To trust, or not to trust. Help. Please.

[uncomfortable1]

My boyfriend and I have been together on and off for eight years. We started dating back in high school. We are now in our twenties and we've both put each other through our own sense of hell.

 

We broke up for a month or so last year but were still very much friends for the majority of the time, hanging out everyday, and not a night went by when we didn't text or call each other. We even ended up making love once or twice during this period... it just happened and though things were rough I still wanted him as he wanted me.

 

These moments always left him looking at me with eyes that said a thousand words. He wanted me back and it killed him that I kept walking away. I was confused and scared at the time. Eventually we found our way back to one another and then in May we broke up again. We broke up and didn't talk for two weeks. During the two weeks I ended up hanging out a lot with one of his closer friend and his girlfriend. Me and the girlfriend got along really well and one day she fessed up to me and let me know something that her boyfriend told her having to do with my ex at the time.

 

My ex had told his friend that he fingered a girl from his work, but he was very persistent that this happened when he and I weren't together. I found out and turned into a vicious animal. I called him up and convinced him that I wanted to get back together; this was a day after we all sat in his friends living room and he relentlessly played songs that I loved on the stereo and talked to me on the curb for hours trying to convince me to try our relationship again. I pounced on him about the fling between him and his co-worker, this something that supposedly happened at work somewhere. I was crying and hysterical, falling apart at the seams. I was still completely in love with him and the idea of him with another woman slit me to the bone.

 

He started to smile, the serious sort of smile that says 'this is ridiculous,' and put his hands on my knees and told me, "I made it up." I yelled at him, demanded he not lie to me and then begged that he not lie to me, that I deserved to know the truth from him and not one of his friends. Smiling at me he placed his hands on my face and told me, "I'm telling you the truth, he's the one I lied to," "I did it to make him jealous."

 

I was never supposed to hear about it, he said. He said he feels stupid for ever saying it. When we decided not to talk to his friend about it, he was relieved because then he wouldn't have to look like a * * * * * * * and a liar.

 

His friend often makes my boyfriend feel inferior, and more often than not he feels like his friend is trying to show off how much money he has and point out what my boyfriend doesn't. His friends relationship with his girlfriend is severely deteriorating and we often wonder if he really loves her. It bothers my boyfriend and when he brought his friend to work with him one day he saw that he was eying the girl from the desk and mentioned something about her being really hot. My boyfriend took this opportunity to make his friend jealous...

 

Ever since this episode, which I believed, my boyfriend (because we got back together) has had to deal with my lack of esteem from it relentlessly. Every time I bring it up he gets mad... he tries to comfort me but his anger is the same, "This is crazy! It never happened! Just let it go! It never happened!" He gets mad that I don't believe him, that I don't trust him and began to wonder whether I could ever let it go. I wonder too.

 

He doesn't have a lot of money and is in serious financial ruins. He constantly stresses about money all the time. After another argument about this 'fling' that never happened, he buckled at the knees and put head in my lap, telling me, "I can't handle this. I can't deal with this right now. There's so much I already worry over. I can't handle another f* up situation right now. He always says he sorry, that he should have never said it. But coming from a family where I was aware of my fathers infidelity for months before my mother was, I find it hard to trust a man, especially a man that can touch my heart and bruise it.

 

Two weeks ago my boyfriend stopped touching me. The lack of affection and sex in our relationship was killing me. Then when we were together.... he was so far away I felt like we were on the phone... not sitting together on the same couch. Finally I demanded to know what was going on and he finally told me....

 

He was uncomfortable when he touched me, made love to me, and became affectionate with me. He said he didn't really understand why.... everything just felt wrong. My boyfriend was very up front about it... told me that he wasn't sure what was healthy or good for us anymore... we'd been through so much and fought so much that the relationship took an ugly and unhealthy turn for us. He said he was still attracted to me and wanted me... but everything that had happened was getting in the way and he was having a hard time forgetting.

 

He didn't want to break up during this time and he still wanted to see me and hear from me every night. We slept in the same bed and everything... he still loved me and said he wanted all the same things with me except it wasn't right with all the fighting we did. He said he needed time but NOT space.

 

Finally we broke through two days after wards and we made love. We're affectionate all the time now and we make love every night almost. Things seem better and I'm moving in with him next week.

 

There is a girl at his work though that I've heard more often than usual. She,he and another guy were supposed to hang out one night and I was curious as to why I wasn't invited but shrugged it off as a 'coworker' thing. However I heard her name again.... and he works with a lot of girls... but because of what happened between us already...... I'm scared and uncomfortable.. I don't know what to do. Just swallow the fear and be a 'cool' girlfriend, or let my man know that it makes me nervous? Help. What do you think.

 

Sorry for the length.

[misssmithviii]

I think there's never anything wrong with voicing how you feel - it's all about *how* you voice your feelings.

 

It sounds like perhaps you two are going through a time where he's feeling like there's been more damage than good done in the relationship lately and in the past - and although loves you, is trying to get his thoughts sorted out and really needs a break from the conflicts. Talk to him about how you feel, then ask him what *he* wants and what he feels.

 

Either way, perhaps you need to look inside and ask yourself if you're compatible.

[capilot]

First, even if this "fling" did happen, wasn't it while you were broken up? In fact, after you walked away from him? What difference does it make if he dated another woman while you were broken up? It sounds like you're evolving into the psycho girlfriend from hell.

 

If he's already stressed because of his financial issues, this obsession of yours must be crushing the life out of him. That business of falling to his knees and crying that he can't take it any more is serious. I've been there. And it was for the same reason too: the crazy jealous obsessions of a girlfriend I had never so much as thought of being unfaithful to.

 

You're tearing his heart out for no reason at all and it's killing him. He's now in the position of deciding if he needs to cut you out of his life for good for his own sanity. Frankly, if he was the one writing here asking for advice, I think most people would be telling him to walk away.

 

Please, for your own sake as well as his, learn to let this go. Get yourself to a therapist if you need; this isn't healthy for you.

[savignon]

Whatever drama is currently happening seems on par with everything else you've described....lots of fighting, mistrust, breaking up and getting back together. If this were the first sign of something out of the ordinary, that would be one thing but it seems the both of you are choosing to keep on this rollercoaster and will have to learn to live with the ups and downs. If you look at your pattern, everything blows over eventually and gets back to where you're happy with the circumstances. One minute he's saying he needs time and isn't feeling good about the relationship and two days later you're planning on moving in with him. If you're going to be living together, you'll each need to find a way to live with the kind of drama you've typically had or work towards changing it.

[catfeeder]

If you don't trust him, then why are you with him?

 

If you do trust him, then why the need for the drama?

 

Sounds as though you're trying to force BF to fix something inside of you that isn't his job to fix. Also sounds as though he's getting weary of it. I'd consider making my own world bigger than my laser beam focus on the BF. It would take a ton of pressure out of your cooker, and it could have a positive impact on your relationship.

[Unreasonable]

So, you've questioned this guy on several occasions about an encounter that while sexual did not involve intercourse, that may or may not have happened, and, if it did happen, was not when you were together? Is that it?

 

If that's the case, why? Why do you keep bringing it up? Why is that even your business if you weren't together at the time?

 

Hounding him on this is probably one of the main reasons you're driving him away. If you can't get over this, then just leave.

[uncomfortable1]

Thank you everyone for your advice.

 

After reading your posts, some more than other(two or three times) I know that my boyfriend loves me. I know that he feels it and always has. I don't trust him completely right now but I have made a decision to actively get to that point.

 

I've known him as a best friend and a boyfriend for eight years and I refuse to believe that I don't know who he is. He said that he wasn't the type of person to cheat and he wasn't the kind of guy that just hooks up with a girl from his work at random. I should have believed him when he first told me. I was too busy playing victim to actually hear him and accept the truth.

 

I know in my heart that he didn't do anything with anyone and that it was just a stupid joke, a bad story gone wrong, and that it never really happened. It isn't in my boyfriends personality to hook up with a girl from work, at work much less; he's very career oriented and he's always frowned upon co-worker relationships. He'd never put a job he loves so much at risk in order to just hook-up.

 

Not to mention when the whole thing came out I didn't know anything accept he'd hooked up with some girl. He made sure I knew the story, told me without pause and didn't think twice about any details. I believe him. I love him. That's all that matters.

 

I've decided to make it up to him by being the loving and supporting girlfriend he needs.