trying to rebuild trust and come to inner peace

[colormejade]

First of all, hi! I’m new here and I appreciate all your comments, bits of advice, etc in advance.

 

Now, on to business:

 

I’m 21 years old. I have been in a serious relationship for a little over a year. I met my boyfriend in the summer of 2007 at an art camp, which we both worked at. At the time, he had just dropped out of college, didn’t have his license, and didn’t have a job for after the summer. He did not have his license because a few years earlier, he was in a near fatal car accident and it spooked him from driving for a long time.

 

After the summer, I went back to school. We lived an hour away from each other, but from early on we had both decided that we were committed to making our relationship work. For the first two months, everything was pretty much fine. I did do more of the driving because it was more convenient, but he was able to take a train out to where I lived. My parents got wind of his “situation” and started to take control of our relationship. At first did not like the fact that he did not have his license, then slowly (through devious means on their part), they began to find out more and more about him, but just everything I knew already. Nothing new. They took away my car and told me that I was not allowed to see him until he got his license. My boyfriend and I, and his parents, thought it was pretty ridiculous, so we still saw each other. Granted, it was twice a month on average, but we made it work. We’d get rides from people to the train station and then have one of the other person’s friends come pick us up once we got to our destination.

 

Now, the topic of my boyfriend has been a constant struggle with my parents and I. They hate him and want nothing to do with him. They are basically people where your credentials come first and personality after. This is how they have judged my past boyfriends and they have all cheated on me in the past. (Another topic I will return too). Since Nov. of 2007, they have been doing many different things to try and break us up. Hacking into my email accounts and sending nasty emails to him, causing us to fight, removing our facebook status, email our mutual friends to get dirt on us, etc.

 

January of 2008, I moved back home to take an internship in Hollywood. I really wanted the internship, but I would not have been able to take it if I lived in the dorms because they would not have given me my car back. So, I sacrificed 4-5 months in hell in order to take a great opportunity to network and to get my foot in the door into the entertainment industry. During this time, I saw my boyfriend once a month because I was not allowed to use my car for anything else but school and work. My parents would check the mileage when I came home everyday. My mom would sometimes call my work to see if I was there. Granted there was a total of three times where I did skip out on my internship/school in order to see him, but one of those days they were closed. Anyways, I would take different routes other than what mapquest would show so I could keep the mileage down. In march, my dad and I got into a huge fight about him and he ended up beating me up over it.

 

The animosity that my parents had towards him started to come out through me during this time. I became paranoid that my boyfriend was cheating on me, that he really didn’t care about me, all because of the things my parents were saying about him. We started to fight a lot- some things I was genuinely upset about, like him forgetting to call when he promised, taking his frustrations out on me sometimes...things like that. It did get to a point where I was starting to nit pick him and I realized that I was not as comfortable in our relationship as he was. I needed constant reassurance that he still loved me and was not going to * * * * me over.

 

I went to London for 2 weeks in May. When I got back, the first thing I did was call him. He was either in a bad moor or tired, but when I called, he did not sound happy o hear my voice. He didn’t even make an effort. Thus was the last straw for me. I told him exactly what he needed to change to make me happy and to make it easier to deal with my parents. I needed some kind of emotional help, especially since my parents were using my dating history against me. (All my past boyfriends have cheated on me... save for one. Told you I’d come back to that). This was a week before we were return to the place we met to work like we did last summer. I almost broke it off.

 

The summer was wonderful- He got his license and he was very attentive to me and spoiled me rotten. Now that the summer’s over and I’m back at home for a week before I go bad to school, I’ve been having very violent mood swings. He doesn’t call...I have to be the one to call him first. He’s messaged me on facebook only once to tell me that he’d be on AIM so I could talk to him, but that was only after I spelled out again exactly what it was that I needed, and all my fears.

 

He was a pretty unreliable guy before the summer. The summer, I saw a change in him. He’s motivated now, getting a job and going back to school to take classes. I really don’t care if he gets his degree, just as long as he’s doing something with his life (You don’t really have to go to college exactly to be in the entertainment industry). These past few days at home has made me extremely worried that things will go back to the way they were. I’m having freak out after freak out, I’m getting thoughts in my head that my boyfriend wants nothing to do with me, or just wants me to go away for a little while. I still do not have my car back because I choose to stay with my boyfriend. I’ve talked out all this with him and every time he assures me that this year will be nothing like last year.

 

Am I judging too soon since I haven’t been back for even a week? I think I do have some legit fear, but being at home, alone all day, without anywhere to do, and no one calls or texts me, not even my boyfriend, it’s really starting to get to me. I sometimes wonder if I stop calling for a week if he’d even notice.

 

I’m over a year into my relationship and I’m still not comfortable in it. There are trust issues that I cannot shake, I can’t relax because it seems as if everything I say to him goes in one ear and out the other. He’ll make an immediate change for at most a week, and then it’ll go back to same old. I know I am over reacting, but I can’t help the way I feel. I like attention damn it.

 

So basically, my question is this: Do I have any reason to freak out? AND how the heck can I calm down when I have my parents trying to sabotage my relationship and some left over trust issues with my boyfriend from the pervious year. I feel so stuck in the middle. His family loves me, his nephew wants me to be a part of the family, we have talked about getting married, my friends think he's good for me, but there is still a bad feeling I can't get rid of. I'm so emotionally twaked out that I can't think straight sometimes.

 

 

Sorry this was so long, but thanks again for reading.

[pacodemil]

The thing here is that your parents can't live your life for you and neither can your friends or anyone else for that matter. Your parents are doing what parents do. They want the best for you and they worry that this guy isn't the best you can find but in the end what do they know about your life. Don't be to mad at them though they are trying to help you. As for your friends asaying your boyfriend is perfect for you well they don't really know that for sure either. It all comes down to what you think about him and whether you think he is worth the worry and wondering about whether he can or will be able to get motivated and support you. If you love him then yes you are right for one another but you do have to consider the future also. Give it some more thought you don't have to rush a decision like this.