Can this work?

[StefaniePantz]

Everyone has things that damage or hurt them more than they do others, insecurities and whatnot. I am going to outline the things that are causing issues in my relationship, but everything in between these scenarios is us being a normal couple, it’s isn’t just constant fighting so a plain “get out of a bad relationship” doesn’t fit here.

 

A while back I started heavily pursuing a guy I had been interested in, I am usually very sure about my feelings for someone and I knew I cared about him. So after a lot of effort on my part, and much less on his, he realized he was interested. We were really happy for a while, I was crazy about him and felt like I was in a corny movie the first time he told me he loved me. We met when I was in the military and I was not surprised when he deployed and knew about what to expect. I tried my hardest to keep my head up while he was gone, but I felt neglected, other women I knew were getting a lot of phone calls, pictures, and skype calls, I got very few. I waited it out hoping things would get better but when he returned I felt disconnected. I told him I felt this way and he became very defensive, we argued a bit and then eventually he just felt very upset with himself for neglecting our relationship to the point that I felt alone and we were figuring out where to go from there. I didn’t really want to be intimate with him and I explained it, but I also told him that if he felt the need to be intimate with someone that I was there because I didn’t want him to venture of somewhere else for attention.

 

We did a bit of back and forth arguing, where he told me that he now knew how to fix things and he wanted to work at it, we had sex a little and were working towards getting back on our feet. We had a really big Christmas party with friends and he fell asleep on the couch during it, so me and some of the friends left and went to the bar. A few days later he was being really weird about his phone and I notice little changes like that so I addressed him about it. He lied, and lied again, and spent a solid 30 minutes of being drilled, lying. He said that he changed his password just because and that if I didn’t trust him then I should just say it, and that if I wanted to look through his phone he was going to be mad but he would let me. I told him I wanted to, he unlocked it and I saw what was very obviously a conversation that had been previously deleted. We fought about it and finally he told me that they had been flirting a little bit and complimented each others smiles and little things like that, but he deleted it because he felt guilty and I would be mad.

 

I became more angry, we were trying to make things better and he was off flirting with other girls. We argued and argued and I told him how insecure I felt about the relationship, and that my past body issues were resurfacing as a result. One night we had been drinking with friends and having fun and an argument broke out, the arguments normally happen when drinking because he isn’t good about expressing his feelings. We argued about our current situation and he ended up hitting me with a long florescent light bulb on the leg and then choking me pretty hard. After a minute of that he stopped and started crying, telling me he was a bad person and that he wanted to kill himself or for me to kill him. I brought him to bed and played with his hair until he fell asleep, left him a note that I was going to a friend and left. The next day I returned to a long apology letter and another set of long discussions about our problems and what we should do. At this point we started seeing a counselor, but it wasn’t a good fit, we tried another counselor, but he didn’t want to mention the physical incident so he wouldn’t get in trouble, I understood and agreed with him but I also expressed that the counseling wouldn’t be a fair one if they didn’t have all the information.

 

I found a way to forgive him for it and we moved on, not talking about it much. We had some friends that we play sports with over along with some of their friends as well. We were drinking and playing board games having a good time. He pulled me aside in to the other room and asked if I would have a threesome with him and a girl we met that night (friend of a friend). I was furious, I am not interested in women whatsoever and to me this felt like him saying that he valued our relationship but was also interested in having sex with this girl. If he wasn’t interested in sex with her, then he just would have had sex with me then, right? I made everyone leave and told him how awful I felt. All I could do was cry and think about him getting off to her. It ruined me, I obsessed, couldn’t sleep couldn’t eat, couldn’t think. I asked him what made him think that was an okay question and how it got to that point. He said she had been flirting with him and that he didn’t flirt back but that’s how the idea came to him. I was sick. I get hit on quite often and have had some of his friends try and inappropriately come on to me or kiss me, I always do the right thing and stop it, why couldn’t he make that kind of choice? Our relationship suffered greatly and I wanted to leave him.

 

Time has passed, we have been doing great! Travelling, growing closer, building more of a life together, moving somewhere new and being ready for a “fresh start.” This past weekend we went on a snowboarding trip in montana with some friends to celebrate our new chapter.

 

I received a message from our neighbor Christian saying he was going to miss us, we talked a little bit and it was brought up that his wife (the girl from the first scenario) was part of the reason we weren’t better friends. I explained that the exchange between my SO and his SO was an area of stress for me and I didn’t want to be around her. He talked about how he had suspicions they had done more than just talk and text. That when he said something about her having come up to our apartment, information I had never heard. I drilled him, he lied and lied and eventually told me there was a kiss that meant nothing and that he regretted and felt horrible about. He said he didn’t tell me because he was a coward and scared it would ruin our relationship, he said he had considered killing himself because he didn’t want to lose us. I feel so betrayed, I feel like the relationship is built on lies, I feel like he doesn’t value me the way I value him, and I feel disconnected from him and alone.

 

He says it’s the only thing he’s actually “done” wrong, and that the other things were just him being inconsiderate. But I’m not inconsiderate the way he is and I feel dumb for letting him make me feel this way. I feel bad about myself, but I truly love him and aside from this stuff he is what dreams are made of, I’m just hurt and torn. I want to feel good about my self and my relationship, but this stuff eats away at me.

[rosephase]

He attacked you. That's abuse. He threatens suicide to keep you in the relationship. That is abuse. He lies to you to get what he wants (attention from other women). He's never been as committed to you as you are to him. You are now in a hostile relationship where you fight and don't trust each other.

 

Love isn't actually enough. You loving him isn't making this relationship healthy and supportive to either of you. It doesn't sound like he is emotionally mature enough to be in a long term committed relationship and isn't willing to do the work to get there. You don't want the advice of "getting out of this bad relationship" but that is the only advice for this situation. Did doesn't matter if you think you have a "normal relationship" between the abuse, cheating and suicide threats... what you have is a messed up, co-dependent, train wreck of a relationship that you are sticking with... because why?

 

You can find other people to love. This stuff eats away at you because part of you knows you can't and shouldn't stay with someone who treats you this way. He's not committed to changing. Why are you putting more energy into this?

[StefaniePantz]

Would you say it makes any difference that he was distraught when he said the comment about killing himself and didn't mention it again, and it was only brought up 1+ years later referring to the fact that he considered it and decided it was a bad idea? Just regarding that portion of course.

[lostandhurt]

Well said Rose!

 

Dump this guy and never look back.

 

Lost

[rosephase]

Would you say it makes any difference that he was distraught when he said the comment about killing himself and didn't mention it again, and it was only brought up 1+ years later referring to the fact that he considered it and decided it was a bad idea? Just regarding that portion of course.

 

People threatening suicide are rarely calm. And it sounds like he's threatened twice... or am I reading your post wrong? He said he was going wanted to kill himself after he attacked you. And then said he thought about killing himself after he kissed some other women? A year later? That is just using the threat of his life to tell you how bad he fells about lying to you?

[catfeeder]

There is a reason why healthy people walk away from mistreatment: once you stick around afterward, you've just set yourself up for more of it. You've taught the mistreater that the formula works. In your case, all the guy needs to do is convince you how lousy he feels about it, and he's golden. He gets away with it, and you're left wondering how to manipulate him away from mistreating you again.

 

That doesn't 'work,' except for him.

[Raoul]

Walk now. Don't look back.

[Itsme2033]

I agree with the advice that you have been given by the other people who have posted. I think you are a great person and I believe you have worked really hard to make the relationship work so far, to the extent that it is working. I can tell that this relationship is important to you and that you don't really want to give it up, and that you would like to try to find a way to make it work. I wish there was something that I could say or that someone on this forum could say that would give you a magic way to make it work, but I just don't believe that there is.

 

I think the only reason that you are still together is because you are willing to do all the work in the relationship. It seems clear that the relationship doesn't mean very much to him, and that he would walk away if you weren't doing all the work. I encourage you to get counseling for yourself so that you can find the strength to walk away from the relationship before more bad things happen. There are so many things wrong here. Any of them should be enough for you to leave him. When you put them all together, it seems overwhelming. In a nutshell, he lies to you, he doesn't feel remorse about lying to you, he was probably unfaithful to you, he lied some more, he was physically abusive to you, and he emotionally manipulates you.

 

You are right when you say you feel he doesn't value you the way you value him. To me it looks like he doesn't value you at all. That's not to say that you might not have some good times together, but if you remain with him you will only get to feeling worse about yourself. And if you remain with him he will almost certainly physically abuse you again at some point in the future. In this situation it's almost certain that he has done other things that you would hate and that you have just not found out about yet.

 

....I feel bad about myself, but I truly love him and aside from this stuff he is what dreams are made of, I’m just hurt and torn. I want to feel good about my self and my relationship, but this stuff eats away at me.

 

I feel so much sympathy for you. I know this has been painful, but I'm a little concerned about this statement. You make it sound like the bad things he did were just little, and that otherwise he's a great guy. You may have some great times with him, but he's not a great guy. He's done really terrible things to you. Please find a way to leave this relationship and then work on ways of feeling good about yourself. If you stay, he will always be able to do more to make you feel bad about yourself than you can ever overcome. I know this is not what you want to hear, but it's what you need to hear.