Dear aphroitte1:

You are welcome and thank you for your good wishes!

I wanted to add something to our discussion before the year ends and a new year begins, something that I hope will help you in regard to your next relationship. First, I believe that both (1) your on-again-off-again boyfriend of seven years, and (2) your secret boyfriend of last- are poor candidates for a healthy relationship with any woman, including you, and I hope that none of these two relationships will resume, not by the end of this year and not in 2022!

In the year to come, I hope that you will evaluate a man as a candidate for a healthy relationship before hooking up with him, that is, before becoming physically and romantically involved. Talk with him, whomever it may be (not the two I mentioned though!). Get to know him and let him get to know you: ask questions about what he likes, what he dislikes, what he values, what he wants and plans for his life, and tell him what you like, etc. See if there is a match! Get to know how he spends his time, how he handles conflicts with people: does he get angry and attack, does he get angry and silently withdraws, or does he talk the conflict respectfully and tries to resolve it?

Also, notice your own challenges in regard to having a healthy relationship with a man: do you tend to get angry, hold it in, then sort of explode, argue and start a fight, then keep the fight going and going? I don’t know the answer to this question, but some things that you shared make me wonder if this (or something similar) is the case.

I will list these things and ask you questions, but I do not expect you, nor do I need you to answer my questions. My only purpose is to bring these things/ possibilities to your attention just in case it might help you in regard to having that healthy 2022 relationship that I hope you will have. In the quotes that follow, I will use the bold feature for emphasis:

March 2021 (regarding the secret boyfriend): “after 6 months, and a little fight because I felt like he was making fun of me in front of the friends group…  he decided that we should end this”- did he really make fun of you, or did you only feel like he did? What is a little fight vs. a big fight, and did he decide to end this because of that little fight?

* Dec 2021 (regarding the 7 years on-again-off-again boyfriend): “In those rare times we would go out, he would be mocking me in the conversations or if we were with friends instead of being by my side, I would always feel like he is making fun out of me“- is your always-feeling that you are being made fun of/ being mocked: is that a repeated feeling, a theme? Is it grounded in reality? What have these men (and others perhaps) made fun of you for?

March 2021: “I asked him politely if he has any chances of getting back with her (his ex)? and he said maybe, I don’t know what the future holds. MAYBE?… like I was just a f***-game or just a time pass thing. I feel like I am betrayed… I feel like there is something very wrong here and I am very angry… I’m furious honestly”-

– there is such a thing as justified anger, of course, but how do you process your anger, how do you express it when you are not polite? Do you try to hold it in, but it keeps brewing inside until you have to express it in some way or the other?

Nov-Dec 2021: “Yesterday we had a big fight“- who initiated the fight, did it start small and then grew, was it a one-sided fight or did you participate in it, and if you did, how?

“My second boyfriend… we had a very bad relationship. I believed he was a narcissist, but I am afraid that I may also have narcissistic traits… I often thought that I am over dramatic and jealous and awful girlfriend“- what narcissistic traits do you suspect that you have? Did you often think that you were over dramatic, jealous and awful because you behaved in these ways?

“It was a turbulent relationship with a lot of break-ups, ignoring, bad words and emotional abuse… I’ve never attended holidays with him or properly celebrated without a fight“- were all the turbulence, the bad words, the emotional abuse and the fights, all initiated by him, going on and on without your participation?

“31 December came, and he slept till 4 p.m. I was waiting for him to get up. So, when he texted me that he is awake I immediately asked him okay what are we doing tonight? He became angry saying I am so annoying without patience, crazy and always wanting to fight and ruin everything. That made me feel awful and so angry because I’ve felt like something is not right with me“-

– was there any truth to what he said (that you are always wanting to fight)? When you get angry, does it feel so distressing and overwhelming that you feel that there is something wrong with you?

“To sum up, we had fights about every date we were planning because of his laziness, not interested in it or not committed and would get angry if I get angry and cancel it…he would say that I am always dramatic, we would fight for hours and hours and none of our fights are solved actually”-

– again, understanding that this guy is a bad candidate for a healthy relationship with any woman, is there any truth to what he said (that you are always dramatic)?  Did you participate in the hours and hours of fighting, and if you did: how?

“I want to be the cycle breaker in my own parents’ patterns and in my love relationships… I do remember how I’ve felt when I was 13-14, and in my late teenage years. I had a lot of fighting with my dad… my parents were fighting very bad at one point. There was one night with a very dramatic fight...there was dramatic pushing, running, going away with his car and not calling back… And because of every fight my parents have and the threats that my dad will leave that leaves me to believe that is the biggest problem of having abandonment issues”-

– Did the pattern of the fighting in your childhood home extend to your romantic adult relationships? In romantic relationships, did you often feel abandoned and got angry about it?

I have learned, aphroitte1, that in abusive adult romantic relationships, it is rarely the case (although it happens), that one person is The Perpetrator, and the other is The Victim. Often, in abusive relationships, each side is a perpetrator and a victim. I also learned that managing anger and its expressions is difficult and troubling to a lot of people, making people who don’t manage these well to feel that there is something wrong with them. Learning how to manage and contain the experience and expression of anger is crucial when it comes to having healthy relationships!

anita