I do ask myself if  there could be some other reality for me. Is there a relationship that I can feel secure and wanted in? Could I ever feel pretty enough for someone (small boobs and all)? Is there someone out there who would love to take me on dates?

I feel like, based on what you’ve said overall, this guy probably isn’t your match. You two might be able to make a relationship work with some effort, but I do think it’s likely there are other guys who would be attracted to you EXACTLY how you are, your body type, your personality, etc., and who would let you know daily how beautiful they think you are and you would not feel insecure with them (but make sure you believe these guys when they tell you what they see in you. Sometimes it’s hard to do that when you feel insecure). From what you’ve said, this guy doesn’t have a sort of natural attraction to you but I am 100% sure there are guys out there who will. That’s the type of guy you should be with. Someone you naturally connect with, and you will know it when you meet one because things will flow effortlessly and he will be very clearly interested without so much confusion.

As for this guy, it could be that you are a placeholder until he meets someone else, which would be why he came back every time you two broke up. He didn’t want to be alone. Please keep in mind this doesn’t mean anything negative about you, it’s more a reflection of himself.  I could also be wrong and he may have genuinely had issues that prevented him from fully connecting with you, and in that case, you’ll have to work on trusting him. If you want to stay with him and see how it goes, I’d see if you could attend a therapy session with him and his counselor. Counselors are usually very open to having people come into sessions as long as the patient is okay with that, too.

I’m saddened about this, as if I think is my fault. I was lesser than her… Maybe he is proud of her and not me. It’s like she won the contest and I am the sad looser. As sickening as it sounds, it is engraved in my mind by society that, you as a woman keep a man. And I didn’t…

Please don’t take this personally. I really, REALLY think it isn’t about you in any way. Try thinking about this another way…. this other girl that “won the contest” gets a guy that was constantly cheating on her. She won a pile of garbage. That’s NOT really winning. She was also there before you, so you could be literally the best person on the planet, and this guy won’t see it because he’s got his own issues and a previously formed attachment to her. Also, some guys wouldn’t know quality if it was standing there in front of them, flashing “QUALITY WOMAN” in lights and sirens, so it really isn’t good to place your worth on those guys. Know what I mean?

You’re right that society does ingrain this in our minds… that if we can’t keep a man that we aren’t worth it… but society is wrong about a lot of things, and this is a big one. Think of it this way…. the point of dating people is to find your true match… the person that you naturally connect with and are supposed to be with. If we continue to think that we have to keep a man (even a TERRIBLE one) because we are worthless if we don’t… how will we ever be free to find our match? We’d always be trying to hold onto the wrong ones just to feel good about ourselves while they make us feel bad about ourselves. It’s completely counterproductive.

So it’s not that you are less than or not worth it to this guy… he’s just not your match… and thank God because he’s very clearly a terrible boyfriend.  Quite frankly, NO ONE is going to be his match until he grows up.

Above all…. please remember…. your worth does not and will never depend on what another person thinks or what another person chooses. 

Reading your post of the list of his bad behavior… did you ever meet any of his family or friends during the time you were together? Given that he wouldn’t ever bring you around anyone, wouldn’t take you to parties, post about you on social media, or show you photos of vacations with friends, it’s sounding like were a side girl…. especially if you NEVER met his family. Meaning he had a girlfriend and you were the one he was cheating with… or he just has a bunch of side girls and doesn’t want any of them to find out about the others. When men are serious, they introduce their girlfriends to their friends and family and include them. If they don’t, there’s something wrong.

I’m sure he cared about you, which is why he would text you and maybe even call randomly, but you might want to rethink getting back together with him, if that’s what that text message was. He also might be trying to feed his ego and seeing if you’re still on the line. Either way, not texting back was probably the right thing to do. I’d forget about this one and find someone who will be proud to show you off to his friends and family and will want to truly include you in his life.

She felt like I wasn’t there to support her and that is also her reason for having the affair. She thought the other guy was very understanding and she felt he was the only person at that time she can confide to.

I haven’t all of read the rest of the posts yet so I don’t know if any of this has been said, but these two lines you wrote to Anita are important. She was feeling unsupported and not understood, so that’s some of what she needs to feel from you in order to repair things… as well as trusted and not tracked (you also pointed out to me how she lied to you several times, but you lied to her as well when you were tracking her).  I completely understand why you don’t trust her as she’s definitely proven herself untrustworthy, but if you two somehow do decide to repair things, you’re either going to have to just blindly trust her or be open to an open marriage and then hope that she’d regain her feelings/attraction toward you over time. You’re also going to have to somehow let go of everything that’s happened so far. I would also highly suggest marriage counseling. Also remember to pay close attention to what you’ve done in all of this, especially before the affair. I’m not at all saying that her cheating is your fault, but if she’s saying she felt unsupported before then, that’s something you need to pay close attention to because that’s behavior of yours that will need to change. I’d talk to her as Mark said and find out what other issues she was having with your behavior (not to point fingers, again, but those issues are part of what turned her away if your relationship had been good beforehand) and see if they are changeable.  If she knows you will work to fix those things and try to reconnect and redevelop the relationship slowly over time, maybe it can be fixed.

If you two didn’t originally live in two different countries, I’d say this woman’s behavior toward you is unacceptable and I’d move on being that she’s cheated multiple times and seems to have checked out already, but if you went back to Canada without your daughter, it’d probably be hard for you to see her after that. I doubt the mom will let you take her out of the country without her unless she decides she’d rather not be a mom, so until your daughter turns 18, it’d probably be best for you to stay in Japan. I think in this case, because of your child, it’s worth doing everything you can to try to stay together… unless you’re willing to stay in Japan with being married to her.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Valora.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Valora.

Valora:

Mindset, yes! That is what I am struggling with. I am trying to focus on happiness, because what I realized is that when he is not talking to me and out of my life, even for a few days…I feel more at peace and good things are brought my way. It saddens me that I have this attachment to someone who consistently hurts me and disrespects me. I have set boundaries, but sadly, let him cross this, disrespecting myself and showing him that it is “okay”, when it is not…

The thing about attachments is they take a while to break, so that’s something that should be expected. It is completely normal that you have this attachment, so your job now is to just simply accept that it’s there and that it will take time to dissolve… but after time apart, it WILL dissolve. If you feel better and more at peace when you are apart, that is your biggest sign that he is toxic to your life and that you need to distance yourself for your own mental health, no matter how your mind tries to rationalize your current feelings. The attachment feels comfortable to your mind, so that’s why it’s hard to let those go at first, but stay strong. You will feel better over time and your mind will change once it feels comfortable without that attachment.

What makes me feel guilty are the “what ifs”, and I know should not live for the what ifs, but i do…the last time we broke up, he got into a car accident, got sent to jail, and got a DUI…he called me from jail. He told me that if it wasn’t for me leaving him, he would not have been in jail. I feel since I left that one time, I caused that… he always brings it up to say i was not there for him. What if I leave and he goes more heavily into drugs? His family kicks him out? What if he CAN change and I made a mistake leaving possibly the only person I can have this bond with? I sound crazy…it has been a cycle.

Another thing to realize that may help you change your mindset is that you are not responsible for what happens to him. HE is. He is telling you these things to manipulate you into staying… to make you feel bad for him, like you are responsible for him. You aren’t, and that kind of manipulation is emotional abuse. Again, another reason why he is toxic and why you need to stand firm in a decision to leave, no matter what your mind tries to tell you (and I realize I keep talking like the mind is a separate entity, but it kind of is in these cases. It’s in protection mode and only wants to maintain comfort but lots of times it’s counterproductive to what’s actually best for us).

Yes, it’s possible for your ex to change, but it won’t be because of anything you do or don’t do. It’s a decision he has to make for himself. And until he DOES change and for an extended period of time, he will be toxic to you. You are not responsible for his change or his lack thereof. He is. He is responsible for the car accident, the DUI, and the jail time. You did not make him react the way he did. He chose to react that way. So when you mind starts in with the “what if’s,” always counter those thoughts with “HE is responsible for HIMSELF,” and remember that him telling you that you are responsible for his actions is a manipulation… emotional abuse. I may not know you but you seem like someone who deserves far better than that. Please remember those things.

Yeah, shingles is more common than you’d think. It’s sort of a reactivation of the chicken pox. Stress tends to activate it, I think.

But I’m glad you finally did it, now it’s important to stay strong with it so that you don’t have to do it again. So if she texts you she’s confused on whether or not you’re together, simply text back “we are not together.” Eventually she will get the point.  I think she knew it was coming given the way she was so accusatory about you going to your friend’s house, so it will be good for her once she accepts that it’s over and she will probably feel a lot less stressed overall once she accepts it. She is just in the denial stage right now, so stand firm and keep acknowledging that you are broken up whenever she seems to want to act like you aren’t.

I also feel like she’s wrong that it’s normal to fight all the time. It’s normal to argue SOMETIMES, but not as much as you guys seem to. She’s saying that because she doesn’t want to break up and WANTS it to be normal. but it isn’t.

And remember…. as horrible as you feel about this, you are doing her a favor.  You giving in will only hurt her more. It’s actually the meaner thing to do. It’s been almost a year since I came onto this site and you wanted to break up with her then. So these feelings you’re having aren’t just temporary. She isn’t your match… which means you aren’t hers either. Setting her free gives her the ability to find the guy that she will be happy with… and for you to find your true match after you spend some time getting to know yourself again and can be happy on your own for a bit.

I agree with Inky. This is a pretty big incompatibility. A huge one, in fact, and should definitely be seen as a deal breaker. You may be willing to compromise now to be with him, but there will come a time when the spark in your relationship wears off a bit, and your desire to have kids will come back again if it was always there before you met him. Your boyfriend is right. You two should just save yourself the pain in the future (which would be MUCH, MUCH bigger as you’ve had years to grow closer rather than just months) and separate now.

Inky’s also right that, in the future, he might have kids… but he also might not. I have quite a few friends in their 30s, both men and women, who haven’t had kids and have absolutely no desire to have them for various reasons. So you definitely can’t bank on the “what if he changes his mind” thoughts either.

You’re welcome! If it helps, I know exactly how you feel. haha. My ex and I had planned on getting married this year. It can be tough around those special dates, and I think that’s understandable. It’s going to hurt sometimes and I don’t think there’s a way to make it NOT hurt until it just doesn’t anymore, but the important thing is to try not to linger in the thoughts. Feel the feelings and just let them pass without judgment on how you’re feeling at the time. It’s okay and understandable that these things still hurt.

I guess I had a similar weekend as you did. I went out to watch a friend’s band play, and people kept asking about my ex, which is weird because we’ve been broken up for a year and a half, but it definitely does make you think about them more when people bring up their name.  I’ve also gone 5 months without contact with him and it’s also been the longest we’ve ever been not in contact (the longest before was only a month), so that’s kind of weird that we’re both sort of on the same timeline right now, but at least I get how you’re feeling. It comes in waves, right? You’re okay and then you’re not, then you’re okay and then you’re not. I experienced that the most last year when I was grieving the hardest. It’s back a little bit now, too, because I’m going through a custody battle and he was there for me at the beginning of it, and I’d really like to talk to him about it but I’m refraining. Anyway, you just have to ride out the waves.

I do hope you feel better soon. Try not to fight the feelings when they come (you’re having them for a reason and fighting them is like telling yourself you shouldn’t be having them), but keep trying not to let yourself dwell on them either. They’ll pass and hopefully get fewer and farther between over time.