I really need advice on this!

[firefly summer]

This will be long. I don't even know why I'm doing this. I don't even know what this website is, just that it seems like a place you can get advice. And I need to. Okay, so here goes. My boyfriend and I are nearing our one year anniversary. At the beginning things were great. He was always really clingy to me. At first I thought it was sweet because he "loved" me so much, but now it's gotten worse. I noticed it mostly whenever we started school again and he couldn't see me as much. Immediately he started to get moody and angry, and he'd freak out over anything (but he never got mad at me directly). He would stab walls with a knife or kick things (he kicked a huge dent in his car when it wouldn't start) or slap himself/cut himself in front of me while I begged him to stop. And everytime he'd cut he'd hold it up, almost proudly, and say "see this? next time it'll be deeper".

 

Then I got a job, and he saw me less which worsened it. He can't handle it when we don't see each other, even for one night. And he starts saying he's going to kill himself and that he has no reason to live. So I quit my job (partly because of his mood swings and inability to adjust to my absense). Things went back to normal temporarily, and then he started pushing me to have sex. I'm nineteen and still a virgin, so I feel stupid enough as it is for not wanting to do it yet. And he makes me feel like a total psycho about it. He encourages me to do "little things" which he considers as "progress" to our eventual going all the way, such as making out topless. One night I told him that doing this made me feel uncomfortable, and he freaked out on me. He told me that he felt he was getting nowhere with me sexually, and that we were making "negative progress". When I told him it wasn't about "making progress" he got quiet and angry with me. And then I told him I was going to go home because I couldn't stand being there anymore. And he started crying and saying he would die if he lost me and begging me to stay. So I stayed and we pretended like nothing happened. He hasn't pushed me to do anything sexual since then, but I know he wants to.

 

After that it's been one thing after another. He asked me to marry him the other day, or more like told me to marry him. He said, "The thing is, I want to marry you as soon as possible" without even asking me! Like so many other things, he just assumes I feel the same and blows up when I don't.

 

And everytime I talk about needing to get another job or wanting to get some money to help out my parents (both of whom are unemplyed) he gets mad about the possibility of not seeing me and tells me that I don't owe my parents anything and that they are worthless drunks who treat me bad. I agree that they have made some mistakes, but he takes it too far. I feel that I owe them a lot (I mean, they sort of gave me life here and he feels that he owes "nothing to the world" because he has "had it so bad", even though I think he's got an okay life. So when I want to help my parents, he is disgusted with me. He complains constantly about made up/trivial problems and oversimplifies them to a frightening degree, blaming everyone around him but NEVER blaming himself.

 

And then this next part happened, which is the entire reason I am writing this. I am graduating high school in a month, and trying to decide on my future. My best friend wants me to go to college with her so we can room together and so that I can get away from my boyfriend, who she thinks is emotionally unstable. The college is three hours away, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to get out on my own, away from my parent's financial and emotional problems, and most importantly: get away from my boyfriend. When I told him I had applied at this college he fell quiet and told me to "do whatever I want" in this pissed off voice. I told him we needed to talk and then the argument escaladed. He told me he "could not" live without me, even for one night. And he told me that there was no reason for him to live, and he would just "go psycho" if I left and kill all the people he's been wanting to kill for years and rape all the women he wants to have sex with. These "psycho" things are apparently things he doesn't do so long as I'm around to make him happy. So I told him we needed a few days apart, because I was freaked out about everything he was saying. And he told me that it "wasn't going to happen" because he "couldn't handle not seeing me" even for a few days!

 

And then. . . for whatever reason we landed on the topic of sex. He told me that he was mad about me leaving because when I am gone he thinks of nothing except sex and death, and I am the only one in the world who can stop him from having violent sexual fantasies. And he told me, in a round-about way that if I had sex with him, all of his problems would go away and he would no longer be so emotionally attached to me. I, of course, know this is rediculous. But sometimes I am tempted to do it just to show him that sex doesn't matter that much! And then he told me that sometimes he drives by girl's houses when he knows they're alone, and he wants to just go in there and "violate them" to ease the sexual tension he has been building up over the years. He says that he has never done this, but he has thought about it before, and if I would just have sex with him than he wouldn't think things like that anymore. And he also told me that he fantasizes about killing people who "don't matter" and raping girls who are rich and spoiled, because he hates them and wants to make them feel pain. He thinks that since they have money they do not feel pain. When I asked him if he would really do any of this, he just shrugged and said "I honestly don't know".

 

Since we had the fight I have been trying to get into his head a lot more. I've found out a lot of stuff I'd rather not know. He told me that he is great at manipulation, and when I asked him if he would ever manipulate me if it was necessary he said, "Yeah, if I had to." And I also found out about his jealousy problems. I have never until now known that he was jealous in any way. He has neither told me nor reacted at all when I talk to another guy. But he told me the other day that this makes him insane and that "just the thought" of another guy talking to me pisses him off. And he gets jealous when I'm having a conversation with his mother, or someone else, and he isn't included. He says that it's not me he doesn't trust (though I have a hard time believing this). He says that he doesn't trust the other guys. And he told me that when I go to college he doesn't want me living in a dorm because there will be a lot of drunk guys around me, and he thinks I will get raped or something.

 

When I asked him why this worried him so much he said something that scared me. He said, "Because if another guy got to you first. . ." and then he didn't say anything else. He later said that it was because he loved me so much and didn't want me to go through that experience. But I can't forget what he said that first time, like I was a piece of sexual property that is only for him to use. And sometimes when we are kissing he pins me down and holds my head so I can't pull away, even if I need to get my breath. I have to wait until he is "done". I never thought this was a big deal until I noticed my arm was bruised and hurting, and I looked at it and just sort of passed it off as an accident. But the fact that he hurt me, even aciddentally, kind of makes me uneasy. I never told him though, so I guess it's sort of my own fault. He gets really rough with me when we are making out though, and doesn't seem to notice at all unless I tell him to stop.

 

His parents aren't any better. He has hardly any relationship with them. He told me that his father wanted nothing to do with him when he was little and that he sometimes hit him so hard that he fell off his feet (when he was only one year old) and that he threatened to hit him several times after that. His father raped his mother, so I know that he has aggressive sexual tendencies that are inherited. And his father insists that it wasn't rape, and he won't own up to it at all. And he has told me some other stuff about his dad that freaks me out. Like he was possessive of his mother, not wanting her to talk to other guys, and when I told him that this is what he does with me he just said "but it's not the same. I really love you."

 

I don't know what to do. Is this behavior normal? Am I just making a big deal over nothing?? I am terrified that our relationship has started out, and is heading in the direction of his parent's. Whenever I want to discuss this with him, he is disgusted that I would even put him in the same group with his father. He gets defenseless and says things like "I would never hurt you like that." Or "It isn't the same thing." Or he talks about how his father is worthless and how he just wants him to die. I know that he isn't violent, and that he usually treats me good and that he always changes his behaviour after our fights. But this. . . need he has for me is unhealthy and I feel that I can't do anything anymore because I always have to reserve a part of my day to spend with him. Please give me some advice or even some opinions on his behavior (like is it normal or not)!!

[DN]

This is a potentially dangerous and very serious situation. Threats like this should be taken very seriously, especially since he goes so far as to cut himself.

 

Go to the police immediately and tell them exactly what you have posted here. They will get him the help he needs. Don't feel as if you have betrayed him - he needs help and he needs it now before he hurts himself or you or other people.

[xmrth]

This is definitely serious. You are not the cazy one.

I'm very happy to know that you understand this yourself, and are not clinging to him as he is to you. Go to the police or anyone of authority who can do something to help him.. he's basically told you everything that he will most likely carry out..

[firefly summer]

Wow. . . thanks for the advice, guys. I didn't think it was that serious, but I see what you mean. See the thing is we go through good and bad periods. Right now, after our huge fight and my threatening to break off the relationship if he didn't change, we are having a good period. A very good period. He is less clingy to me and seems to be more understanding. I do not know if this is temporary though. . . and I don't know whether to believe it or not. He seems like he's changed. . . but I don't know what to think. He may just be acting like this because I threatened to leave him. And I have done this in the past too, and he changed the part of his attitude I was complaining about, yet there was something else he found to obsess over after a few "good" weeks. I just don't know. . . really. But thanks for reading and replying. I know that if he has acted this way in the past he will act this way sometime in the future. But I am having a hard time understanding if this change in him is genuine or not, because if it is genuine and he really has changed then I do not see why I should break off the relationship. But anyway. . . a big thank you to those who read my rambling! I was feeling very confused when I wrote this last night (and very tired) and I'm glad somebody listened.