Dear psc1227:

Because re-reading your previous threads is likely to help me understand your current thread, I have done so. Here is a summary of what you shared there:

In May of 2016, you met a man with whom you were in an “off and on pattern every few months” for almost 3 years. He repeatedly broke up with you and repeatedly returned to you, apologizing for everything.. only to break up with you again: “Each time he was the one who broke up with me, and each time we got back together he was the one who came back to me and wanted to get back together. He apologized each time”.

He often got annoyed with you for comments you made and questions you asked, such as regarding his drinking of alcohol, his past 10 year marriage, and his ex- coworker whom he told you previously that he wanted to date. He often became “very upset and non-communicative”, blaming you for being insecure and immature and “chipping away at the relationship”.

During one of the times he broke up with you,  he told you that “he feels nothing for me, that he doesn’t love me or feel any attraction to me”, and that he will not second guess his feelings this time. Yet you wanted “nothing more than to change his mind… having obsessive thoughts about him being with someone else and being so much happier without me”. You worried that you were “too needy and needed to talk through my concerns too much or exhibited signs of jealousy and just pushed him away”.

That I-feel-nothing-for-you breakup was followed by “the worst breakup occurred in January 2017” during your birthday party, immediately after your sister “pulled him aside during the party and she told him that she wanted to make sure that he wasn’t going to hurt me again”. A few months later, you were together again,” things were good for a few months. But you were anxious and depressed because of the unstable relationship with him (“constantly worried he was going to leave”), and because of your mother’s worsening neurological condition, and because of “other family dynamics”. He was living with you at the time, and you “started going to therapy and taking anti-depressants”.

In May 2018, I think it was, you ran a 10 mile race and he was supposed to cheer you on from the sideline, at a particular spot, but he wasn’t there. You were very sad that he wasn’t there and expressed it to him. He was annoyed that you were sad, and you “ultimately apologized for being sad”. The night after you apologized for being sad, you told him that you felt “that he didn’t necessarily prioritize my interests as much as his own (he is a musician and I’ve been to all of his shows and even hosted a concert for him at our apartment)”. His reaction was to get upset and accuse you for being resentful, and said “that he doesn’t know if he can be with someone like me”.

Following that, you “kept asking for forgiveness but he didn’t seem to be forgiving me or  open to me”. Next he said he was sorry for being distant and that he was ready to be open with you. Next he blamed you for creating “too much pressure” on him, and that “he wasn’t happy being in the city we live in, he wasn’t happy with our apartment, and he wasn’t happy with his job or with our relationship”, and that he wanted to move back to his hometown. Within an hour, he told you that his father found a place for him in his hometown. Next he told you that “he loves me and doesn’t want to leave me”, and next, he told you “that he’s definitely moving to his hometown”, and that you “had been too difficult and that he doesn’t think we should be together”.

He later apologized, told you that “he definitely loved me”, and then… messaged his sister that “things were difficult and that he never wants to live with me ever again”, and that “breaking up is a process”. You found out that he was planning to move out from the apartment you shared long before he mentioned it to you, and that “he had emailed multiple friends about(moving out of the apartment) and asked then to keep it a secret from me, His parents and sister had also told him to keep it a secret from me since he and I were living together and they didn’t want it to be ‘uncomfortable’ for him”. Later you told him that you found out what you did, and he “continued to deny that he was lying, but then half apologized”.

After that (final?) farewell, you asked: “How can I forgive myself? Is this my fault?… Because it was so on and off and he always came back I think I’m having a hard time believing it’s over… I feel lost and like I’ve lost so much of myself in these three years.” (June 25, 2018).

Two years and three months later, today, you posted about a new relationship of 1.5 years, a relationship with Michael. You wrote that you have a thoughtful relationship where the two of you are open with each other and communicate regularly, caring a lot about each other, “However, I am still working through issues from past relationships around cheating and betrayals of trust.. I have been unnecessarily focused on Michael’s past relationships- he is still friends with his exes on social media… I am friends with some exes on social media”. You shared that “he has done nothing to betray my trust”, but he lied to you, a minor lie regarding who posted a funny vanity license plate. He told you it was a male friend of his who posted it while it was a girl (Alice) who he went on a few dates with before he met you. He apologized to you for lying, and said “it was because he knows how focused I have been on past relationships that mean nothing to him and he didn’t want to create another issue out of this friendship with Alice.  You asked him if he was still attracted to her, and he said that he was. “He also said he will never lie to me again. But he also said he doesn’t want to end a friendship because that seems controlling, which I can see and agree with”.

You wrote that you are upset about his lying, although you “understand I have created a context (worrying about his past girlfriends)”. You wrote about Alice: “she seems much more his type… everything that I feel I am lacking and which makes me feel I am not as attractive to him.. comparing myself to her”.

Your current questions: “How do we rebuild trust and figure out a way to move forward? How do you get to true forgiveness? Is it possible in this situation? How an I accept that he is attracted to other people while also accepting that he loves me?.. How can I stop my issue with comparison to Alice?”

My input and answers today: there is a difference between your current boyfriend and your past boyfriend. Your past boyfriend was dishonest with you on an ongoing basis, he was deceitful. He planned on moving out months before mentioning to you that he had it in his mind to move out. He communicated with multiple people behind your back about things he hid from you. In addition to his dishonesty, he was very impulsive, back and forth, over and over again. These two  things: his dishonesty and impulsivity are not things that you created-that’s not something you caused: that’s who he was, and as you shared, his family encouraged him to be dishonest.

Your current boyfriend’s lie about who posted a particular photo is far from being similar in magnitude to the lies your ex boyfriend told you, or the truths he hid from you. Lying to you about his plans to move out of your shared apartment was a lie of importance and consequence. On the other hand, It is of no importance and no consequence- who posted that vanity license plate photo. Like he told you, and you agreed, he was worried that you will become anxious if he told you that Alice was the one who posted the photo. I think that this lie is forgivable.

I detect a deep hurt in you, a deep emotional injury: feeling less than other girls/ women and that injury keeps opening up so often, during your past relationship and during this one.

If you want to, please share with me about the origin of this injury: do you remember when and in what context you started feeling less-than/ not-as-valuable-as-other, as early back in time as you can remember (before your previous relationships with men)?

anita