ginger2895 Posted April 25, 2010 Posted April 25, 2010 ok...i will make a loooong story short. lol my bf and i have been together for 2 1/2 years. I'm 31 and he is 35...he has never been married, no kids...i have been married and have a 5 year old daughter whom he is very close to and loves very much. I have trust issues due to things that have happened in past relationships. I try not to bring them into our relationship, but i have caught him in lies before, which fuels those issues even more. he is a very private person and i'm not, and i do tend to question him on occasion, which i know annoys the hell out of him! anyway, after 2 1/2 years i decided we needed to have the talk about taking this to the next level. he owns his own business and works A LOT..we only get to see each other about 2 times a week. i suggested that if we were to live together, something we had talked about in the past, we would get to spend a lot more quality time together. he said that would be fine and let’s give it about 6 more months since this is his busy time at work. well, i didn't let it go...i asked him day in and day out if this was really going to happen, if i was just wasting my time, etc. this has been going on for the past month or so and i was becoming more insecure by the day because it seemed like i was the only one wanting to talk about and make plans to move forward, and by making plans i mean putting his house up for sale, etc. you could say i have pretty much acted like a needy, nagging girlfriend for the past month. anyway, on tues i caught him in another lie and confronted him. he had dinner with an old high school friend (female) and told me he was doing something else. i know nothing is going on there...he tends to lie just to avoid confrontation of any kind. he doesn't know that i actually know that he went with her...i can't tell him how i know because he would never talk to me again...it was a total invasion of privacy on my part. so i confronted him...to make a long story short he blew up at me, told me i will never trust him, etc. i know he is the kind of person that TOTALLY shuts down when faced with conflict, but i kept pushing him and pushing him to talk to me...he finally told me that he didn't want to break up, i needed to stop acting like a "freak" and he needed sometime alone to think. he said that i seriously pissed him off by questioning him (although he DID lie, but he doesn’t know that i actually know this). he said he needs cool off time, he loves me and my daughter very much, it killing him, he can't go on like this, between me and work he is super stressed, this is not about me, i need to repsect his wishes and stop pushing, blah, blah, blah. i haven't talked to him since friday, well if you consider texting communicating. he has never shut down for this long, though! i don't know what to do...he DID lie, but maybe if i didn't have so many insecurities he would feel comfortable being able to tell me things? everyone has told me that he is pouting, has gone into his cave, and NOT to contact him. advice?
EthanH Posted April 25, 2010 Posted April 25, 2010 ok, I'm just going to be honest, sorry if it comes over as harsh, but I have learnt on here that the best advice is when people try to be constructive but blunt. 1) you need to stop, take a step back, and decide if you want this to work. IF you do, then you need to TRUST him. That is the main problem here. Ask yourself if you want to be happy with someone. Ask yourself if you think you would be able to trust another guy in the future if you aren't with him. Why would it be any different? You are still going to have those trust issues, so why not deal with them now, and give yourself a chance of being happy with someone you love and who loves you and your daughter? He knows you have trust issues. That is why he lied about him having food with a school friend. Sometimes people give white lies, because in my eyes, he had nothing to worry about, it was a totally innocent meeting. He has a right to meet whoever he wants as long as he doesn't cheat. And I don't think from the sound of things, he did that. You are angry with him for abusing your trust and lying, but at the same time, you abused his trust by going behind his back to check up on him. So if you want to be happy, you have to trust him. If you don't you will never be happy with anyone. And frankly, if I was him and this continued, I would want to leave, because despite the fact he loves you, he shouldn't have to justify his every action, he shouldn't have to look over his shoulder all the time, even when he is just meeting a friend... and frankly, he deserves to be given a clean slate and shouldn't be doubted because of the actions of your ex husband. Just because your actions are logical, doesn't mean they are right. He shuts down when faced with conflict as essentially, what can he say, tell you to trust him> what is the point, he knows you do not. I bet he feels like a broken record. But despite this, what he is saying isn't getting through. Don't let what your ex husband did to you ruin your chances of future happiness. Just stop and decide to trust him. Stop yourself from worrying. He is a different person from your ex husband and deserves to be treated like that. Just trust, or honestly, you will never find happiness. just out of interest, how did you find out about him having the meal with the school-friend?
ButterflyGal Posted April 25, 2010 Posted April 25, 2010 Personally i take a different stance on this, though ive had less experience with r'ships, i've had plenty experience with lies. My last rship was with a guy that had a thing about lying, he didn't cheat, i know he loved me but he would lie quite a lot about things he didn't have to lie about, some were big lies like he'd lied to his parents about having a job he did not have, and some were small like telling me he was just with his guy mates when he was actually with a group of mixed sexes. Whatever the lie was, was irrelavent, each time I caught him out on a lie, an extra block of trust was knocked off, I began mistrusting his words with everything, and questioned every word he said, it was a downward spiral for me, because it also started making me feel insecure, i would often end up checking his facebook account and finding things i didn't like, then i'd test him on things that i'd found to see if he'd try and cover up (which he did). Whilst i'd never actually caught him cheating, the lies he made lead me to get paranoid that he was or wants to. I became someone who I was disliked, like you i would become the clingy nagging gf, he would also blow up at me when i questioned him and also shut down when confronted. He would blame his lies on me mistrusting him, but the truth is, I only mistrusted him becuase of all the lies... Seems like this guy, like my ex, just has this personality of brushing over things to save confrontation as you said. but this is wrong. Rships are based on trust. In order to gain trust, you need honesty. If he cannot be honest with you, then its not worth the time/hassle of investing any further into this rship. I wasted 2 years (i was with my ex for 4 years) trying to change this, trying to tell him, i'm ok with the truth. but in the end it was like it was in his genes to lie. For some girls, small lies are ok, for me (and i'm guessing you too) any lies are hurtful, thats why we weren't right for eachother. You need a guy that isn't stuck in some bubble, who creates some sort of fantasy for himself through these lies and doesn't like to deal with the real situation. I'm sure he is a decent person, who hasn't crossed any lines, but if he can't change this then also you cant learn to trust him either. It works both ways but starts with him. You can't fire a gun with no amo, and he's obviously supplying you with enough to get this far. If he stopped lying, in time you could regain security in the rship and would also put less pressure on him to move forward so quickly, as im sure your only doin it to feel more secure. Whether or not he can change is questionable, for my ex, he couldnt do it (even when he said he would). Good luck hun
EthanH Posted April 26, 2010 Posted April 26, 2010 butterflygirl, I couldn't disagree with you more... First of all, you shouldn't have to earn trust in a relationship if you have done nothing wrong. At the start of a relationship, the trust should just be there. It isn't an extra, it's part of what you have to have to have a decent relationship. If you don't trust someone initially, it is your problem, not theirs. The way you both talk about it, this blame game, on things which are really very very small white lies, you are trying to justify it. The guys in your lives have told white lies, because they knew you would blow up, with no good reason, about it if they told you the truth. They have a right to socialise with anyone they want as long as they are faithful to you. And the whole thing about looking at his facebook, having doubts, being clingy, etc etc, that isn't something which just appears as a result of him telling the odd lie... it is something which is part of your personality, and says more about you than it does about him. It's about self confidence. The fact is, even if he wasn't lying, you would still have doubts, because you doubt yourself, because you are insecure. Until you sort out those demons, you aren't going to be happy with someone, because even if he doesn't lie, you are always going to spend your time worrying that he is. The more you care about them, the more the fear of lying comes, as the more you have to lose. And this might sound harsh, but it is true, and I know it, because I have been the same. ginger - you need to accept that the trust issues are your problem, not his, and even if he had been 100% truthful 100% of the time, you would still be paranoid about it. You have to be aware of this. You are never going to get someone who never ever tells any kind of lie, there just isn't such a person. I think you also have to admit that your inability to trust him has actually led him to be more likely not to tell you the truth, just to shield you from being hurt, he doesn't want to hurt you, but he knew that if he told you about the friend, you would have issues with it and it would cause conflict, and he knew you would worry... the reality is he sounds a nice guy, so he didn't want to hurt you. Lying is not acceptable, but you have to take your share of responsibility also.
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