Driving myself insane with my boyfriend's past

[realchange93]

Right, so I'm going insane. And the worst part is knowing it's all my own doing.

 

I'm 19 years old, and my boyfriend is 22. He is the sweetest and most amazing person I've ever met. He treats me like gold, and is completely amazing to me in ways I can't describe with words. We've been together for 2 months, and I know it's a short amount of time, but I just KNOW he's someone I want to be with for a long time. He says he feels the same way about me. He's the type of person someone would tell me I'd deserve after my last bad relationship.

 

Now here's the issue... while he's got his **** together in his life, I am nowhere near there. I had issues even before him (actually, I had zero intentions of having a boyfriend until I got myself sorted out), but he popped out at the "wrong" time, completely caught me unguarded, and even knowing I wasn't "together" I still decided to pursue what was going on with him because I knew I'd regret missing the opportunity if I didn't take it, even if it was the "wrong" time for me.

 

I'm the second girl he's ever slept with, and the first girl he's been with for 2+ years. And that KILLS me. That he loved and cared for someone the way he does me with someone else. He told me I'm the first girl since his ex he's wanted to be with.

 

I, on the other hand, am not completely inexperienced, but I'm nothing like him. NOTHING. He's also the second person I ever slept with, but the person I gave my virginity away to a year ago was an abusive person who left me a week later and destroyed me. My "first love" was nothing like his - it does not involve me looking back at the time and smiling at the happy memories, because there was nothing happy about my relationship with my ex-boyfriend. This is my first "proper" relationship, and I feel so inferior and stupid. He knows about my ex and how big of a douche he was, and somehow I think the fact my ex treated me like **** makes it impossible for my bf to feel the feelings I feel when I act lovingly with him. I do not talk to any of my exes (yeah, all my breakups have been nasty), meanwhile him and his ex are on semi-friendly terms (they're not BFFs, but there isn't animosity between them). They were together for four years.

 

He does not mourn or worry about my past like I do with his, because my past is just so ****ed and he's the first "real" person I've been with. While he's always been stable and happy and together with his life, I'm the opposite: I've fought with depression most of my life, I have horrendous mood swings on a day-to-day basis (I've been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder), and I have NOTHING in my life together.

 

Why, just last night, while we were having sex and he was saying cute and adorable things to me, all I could think about was that he'd said the same things to someone else and MEANT them the same way he's saying them to me. Needless to say, I completely killed the mood for myself (not that I let him see this). Afterwards, I was so frustrated at having done that to myself, and not being able to get over the feelings. Since, after all, it's so goddamn ridiculous to worry over that. Everyone has a past, and it can't be changed. I KNOW this. So why do I continue to beat myself over it?

 

Although I've recently started therapy, I'm having a hard time with it. I've gone through three therapists thus far, and I feel absolutely no "connection" with any of them. They don't GET me, and who will get me? I speak illogically, and I make no sense in what I think and what I feel. I worry over the dumbest and most trivial things. I started therapy because my parents urged me to, and initially I was positive towards it, but now I'm just starting to think I'm just immature and I have no issues, and it's all my fault and I should just deal with it like everyone else deals with their own issues, because I'm making a big deal out of nothing 99% of the time. I'm 19, ffs. This shouldn't be a big deal. Meanwhile, I'm sure most of the posters here are older, wiser and have much bigger problems than mine. I feel like I'm just "growing up" and this is part of my learning, and I should just let it run its course instead of trying to inhibit it.

 

This causes me jumping around in my head and trying to find ways to deal with the misery. I know I said I wanted to take a chance with him, despite not being "fixed", but I'm finding it terrible. I've even found myself trying to find excuses to leave him. I can't cope, and I don't want him to know just how bad I'm doing. Yeah, he'd care, but what type of relationship is it if my feelings are being babysat by my boyfriend two months into it? He's not my parent. He's supposed to my boyfriend. My equal. And I feel so inadequate of him, because of how badly I struggle with my head and emotions, and how much he does not.

 

I sleep next to him while my thoughts are running and my mind is in constant turmoil. He sleeps peacefully next to me, while I'm unable to do the same.

 

I don't want him to "fix" me, or even SEE him as someone to fix me. But I feel so bad overall.

 

...yes, I realize quite clearly there's a lot more going on with me here than just not being able to let go of my boyfriend's past. I think in a way, I'm JEALOUS of him for living his life the way I have never been able to live mine. For being STABLE and CONFIDENT in ways I have never been able to. The worst is, as much as I say that I don't want him to know how messed up I am or that I don't want his pity, I find myself sometimes doing things in hopes of catching his attention to something being wrong with me. It's as if I'd feel less guilty if he realizes what's wrong with me on his own as opposed to me coming out and telling him (I'd feel like an attention whore and pity seeker if I tell him straight out). When I realize I'm being passive aggressive by doing this, I feel like, once again, I'm just being an immature child who needs to get my own **** together and stop putting it on other people.

 

I feel like I'm deceiving him. He constantly tells me how lucky he is to be with me, how he hasn't felt like this about anyone in a long time, how amazing I am, etc., but I think he's basing this opinion off the mask I display for him. The mask of being strong, secure, compassionate, and together. If he ever knew how insecure and how ****ed up I really am, he wouldn't think I'd be amazing then. He thinks he's dating someone who is together with their life. I'm DECEIVING him. Because, let's be honest, who wants to be with someone who's like me? You'd never see someone in a psychiatric ward and think "Wow, I want to be with this person that has an insane amount of problems." I sometimes think my compassion isn't genuine, and my kindness towards others is just an attempt to hide from myself how selfish I really am.

 

What do I do? I don't know what to do. Part of me is telling me I'm not ready for a relationship and it's unfair to put him through this **** with me, and I should back out and work on myself. But part of me wants to selfishly keep him, the best thing that has happened to me, and ATTEMPT to control my overwhelming thoughts and emotions and maybe, just maybe, one day I can be the stable person I portray myself to be in the public eye.

Edited November 21, 2012 by realchange93

[Exit]

Interesting situation....

 

My first thought after reading that, is that you are simply being smacked in the face with the consequences of choosing to enter this relationship even though you felt like you needed to spend some time single and focusing on yourself. Which leads me right to my next thought, you said you decided to cross that boundary because even though you felt like the timing was wrong, you didn't want to miss this opportunity to be with this person. But, now seeing how many difficulties you are having with it, are you successfully enjoying this opportunity and making the most of it? No. So you chose to abandon plan A of working on yourself, and went with plan B to date this person, but it's not accomplishing anything. It does not sound enjoyable at all to say you can't even concentrate on being physical with him or fall asleep at night because of how much your thoughts are bothering you.

 

I'm unable to really know what role your borderline diagnosis is playing in this. I'm also a little surprised that at only 19, you even have this full-fledged diagnosis, because most doctors will realize people are too young and going through too many changes during this period of life and it's a waste of time trying to assign a diagnosis to it, and on top of that, some doctors, even once they come to a conclusion, would never just outright tell the patient what disorder they may have, because that just causes more stress and complications. I'm not a psychiatrist so I don't really know what process they go through when offering a diagnosis. But I do agree with you that yes, you are only 19, and yes you probably still have some growing up to do, and that's appropriate for your age, so I would't judge too much of your life from the perspective of having borderline personality disorder as much as I would just focus on the fact that you're 19 and you have some things to figure out. Also another interesting thing about borderline is that I had always heard it's an interesting disorder in the sense that it is usually extremely rare for anyone suffering from it to have an understanding or be able to admit that they have it. Kind of like the old saying "insane people don't think they are insane, they think they're the only normal person". So the fact that you go through life thinking/knowing you have BPD at least shows that you are at a higher level of functioning that someone who would really be in the deepest depths of that disorder. A truly borderline person would never entertain the idea that something is wrong with them because BPD involves such a severe lack of empathy that you never even stop to analyze how your behavior affects the people around you. Which even applying that to the material you've written here... you seem a little too concerned about how your behavior might affect your boyfriend and that maybe you are harming him in the long run.... that kind of concern is not exactly the hallmark of someone dealing with borderline personality disorder. You care too much and you're too aware of how your behavior can affect others. So I dunno what kind of doctor decided to give you this diagnosis, especially at your age, but I'm not sure how I feel about it.

 

Anyways...

 

The next part that jumped out at me was when you mentioned how sometimes you feel you are trying to get "caught" by your boyfriend by acting a certain way, because you think telling him how you feel, or telling him something is wrong with you, is attention-seeking and pity-seeking, whereas if he notices it on his own, that would be a different story. To that, I can only say, congratulations, you definitely are a female lol. What I mean by that is that women never feel like they should have to spell something out. The second you have to directly explain something or ask for something -- it's not longer worth it. And I think that is a really terrible way to handle relationships. People cannot read minds. Wishing people would notice certain things about you, or give you something, without you having to ask for it, is just willingly allowing yourself to be a horrible communicator. As I said, people cannot read minds, and it's only fair that you tell them what needs to be said, or ask for what you want. It does not make the end result worth anything less just because you had to say it out loud rather than have it picked up telepathically. We've all engaged in this type of behavior at some point or another, where we want something without having to ask for it, and generally all it results in is tension, resentment, and arguments. Don't continue this game of "I hope he notices me". If you think he needs to know certain things about you, tell him.

 

Really, my opinion is that you only have two options. You either break up with him and go back to focusing on getting to know yourself better before this relationship goes on any longer, or you are going to have to have a long talk with him where you should tell him much -- or maybe even everything, of what you just wrote above. I understand that can be a scary thought when the relationship is only 2 months old and it might be too much to lay on him. But the only option I don't really think you have is that idea of "stay with him and ATTEMPT to control my overwhelming thoughts and emotions and make one day I can be a stable person". Take it from me, that will never work. I have been in situations like yours where something about a relationship just bothers me to death and I'm unable to even push it out of my mind long enough to just sleep next to the person. I have tried on numerous occasions to just IGNORE it when something is wrong with a relationship, to tell myself that if I ignore it long enough it will go away and that I'll be much happier that way rather than ending the relationship, and it never ever works. If I manage to bottle it up long enough, I generally don't have to end the relationship myself, because it will seep into my actions and behaviors and I end up getting dumped anyway. These types of thoughts and feelings that are bubbling up inside of you on a constant basis are not just magically going to go away if you fight it long enough. It's going to keep feeling this torturous. That's why I feel your only options are to either end it or come clean about it. It's good that you don't want to ask your boyfriend to fix you or become a parent figure, but it's incorrect to assume that having an honest conversation with him about how you are feeling automatically means you are looking to be fixed or looking for pity. Sure it could turn into something toxic like that if you let it. But trying to keep these feelings bottled up inside is no less toxic or inappropriate.

 

Actually I think you have it backwards. Your little game of charades where you you admit you try to behave in certain ways that will get you noticed and maybe tip him off that something isn't right with you sounds a lot more pity-seeking and a lot more "wanting to be fixed" than to just be an adult about it and have an open conversation with your boyfriend. So I think you need to give that some more thought.

 

In my mind the easiest thing to do would be to end it because it does sound like you have a lot to figure out about yourself and I think you were on the right track before all of this happened when you were planning to not enter into any relationships right now. You are only 19 and it's going to cause a much larger complication to try to juggle all of these things at once. You've only been together for 2 months, and while that doesn't necessarily mean that you can walk away with zero discomfort and never miss this person or question if you did the right thing, it's certainly easier to do it after 2 months than after 12 months or 2 years. But I understand that you may not want to throw this relationship away. I think it would take a lot of work on your part to keep this going though. You would have to open up and stop bottling this stuff inside. Or I guess another option would be to end it on good terms and tell him that you honestly need time to work on yourself and that you worry you would end up hurting him otherwise, but that if you remain on good terms and both are single at some point down the road that you would like to try seeing him again. But that situation would come with its own risks and challenges as well.

 

Geez, my reply is so long already and I've forgotten to even address some of the thoughts that are going through your mind. They certainly aren't appropriate and in my opinion it's another situation where you have everything backwards. You make it sound like his past is more worthy of concern because he was with someone for 4 years, he really loved her, he used to make love to her and whisper cute things to her as well. And in your mind that makes his past infinitely more frightening than your past, where you admit that you gave your virginity to someone who wasn't even around a week after that, that you've dated other people but all your breakups have been horrible, etc. In your mind, this makes you a perfect candidate to date, he should be thrilled to have you because he can look at your horrible dating past and feel that he doesn't need to worry that you still have any lingering feelings for anyone, whereas your boyfriend only had sex with someone who he maintained a serious relationship with for 4 years and that's FRIGHTENING. I think you're all wrong about that. I think you should be thrilled that he only had one sexual partner and it was someone he was with for a long time. And yes, even if it means at one point, he was in love with someone else, I don't know why you would go to such lengths to feel like that cheapens what you have with him now. They were together for 4 years and they aren't now. The only thing I can remotely agree with you on is that it can be tricky when you know that the person you are with is still in touch with their ex. I didn't get a good idea of how involved they really are, all you said is they aren't best friends but they don't exactly hate each other either. Do they talk every day? Would he pick up his phone in front of you to answer a call or text in front of you? There are certain things that you would surely be warranted in being frightened about, but simply that fact that he had this relationship in his past should not be driving you so far up a wall. It would only be worth being with him if he were a pure virgin who never dated or loved before? Well, you're not going to find that in today's reality, especially as you get older. You're 19 now, most everyone around you had already been in love and had sex, and those who haven't surely will in the next few years. Like I said before, I don't know how your supposed personality disorder might play into this insecurity that you feel about his past relationship. There'd be no point in me trying to rationalize this with you if your brain literally works in a different way than mine does. But really if we connect the dots here, are you bothered by the fact that he previously loved someone else for a period of 4 years, or are you really just trying to say that you are concerned that he still loves her today? Is he that into his ex or behaving in any way that can justify that fear? It doesn't sound like it based on how you described him treating you so well.

 

Well, all my rambling aside, my main advice is that you should not attempt to just ignore things until they get better. This does not sound like something that is going to go away and it will just keep eating at you. So I think you need to decide if you can get comfortable opening up to him about at least some of it, or if you just need to cut ties before this goes on any longer.

 

Also on your note about not connecting with any of your therapists, how many appointments do you go to before you decide to give up and try a new one? I don't think anyone goes to therapy and finds a connection right away.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Exit