Is this healthy for me

[laelle]

 

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[patientandclear]

One of the problems I have with internet woman is that she has made I politely told him that I do not feel he is making me the priority I need to be after he did some of the things he has done. I told him that I addressed his complaints to me about what he was unhappy about me doing. Simply, I stopped doing them. But everyday, I wake up and the thing I asked for from him, he still does every day and he does it knowing that I feel hurt and afraid of it.

He declined to respond to that from me.

Just wanted to say that this is great.  Very glad you said those things, for you.  It's a true statement of what at some point, maybe very soon, he will need to be able to rectify if you are going to be a viable, satisfied partner in a r/s with him.  It's good for him to hear this, regardless of how he may (and whether he will) respond to it.

He either will change what he does in response to this knowledge of how it feels to you, or not, and then, you will know whether this can make you happy.  In a way, it is simply a matter of watching and learning, meanwhile doing other things as much as possible so it is not obsessive watching.

Sounds to me like you were loving and clear.  You can't aspire to more.  The rest is on him.  Perhaps he will surprise you (and us) by not falling short of what you need to continue.  I hope so!

[elemental]

He was distant and I don't think he will respond directly to what I said.

From his view, all along he meant well, then he just got mad that I am so bothered by her and his excuse for not doing anything for me there or breaking his word was that he felt controlled. He likes her, she is harmless, and why shouldn't he be friends?

And my come back is he treated me crap over her, she interfered, she made friends with his ex, she felt she was entitled to attack me and would get away with it... essentially from my perspective, he wants me as his girl, he hurt me over someone else, now that someone else needs to gtfo and never come back.

Can you tell I am still hurt and angry? 


Am I being unfair wanting him to cease contact with her? She has kind of gotton enmeshed in his situation in real life ( friends with ex now) and in virtual life ( social site, online game).

She knows I don't like her. Can tell you that whenever some guy's girlfriend in the online game figured out I was there and didn't like me hanging around her guy and I heard about it, I always distanced myself fast.

What is actually fair here?

[briefcase]

I had read it on here, but was scared to death to implement it... .    You have to be willing to let the relationship go for there to ever be any sort of change.  Once that really sunk in, that I could not control any aspect of what somebody else was doing, and I was NOT okay with the way things were going... .    I confidently spoke my truth.  Not in a 'if you don't do this, I'm gone!' sort of way, but a 'I don't feel comfortable with this arrangement'.  It wasn't how I wanted to live my life.  There are still situations that arise and I still have to implement that philosophy, but I'm (still) learning to do it with respect for both of us (and my mom, too!).  And if I can't come right out and say it nicely because of my own triggered emotions, I step back and at least don't make the situation worse.

This is very true, and well put.  The risks are high as we make changes.  But we have to believe the reward (freedom) is worth the risk (loss of the relationship).  It's about valuing ourselves more than a relationship.  It's surprising (or maybe not) how often our partners, after much threatening and kicking and screaming along the way, eventually accept some basic changes and a new "normal" gets established in the relationship.  Things aren't perfect, but they are a whole lot better.  

But, to get there, you have to be willing to sail through the storm.    

[elemental]

He knows I am not ok with it.

And I think from his point of view, he could legitimately say that he is tired of people trying to control him, he is a grown man who has the right to make his own choices. He gets to choose his friends. And he would prefer to lose the relationship with me than to feel like he was bullied into caving to please me.

He did tell me his ex ran off all his friends, ruined his social life and he ended up all alone with her and her family pushing him around all the time and forcing him to do things and he came out of that humiliated and really angry.

I understand that, and I never had a word to say about any of his friends until this girl came along and he started doing things to make her think he was "a good guy" and hurting me in the process.

Now he says if I am "jealous" of her, then maybe I should put out a little more effort for him in terms of engaging him than spent my time being upset about his interaction with her.

Tbh, when I hear that, I walk off, because I can't figure out where to find a big enough stick to whack him with. After what he asked of me and what he put me through, this is what I hear?

Can you say DISRESPECT?

[luvapug]

I was in a marriage with the mentality was "put up or shut up".  It took me 13 years of trying to please and feeling less than human most days... .  when I filed for divorce and left it was a HUGE relief... .  I never felt more alive then when I finally left that toxic relationship.  It may be time to call it like it is and move onto something healthier for you.

-luvapug

[123Phoebe]

Elemental,  if you feel totally disrespected then what are your options?  You cannot make him change his status with her.  He's having no part of it.

The thing about the internet woman (to me) is this... .    She signifies ALL the past hurts you've experienced with your boyfriend.  If he would only stand up for you on this ONE THING (STOP interacting with internet woman!) it would make everything else okay?  And you could then be happily in a relationship with him, moving forward in a healthy way?

Your boyfriend has a mental disorder.  If it's not internet woman, it might be something else... .    Making internet woman go away does not make BPD go away, ya know?  Have you gotten to a place of acceptance that your guy has a true mental illness? 

Untreated BPD will manifest in all kinds of ways.  It doesn't make you a bad person for not wanting to put up with it.  But, if you want to be in a relationship with him there are certain things that you're going to have to accept.  He isn't emotionally healthy for starters.  And there's nothing you can do about it; you cannot make him stop having BPD :'(  There are ways to make accepting it easier though, and finding out what you're willing and able to tolerate (Boundaries) is a good place to start.

You might very well realize that it's not at all what you want to deal with and that's totally okay.  Acceptance hurts.  It sucks big time!  All the dreams you had, gone.

In it's place though is the reality of the relationship.  What does he bring to your life that's worth staying around for?  Are they things that are worth staying around for?  Or are you better off without him and the pain this relationship brings to your life?

Tough stuff, but you cannot change him.  You can change your perception though... .   

[elemental]

I wrestle with the idea of internet woman. He has other women friends. I feel nothing coming off of them and he generally is very appropriate towards them.

In fact, he has pointed out to me what you are saying to you she represents.

He thinks she represents to me exactly what you think.

He feels I am scapegoating her and associating with her my pain.


I haven't had any contact with her for about 3 months.


Likely if I cannot accept the contact they have, it will indeed spell the end of this relationship. Probably it will.

[elemental]

And I can't tell if he really has a mental illness or is just so freaked out and messed up from his ex and her family that he has fleas, PTSD, and is terribly depressed.

I feel disrespected and a half dozen other things. They all swirl around in my head like a tornado, and sit in my chest and hurt. When he acknowledges to me that he hurt me and he is sorry for something, the pain goes away and I think wow, he actually believes I am human and have a heart, have feelings, have needs or wants. I feel so starved out by him on every level. He has disregarded my feelings so many times while claiming not to.

I am not stupid. I can tell when someone is feeding me crap. 

I have other men persuing me. And I talk to them some. I don't tell him about my interaction. I have been rock solid true to him.  And I ask myself would he be upset anyway. I think he would because he never was forced to face the challenge of me betraying him or openly choosing others over him while insisting I was not. I just never talk much about them. He knows I am true.

I spend a lot of time in confusion, trying to figure out what is fair, what is healthy. I am more confused now in many ways than I was when I came to this site.

[123Phoebe]

I feel disrespected and a half dozen other things. They all swirl around in my head like a tornado, and sit in my chest and hurt. When he acknowledges to me that he hurt me and he is sorry for something, the pain goes away and I think wow, he actually believes I am human and have a heart, have feelings, have needs or wants. I feel so starved out by him on every level. He has disregarded my feelings so many times while claiming not to.


I spend a lot of time in confusion, trying to figure out what is fair, what is healthy. I am more confused now in many ways than I was when I came to this site.

I'm going out on a limb here and I apologize if it's somewhere you're not quite ready to go to yet, as it may cause further confusion... .  

Do you believe there's any chance that your boyfriend represents the past hurts and wounds you've experienced from your father?  Like you're living out the past in real-time?  

I felt starved out by my father and my mother.  I then created a script (unbeknownst to me) and put so much pressure on others to fill up that void, to make the past wrongs right.  If they'd only do this, I'd feel so happy and whole, yes!  I would choose people that no way no how could they fill up that void, and disappointed me time and time again.  There were of course moments of bliss, where the planets seems to all align, but all of those blissful feelings were of my own making - they weren't because of what someone else was doing.  They were because in that moment in time, I felt that they were following my script... .   Keep it going, keep it going... .   Whoa, what just happened?  I've been sucker punched again and the rug has been pulled out from underneath me.  Having no idea how to approach this in an adult-like way, because emotionally I was reacting like a little girl, with all the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness that children feel when growing up in a dysfunctional invalidating environment.  I had no choice but to survive as a child, developing all kinds of false beliefs and defense mechanisms.  When things were good again, I felt that my family held the key to my happiness, they held so much power over me.  

As an adult, I have choices!  And I also have the rationale to realize that nobody holds that much power over me, to affect my feelings to such an extent that my happiness rests in how they're interacting with me, what they're doing to me... .   I realize that if I'm miserable it's of my own making because I am choosing to let someone else have that kind of power.

It's deep stuff, elemental... .   It's who we believe we are at our core.  It's no wonder we find ourselves in difficult relationships, we didn't know any different.  Confusion was/is our normal.  A lot of our thought processes are the exact same ones we developed when we were little children.  Not much different than people with BPD or anyone for that matter; our defense mechanisms, the things that make us feel safe were all learned in childhood.  What worked for us then, no longer does.  As adults we can make the conscious decision to change all of that.

That is one big reason why we are expected to be the emotional leaders in these relationships; we have the insight!  And we're making a conscious choice to either lead the relationship in the direction we'd like it to go (and can see/feel that they're trying also), or we walk away when we find that we've outgrown all of this child's play... .  

But we no longer let other's dictate our lives or our emotions... .   Or define who we are.

Does any of this resonate with you?

[laelle]

WOW, just WOW Phoebe.  I can totally relate to this. 

[elemental]

Well Phoebe that is a lot.

And certainly I have spent enormous amounts of time thinking and wondering about it. There is too much there for it not to be having an effect. Dark Matter twisting the physics of the seen universe :/

In some of my posts I have said a few things about my family. Really that is the tip of the iceberg with them. For the last 10 years I have had people in my family who I had good close relationships with (I thought!) but recently there have been troubles there, too. My beloved younger brother's wife does not like me and is currently creating enough discord that we are all unhappy with each other. I am silent to her now after trying to ask her to talk about it. She doesn't want to talk ( as she knows I know she has been making up lies and stories and she knows we all know and doesn't have it in her to face us directly for it) and becomes angry at my attempts, so I am leaving her alone.

I have had 3 long term relationships in my adult life. One I know for sure I should never stayed in. One was a marriage that ended after 8 years. And this one, which clearly I have sat in, easily deceived and trying to endure the unendurable to the point of fracturing myself apart. I didn't understand what co dependence was until recently.

I get twisted around on my guy, because he can be incredibly wise and emotionally astute, then end up doing things he knows will create some pretty significant problems. So I don't even know about the BPD stuff for real, but there sure are strong traits I see.

Right now he is offering the clean slate to the relationship. Let's start over. Let's put the unfixable in the past and forget it, move on, let's be happy, but I keep getting snagged up on internet woman. I was thinking about what you said about her last night, and what his observations are... .  and how I feel when I see her and what I think when I see her.

He indicates that he is in pain too over things I have said and done, and he himself is willing to work through it without putting complaints on me. He really is.

You guys know it's a good offer on a lot of levels. I am honestly not wanting to engage with him in conflict. All of the things he did... well the hurt dies down enough for me to process unless it gets aggrivated, which is what is keeping me upset about internet woman. Her presence triggers off the other stuff ( and he KNOWS this for over a year) and I go into a tailspin that at times has had me literally wrapped up in bed shaking so hard my teeth are chattering and my heart beating so hard you can see my chest shake.

What do they say, in something like this there is a "hook". Find the hook and you can set yourself free.