Dear Umm:

“His dad in fact, took care of his older sister a bit more”- I wonder if his tone of voice and facial expression was different than usual when he told you that.

No doubt that when he was a child, he loved his father very much. If his father favored his sister, I bet he was upset by it, trying to get his father’s attention/ trying to successfully compete with his sister for his father’s attention. Having failed at it again and again is enough to create an emotional wound in a child. Fast forward, a girlfriend’s exes are also a competition, in his mind.

True, your exes are in your past, but because of his significant emotional injury, he can’t tell the difference between the past and the present: he is re-experiencing the past in the present circumstances of his life.

“After he shared that he went on my ex’s social medias.. he said, he will not do it anymore”- like I suggested, he feels badly about his behavior, he knows it’s wrong. Problem is that when the itch increases, his need to scratch the itch also increases by going back to social media.

When you complimented him the other day, wanting him to feel better, it didn’t work because your compliment triggered his emotional wound and caused him hurt and anger. Like I suggested above, he is re-experiencing the past (the hurt and anger) in the circumstances of the present (you complimenting him).

“he gets sensitive easily by things I say.. he will get upset.. and it triggers another argument”- his emotional injury is big, widespread, so it often gets triggered by what you/ people say. Seems to me that he needs at least a few good months of counseling/ psychotherapy, to start healing from his emotional injury. I am certain that you cannot be his therapist, or otherwise start him on a healing process. It takes a professional who is capable of being objective (a girlfriend, even if she is a therapist, cannot be objective and therefore, she cannot be her boyfriend’s therapist).

anita