KGabba Posted October 13, 2010 Posted October 13, 2010 Okay basically I have read so much about this and even seen a therapist and still can't really decide where to go, and thought maybe some objective strangers' opinions might help. My boyfriend and I have been together two years and live together. I love him dearly and he seems perfect for me in so many ways. Our relationship started weirdly. He was in a "friends with benefits" situation at the time with a girl he knew since they were teenagers (we are in our late 20's now, she is several years younger). The way he explained it was that it was very casual, it went on for about a year before he met me, they both discussed/agreed on the terms, they did not consider themselves to be dating and did not meet each other's families/friends, and that their sexual relations were sporadic/occasional (i.e. they had sex a total of 6-8 times over the year this went on) and generally prompted by chance meetings out at the bars. He told me the reason they never dated was that she was too much of a partier, and that she had significant alcohol and drug issues that he didn't want to deal with. We met through a friend and began casually dating. We were very straightforward about neither of us looking for anything "serious." We quickly started spending a lot of time together and after a month or two we decided, why not try dating exclusively and see where it goes. During that time he occasionally received a late night text or phone call from FWB girl, though I know that he did not see her/talk to her after we met. When we agreed to be exclusive, he called her and told her he had a girlfriend and she couldn't call him or text him anymore, at least not for late night hookups. Part of their "agreement" was that if one or the other decided to date someone exclusively, they would simply tell the other and stop the sexual relationship but remain friends. We all agreed to try to be "friends" at her suggestion, and I even personally contacted this girl a few times to invite her out for drinks. She was very awkward with me and made no attempt whatsoever to "befriend" me or make plans with us, which made me think her desire to be friends had little to do with actually wanting to be friends, and more with wanting to "see what she was up against" and/or keep him involved in her life. That was all before we decided to stop using condoms. He assured me that he had been tested a few months earlier and was clean, and had not had unprotected sex since then. I even saw the test results. Cue to a month later when I have not one, but two STD's. After confronting him, he admitted that he had sex once just before we met with FWB girl, and that it "could have been" unprotected (they were both pretty wasted). He also said that she was the only person he had been with since the clean test, so he knows they were from her. Obviously, his dishonesty (or bad memory, haha) upset me a lot and I did a lot of soul searching at that time and talking with him about whether I wanted to continue to date him, ultimately deciding we would try. Then all hell broke loose. He called her to tell her she needed to get tested and she flipped out, 3 a.m. angry drunken voicemails, etc. Then the emails started. About how sorry she was about the late night phone calls, about how that wasn't really her, it was the alcohol and drugs, how she was swearing off all drugs "even prescriptions," how she really still wanted to meet me and hoped we could all be friends. WHAT?! At this point we kinda both agreed she was effing crazy and to cut off all ties with her. He responded to one of her emails by saying he was sorry things had happened the way they had and for his role in that, and that because of everything that had happened he did not think we could all be friends, and for her to please not contact him any more. Then he changed his cell number. My problem is that I often feel very jealous of this girl. Crazy I know, because she is not in any way a person that I want to be. But she is very beautiful, VERY thin (an amateur but semi-successful model, actually), and several years younger than we are. I still worry that he wants to be with her, that he misses the crazy partying and sex they had, that they will run into each other on the street (we all still live in the same town and have many mutual friends) or through friends and miss that connection that they had, especially considering how long they were friends with one another. I worry that he compares me to her, physically, and I know in that regard I do not measure up and probably never will, even though I am pretty attractive and in great shape. I feel horribly awkward every time their mutual friends have to go to great lengths to make plans around this conflict, i.e., spending time with my boyfriend and not inviting her, even though all of their other friends are invited, or vice versa. The insecurity is making me crazy as I normally am a pretty confident person. I get very upset/angry when I have to hear about or see this girl, i.e. in mutual friends' photos/stories. I have a lot of anger towards her for what I see as putting her problems on other people and messing up other people's lives because of her own issues. I have a lot of anger towards him for not "seeing how she really was" and protecting himself and therefore me from such a stupid mistake, and especially for putting me in a position of dealing with an unrequested threat to my health. I know it's not fair to be mad at what I see as stupid decisions on his part before he met me, but I can't help that I still FEEL that way, if that makes sense. I try not to take this out on my boyfriend but I will admit that sometimes my insecurity gets the best of me and I voice my fears to him about this girl. He has repeatedly assured me that what they had does not even remotely approach the awesomeness of our relationship, etc. etc. In short, I really feel as though NOW, today, in our current relationship, he does everything right and is the "perfect" guy for me. Honestly, I can't even reconcile the guy it sounds like he was before he met me with the guy he is now, and I think that's a big part of it. I often feel as though I can't trust who he holds himself out to be, or who he will be in the future. On one hand I know that in reality, you can't trust anyone not to change! And the past is the past and I wasn't there! I have my own past, I am definitely not a saint, but I can't shake this feeling that maybe we are just doomed because of the chaotic way that our relationship started out. It just keeps coming up, mainly because of me and my insecurity, and every time it does we have a big argument and I know after a while we will both just get sick of it and break up. It makes me sad because I truly see us having a great future together if not for this issue. We have talked about getting married and having kids and I really can see us having a great life together, and having a family, etc. But not if I can't get over this. He is also totally on board with figuring this out, and wants to "help" resolve it, but feels like he has done everything he can as far as cutting off ties with her, reassuring me, etc. We are both kinda out of ideas as to exactly "how" to help figure this out and helping me to move on from this. Has anyone dealt with this or something similar? Or have any tips to overcome it and move on? People keep telling me I have to forgive, forget, move on, and I want to! But then I see a pic or hear her name mentioned and I feel like I start rolling down a hill of insecurity like a snowball, getting more and more stressed out about how insecure I feel until I lash out at him. I really think I will ruin our relationship if I keep having these thoughts. I know some of you will probably say, why did you move in with him, or continue the relationship after all of that drama? But I really want to make clear that I really did (and do) feel such a strong connection with him, and thought that we could overcome this because we did have such a strong relationship and so much potential, and also because we were willing to be so open about it and talk it out. Now, I am not so sure and am wondering if I am wasting my time trying to resolve something that might be unresolvable? I guess my thought is that if it's all in my head, and he really can't "make" me feel better about it, why stick around and put us both through a bunch of BS? On the other hand, I know I have been burned pretty bad in the past (I was in an abusive relationship for a long time) and have a tendency to be overly protective/defensive of myself and my feelings in relationships. My boyfriend is aware of this also. I would also like to say, as horribly dishonest as I made him sound, that he is generally a very honest and straightforward person, and is VERY inexperienced in the relationship department, as in, he has had only a few other "serious" relationships, and only cohabitated with one other person. He has not had very many sexual partners, has never had a one night stand, and has in the past been pretty conscientious about not overlapping sexual partners and also about getting tested regularly. He has apologized profusely and told me that he genuinely doesn't remember the details of the night that they last had sex (when he thinks it could have been unprotected) and that he never in a million years thought this girl would behave in this way, having known her for so long. He also generally has good relationships/boundaries with other exes, several of whom I have met and get along with fine. I honestly feel like the inexperience probably contributed a lot to everything that happened, but maybe I am just making excuses for him. Any tips on overcoming a sketchy past/weird relationship beginning would be greatly appreciated. Or even just someone saying, hey, I've been there, and you CAN move past it. I've talked to my friends and a therapist and no one else I know has been through this, and pretty much everyone keeps telling me to just move on. Um, duh. I'm just not sure how exactly to go about "doing" that when the thought process begins. Thanks.
livbylove22 Posted October 13, 2010 Posted October 13, 2010 Your probably going to get some negative replys on this but i don't think its that serious. What i see here is that he's gotten mixed up with the worst possible girl. It is his responsibility to take care of it and make sure that she is out of your lives. But i think its very wrong for him to have not told you about might having giving you an std!just talk to him and make sure he knows exactly how this situation is making you feel. He needs to take care of this. Not you.
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