Dear maritzarivas:

You wrote: “When it comes to love; I am the ‘forgive and forget’ type, no matter how great or small the issue is. I like to keep the peace so I can focus on greater things, like, bettering myself and the relationship”

It seems to me the problematic difference between you and your boyfriend is not the three year age difference or the cultural thing but this: while you have the mental clarity and peace of mind necessary so to be able to “forgive and forget” and focus on greater things, he does not have that mental clarity and peace of mind.

And not because he was born that way, with that kind of personality, but because there are issues from his past that keep bothering him. It is his past, not your past, that is troubling him so much. His issues from his past keep coming up as his projections of these issues into his relationship with you.

If he gets “convinced” on one issue, it is temporary: another issue will come up and on and on the pattern of being troubled by this or that will go on. Because the real issues are in his own past and have no been resolved.

Best for him to attend psychotherapy with a competent, caring and hard working therapist. In addition or without, it would be best for him to open up to you about those issues if you are capable of listening to him without judgment, as a good friend. Let’s say his issue is that he was severely rejected by his mother (and/ or father) and is still hurting. That hurt is still active in his brain. Sometimes he is distracted from it, sometimes he gets a break from it, but it is bound to make itself known again, this old hurt. So he shares, you listen, your feedback would be about you being ON HIS side, not on the side of the parent that rejected him, not going that way (the honor thy father and mother no matter what), but being strictly on his side, listening to him with empathy. That will relieve his hurt, so that hurt will not keep pushing itself into the present circumstances.

What do you think?

anita