2 months and *eek*!?

[sprru]

Can anyone give me some advice on this? I'm nearing 2 months with my boyfriend (I think, the getting-together part was a little confusing), and I think we're both seriously considering calling it quits.

 

Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, but one day when I was really upset about something I accidentally dropped the "L" word. I didn't even say it to him, but somehow he heard about it and when confronted I did admit to him that I'd said it.

 

I'm not quite divorced (absolutely no chance of getting back together, we're just having issues sorting out some things), and my boyfriend is divorced as well. I think we're both a little afraid of getting burned, moving too quickly, or even making any kind of real commitment at all at this point in our lives, which I consider completely understandable. So, yeah, I freaked out.

 

I have a very unfortunate history with my behavior in regards to men. I cheated on my husband before we were married and (emotionally?) near the end of the 7.5-year union. I think I have a tendency to fall into patterns of flirtation and attention-seeking, and immediately after I admitted that the "L" word slipped, I flirted with 4 different people in a 24-hour period. He found out about half of them on his own, and the other half I told him in the spirit of being "open, honest, and trying to work through whatever issues we have before they get out of hand." Ever since then, he's been getting pretty jealous. I really feel like he reads way too much into things, and the more jealous he gets, the more time we spend fighting and the less time we spend actually enjoying each other. Even when we are doing the latter, to me it feels bitter-sweet. We're both pretty emotionally complicated from what I can tell, and both carry a lot of baggage. I think we both hoped this would be a way of alleviating the stresses we have in our lives and having someone to spend time with and feel close to, but for the past week or so it's been doing the opposite.

 

I have no intention whatsoever of having sex with anyone else while the two of us are together, and I've been trying even to keep myself out of situations where I'm leaning on other men for anything at all (when I do spend time with my male friends, I avoid serious topics such as this relationship, my divorce, and anything else that would endear them to me). But, the more we fight, the more "friendly" I feel toward other people anyway.

 

I really don't know what to do. I adore him, and up until the past week I practically considered him the best thing that'd ever happened to me. Is this really as big a deal as he thinks it is? Can I just wait this out, try to be as "good" as I can, deal with his jealousy and hope that he'll get over it and we can move on? We've tried hashing it out, but that feels like a dead-end. On my end at least, I get a little too nervous and don't really know how/what to say and am afraid of opening up too much, so I end up hurting his feelings and he pretty much does the same thing to me. I can't just ask him to get over it, can I? It's only been a week, but a whole week this early...?

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

[jjcool00]

I have a very unfortunate history with my behavior in regards to men. I cheated on my husband before we were married and (emotionally?) near the end of the 7.5-year union. I think I have a tendency to fall into patterns of flirtation and attention-seeking, and immediately after I admitted that the "L" word slipped, I flirted with 4 different people in a 24-hour period. He found out about half of them on his own, and the other half I told him in the spirit of being "open, honest, and trying to work through whatever issues we have before they get out of hand." Ever since then, he's been getting pretty jealous.

 

I dont even know where to start with this... let me try. You say he reads into things and is jealous yet you run off and flirt with guys and do whatever else? How is he supposed to react to that, like "Oh hey no big deal, go do whatever you want?" I think hes reading things as they are laid out, honestly. You seem to have serious committment issues and they stem even before your marriage which you need to work on if you want to stay with anyone long term. His jealousy is not the problem here as your issues are what are causing his jealousy. To fix this you both need to move on from the past, focus on each other, be open and honest about whatever your feeling regardless if its love/hate/etc and stop the flirting with other people. If you don't want this to work, go NC and move on.

[Cheetarah]

Of course he's jealous? You drop the L bomb(in whatever fashion you did) then you turn around and go on a flirting escapade. Does that make you look genuine at all? You're sending some confusing messages.

 

You are ranting about him being jealous 'this early', but love was also thrown around 'this early'. Mind you, you also said that until last week he was the 'best thing that ever happened' to you. You sound like you've got some double standards going on.

 

So, onto this attention-seeking pattern you deal with - When things are rough or you are not receiving the attention/affection/love/ego strokes that you need, is that when you tend to go out and do these little sabotaging things? I think that's most definitely a pattern worth investigating, taking precedence even over your 2 month relationship. If that pattern goes unaddressed and unresolved, you will bump into the same issues in each of your relationships.

[DN]

I agree that you aren't being very understanding about why he is concerned. Your track record in cheating or inappropriate flirting is consistent so why would he think you have suddenly changed simply because you are being 'open' about it.

 

I think you are the one who needs to change your behaviour not him.

[banal]

I don't mean to pile on...but I will.

 

You cannot say that he's being too jealous when you are giving him reason to be jealous! His jealousy is not some event that has appeared randomly, out of thin air - it is in direct response to YOUR behavior. How do you stop him from being jealous? Well, by not flirting with other guys...that's a start.

[FathomFear]

Should I be embarrassed that I'm having a hard time figuring out what the L word is? I think I'm too used to the show "The L Word", lol.

[RitaTrue]

Should I be embarrassed that I'm having a hard time figuring out what the L word is? I think I'm too used to the show "The L Word", lol.

Love..........

[sprru]

I'm thinking I must have been really unclear in my post...

 

I don't really think I'm blaming HIM for being jealous, I just want to know if/how we can move on from it. It was stupid. It sucked. I told him up-front about my history, and I realize he's taking a big chance on me from the very beginning. Also, I NEVER should have said that word. It's one of the scariest concepts I can think of, and I have NO way of knowing how I actually feel. It just shouldn't have happened. But then I start thinking about the concept of "settling down" a second time, even though the first attempt went the way it did and isn't even legally closed yet. And suddenly, after it was said, I just couldn't imagine myself being with my guy in even the capacity we'd agreed on. The feeling came and went, and I tried to fight it at the time, but nevertheless 4 flirtations occurred. I have a habit of trying to sabotage things so they "get ended" rather than ending them myself (and at the same time I'll hold onto things that I really shouldn't), and I don't know which if either happened but...yes, I realize that's unhealthy and probably makes me a very bad person. Even to his face, I've taken at MINIMUM 95% of the blame for our current issues, and I DO believe that blame is deserved. But hey, guess what I figured out after the initial freak-out? I REALLY FRICKIN LIKE THIS GUY. So yeah, go me.

 

What I meant when I said "this early" is that we're having this problem at all this early in the game when we have no real basis for a "relationship" whatsoever. It's not like we have one week of terrible out of a year. It's been 2 months at most. The timing was mentioned because I'm wondering if there's any way to get past it considering we haven't established that strong of a bond. He says there is, but the whole situation is snowballing. Every day, one or both of us are ready to end the whole thing.

 

That said, at THIS point (and I'm thinking this is the part that makes me the biggest bad guy), I'm not really sure what to do because I'm personally having issues WANTING to be with someone when every encounter we've had lately is me justifying or apologizing for my behavior.