Dear mmm_:

You shared that you, 24,  are currently in nursing school, awaiting a new semester to start, and your boyfriend of five years is 26, traveled for work before Covid. For the first 4 months of the relationship, he was still with his now ex-girlfriend of six years, but you didn’t know that at the time. He has a habit of “lying about where he is whether he’s with friends or what he’s doing”. You told him that it is very important to you that he will not lie to you, but he kept lying to you at times, saying that he lied to you because he was afraid of your reaction. You admit that you are indeed quick to react, instead of “listen to him and give him a chance to explain before I shout and react”.

At the end of last year the two of you “danced around the topic of getting engaged” but you also fought. In January this year you saw that he had tinder on his phone. He told you that during one of those fights in December, he got drunk and downloaded tinder but never used it. You then made him show you that the account was deleted, and you told him that “if something like this ever happened again, I’d be gone”.

You and him fought on and off since May this year because you want more attention from him. July this year, right after you celebrated the 5 year anniversary of your relationship, while at his house, you  went through his phone and found an active tinder account on his phone, he “had been messaging random girls the same pick up line”. You then woke him up at 3:30 am “and pretty much chewed him out about it.. asked him so many questions, yelled so much”, and cried yourself to sleep as he lay on the floor. He later got up from the floor and cried and sobbed, profusely apologized and begged you to not leave him.

You asked him why he did what he did and “he finally opened up to me that he has been panicking about me wanting to get engaged, not sure if we should be right now.. him not being ready”, and that “he went on tinder just to see if he had it in him to get a girl’s attention, he wanted an ego boost”.

He went on to explain to you that “his issue with lying.. is due to not wanting to upset or disappoint anyone.. growing up, he never thought that he could do anything right so rather than show people his mistakes or seem upset, he would.. lie”. Next, you suggested that the two of you take a break from each other, and “his lip trembles and starts crying again, begging me not to leave.. telling me that he knows he wants to be with me now and that ‘he just  made the biggest mistake of his life'”. He flooded your phone with texts about how stupid he’s been etc. When you asked him why the change of heart regarding wanting to be with you, he said that “sometimes you need to be knocked around and hit hard to learn a lesson”.

A few weeks later, he’s been “much more attentive and loving than he has ever been”, but you “can’t help but question everything he says.. I can’t seem to get past what he did”, you feel happy at times, but “once I go to my own home.. the questions and fear race back in”.

You asked: “do you think I can make this work? How do I let go and truly move on? I want to move on from everything in the past and be happy”-

My input/ answer: If you noticed, in my first paragraph to you I used the word habit, saying that he has a habit of lying. Habits are very difficult to break. Even though he feels strongly about you, that love that he feels for you is not strong enough to break such a deep habits of many years. He told you that “sometimes you need to be knocked around and hit hard to learn a lesson”- but lots and lots of gamblers, drug addicts, other addicts get knocked around and hit hard many times (lose all their money, get DUI’s, get arrested, spend months or years in jail, etc.) and still they don’t change their ways, still gamble, still use drugs etc.. and lose their money again, and get arrested again, etc. etc. Habits are very hard to break, some habits more than others.

It does happen that one of those “rock bottom” events results in breaking a habit, but you don’t know if what happened a few weeks ago was that one rock bottom event or it was one of the events leading to a possible future rock bottom event that will lead to him breaking the habit.

Let’s take a closer look at his habit of lying. He told you that “his issue with lying.. is due to not wanting to upset or disappoint anyone.. growing up, he never thought that he could do anything right so rather than show people his mistakes or seem upset, he would.. lie”. Reads to me that there is a motivation for him to lie that he didn’t express to you, and that is anger.

This is what I think that motivation may be about: as a child, growing up, his parent or parents got upset with him and expressed their disappointment in him when he made mistakes. As a result, he felt anxious, hurt but also angry at the parent who hurt him so badly. His lying was not just a way to prevent the parent from being upset, but  also a way to.. get back at the parent, to take revenge, and that’s where his pleasure is  in lying.

The intense and persistent anger a child feels for a parent doesn’t disappear when the child becomes an adult, and it is not limited to the context of the relationship with the parent, it extends to romantic relationships. At any one time, he may feel angry at you (projecting his parent into you, or otherwise), and when angry.. he is in the habit of taking his revenge, his way of feeling that he has power in an otherwise powerless situation (his parent getting upset at him). There is pleasure in that feeling of power, and habits motivated by intense pleasure are very difficult to break.

I hope I made sense to you. Did I?

anita