Lost trust and how to get it back

JustCurious83

New member
Ok, I'm going to attempt to shorten this story as much as possible for time sake but this has been going on for 4 months so there is only so much shortening I can do...

I am in a "closed" poly relationship with a married couple and as this is my first poly relationship we talked at length about the rules and expectations of everyone involved. One of the things I was adamant about before I agreed to give it a try was whether just his wife and I would be enough for him. They had come from the swinging lifestyle and got bored with the "no emotional connection" part of it and started looking for a full time 3rd that would fulfill both the emotional and the sexual need. I was assured over and over again that yes, we would be enough, so I agreed to give it a try as I was bored with monogamy and had always been attracted to women but had never experienced anything sexual with another woman. It took quite a while for me to settle into it because of personal hang ups but we are now doing quite well on the threesome side of things, or at least I thought we were.

Back in January we had a pretty serious problem. I had been talking with this woman who wanted me to come work for her and she was way too open about her "indiscretions" at work. Not knowing that this would turn out to be a mistake I told my partners about what she had told me and we all had a good laugh about it. My BF did ask what her last name was but I didn't think anything about it until a few nights later when I was watching him run a race on his computer and he handed me his phone and asked me to text his brother in law. I asked him if he wanted me to wait for a response and he said yes so I held onto his phone for a few minutes waiting for the brother in law to text back. While I was waiting he received a Facebook message and a preview popped up on his screen. It was from this woman that I had been talking to about a job. I will never forget that message as long as I live. "You're killing me! You are so BAD!" I wish I had opened it to see what they had been talking about but I'm not the kind of person who violates privacy so I didn't. I laid his phone down in front of him and said "You got a Facebook message from 'name'" and walked out of the room. Now I'm weird, I clean when In angry or upset so I went in the kitchen and started washing dishes. He came in the kitchen and asked me what was wrong and I asked him if he added her on Facebook or is she added him and he said he added her. Given what I knew about her I wasn't comfortable with it and I told him so. He got angry and put his phone where I could see it and deleted her off of Facebook and said he didn't want to hear another word about it so I decided to just let it and give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Little did I know the shitstorm that was about to hit me square in the face a few days later.

I got up this particular moment and needed to answer some customer messages on Facebook since I use it to market my home based business and pulled up Facebook.com on his computer and he was logged in so I was trying to find the sign out button when a message came in. From her. Again. I was up in the upper right hand corner of the screen looking for the logout so of course when the notification came up I was basically staring right at it. I went red. I have never been that angry and hurt in my life. I was so angry I went completely against everything I believe in and I clicked on the message and scrolled to the top. The first message in the stream was from him. "Well fortunately my wife doesn't know we did anything". The red got for lack of a better word, redder. So again I went completely against everything I believe and I snooped further and all I found was stream after stream of inappropriate conversations with women. Naked pictures where exchanged, illicit meetings where discussed but never confirmed and one woman who I'm fairly certain is from another country kept asking him to marry her!!! I was so red I couldn't see straight so I opened the stream with her again and started typing. Let's just say the conversation ended with her thinking my gf had caught them.

That afternoon she called me and was obviously upset about something and wanted to talk to me so I made arrangements to stop by her work to talk to her fairly certain of what she wanted to talk about. She started telling that she felt really bad that she did something she shouldn't and she was afraid that my "friend" (my gf who also knows her because she tutored her once of twice) was going to hate her, so I asked her what happened. She proceeded to tell me that the last morning morning that my BF got off of work at 8am after a 24 hour shift he came to see her at work, took her in the back room and then into the bathroom, leaned her over the sink and fucked her. She was very detailed in her description of him and the way he likes it for it to be coincidence. I was still very angry so I shamed her into deleting him off of Facebook and blocking him and blocking his phone # on his phone as well. She had me do it because she didn't know anything about electronics. He was at work when I talked to her and was working 2 back to back shifts so I did my best to leave him alone. Unfortunately I couldn't handle the suspense so I went to his work and confronted him. He swore that he didn't have sex with her and by this point I was so tired that I decided to just let this one go and try to forget about it.

Over the next several months I knew something still wasn't right because he protects his phone like he is hiding something. He gets texts from random #s and hides his phone from my view. He gets off work at 8am and rarely ever manages to get home before 9:30 and he works 15 minutes away. I tried everything I could to get him to talk to me, I asked him regularly "do you have anything to want to say to me or tell me without me getting angry?" and the answer is always no or "what are you talking about". I've been walking around for months feeling like I am crazy and not knowing how to proceed, I even added his fingerprint to my phone and I leave it laying around giving him every opportunity to check it out if he wants too, hoping that that might prompt a little more transparency with me but nothing. It all came to a head again a few days ago and I once again went against my nature and invaded privacy only this time it was with my gf. He was mowing the grass and had left her phone laying in the kitchen so I pulled up her text streams and went back about a dozen texts and found them discussing him playing with a woman who works for a local rescue squad and that no one that he used to play with from sls is playing anymore and she reminded him that he wasn't allowed to play with anyone new because she is pregnant and doesn't want to put the baby at risk. I was FLOORED. Not only has he been lying to me but now I feel like she has been too and I just don't know where I go from here. I love both of them excruciatingly but I can't go through life not being able to trust my partners and right now I can't trust them. I talked to her about it and admitted what I did because I felt worse about invading her privacy than I did his because she and I have been best friends for almost 15 years and she and I agreed before any of this started that we would not allow anything to damage our friendship we've had it too long to just let it go. She responded pretty much the way I thought she would and didn't make a big deal out of it and very graciously forgave me just like I knew she would which is why it was easy for me to tell her what I had done. And it obviously didn't damage her trust in me because she has left the house several more times since then and left her phone behind. I haven't touched it again and I won't. I got the confirmation that I needed that he wasn't being transparent with me.

I don't want to loose him, I really don't but when he has been given opportunity after opportunity to tell me the truth and has chosen to continue keeping things from me I don't know how much longer I can live like this. He and I recently had an argument about me drinking and what I really wanted to say was "I wouldn't feel the desire to drink anytime I'm away from you if you would just be honest with me!" but we always end up having these discussions via text and I refuse to tell him exactly how I feel via text, there's too much room for miscommunication.

So here are my questions, what do I do and how do I proceed? And also I have contemplated pulling this up on his computer and letting him find it so he has time to think about it before we talk. Any and all comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
 
I am sorry you struggle.

I could be wrong. But long story short? To me it sounds like he agreed and assured you at the beginning and you and his wife would be enough sex partners for him.

  • Then it turns out he's had sex with your coworker person (?) in the office bathroom. You know about that but the wife doesn't seem to know about that one.

  • Then it turns out he is also asking his wife if he can take up with a former swing playmate. The wife told him that goes against current agreements. She knew about this former playmate thing, but you initially did not. (Was she just never going to tell you?)

How you came about some of your info by snooping the phone? That's not right, and you seem to know that. You could apologize for that part of it.

But you know what? It doesn't change what he's doing in HIS behavior. It doesn't change that he broke current agreements. It does not change that he is / has been putting you and wife's health at risk when he's engaging sexually with other people and not disclosing. It doesn't sound like he's up front and says "Before I share sex with you, I need to be up front. Since the last time we shared sex, there's been ___ other people. Do you still want to share sex?"

You cannot assess your health risks if he's leaving some partners out. You cannot give full consent like that.

  • To me it sounds like he made a bad faith lie when he made agreements he wasn't going to keep.
  • And he is doing lies of omission when he leaves other partners out and not disclose.

You have given opportunities to tell you the truth and he has chosen/is choosing to continue keeping things from you. You don't want to be living like this. You are tired of this behavior.

It doesn't sound like he's changing his behaviors. Lying works for him. So you could change your behavior: You could not be there. You could stop staying around for more of this treatment that you do not like.

Why do you have to trust him again? :confused: Seems healthier for you to accept that he is just not trustworthy. Then change your behavior. Rather than keep on staying in the upset? Could choose to get you OUT of here so you be FREE from future upset. So you cannot be dinged again and so your health is no longer at risk from his careless behavior. Then you can stop looking at their phones from fear some new thing is happening/will happen.

He can carry on being irresponsible in his behavior and his behavior no longer affects you or your health.

I think you could end it with him, and let it all go. Heal and move on. Whether or not you remain friends with the wife is a separate issue. But him? After a certain number of dings, you could call it "enough is enough!" and let it go. With regrets maybe, but let it go all the same.

You are not put on this earth to be dinged over and over and over. You deserve to be treated well, in the way you want to be treated. If he doesn't make the cut? He doesn't make the cut.

You could get yourself out of the "ding zone" since he cannot be trusted to just not ding you. You are responsible for your own health and well being. And if this is the kind of guy he turned out to be? You can choose not to be around that any more.

I'm sorry you deal it this. It doesn't sound fun. I hope you extricate yourself from this mess. You might love him, but I don't see where he loves you if he's cheating and lying. That's not him doing loving or respectful behavior towards you.

Painful to come to terms with, but it seems pretty straight up.

I'm sorry. :(

Galagirl
 
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I would definitely NOT pull anything up on his computer, to start with.

First, the harsh bit. You know, I hope, that regardless of what your boyfriend has done, you were completely out of line to message the other woman pretending to be him. You were out of line to even read the messages they'd exchanged. Unless he and she both gave you permission to read them, that was a huge invasion of privacy, and nothing either of them has done excuses that.

I would say that there's no trust at all in that relationship, to be honest. You don't trust him. Now you don't trust your girlfriend. And clearly, since you've demonstrated that you don't respect their privacy, they don't have a reason to trust you.

It sounds like a train wreck of a relationship to me... and they're bringing a baby into it?? Yeah...no. I would say it is time for you to get out of there. If they're going to keep playing games and betraying trust, you don't need to be there, and they don't need to have someone around who thinks it's acceptable to invade their privacy to prove they're being dishonest.
 
Clear up

First, I didn't message her pretending to be him. I actually responded to her saying "Are you sure no one knows that could tell your wife?" And I responded back, "yes someone knows, and I will be sure that she finds out about it!" Then asked her point blank what they had done, exactly.

Second, have you never in your entire life been so distraught that you did something you weren't proud of? Just a thought.
 
Of course I have. And it was wrong, and I paid the consequences. This isn't a "you're more wrong than they were" game. You were wrong. So were they. You asked what to do about the situation and the lack of trust, and I'm just pointing out that trust goes both ways, and so does the lack thereof. You've given them reason not to trust you, just as they've given you reason not to trust them.

If you aren't interested in hearing a variety of opinions, some of which you wont' like or agree with, a public forum may not be the place you want to post. It is, of course, your choice, but posting publicly means being prepared to hear things you don't want.

In your original post, you said you were on his Facebook when the message came in, and you responded to that message. You didn't specify that you told her it wasn't him responding, and given that you said you were on his account, it was a reasonable assumption that your message to her came from his account. If you told her it wasn't him, that's not quite so bad, though still not cool.
 
What GalaGirl said.

What I say is DTMF and fast. He isn't interested in gaining your trust. He isn't interested in keeping his agreements.

My father used to tell me: 'people vote with their feet.' His feet are not voting in your direction. All his words of you being 'enough' do not match what his feet are doing.

It took me too long to realize that I need to raise my standards and demand people who do what they say, and say what they do. You're worth it.
 
If this rather unbelievable story is actually real, then I would say you need to dump these people. Loving them has nothing to do with it - most of us have loved people who are not good for us to be in a relationship with. You don't need their crap. Find your backbone and get out now -- if you stay, you'd just be allowing them to keep lying and to victimize you.

And get tested for STIs right away!
 
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Unbelievable story

I can assure you that this unbelievable story is true, I've been living in this hell the last four months. I'm a senior in college and I graduate in 2 weeks so I have a lot on my plate right now. Since my BF is tutoring me in one subject and my gf is tutoring me in another I fear for the sake of my grades that I need to just sit on this until finals are over, but after sleeping on it I agree with all of you that this is an untenable situation and I need to make some changes. I talked to my gf about it again last night and she ever said that if I'm not happy because he isn't keeping his promises to me that he doesn't deserve me, but he deserves her and that broke my heart. She is truly one of the best and most loving people I have ever met and so I say she is right about me and very wrong about her. I do deserve better but so does she. She deserves much, much better but I know her, she will never leave him or expect anything more from him than what he has always given her which in my opinion after being with them the last year is nothing more than emotional and verbal abuse. It seemed that he was chilling out down and he was being tempered down by the conversations that we have had when he treats her badly. I'm assuming he can tell something is wrong by the look on my face because after he has been mean to her he frequently asks me my opinion and I have always been honest with him when I answer. My gf also pointed out when we talked last night that I treat him with Kidd gloves which isn't something I would normally do and she agreed that waiting until finals are over is probably the best idea. So in 2 weeks I will be confessing my additional transgressions that he isn't aware of yet and asking him 4 questions.

1) Why did you lie?
2) Do you plan to still pursue sexual relationships with other woman?
3) Will you be honest with me when you are thinking about it even though it will probably hurt me or make me angry?
4) If I give you the answer you know I will, will you be honest with me again if you choose to go against the promises you made to me even though it will hurt me and make me angry?

Now what I have to decide is whether or not I can handle him being honest with me. I know this is going to sound crazy but honestly other than this our relationship is amazing. I have never been more supported in my life and I have also never been happier in a relationship before. I'd I can salvage this I really want to because other than this it has been amazing. Now I'm not saying that I won't leave if he continues with his unsafe behavior because I will but if confronting and confessing and giving this one more chance can save it then I have to try.

Thanks for the listening ears and the input, I really do appreciate it all and please feel free to comment on my plan as well. If there is a better way to do this I am all ears!
 
I think your plan to shelve this for 2 weeks so you can get through finals without extra emotional brouhaha makes sense. Postpone this, and just get that testing done and graduate. Investing in YOU is a good thing.

I think you other plan is unrealistic. I could be wrong and this is just my opinion. But to me you sound mad. So the question list is coming out with mixed up stuff in it.

Either unnecessary stuff which I greyed out. Just not needed and gets in the way of the message.

Or YOUR emotional stuff, which I turned blue. It's not his job to manage your feelings for you, or start walking on eggshells so YOU don't blow up at him. Your emotional management is your job.

1) Why did you lie?
2) Do you plan to still pursue sexual relationships with other women?
3) Will you be honest with me when you are thinking about it (even though it will probably hurt me or make me angry)
4) If I give you the answer you know I will, will you be honest with me again if you choose to go against the promises you made (to me even though it will hurt me and make me angry?

You could trim all that down to HIS BEHAVIOR and leave your emotional management to you. Then I think it becomes clearer, more effective communication. Something like:

1) Why did you lie?
2) Do you still plan to pursue sexual relationship with other women?
3) Will you tell me ahead of time if you are thinking about it so agreements are not broken and can be renegotiated?
4) If you choose to break agreements, will you come clean about it afterward?

You articulation could use work, but I see a bigger problem.

You seem to think he will suddenly become honest. That he will not lie some more and just say whatever to get himself off the hook when you ask him things like that. Is that true? :confused:

If so? I think you could save your breath and not bother asking. You have enough info to make a decision already without asking those extra questions. You already know

  • He breaks his promises to you when he could not promise in the first place.
  • He lies, which makes him not trustworthy.
  • He abuses his other partner/your GF.
  • You and his other partner/your GF notice you handling him with "kid gloves" -- aka walking on eggshells. ( So he doesn't blow up/abuse you? Not healthy.)

You think you deserve better. So after finals and grad? YOU could give you a better situation.

  • Could end it with him after grad.
  • Then focus on your healing instead of spending more of your time trying to understand why he lies. It just works for him. There's not much more to it than that.

Keep your attention on YOU. Don't linger in this untenable situation. Just leave it and create a new tenable situation for yourself.

You are right that the other GF deserves better too. Hopefully she comes to realize it also.

Galagirl
 
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Questions

You make several great points Galagirl and I appreciate your response. I always do better with issues when I have someone to talk them through with.

You're right about the questions. My emotions are mine to manage and the way I phrased the questions does seem like I am asking him to take responsibility for them which is not his place (even though we do have a very selective times power swap arrangement). The answers I am seeking are about him, not about me. I know how I plan to proceed with me, it's just a matter of whether it will be me with him or me alone.

And to answer your question, no he does not abuse me because I won't allow him to. When he gets angry and acts out like a child I call him on it and expect him to take responsibility for his own actions and decisions. Which is why this whole situation has me so freaked out. I don't know why but in this situation I haven't been able to assert myself or maybe I've chosen not to which is probably the case. There has only ever been one time that his behavior while he was angry made me feel anything other than pity for him and as soon as I felt those old feelings of being the victim start to rise I shut him down. I went to walk past him to go downstairs and away from him and he barred me from going down and said something about "he wasn't through with me yet" so I told him to either hit me or get out of the way. I don't think he realized he was being as aggressive and hurtful as he was because when I said what I said he looked at me like I had just punched him in the gut. About 10 minutes later he found me downstairs and gave me a heartfelt apology which are few and far between. It's those moments of vulnerability that makes me want to work it out instead of running but I also agree that if it can't be worked out quickly I won't stay and continue to subject myself to his lies. I guess we shall see.
 
If unable to seek change, drunks will drink again.

If unable to seek change, liars will lie again.

If unable to seek change, cheaters will cheat again.

Neither liars nor cheaters are capable of polyamory. To put it the other way 'round: a relationship built on lies, manipulation, subterfuge, &/or anger is questionable as being "a relationship," but is definitely NOT polyamory.

If you love drama, then by all means enjoy. If not, then propose change. You may find that you're the only one not a "histrionics junkie" -- if so, & you don't have some sort of leverage to shock someone into picking up a shovel & clearing out the bullshit, then maybe you should do it yourself, & place THEM on the ash-heap.

But you knew that already. :rolleyes:
 
Oh honey, you are not in a closed relationship. This is not polyfi. Your boyfriend cheated and will cheat again. Get out of this mess.
 
I also have to mention what I don't see that others have...

Continuing in this unhealthy environment has influenced your behavior in unhealthy directions. And while you absolutely cannot say, "Well maybe if he would not <behavior, behavior> then I wouldn't feel the need to drink"...if you are drinking more than you're happy with in order to cope or mask a real issue, you're just doing self-harm that does nothing to actually help, fix, or solve stuff. It's no bueno. And you know it.

It's sad, in my opinion, that GF is pregnant with this man. That is going to make the choices she has to make, a lot harder. But ultimately, it is not your job to martyr yourself for the sake of your friend. I get a sense that you don't like bailing and leaving her there to deal with him on her own. But you need to tend to your own life. If possible, definitely try and keep your friendship with her and be as supportive as possible...but she is a grown adult, same as you are, and she will have to handle her own relationship.

I don't really feel that there is going to be an outcome where everyone gets honest and there is trust and no further paranoia or insecurity. And those are very yucky feelings to live with.

If you truly wish to be helpful to GF, aside from just staying in touch and offering moral support, I'd suggest seeing if there is any way you can raise some money and stash it away in a savings account or something, and let her know that if she reaches a point where she needs to get out of there, she has help. Or build a support network, or have resource phone numbers handy, or anything. I know that raising money to sock away wouldn't be easy as a college student, but finding some way to establish real material "safety net" for her might make you feel better about moving on, and it's the most you could do for a friend in this situation. It's really easy to talk yourself out of leaving a bad relationship when you rely on the security of the partnership to survive, especially with a baby on the way.

For the love of heaven resist the urge to snoop on any of their electronics now. Just accept that he is highly unlikely to change what he's doing. You don't need any more proof and at this point, you're just torturing yourself.
 
I don't want to lose him
You don't want to even consider throwing him out, but he's already moving his metaphorical boxes out the door.

Your two "partners" are getting jollies stacking up lie upon lie.

You are becoming just as stupid as they are.

If your gf is "concerned about the baby," then her best option is to stop being a childish twat & cut the bf loose ASAP.

If you can't face your bf as an adult, & expect him to respond as an adult, then he's NOT going to stop the game-playing, much less attempt to repair the damage he's already done.

Staying with THAT does NOT indicate that you're getting any smarter.

If your gf thinks she needs to be treated like that, she won't leave.

If you stay, you're saying you want to be treated like that.
I have contemplated pulling this up on his computer and letting him find it
Any situation that demands passive-aggressive tactics is rapidly devolving; the stupidity is mounting, because that's the sort of tactic I'd expect from a pouty 12-year-old.

Do you want a better life? or just a more equitable shithole?

Let us know what you are doing to make it better -- including the interim results you expect from each of you -- or what you are doing to leave.

Other than that, it's just blah-blah-blah.
 
I went to walk past him to go downstairs and away from him and he barred me from going down and said something about "he wasn't through with me yet" so I told him to either hit me or get out of the way.

That is intimidation, a form of abuse. Abuse is not just hitting. So don't think it isn't happening to you too just because you fight back.

Because it sounds like it already is. :(

I don't think he realized he was being as aggressive and hurtful as he was because when I said what I said he looked at me like I had just punched him in the gut. About 10 minutes later he found me downstairs and gave me a heartfelt apology which are few and far between. It's those moments of vulnerability that makes me want to work it out instead of running

That chunk sounds a little too much like "cycle of abuse" stuff to me.

Does it not occur to you that "moments of vulnerability" is just another hook to keep you there?

He tried to stop you from leaving physically -- by blocking the door. When that did not work? Seems like he changed tactics to try something else. Showed up to play the "vulnerable" card to stop you from leaving by pulling at your heartstrings. Keeps you there emotionally.

If he learns that tactic usually works with you? He's figuring out which buttons to push to get you to do what he wants.

I could be wrong, I'm not there and I am not you and I don't know your full picture situation. But I'll be honest -- to me it sounds to be like you are best off OUT of there. Graduate and get OUT.

If it were me? I would be out. Because next time instead of barring the stairs it could be PUSHING you down the stairs. Then what? Ugh! :(

Tread carefully. Dude is a liar. Don't start believing "fake honeymoon roses" apologies when they may not be sincere and may just be part of the abuse cycle. More noise coming out of him that means NOTHING.

There's the cycle of abuse over time -- where the initial explosions seem "mild" compared to punching you in the face. And the apologies do happen. So you let it slide. Over time? More and more slides. The violence grows and the apology shrinks. And the cycle over time is faster and faster til you are so dizzy you don't know which end is up and are stunned it got to this "from nowhere."

I wonder about his wife -- if she's internalized abuse over the years and now that she's got a baby she feels "stuck" with him. But you are not her -- so you get YOU out.

Be careful leaving too. There's such thing as leaving abuse/revenge stuff.

I am concerned for your well being. :(

Galagirl
 
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Thinking

Galagirl,

I appreciate your honesty again. I'm not going to say that I disagree with you because I have been in emotionally abusive relationships before. He left early this morning (3am) to fly to Colorado for work and will be gone until Saturday so I will have plenty of time to do some thinking and figure all of this out. I know given the fact that you firmly believe he is an abuser this won't make any sense but I laid in the bed after he left and bawled until I got up this morning because I really do love him and I missed him but also because I am beginning to get the feeling that I am not able to love him enough to change him and I wouldn't want to. One of the agreements (not that those matter much at this point to anyone except me) we made going into this is that neither of us where to become the others "project". I promised to accept him as he is and not hold any of his "baggage" against him or him hold mine against me. I've been in some seriously bad relationships before and I have some emotional scarring and believe it or not, PTSD. When he stopped me on the stairs that day, I didn't see him. I saw my ex-husband and I'm proud that I had the gall to confront him the way that I did. I never would have done that in my marriage.

Part of me is also concerned that if I don't stay and at least show some inner fortitude and prove to myself that I'm not a coward when it comes to confrontation that I will be right back where I was after my divorce and that is not something that I ever want to be again.

I understand what you mean by the more and more slides over time bit. I've experienced that before in my marriage and maybe I am completely off base here but this feels very different. One of the things I have never had a problem with other than with this situation is keeping things out in the open. I don't know why this is so different, that's one I can't figure out.

Graduation is the 14th.
 
It makes sense to me. You love him but want the bad behaviors to stop. You sound kinda Stage 3 about it.

I am beginning to get the feeling that I am not able to love him enough to change him and I wouldn't want to.

Yup. You could love him 200%. But your love is not what control his behavior. HE controls his behavior. And the only person who can change his behaviors is HIM. You cannot do his behaviors for him.

I wonder if he asked you to promise not to hold his baggage against him so he could have a "built in" excuse for not exercising self control over his behavior choices? Like a built in slide. When he does bad behaviors? It's his baggage that make him do that, you see. So you can't be holding that against him. Is that how it is there? :confused:

Even if he starts treat you well? I don't see how you can date your GF's abuser in good faith or in good conscience. It's not loving behavior on your part to be dating a guy who hurts her. How's that supposed to work? :(

Tread carefully with whatever you decide to do.

I will tell you that you deserve to be treated WELL, with respect and dignity. If he's not giving it to you, and doesn't plan to change or keeps on with the lies and fake roses? I hope you have the courage to treat YOU well by walking away from shenanigans.

If you are there giving him positive attention hoping he stops being mean? If you are there fighting with him giving him negative attention in the form of arguments?
He is the center of your universe either way. You just get drained of energy in circular conversation that never changes, really.

Sometime the only way to "win" is to not play at all. Be brave and get out of there and stop giving him attention supply. Keep your energies for yourself.

But you might not be ready to make the break and may have to work through the other stages first. I encourage you to read them.

Stay safe.

Galagirl
 
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I wonder if he asked you to promise not to hold his baggage against him so he could have a "built in" excuse for not exercising self control over his behavior choices? Like a built in slide. When he does bad behaviors? It's his baggage that make him do that, you see. So you can't be holding that against him. Is that how it is there? :confused:

This agreement actually was my request not his. Like I said I've been in abusive relationships and sometimes I still respond the way I was programmed to and believe it or not there are a lot of those that he has helped me overcome. Just another reason why I love him, I told him I wasn't happy about something about me and he helped me change it, and was supportive through the process. One that I still struggle with to a degree is emotional outbursts, a learned trait from the failed marriage. That was the only way I could get him to talk to me and the first time I did that to BF he was surprisingly calm considering how quickly he gets angry and how quickly he gets over it. He left me alone to calm down and then asked me to work through the emotions that I felt and we talked it over and formed a game plan for the next time, which has actually helped considerably. I now walk away and calm down FIRST, before allowing myself to react. I feel much more in control of my own emotions that way, and that is just another reason why all of this is so confusing.

You also bring up a good point on his actions towards GF. I HATE the way he treats her and I tell him often.
 
I think it's really important to understand that:

You love someone...does NOT equal...you stay with someone.
You leave someone...does NOT equal...you don't love them or stop loving them.

You can love someone...but at the same time, realize that:
1. You can't change them. And it's not your job.

2. They are not healthy for you. They do harm to you and others around you that harms you indirectly too. Interactions with them bring out behaviors in you that you do not like. Ask yourself: Do I really like the me that I am right now? Can I be my BEST me in this man's life? The paranoia, snooping, and drinking, point to no. Even if there's been some good self-work here and there, too...and speaking of which...

3. It's not all bad. Of course it isn't! It's a mixed bag. He's done some good, and some bad for you. But there are some things you just can't live with in a partner. Taking the good lessons into your life and future doesn't mean you have a net result of "good relationship" in this equation.

4. You have to own your life, take care of yourself, and make the best choices for your own wellbeing.

I was married to a man who was seriously controlling and manipulative and emotionally abusive for 18 years. It actually wasn't that difficult to cope with for most of it, because I put myself in a lifestyle of coping. I martyred myself to what I thought was best for my family. I can't say I completely regret doing so. I'm not ready to say that being free of him was the best move, in fact. I'm still scared about trying to live without him, because I never an adult on my own, even though I took care of almost all of the practical admin work of our family life...I feel now that I have no backup, and it is scary as hell.

I still love him. I really think that I will ALWAYS love him. I don't think that I will ever NOT love him. He is the father of my sons and he gave me everything he had to give, even if half the time that "everything" included a heap of awfulness. The man threatened me with a loaded handgun last year and I am saying this right now. I still love him.

But, at the same time, even when I am afraid and I have doubts, I know that it's best I don't continue to try and manage him, to cope with his behavior, and to let his ideas shape my self-image. I will NOT go back in the box. So here we are.

You are young. You are not pregnant. You should not have too much logistical hardship in stepping off and establishing yourself in the world, even if it seems (perhaps) frightening. I also advise that, in addition to seeking counseling if you can, to journal, write, blog...anything that helps you get out the metaphorical screwdriver and disassemble the bundled emotional stuff that you carry. Breaking it down to its basic bits and looking carefully at them can really help you understand yourself and seek better patterns in future partnerships.

One last thought. As to anyone holding baggage against anyone, I think that's a rule you should really reconsider. Maybe a better idea is, no one should necessarily be judged on the emotions that they feel, but everyone SHOULD be held responsible for the actions that they DO. Includes you, and your partners. Best wishes.
 
If he helped you in the past? And you were appreciative and grateful? That's fine. But it is PAST.

How is he behaving in the PRESENT?

Galagirl
 
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