which one is wrong....probably me I just cant tell

[bluerock]

has any one ever been here before....

 

It all started out....we were living in this megalopolis....dying from lonelieness....and it was Christmas time when he asked me out on our first date.

 

I was overwhelmed at his email reply when I said ...lets do something fun...he sent me a list of ideas that lasted three days long.

 

We didnt exactly bond on the first date but our conversation was consistent and fluid. We were both sharing..niether of us dominated. I was imminently aware that we were both hurting inside. not exactly romantic. A bit too heavy I thought. I really wanted to have some fun.

 

The dinner was expensive. He paid for it. We shyly kissed good night.

 

Within a week it was New Years Eve. We had fun. We were comfortable. We were talking 3 times a day.

 

Within a few weeks or a month, I dont rememnber, He said I made him feel like a better man. He said he d never felt stronger. He also said he wanted to be a better man because of me. He said all the standard things, I thought. Still too heavy though.

 

I appreciated him. I wanted to return his gratitude. Later on I also realized that he had a lot more going on for him than anyone else I had ever dated....even though I had known he had a good job and all from the start.....I had just never compared him to anyone else in the beginning. I didnt start doing that until I started to feel desperate to get away from him.

 

He enocuraged me to do a lot of things, but I dindt really take him seriously. Sometimes I felt like he was encouraging me to mold myself out of him I guess. All the same he did inspire me to take leaps in my career and although Im still making that transition I guess I am grateful to him for that. Im just a little speculative on certain highlights to his encouragement. They mostly all seemed to include *temporary depencence on him. *I can help you out while you get started out sort of thing.....this made me worry that he was trying to paint me into a corner at times.....move into his place under the guise of all...and low and behold we ve taken the next step with our relationship and and the future is all about building on the steps weve taken so far....but wait a minute, you said I could stay here for a while while I got on my feet?! I thought.

 

SO anyway. I dont know which happened first:

 

1. My best friend said to me one day while we were talking about how Im never home anymore and she misses me and then she dropped this bomb on me. "Have you looked in the mirror lately.....you are so out of his league that he must be so desperate to keep you around".....and on and on she went about how ugly he was and how attractive and sexy I was....

 

or

 

2. I started realizing all of these nitpicking details and stopped being swept off my feet.

 

But the end all result is that at the moment I do see him as desperate now.

He has many really successful friends working for World class companies and we are around them I am totally paranoid that they see it too.

To top it all off, I have started to become disgusted with his occasional lapses in judgement or grammatical mistakes etc....

 

Its been about 5 months now since it started to go bad. The bad has now outlasted the first blissful 3 months. Of course his awareness is full blown. He has waited longer than 1 month intervals between sexual encounters.

He has endured my cold stares of discontent when he has tried to display public affection. The other night when we were arguing a little I was mostly saying "now is not the time" and he was mostly saying "do you think I am a good enough man?"....."do you love me?" "If you dont I wish you would just get out.". but immediately backing off that last comment.

 

I have confronted my friend about what she said and explained to her that I am a little impressionable and for that reason If Id held an opinion like that I would never share it with anyone!

 

Communication isnt my forte.

 

 

But anyways back to our argument the other night he said he had never experienced love making like ours and that it was natural for adults to seek commitment because reproduction is why were here on earth and that I made HIM feel like a PERSON. He made all the standard arguments I thought. Charachteristic of desperate man I thought. And thereforeeee devoid of anything true and endearing. And so I felt nothing at a moment when he was burning with feeling. The last comment he made about feeling like a person really disgusted me though. Why do you eed me to feel like PERSON? Everyone is a PERSON!

 

 

But on the flip side...Am I not desperate myself? Although I have been told all my life that I am beautiful I have never felt it except for when I am alone looking at myself putting on makeup etc.... And for every minute I have stared at myself pleasingly I have spent at least an hour staring and hating what I saw.

 

I have never dated a man that was conventionally attractive. I have never felt confident around an attractive man to be honest. Often I have acted repulsingly around them to mask this feeling of inferiority. Looks have never served as dating preference for me. Why are they standing inmy way now? IS it because someone else pointed them out? Is it because I am an obviously neurotic noncommunicative coward? Is it becase I was sexually molested as a child and never got the help I needed and so now I cant commit to anyone because of trust issues? Will I stop at nothing until I end up totally miserable and alone? But I am only 24! But I will be 25 in one month and thats getting older. By now I am defintely starting to cry.

 

He is probably/defintely the only person in the world right now who cares enough to listen to these types of concerns that are really weighing me down right now. But is that because he loves me or just wants to keep me at any cost no matter if I am RUINJING HIS LIFE OR NOT?!

 

But whatever about that last statement I could never in a million years find the communicative strength to tell him that what may be standing between us may be his physical appearance and or mental ability. I couldnt possibly hurt him in that shallow of an attack. He is very self conscious about his looks because he is bald. He has been since a pretty young age too I guess. He is now 33. I know thats just another thing we have in common but still I hate the hats he wears now that my feelings have turned so bleak now.

 

A few months ago I encouraged him to go hatless and he did it for a while and he said that he had never had the strength to do that before Id given it to him....but secretly Id regreted having said it after the fact. Since then hes started wearing a hat 24/7 again and its the same hat everyday and I really cant stand that.

 

I think Im schizophrenic and Id kind of like to kill myself at times. I just wish I knew what was wrong with my brain. I dont want to bring children into the world with rotten hateful soul.

[arwen]

Hey bluerock,

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

There are so many different aspects of your life sketched in your message, that I sort of divided them.

 

Your relationship

I guess what worries me most here, is that I get the feeling that in fact you DON'T feel like you should be with the person you are involved with right now. I could be wrong, but I read mostly negative things about him. Maybe you met him at a moment that you both were desperately looking for a connection. I don't know why a relationship followed from this, and not just a friendship?

 

The part where you tell that he says that you make him feel like a person is an important part of that-- I would take it like a compliment when I make a man feel better about himself, but to say that before you came in his life he didn't feel like a person at all is certainly very heavy!

 

I think the comments of your friend would not affect you if you were in love with this man. I have the feeling that although you have low-selfesteem, you somehow feel deep down that your friend is right. Not that you are out of his league, but simply that he is not the one for you. I think that it is kind of rude to say that someone doesn't suit you because of looks. Personally I would be angry about this comment if I were really in love with the alleged 'ugly' man. Maybe I fell for something else, right?

 

Your self-image

The part about you not dating anyone 'attractive' tells me that you in fact never dated anyone that YOU were attracted to. This can be a consequence of a very low self-esteem.

 

I think the better your self-image, the less comments of friends or even HIS co-workers will affect you. You say that you don't feel beautiful and hate what you see in the mirror. I think before you are ready for a committed relationship, THIS is the first thing you need to work on first!

 

Depression

You end your message by some very alarming assertions, like wanting to kill yourself or being scared of being schizophrenic. Why do you think so? I think you need some solid therapy to build up a better image of who you are, where you want to go in life and get out of this depression.

 

Finally, I think it might be better to end this relationship. Start working on the relationship you have with yourself first.

 

Take care,

 

Ilse.

[BellaDonna]

Well Iread your entire post, and it seems that you do not have much self-confidence (about your feelings and what's on the inside) , and dwelling on his imperfections makes you feel better about yourself.

 

My advice would be, if you can't see yourself having a future with this man because you're just not attracted to him, then don't string him along. Looks and sexual desire are indeed important in a relationship. If you dont' feel you are attracted to him, don't keep him around only to feel "repulsed" as you put it.

 

As far as him wearing a hat and making grammer mistakes- those are very small things that a person would normally overlook. It seems like these things are consuming you.

 

I think Im schizophrenic and Id kind of like to kill myself at times. I just wish I knew what was wrong with my brain. I dont want to bring children into the world with rotten hateful soul.

 

This tells me that there is more to this situation. There are some issues that need to be resolved within yourself. I suggest you seek counseling to help you deal with these feelings. You are not a bad person, you are just really confused and whatever is happening inside you is manifesting in your relationship. I would take some time off from the relationship to work on these feelings and be honest with him every step of the way. (Note: you can be honest without being hurtful or insulting to him)

 

BellaDonna

[DN]

I think you should let him go and let him find someone who doesn't think he is unattractive and out of her league and will appreciate him for who he is.

[bluerock]

I really want to say thankyou to everone who replied to my story....

 

I live in a foreign country where I am still struggling to learn the language and have few friends that I see in a social capacity. THese arent the kind of things that I can talk about at with my coworkers, and my friends and family back home dont really want to hear it as I can probably imagine. Honestly the advice that was given here has really helped.

 

Quote from Ilse:

I guess what worries me most here, is that I get the feeling that in fact you DON'T feel like you should be with the person you are involved with right now. I could be wrong, but I read mostly negative things about him.

...end quote

 

This is precisely one of my main worries.....has my own insecurity and depression caused me to black out all the positive things about him....like the fact that he adores, respects, admires, helps, and trusts me *(to extents that no previous lover ever has before)....and allowed myself only to see the negative traits in him....(like that he cant spell, is bald, wont buy a new pair of jeans, PDA etc....) I think I sound ridiculous saying these things, but I really feel them.

 

 

I guess this is what leads me to worry about mental conditions like schizophrenia. I find that Im constantly at war with myself. One minute I can feel like letting go of all these nitpicky concerns and giving in to letting myself fall for him again but then I see one little thing I dont like and think "this WILL NEVER WORK!!!"

 

Ive been on this fence in many aspects of life before he came along and I fear the road ahead inevitably leads to insanity. PEople already notice it. And once some one makes a comment about me acting weird or saying crazy things I feel the need to always live up to their expectations. ANd then theres the constant parnoia....that people are talking about me or judging me. I guess I feel that they would be judging me badly becasue of my moodswings, job performance, occasional scruffy apperance, and volatile attitude.

 

Anyways, I wont bother anyone anymore with these problems. They just seem to spew out thicker and thicker with every line. ITs not fair to you or myself to lay my nueroticism on you and taking advice from anyone who will listen is probably not the help that I need.

 

I just want to say that in the responses that I got I really admired some of your overall familiarity with hardship in life and knowing how to interpret obstacles in life. I am so baffled.