Dear Jess:

I want to correct myself: the romantic ideas of soulmates, first love/ forever-love/ fairytale love (the endings of fairytales: “And they lived happily ever after”), is not a matter of teenage girls and women in their early 20s, like I suggested. There are women in their 50s and 60s that I know, with this kind of mindset. It’s just that I wish it was a matter of early age, something that women grow out of.

Here is part of Wikipedia’s entry on “Romance (love)“, this part is titled “Relationship maintenance” which refers to “a variety of behaviors used by partners in an effort to stay together… the use of communication behaviors to keep a relationship strong and to ensure that each party continues to draw satisfaction from the relationship“.

“Maintaining stability and quality in a relationship is the key to success in a romantic relationship… simply staying together is not sufficient; instead, the quality of the relationship is important. For researchers, this means examining behaviors that are linked to relational satisfaction and other indicators of quality… five great strategies based on maintaining quality… are to provide: Positivity: being joyful and optimistic, not criticizing each other. Assurances: proving one’s commitment and love. Openness: to be honest with one another according to what they want in the relationship. Social networks: efforts into involving friends and family in their activities. Sharing tasks: complementing each other’s needs based on daily work” –

– the reason I added the above is that I am concerned that you maybe you are getting overwhelmed by the emotions of the moment, your emotions, his emotions, when what is important for the long-term satisfaction in a relationship is not the emotions of the moment, but the qualities listed above. And when you look at the history of your live-in relationship with your ex, it was not one that provided you with relational satisfaction, neither is it one that is likely to change in this regard.

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by .

Dear Jess:

Having read your most recent post, I learned something new about you- your Trust Issue is your main issue:

“One main thing on my mind is that for some reason I have this feeling that everyone down the road is going to have the intention to mess around instead of wanting to marry, potentially cheat on me for someone else. My ex and I used to have a very strong trusting relationship and I knew he was never the guy to cheat, he is loyal and dates to marry. I am worried I won’t find a down to earth guy who I can trust”.

Back in your original post, you wrote: “I definitely feel like a shi*** person because how I hurt my ex with this a new guy which no one wants to happen to them” – I can now understand why you felt so badly for doing to the ex what you don’t want to happen to you, feeling guilty for focusing on what’s new instead of trying to fix your relationship with the ex (“it sucks to see that go down the drain when so many relationships these days focus on what’s new instead of trying to fix their relationship and take care of it“, in your recent post).

You wrote earlier about the new guy: “The new guy can show me a healthy relationship and give me what I deserve physically and mentally“, but you were worried about him cheating on you: “Most of my friends are girls… sometimes I get the feeling that he might be TOO nice to where it worries me that I might get jealous cause I can’t tell if he’s trying to flirt or just be accommodating. I don’t want to get jealous that’s not me at all… Maybe he’s just super friendly overall“.

This is what I now understand: your trust issue in men is major and your vision is focused on it, so you ignore everything else (the ex frequently drinking and ignoring you and being angry at the world etc., etc.) in favor of this one issue. I am guessing that your ex knew about this issue and repeatedly assured you that he will never do to you what you are so afraid of being done to you, you trusted him on this particular issue, and this is your main attraction to him and your main regret in regard to moving on, away from him.

Since your ex was your “first real relationship“, at 16, I am guessing that your major trust issue came about as a result of one of your parents cheating on the other (or betraying you in some way). Maybe you witnessed your mother being in so much pain over your father finding someone new and you felt so much empathy for her, that it felt as if the betrayal was done to you personally.

If my guess above is correct, then your vision is a tunnel vision which is in your way of making the right choice or choices for yourself in regard to a relationship with a man and future marriage etc., because making the right choices require that you see the big picture, instead of just a corner of it, aka having tunnel vision.

Here is what the big picture looks to me: (1) you have no real assurance that the ex will never cheat on you. He is only 20 or 21, very young. You have no assurance really that any man will never cheat on you, regardless of age, (2) It is possible that your ex, knowing your major issue with trust, recently mentioned to you that he is interested in a new woman manipulatively, so to motivate you to go back to a relationship with him, (3) You have to resolve your trust issue born in childhood, and move on from that experience… so that you are able to see the big picture and experience some peace of mind and heart in regard to your choices next.

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by .

Dear Jess:

“I have seen my mom move on from my dad, now move on from my stepdad because she wasn’t getting what she deserved from the relationship, and sadly that did end up with her cheating in both situations” – do you mean that your mother cheated on your dad and then she cheated on your stepdad? And …you don’t want to be like her?

Is it that you feel sorry for your dad and stepdad because they were cheated on?

anita

Dear Jess:

Yesterday, you shared that you had some personal experience, and you witnessed your friends’ experience with guys who left, “never stuck around… doing horrible things in a relationship“. But your boyfriend, now 24, he is “a real ‘man’… a stand-up guy“, and the reason you saw him as your future husband for the longest time.

You shared, as I understand it, that the issue of loyalty to one partner, is very important to you: “I want to have eyes for only one person and vice versa“.

Although your experience as a teenager and onward, with guys, the ones you were involved with and those you witnessed your friends being involved with, although this experience is meaningful, the most meaningful experience by far, in a person’s life, is one’s childhood experience. It is so because as children we feel most intensely, particularly about our parents. And it is then that our core beliefs are formed.

Let’s look at our first exchange in regard to your childhood and the issue that is so important to you: loyalty to one partner (I am re-arranging it a bit):

Jess: “I have seen my mom move on from my dad, now move on from my stepdad because she wasn’t getting what she deserved from the relationship, and sadly that did end up with her cheating in both situations“.

anita: “do you mean that your mother cheated on your dad and then she cheated on your stepdad? And …you don’t want to be like her?”

Jess: “Correct, I don’t want to be like that“.

anita: “Is it that you feel sorry for your dad and stepdad because they were cheated on?”

Jess:  “yes, I feel bad for both my dad and stepdad. I also feel bad for my mom because I wonder if she is happy“.

What this exchange means to me, in the context of your recent/ still ongoing emotional conflict, is that you’ve been conflicted for a long time, ever since you were a child: on one hand you have felt empathy for your dad (and later, for your stepdad) for being cheated on and getting deeply hurt in this way; you believed, or partly believed, that your mother wronged them, you therefore felt angry at her, and you made the decision early on, that you will not be like her, that you will not do what she has done!, but on the other hand, you partly believe that your dad (and later, your stepdad) wronged your mother by not giving her what she deserved from the relationship, and as a result (through no fault of her own), she cheated on them.

From my life experience at this point, I believe that since you were a child, and into your 20s, you have been carrying with you a partial, incomplete understanding of your mother’s romantic relationships and what motivated her to cheat on the two men in her life. Your understanding is so incomplete that it amounts to a misunderstanding. I believe that your confusion in regard to your own romantic relationships are the result of that early-life misunderstanding.

You are currently trying to make the right choices for yourself (in regard to romantic relationships) based on the wrong understanding of the romantic relationships that affected you most: your mother’s.

You wrote yesterday: “I do feel guilty because of what I did to my ex, because I would’ve never thought I would do something like this, I thought I would try to fix it and keep holding strong to keep that long lasting relationship” – part of you have felt for a very long time, that what your mother did (cheat, instead on fixing the relationship with your dad, and later, with your stepdad) was wrong, and therefore you feel guilty for doing the same… except that what you did was not the same as what she he did.

“I feel like I lost something really important which is the trust that we built up for so many years. That’s what hurts me the most I guess… I had such a strong feeling and belief in our trust” – it is the trust in your (wrong) understanding in regard to your mother’s romantic relationships that needs to be broken and a new, correct understanding needs to replace it. With correct understanding, your confusion and guilt will be replaced with clarity and freedom from guilt.

You are welcome to pursue the correct understanding here, on your thread, and/ or in the context of psychotherapy.

anita

Dear Jess:

I read your recent post but am not focused enough to process it, will be back to you in about 10 hours from now,

anita

hey anita, do you remmeber me? we ended up on bad terms, i have changed and needed to talk.