. He was easy and funny, and I felt good around him. But I didn't feel any of those obsessive feelings. I wasn't even really attracted to him. During the week of his graduation, he spent a lot of time with me instead of his friends. He had just gotten out of a relationship with a girl who played with his feelings, so we talked about our break ups often. He said that he spent the last couple of months doing things similar to me - hooked up with girls but didn't like them. On the night of his graduation we spent a lot of time together, and he said that he wanted me to visit him over the summer. I was wary, but I did it. Gradually, we became a couple - we had the same sense of humor and general outlook on life. He got accepted to the medical school that adjoins our undergraduate college, and said that part of his decision to go there was because of me. So everything was set up for a normal, daily relationship.

 

His first year of medical school was rough on him, and I was there to take care of him through it all. I sacrificed a lot of myself for him, because I genuinely loved him and wanted to make him happy. He is a hypersocial person and felt really stressed about balancing his social life with schoolwork. He had a hard time communicating feelings and kept them all in, especially those that had to do with me. He often neglected me, didn't talk to me for a couple of days here or there in order to study. But the time we had together was amazing. Although I wasn't happy when it came to sex, it didn't seem to matter to me much. I faked orgasms all of the time, I didn't want to hurt him. I know that he cared about me, but he would always complain that I wasn't being social enough for him. I often had trouble opening up in group settings, and he felt embarrassed. He tried breaking up with me a couple of times because of it, but we would always get back together after a day or so. He also had a hard time saying that he loved me - he took it back on a couple of occasions and hated that I would question him as to why he didn't feel that way about me. I know that he loved his ex more than me, even if she gave him such a hard time. Anyway, I was depressed my entire senior year, alone, without many friends. I spent all of my time studying and getting ready to apply to med school myself, so I ended up doing really well in school and graduated with Honors. For my graduation weekend, we basically spent all of the time making rounds with his friends since he hadn't seen them in a while. I moved an hour away 2 days after my graduation so that I could start a research job. He had originally said that the distance would be better for him - weekends would be better so that he wouldn't feel bad about neglecting me anymore. But the week of my graduation, he said that he didn't want me to go.

 

I went to visit him at his house in NJ at the end of June. Our relationship had recovered a lot since graduation and I felt like we were going to be fine. He even was ok saying that he loved me. When I visited, his father was rude to me and made me feel unwelcome. He wouldn't let Jay sleep in the same room with me, as he usually did when I stayed over. Jay bought me flowers and warned me that his father thought I wasn't good enough for him. The weekend was terrible. On the last day, I saw him off to the airport (he was going on a trip to Israel) and he wouldn't kiss me goodbye in front of his parents. He called me several times on the trip, but on the day that he came back, he turned off his phone and broke up with me in an e-mail, saying that he couldn't be with me anymore because it wasn't going to work out in the end, he couldn't stand up to his father, and he couldn't marry someone who wasn't Jewish (even though he isn't religious at all, and I was interested in learning more about his culture). He told me that I was the best girl he knew and that I didn't do anything wrong. We have talked online, and a couple of times on the phone (2 hour conversations that are light-hearted and great). I sent him an e-mail yesterday as an attempt to reconcile, since I am in town this weekend, but he ignored me.

 

WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE? I wanted Jay and I to stay together, but he just turned off to me completely. I am so terribly heartbroken and I feel like a failure! Other things don't make me happy, not pampering myself, exercising, doing well at my job, making friends, getting interviews at medical schools, nothing works. I spend a lot of time obsessing about how to get him back.

[citizen67]

Jay sounds mean. Your not social enough? That's stupid. Your not Jewish? Well, didn't he know that when he met you and began seeing you? If it was that important he wouldnt have started dating you at all. And his father sounds like a real jerk. You sound like you have alot going for you - Valedictorian, medical school. Tell Jay to take a hike. Be alone for a little while. You obviously dont have a problem meeting men, so it will eventually happen but this Jay guy does not deserve you

[CaliGuy]

Well even if you are a girl, read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" (Glover). While a lot of it has to do with men, some of the chapters will work for both men and women such as:

 

1. How not to be a doormat for one.

2. Learning boundaries.

3. Learning to say NO.

4. Stopping "covert contracts"

5. Learning to make yourself happy before you can learn to make others happy.

6. Being fully content with who you are.

 

And much more. I recommend this book at the time to people who suspect they may be door mat nice people. Give it a go I mean, what have you to lose? (And so much to gain).