rosemary1 Posted July 6, 2012 Posted July 6, 2012 Apologies in advance for the lengthy post... I’ve been dating my boyfriend for about 3 months. We had a connection right away and have a really great time together. When we’re together & things are good, I can see us spending the rest of our lives together and he says he can too. He can be very attentive to my needs, going out of his way to do things just because he knows it will make me happy. Sometimes he’s dismissive of some of my feelings, but when I talk to him about it, he does apologize & make an effort to be more understanding. I was in a few past relationships that made me very insecure. I take full responsibility for that, and so despite the fact that things have happened that have made me question whether I should trust my current boyfriend or not, I’ve learned to trust him. Some examples: He stares a lot at other girls. He says it doesn’t mean anything, and I’ve learned to cope with this. He flirts sometimes with waitresses, bartenders & mutual friends. He says he’s just being friendly and he’s not interested in the girls he’s doing it to (though he sometimes admits that some of them are cute), and I’ve learned to accept that. He used to live in a foreign country, so he takes a few foreign girls (and guys) he’s befriended to do stuff (usually stuff like rent cars, to the airport, but sometimes on outings if the girls say they need to go shopping or want to go to a museum). At first this bothered me, but he swears he’s just doing it because they can’t do these things on their own. I’ve come to see this as him just being helpful and don’t let it get me upset. Plus I’ve noticed that since we’ve been spending more time together it doesn’t happen as often (he has less time for them). He said when he met me, he was simultaneously interested in two other girls (both mutual friends), but having gotten to know all of us better, I’m the only one he could’ve possibly dated & fallen in love with. He’s dated a lot of girls in the past, but he says he was only in love with two of them other than me: his first love, who is now married & his second love, who left him to marry someone else. He says that his last long term relationship was ruined (though he admits he didn’t love her) because he “emotionally cheated” on her with his second love. Basically, he was still talking to his second love even after she’d married someone else and while he was dating this other girl. I’m supposedly his third love and he has said he loves me as well as shown me that he’s committed to me, even in such a short time. Because of my insecurities, some of the things I mentioned have led to fights between us, but all in all, he has been relatively up front with me about his previous “loves” and other girlfriends. For these reasons I’ve come to trust him and trust that he’s telling me the truth about these relationships. However, there is someone in his life that he hasn’t told the truth about. He says that about 10 years ago he dated & hooked up with this particular girl (not sure how long for), but that they eventually decided to be friends. He never mentioned this girl to me in about 2.5 months of dating. At the beginning of our relationship, he wanted to know everything about my exes. I told him that I didn’t want to know every detail about his exes (like sexual stuff) because it just seemed inappropriate. He says that because I made this request, he never told me about this particular girl though he eventually told me about others. I found out about this girl a few weeks ago because she posted something on his facebook wall. I asked who she was and he said, “just a friend,” but he seemed uncomfortable, so I asked if he’d dated her and he said, “sort of.” He said he hadn’t wanted to say anything about her because he thought it would make me mad (because in the past I’d gotten mad/jealous about girls in his life). I was upset, but figured that I’d gotten mad about this stuff before but nothing had ever come of it, so it was probably nothing. I forgot about it. About a week later, while we were out together he got a text and something just didn’t feel right about the way his face looked, so I asked who it was from, and it was from that girl. Then I was mad because I hadn’t realized that he was still talking to her and he hadn’t mentioned they kept in contact. I asked how often he talked to her and he said once a month or once every two weeks. He swore up and down that nothing was going on between them and that he didn’t love her, he loved me, she was just a friend, etc. We had a long talk about it and we both said that from that point on we would be completely honest about things. Then today, I found out that when he & this same girl were dating (so not recently) this girl had actually stayed over at his mothers’ place and met his mother. I found this out because he’d previously said that I was the first girlfriend he’d ever introduced his mother to. I hadn’t thought his relationship with this girl had been serious enough for her to meet his mother. He swears that it wasn’t. She’d just been a friend, more like a sister, that was always just there. I asked if he’d slept with her when she’d visited and he’d said he may have just kissed her but then he admitted that they were pretty much "friends with benefits". He says he wasn’t attracted to her, but they still had sex. I asked again how often they talked and this time he said once a week. This is as much as he talks to his good friends, all of whom he mentioned to me early in the relationship. I asked when the last time he'd spoken to this girl was and he said HE’d texted her the PREVIOUS DAY (while he was out with me) to wish her a happy 4th of July. I asked if they’d ever spoken over video chat or something like that and he said that they used to often, but they hadn’t since he’d been dating me. He said he used to talk to her as a friend, but now he spends his time talking to me. I was really upset, I told him how I felt about everything. He fluctuated between being frustrated/annoyed/dismissive that I was once again jealous of girls in his life and being understanding/wanting to prove that he loved me and that she was only his friend. I kept asking him how he thought I should feel or how he would feel in the same situation and he just kept saying that I had to trust him. So I don’t know what to do. I want to trust him and so many of the things that he’s done show me that he does truly care about me and want me to be happy, but I’m not comfortable with him having someone in his life that will “always be there” that he obviously has had a sexual and emotional relationship with. I asked if he would still be hooking up with her if I didn’t exist and she were in the same country (she lives abroad) and he said yes. I told him that I wasn’t sure I could be with him if he continued to talk to her. He said he couldn't just stop talking to her because he’d known her a long time & I had nothing to worry about because she was just a friend. He said, if only I could see things from his perspective, I’d know how silly it was for me to be jealous of her. I told him instead that I wanted to know every single time he contacted her and she contacted him and I wanted to see the nature of their discussion and he said that was fine and that he’d do anything possible to make me ok with things (although it doesn't seem like he'd simply stop talking to her...). I hate being so insecure about things, but I don’t know if I can be comfortable knowing he could be speaking to her frequently (and emotionally cheating on me). Am I overreacting? Do I have a really good guy but major insecurity issues? Or does he just want to have his cake & eat it too (a serious girlfriend & a fwb that will "always be there")? Should I let him go or try harder to trust him?
Philosoraptor Posted July 6, 2012 Posted July 6, 2012 You need to decide if you can accept him and his past or not. He seems intent on keeping this woman as a friend and you need to decide where your comfort zone is. If you can't accept it you need to end things sooner than later to at least limit your pain. 2
venusianx13 Posted July 6, 2012 Posted July 6, 2012 I understand how you feel... similarly, I began a relationship 3 months ago that moved very, very quickly. I think that when you fall in love with someone, you let your guard down completely and see the world through rose colored glasses. As time goes on, things unfold, and things come up which maybe don't necessarily cause doubt, but stir up questions... it's best to ask as plainly as you can, I think. And be completely transparent about your feelings. He may not come to understand how you feel about this revelation, but if he loves you, he WILL respect your feelings... also, be sure to trust your gut. If you've had rough times with relationships in the past, try to reflect and be sure you aren't projecting those experiences onto this relationship. I'm very much like you, it sounds, so I can easily understand how you feel...I just can't seem to take my own advice.
Recommended Posts