maladie

Thanks again for your support!! Well he's still out of the country and last time I tried calling the connection sucked. He hasn't tried to call me since he left, so I decided I'd rather send him a letter via e-mail anyway and I'm about go mail the same letter to his home along with his keys. The letter didn't warrant a response and I don't expect one. All it basically said was that it was over, and that I hoped he would some day come to terms with his "issues". It turns out my bf is a "pathological liar" with a superman complex which the more I learn about this disorder the more I realize it explains so much about his behaviour. After I discovered his cheating he was initially very cold and withdrew from me saying that he deserved to be alone and no longer cared what happened to him because he had lost everything. I was surprised at how easily he appeared to tuck away his emotions and just continue without me, until one day he broke down in front of me. I thought he'd hit rock bottom and that's probably why I ended up getting sucked back in. Since then, there are many things--some major, some trivial--that I KNOW he lied about and even more that I'll probably never know. This is why it was so difficult arguing with him because he had excuses for everything, knew how to twist his stories, even his best buddy backed him up. There would be times when he wouldn't be around or wouldn't call, and he'd always have a reason. Something would come up last minute. But then I would get random text messages... or he'd say things that just didn't make sense. His life seemed so disorganized I thought maybe that was the reason why I couldn't get a straight answer on anything. But then it dawned on me that this seemingly normal, cool, passionate, witty, smart, ambitious guy that EVERYBODY loves is really a carefully crafted persona. He's been doing a really good job playing the role except every once in a while he confuses his two realities. I think I stayed as long as I did because I really wanted to believe he was who he made himself out to be or that one day the lies would just stop. How else can you explain someone cheating with 3 different people and all 4 women involved had absolutely no clue!? He lied to all 4 of us! He worked very hard at keeping us all in the dark and as a result his life was utter chaos... job, work schedule, family relations, financial situation, legal situation... everything. He's the kind of guy you desperately want to help but who wants to do it all himself. Instead, he distracts you by making you feel unique and special and doing everything in his power to serve as the "enabler" in your life. Then when he's had his fill (or you begin to suspect you're not the only one) he withdraws completely and walks away. There! Doesn't that sound about right?? Crazy....

sorry i haven't been online in a while, been trying to sort out my life. thanks again for the responses, syrix and hope i'm sure you'll both be VERY happy to hear that i have taken your advice and gotten myself OUT of this horrible situation. he's out of the country at the moment and since he left it's become clear to me that he hasn't cared about me or our relationship in a very long time. he's merely been taking advantage of the comfort of having a girlfriend to come home to. [-( you're right i do deserve more than that and i thank you and everyone else who posted for helping me see what a bad decision it was for me to stay with him as long as i did. i'm working on rediscovering what it means to be me because i lost serious sight of that over the past 3 yrs... hopefully my next relationship will be a more loving and trusting one. PHEW! it's going to be hard, but i have faith that i will make it. thank you all again for your advice and encouragement.

whoa, thanks for all the responses! i really appreciate everyone's honesty and candidness. i almost wish i had found this website a year ago when all of this just happened. as it is, it's now been almost three years that i've been involved with this man and it obviously doesn't get any easier over time. but i'm trying to digest all of your comments and do the right thing. i left out a MAJOR detail which may or may not make a difference, i realize after reading the responses that it sounds like my bf made no effort to change after i told him what i needed but that's actually not the case, he did make a huge effort and still does (calling me to let me know where he is, always introducing me to people as his gf, if someone sends him a flirtatious e-mail he tells me about it, etc)... thing is i was still paranoid that he wasn't telling me the truth and i wanted to know who he was talking to online and installed one of those logger programs. he found out and was really angry because he felt his privacy was violated. understandable, but this is one of our points of contention. i think it is something he can and should sacrifice given what happened but he's very uncomfortable with it. this was quite a while ago and this continues to come up as an issue. i'm still young and not overly experienced with relationships, so i have talked to many people about this and gotten varied responses: "try dating other people".... "break up with him now and for good".... "i know both of you and you were destined to be together, when times get rough hold onto that".... "give it time and if things don't change, move on".... i don't want history to repeat itself and that's where my paranoia comes in, but i also wonder how couples DO overcome fidelity and learn to trust again. i know that if he ever cheated on me again it would be over for good, because we addressed all the problems we had leading up to it and he got his second chance. with all this in mind, any more insight?

i found out that my bf cheated on me last year with THREE different women, one of them was actually an on-going affair. all four of us believed we were the only one he was seeing at the time. had we not found out at the same time, he probably would have continued pulling strings with all of us. a very dangerous game. needless to say i was devastated and highly disgusted. he moved out (i kicked him out), we spent some time apart but a business project we were working on at the time forced us to see each other often and we eventually talked. he begged me not to leave him, claiming that he couldn't imagine life without me, that he knew he needed help and that he loved me. so we decided to try and work things out. there were so many signs that i should have paid attention to and so many lies he told straight to my face that now i'm paranoid about every single person in his life, every phone call, every text message, every e-mail. it's not enough for him to just TELL me, he has to SHOW me that he's trustworthy. i believe that since he betrayed my trust, he has to sacrifice some things to regain it. above all pride. but i don't think he sees things the same way. while we've made a lot of progress and addressed a lot of the problems that led to his infidelity, to this day my bf not only locks his phone but hides it by stuffing it deep down in his bag at all times when with me! he has a password in addition to the key lock. he has phones that for a long time i didn't know the numbers to. he has personal e-mail accounts that i don't even know the addresses to (i only know his business accounts). he never uses my computer because he thinks i'm going to track his passwords. why go to such extremes if he has nothing to hide??? there is no way i feel like i can trust him right now. i admit that sometimes i snoop and i'm not proud of it, but i only do it because i have reason to. before when he was sleeping around with other women behind my back, i NEVER thought to go through his pockets or his phone. the last time i did i found a text message that started off "hi honey, oh man rough day at work...". i called the number one day and found out it was some woman in the DR, he must have met while he was there on that "business trip". What the ?! when i found out he cheated last year, he begged me to stay and said "i'll do whatever it takes to make you trust me again". what i want him to do is show me that he has nothing to hide. leave the phone out instead of hiding it, write e-mails while i'm around, show me who just texted him a msg. little things like that. is it normal for me to feel this way and ask these things of him? am i stupid to trust him again? what do other couples do? is there a way to have this conversation about privacy and boundaries, and what happens when you both have completely different limits? please help!

i too can relate, because i am a self-admitted snooping gf. i found out that my bf had cheated on me earlier this year with THREE different women, one of them was actually an on-going affair. all four of us believed we were the only one he was seeing at the time. had we not found out at the same time, he would have continued pulling strings with all of us. a very dangerous game. needless to say i was devastated and highly disgusted. and yet i am still with him, trying to work things out. at the time he begged me not to leave him, claiming that he couldn't imagine life without me, that he knew he needed help and that he loved me. there were so many signs that i should have paid attention to and so many lies he told straight to my face that now i'm paranoid about every single person in his life, every phone call, every text message, every e-mail. it's not enough for him to just TELL me, he has to SHOW me that he's trustworthy. i believe that i and any other girl who has been in my situation has every right to be. once you betray someone's trust, you have to sacrifice many things to regain it. above all pride. i don't believe a man is obligated to give his gf his passwords or show her every single e-mail he receives. but he does need to 'give a little' more than the average never-been-caught-cheating guy. while we've made a lot of progress and addressed a lot of the problems that led to his infidelity, to this day my bf not only locks his phone but hides it by stuffing it deep down in his bag at all times when with me! he has phones that i don't know the numbers to. he has personal e-mail accounts that i don't even know the addresses to (i only know his business accounts). he never uses my computer because he thinks i'm going to track his passwords. why go to such extremes if he has nothing to hide??? there is no way i feel like i can trust him right now. i admit that i snoop and i'm not proud of it, but i only do it because i have reason to. before when he was sleeping around with other women behind my back, i NEVER thought to go through his pockets or his phone. now i find condoms in his bag (which we don't use, we've both been tested and i'm on the pill) some look really old others look kinda new. i find text messages to random women that start off "hi honey, oh man rough day at work...". What the ****?! sigh... when all the sh** went down earlier this year and he begged me to stay, he said "i'll do whatever it takes to make you trust me again". apparently not. cuz in my mind his primary objective should be to do whatever it takes to ease my mind and show me that he has nothing to hide. leave the phone out instead of hiding it, write e-mails while i'm around, show me who just texted him a silly msg. little things like that. what do other couples do? do you both formally exchange info? is there a way to have this conversation about boundaries and what happens when you both have completely different limits? back to the writer's topic.... in your case, your gf demaning to see your phone bill seems a bit extreme. if you were quick to hide your phone whenever someone calls or abruptly close e-mail windows whenever she's around, that would be reason to draw suspicion. but if you've done nothing but right since that incident 2 yrs ago and it's still not enough, well what can you do? figure out a way to live with it or move on. have a serious conversation with your gf and figure out where her current suspicions stem from and see if there's a way to fix or at least address it. my two cents...