Skyblossom
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When your boyfriend cheats on you and you find out about it and find you can no longer trust him it isn’t your problem. It is a relationship problem. It is a problem that frequently causes the destruction of the relationship. That is normal.
Your boyfriend wanted to hurt his brother more than he loved being with you. At the very least he assumed he could harm his brother and have you. In the end he chose hurting his brother over being committed to you. He was willing to risk everything with you to harm his brother. He made that decision and you were left with the consequences of his decision. It is very normal to not be able to deal with those kinds of consequences. It is a positive thing for you to get out of the relationship. It is a good thing because it leaves you open to finding someone better. Someone who values you and your relationship more highly.
I understand that you love him and would like for the relationship to work. You are emotionally attached. Unfortunately he caused the damage that ruined the relationship. You not being able to get past it is you protecting yourself from future harm. That is very normal too.
I think this same type of thing has happened to many of us if not most of us.
@Copa The anecdotes shared in books like that are usually made up by the author. If you skip from anecdote to anecdote they will sound the same because the author has written them all and is trying to make a point with them. They all have the same tone. They often use the same key terms. They tend to be about the same length and have the same writing style.
The anecdote about Sandra being engaged after only six weeks seems more like a system that isn’t working. She sounds positively desperate if she is engaged after six weeks.
You’re right about the helicopter parents, they won’t let go. They won’t let their kids grow up. They won’t let their kids make decisions. They monitor everything all of the time. I work with someone who makes her kids text when they get home from school. The oldest turned 18 and he still was required to text mom that he got home okay. She decided that he would get a job for this summer and decided where he would work. She has decided where he will attend college.
She herself has a dominating MIL and they are just learning how to set boundaries with her. Yet she can’t see that she is doing the same with her own kids. She also tries to control us at work but we ignore her. She is obsessive compulsive and tries to make us do things in her way such as keep all the pens in certain slots, turned certain ways and we ignore her. She tries to make us use certain markers for labeling by putting away the ones that most of us use and substituting the ones that she prefers.
They might have a key or they might be over to do something like babysit and feel entitled to do things. My sister’s mother-in-law liked to rearrange the living room furniture and the kitchen when she babysat. My sister came home once to find that not only was her living room rearranged but there was a lamp in the middle of the room with a cord running across the floor to the lamp and she had a baby crawling around that would gum on or chew anything. She would also come home to find her mother-in-law decided to store everything in the kitchen in different places. Her husband would have to talk to her and tell her that they wanted everything where they decided to keep it. The MIL would be hurt or disappointed because she felt that her way was so much better and she was surprised that they couldn’t see that. My mom went through my sister’s refrigerator and turned all of the lids upside down to “save space” which my sister pointed out that she didn’t need that space but now she wouldn’t be able to microwave those items without washing the dirty lids.
The control can be in other ways also. You can be expected to spend all day Saturday or Sunday or both at the parent’s house to see everybody. You can be expected to drop everything whenever your mom calls to go do things for her or with her. You can be expected and pushed to name your child some traditional family name that you hate. You can be pushed into attending church because you grew up there and everybody knows you should be at church.
Couples facing these issues now have the internet as a resource that tells you it is okay to say no and how to say no and how to create boundaries. The concept didn’t exist when I was twenty or if it did it wasn’t a concept that was broadly known. We didn’t have that trouble because we lived so far from our parents but I would see other people struggling with it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Grandma also had the idea that they would cover son and DIL’s home with Grandpa’s artwork and then their friends and her relatives would see it and admire it and want to know where they got it and then Grandpa would get lots of praise for his work.
I wonder if they try to gift everyone with FIL’s work or only the DIL.
I assume Grandma is approximately my age or a little older and grew up at a time when the term boundaries didn’t exist when it came to family relationships. If you had a domineering MIL you just had to put up with it. Now her son and her DIL have the idea that they can set boundaries and can choose to not use gifts they are given and Grandma finds the whole idea upsetting. She has waited for her turn to be dominant and now they won’t let that happen. From her point of view she should be able to control their home if she wants. She should be able to decorate it and they should be grateful for the decorations. She will have to realize that if she keeps pushing they could easily move further away just to get some peace.
This reminds me so much of someone I know who loves to crochet. She puts a lot of effort into her crochet and every gift she gives is crochet. Even to teenage boys. She gives them crocheted blankets, meaning she is giving teen boys crocheted afghans. She gives small children crocheted balls. She gives babies crocheted blankets. She gives people crocheted ornaments. Then she complains that the small children don’t seem to know what to do with crocheted balls and that the teen boys seem disappointed with crocheted blankets. She complains about how much time and effort she put into making them and now the recipients don’t seem to like them. Then she does the same thing again and again. If you know that someone doesn’t want what you are giving and you continue to give it that says a lot about you and not much about them. It means you are thoughtless. It means you are so invested in giving what you want to give that you don’t care that they don’t want to receive it. You are trying to force them to like it because it is what you want to give. It doesn’t matter how much effort goes into it if you know the recipient doesn’t want it. The effort and the gifting is all about you. Make the gift about them.
I’d wait until the two of you are walking past each other and say hi as you get near her. Don’t turn to see if she watches you go by. Just say hi and keep going. Do that multiple times and see if she starts smiling when she sees you coming or if she starts avoiding you. You don’t have to be witty to say hi.
I think if she likes you she will find a reason to stop and talk to you. If she never hangs around you she probably isn’t interested.
One thing to think about is whether you have a strong, preconceived idea about who your child would be or are you willing to take and love whoever your child turns out to be? Could you love and nurture a child regardless of how different they might be from yourself? If you had a vision of them playing piano and they only wanted to play football or vice versa would you be okay with that? If you are an introvert and they were an extrovert could you handle it? If you were into athletics and they wanted to do dance, drawing and drama could you handle it or would you be disappointed? If they turn out to be a fussy, irritable baby would you resent them? Could you let them live their own life or would you always be trying to control everything in their life to make it perfect?
I think it is important to know that you have no control over who you get as your child and to be accepting of them as they are and not try to turn them into a mini version of yourself.
I think you also need to think about them as not just a baby but a person who will go through many varied stages from birth to adulthood. The baby phase is intense but brief.
@Ale If he wanted to make it work he’d tell you what the obstacles were and then talk about ways to overcome those obstacles so that the two of you could be together. The fact that he throws out obstacles without trying to problem solve them tells you that he just wants them to be obstacles.
In my own relationship with my husband when we were dating we talked about our future as a couple. First we talked about what we wanted, which was marriage. Within months we were talking about when we wanted to get engaged. Then we looked at engagement rings and bought one even though we weren’t getting engaged yet. Then we got engaged as planned and picked a wedding date. We never picked names for hypothetical children. We did talk about whether we both wanted children and how many we thought we wanted but we didn’t name hypothetical future children. I think you can tell the difference. If everything is always hypothetical or always years in the future without any movement in the current time to make any of it actually happen they aren’t really committed to a future together. If there is actual movement toward the life together then you can assume that you are working toward a life together.
IF they buy a house without your knowledge they probably aren’t working toward a life together. If they apply for a job and take the job offer without discussing it with you then they probably aren’t working toward a life together. Do they keep making decisions as an individual or with their parents or do they make decisions with you as a couple does. You need to be partners before you get engaged and before you are married. The commitment needs to come first and you will see that by more and more working together as partners. You will find yourself discussing your decisions with them and making joint decisions that work for both of you. If that isn’t happening then you aren’t moving forward toward a joint life.
I’m totally with Kate on this.
If he’s never seen you cry except when someone died or you were injured and he calls you at work and you are crying I would assume he thought someone died. “Oh God,” is very appropriate when thinking that something awful has happened. I also don’t think you should assume he knows you are upset at him because you were already crying when he called. Why would he assume that when you hung up you were angry with him? All he knows is that he called and you were crying and instead of telling him about whatever awful thing happened you hung up on him. He couldn’t be emotionally supportive because you didn’t give him the chance. You hung up on him. Now you seem to expect him to chase you around asking why you are upset with him. That isn’t how emotionally healthy relationships work. He shouldn’t have to chase you around asking/begging you to tell him what is wrong. When you were composed and could talk, so maybe after work, you should have called him and told him what was happening when he called. That would have given him the chance to be emotionally supportive and would have built a better emotional connection between the two of you. That’s how you build emotional connections. At this point you seem to hide your emotions from him and then expect him to read your mind and know when you are upset with him and why. That’s a relationship destroying approach. You must use your words.
As far as Valentine’s Day goes you say one thing about celebrating it but do something different. Your words and actions don’t match. If you don’t expect much you shouldn’t be taking him on a trip and buying him luggage and boxer shorts for Valentine’s Day. You are probably hoping that a big gift before Valentine’s Day will show him that he should make a grand gesture. He may be thinking that the trip was Valentine’s Day and that his gift to you was paying for meals. Don’t say that you expect very little for Valentine’s Day unless you mean it. If he follows what you say but you actually expect something else then you have set him up to fail. You are already saying that you do more for him than he does for you and your attitude is that he fails you. At the same time you say you expect little. You have to use words to say what you really mean. You are giving confusing, contradictory signals. What is he supposed to do?
“take the next step and see what happens.”
So what did he mean by take the next step? That’s so vague it could mean anything so if that’s all he said he said nothing. The next step should be something concrete. Something you can look at and see whether it happened or not.
He likes things the way they are. Can you live like that?
The question I think you need to ask yourself is if the relationship remains like this for five years would you look back in five years and regret sticking around? What about ten years of the same? Fifteen years?
What personal goals do you have for your life. Do you want marriage? If so, do you want it enough that you would never be satisfied with twenty years of the current relationship? Do you want children? If so do you want them more than the current relationship?
If you had to choose between current bf and marriage which would you choose if you couldn’t have both, which is the likely reality?
If you had to choose between current bf and having children which would you choose? Which is a higher priority and life goal?
If you want neither marriage or children then it will be easy to continue as you are and let life carry you along and see where it takes you. If you want more then you have to move on because you won’t get more from or with him. Which do you want more, him or the everything else?
I agree with finding a different therapist. It doesn’t sound like you feel you can question what the current one says to understand what they are saying.
If you can’t comfortably ask your therapist to explain what they are saying and you feel like a boy with a woman do you often feel like a boy in a man’s world?
Many people would consider you lucky for finding lasting love with your first sex partner. That’s pretty rare. Would it help if you looked at yourself as lucky rather than a boy married to a woman. Does it help to realize that your wife chose you instead of moving on to someone else. If you don’t feel like you were “the one” for your wife is that because she doesn’t make you feel valued? Do you feel that you come second or third or fourth in her priorities? Do you feel she doesn’t think about you or listen to you? Do you feel you can’t depend on her?
As someone else said it isn’t your number of sex partners that makes you a man. You are a man if you can support yourself and your family. You’re a man if you are emotionally supportive of your wife and your child. You are a man if they can rely on you to be there when needed. You are a man if you can see beyond yourself with empathy and love and concern.
You need to figure out why you feel the way you do and then you can begin to address the underlying issues.
