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HELP Am I in a relationship but still in love with my ex? Cant figure it out!

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  • #191209
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Also my mom broke off her engagement with her fiancé which really made me question the level of tolerance I show or have or keep. I know I am not her but at the same time I sometimes have a problem scaling what is really ok I guess.

    I always heard you should never get mad at your partner like you would a regular person and you shouldn’t argue with  your partner like they are a regular person.

    Do you think if you aren’t in the right place in your life that the wrong people can gravitate to the energy you CURRENTLY show and the type of person they think you are based on that energy?

    #191217
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    What is Glenn complaining about recently and what are his moods that are difficult for you to endure?

    I didn’t understand your reaction to your mother breaking down her engagement.

    And … I didn’t understand your question in your last two lines?

    anita

    #191239
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    He wasn’t bringing in any income. From the First week of Dec up until about 2 weeks ago he didn’t have a job.

    Being completely honest not trying to be mean but it was his fault. He put all his eggs in one basket for another job that was a long shot and failed to have a plan B and he literally had been doing nothing. He got a job the 2nd week of January. Then he also started doing Uber so when he had ran into some car trouble I told him that since he had done Uber for a full week and got to see how that went. Don’t go to this job making $11 just do that right. He was averaging $15-$20 an hour and I let him drive my car and he would drop me off at work for a week while he waited for his car part etc. etc.

    I am about to just say this the bluntest way I can because you know I love him but these are just the facts. As of late its like every third thing that comes out of his mouth is  a complaint, moan and groan, then complain some more. About whatever.

    Even with Uber he will complain about the rides being low. I have to explain to him jobs like that (servers, piece work, etc) it about the big picture. I used to work in Medical claims and got paid by the claim. You drive yourself NUTS thinking everyday you are short or you have more or less.  I told him don’t pay attention to that its about what you have at the end of the week or the end of 3-4 days. But he still complains I just let him now.

    Or he will complain about his money being low and to me its like YOU DIDNT WORK FOR ALMOST A MONTH AND A HALF!! But furthermore what does he expect me to do about it. I work 40 HOURS a week and find other things to subsidize our income like secret shoppers and things; and I’m not about to more than that just because for some reason you felt like it was okay to go that long without a job OR a plan!

    Uber happened because I made it happen and He acts like I have to do all that type of stuff for him. I don’t get that but I just look at it like “ok he does stuff for me that I could do myself” so I move past it.

    But even after the first week he didn’t even work 30 hours. I had to have a talk with him like NO, If I go to work 40 hours MY MAN needs to be working at that or more than me. Seriously.

    He even told me he missed 2 of his car payments I was shocked considering if you remember he was working all those hours when me and him weren’t that peachy. Where did the money go? I am confused. He said it wasn’t that much and he was catching up before and some other stuff.

    Our rent being due was stressing him.

    Also I feel like him being unhappy with his weight gain is REALLY starting to overwhelm him.

    His moodiness comes off as so spiteful to me that I really need to learn how to just look thru it. Because bad attitudes are contagious. Today he woke up in some silly little mood. I had to really focus all my energy into not flipping out just because of how he acts.

    We did get into quite a big argument last week about that topic overall.

    ——————–

    My mom though; let me break that down. So you know when someone close in your life experiences something drastic like having a baby and then for a second just a second you think about babies. Its kind of like that.

    She had been with this man for like 3 years. He was great to her they were great together. She told me they argued a bit too but overall they lived a pretty decent existence together. Trips, Dates, Love, he proposed to her in front of a whole Baseball Stadium. THEN BOOM! me and her didn’t talk for a few weeks over the incident with the job thing and the next time I talk to her she tells me they not talking for 2 weeks and then I talked to her again and she said they still hadn’t talked. They didn’t live together so I guess just ghosting on someone is a thing. But I can tell it hurt her but she was just like it doesn’t matter anyways because she has reached out to him and he didn’t respond she said if he can go 2 weeks without seeing or talking to me he can go a lifetime so even if he did call it wouldn’t  matter now.

    I thought damn mama. I’ve noticed in women sometimes we reverse role on our moms.

    Like I have a friends whos mom was a push over VERY docile. Now she is almost emotionally abusive to her BF because the amount of control she feels the need to have to avoid what she saw in her mother.

    My mom has always been a shot caller in her relationships. I’ve never know her to attach her being to a man. She lives for herself. And here my ass is just cannot resist the urge to want to feel loved by a man or get something shoot idk what I’m searching for…

    So she just made me think about my level of tolerance in my own relationship; but also the fact that its “too each is own” another women can’t tell you what is too much for you.

    You feel it inside I guess.

    Especially when its not as cut and dry as “He hits you” or “He curses you out and yells at you”

    ________________________

    Endingggg question I am going to say it literally in context of my life.

    Mentally/Physically I have been in better places than the year 2017 and right now.

    In hindsight I can really say I was going thru some serious depression (still am) but uncontrollably affecting my everyday actions. My relationship that I was very invested in ended. I gained ALOT of weight. I graduated from college and no longer felt passion for my field.

    Sometimes my mind crosses the thought that maybe he was attracted to that person. “Small me” figuratively not literally.

    When I felt smaller, when I acted small like everything he did was the greatest and completed me or made me happy since I wasn’t. That fulfilled him in a way too.

    Then when I want to be BIG when I want to be who I am. We conflict because to him I’m doing a lot, or being someone I am not when to me I’m just trying to get back to the person I am. He doesn’t feel as needed maybe…

    I find it conflicting to see through the idea of  IF I am changing and aging and growing as a 24 year old to not wanting certain things anymore like I used to or is he deterring me from them?

    These are all just my thoughts running ramped in my head. Haven’t talked to anyone about this in a while

    #191249
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Sorry that was really long. Whoops lol

    #191251
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Better not apply what you think you know about your mother’s relationship that ended to your relationship. You don’t know enough about her relationship.

    What you described, some of it, is the same as before: annoyances living with him.

    Better have a weekly financial meeting with him, a notebook handy where you plan together, as a team, plan his car payments, rent etc., to there are no surprises regarding where the money went and why did he miss a couple of car payments.

    The Small and Big in the last part of your post, not clear to me.

    anita

    #191255
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    This is very true. I’ll not do that comparison.

    So any tips on how I can try to attend to his moodiness but not absorb it.

    He is really sour sometimes and some of the things he does when I am trying to just be nice makes me get irritated and it escalates things.

    Should I just leave him alone?

    That’s what I did yesterday. I gave a valorous effort to see what was wrong with him. We bickered for a second and I swooped us up right out of that and de-escalated it. He came a little around later in the evening.

    But this morning same moodiness I was talking to him. He clearly heard me and ignored me. I just looked at him got up and finished getting ready in the living room and came back in to tell him bye and he still was acting silly.

    Thru messages now he seems ok. But you never know till you see him. So I guess I will find out in 4 hours.

    ______________________

    But I agree after this week of him working I am going to inquire on what is financial stressors are. What we have to do to be stable and start saving and what my expectations are of him as well financially.

    He kind of disappointed me a little Anita. The fact that he put us in a financial strain like that. Even making me feel like he wouldn’t have his half of the rent knowing I don’t make enough money to pay his share of everything. When I am getting up every morning for 6 weeks going to work and your still in the bed. I would really wonder “what did he do all day?” Like you could have been doing Uber all this time. I just don’t know what he was thinking.

    I felt like he kept saying and implying that money was low, but was doing nothing to help it.

    ___

    BIG AND SMALL Shar.

    When I am act small. Examples of me being small (I may exhibit any 2 of these at anytime); When I act introverted. Homebody like. I don’t interact with other people. I am barely on my phone. Like hes basically my whole life.

    When I know in my head. truthfully I am a extrovert, I am just depressed. I am the life of the party, 97.5% of people like me. I have my friends that I see often, I go out, I socially interact with people, I DO WHAT I WANT, I have male friends, I touch my phone OR NOT touch my phone whenever I want. If I want to get up at 12am and go to Jimmys house I do. If I want to go out with my girl friends & stay out till 3am I would do that.

    He got to know me when I acted the least like who I was, ever in my life. Sometimes I wonder if he fell in love with that girl. and that’s why we conflict sometimes because when I do something out of that “small” frame he takes it like I am not being genuine.

    But I don’t want to be who I am right now. I don’t like her. She’s boring and needs to get a life (all jokes aside).

    I wont stay this way just because it makes him uncomfortable, because this isn’t who I am. I feel not myself.

    But its been so long its hard to see I forget sometimes and then I see something like a old photo of myself and I just am like “hey! I liked her!!”

    I don’t remember when the switch in my head flipped and I revolved my choices around him but I know it was before I was in a relationship with him though.

     

    #191265
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Remember that you are not married. Glenn is not your husband. He is your live in boyfriend, a partner of sorts in life, but you are not married. What this means is that he is still auditioning only he doesn’t know it. You are getting to know him… more. At  one point, you will decide: is this the right man for me to marry.

    I suggest you not only have a weekly financial meeting, but that you have a daily or twice weekly or so getting-along-meeting. In such a meeting, you can ask him to not complain to you about this or that, be specific, because it distresses you. Tell him that and he should comply. He can ask you to change something as well, and if he is reasonable (and is not just saying something tit for tat), you can choose to change that particular behavior.

    You shouldn’t just accept whatever behavior he exhibits and try to not be bothered by it. Tell him and if your request is reasonable, he should accommodate you.

    Regarding the big and small share: you are both these things: sometimes introverted and at other times extroverted. It is just that you approve of the second and disapprove of the first. I don’t think there is anyone in the world who is one or the other.

    You fell in love with him and then got to know him better and you are still invested in him. He fell in love with you and got to know you more… and so, it doesn’t matter what got his attention first, there is always something people fall in love with while not knowing the person’s ways yet. What is important is to act lovingly to the person you believe you love.

    What about this depression, tell me more about it if you want.

    anita

     

    #191285
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    You are correct. I have to remember that. He is the most important person in my life and I choose him everyday but I have not COMMITTED my entire life to him yet and I shouldn’t feel bad for acknowledging that fact. That these are still try outs. He kind of makes me feel bad about that sometimes.

    When we have conversations in the field of his expectations. I have to explain their are levels to this from meeting, to dating, to being in a committed relationship, to engaged, to living together, to marriage, to kids, to someone getting sick. All those possible different levels have a different set of commitments and expectations. You don’t treat your wife and mother of your children like the girl you are just dating and talking to and your don’t have the same expectations of the women who you are in relationship with like she is your wife when she is not. Why would there be levels if they all were the same…

    The meetings are a good idea. Its just so hard to stay consistent with him.

    But I also agree, that even though I do feel I disapprove of introvert Jenny Lynn its because I am her more than I’d like to be as of late. But I enjoy both just not feeling like to him I just need to stay what I was when I met him. Which was largely introverted BECAUSE  I was depressed.

    So this depression. 🙁

    I have probably been depressed for over 10 years. I didn’t even know what it was as a kid because my home life was so muted that I couldn’t even see it till I came to college. I would have these bouts of cyclic depression. about every 9-10 months usually around the end of the year I would just make poor choices I would just retreat or the opposite and do whatever. I would make rash decisions and just do literally whatever I wanted.

    I feel like I may have been a little happy back then; so it didn’t last long the feelings and overwhelming thoughts after 2 ish months would let up I would come back to, look at what I was doing and get my life back together.

    Back in 2015/16 it just took over me and It never let up; its been 2 years basically now. That’s what I was going thru when he met me. I went from being in the best shape of my LIFE to now I have gained almost 100lbs from me LOSING 80. (Which towers over me!! My feelings of disappointment in myself aren’t even explainable).

    My energy levels plummeted, I won’t leave the house for days at a time if I don’t have to. From the time I get up every morning all I am thinking about is getting home and getting back in the bed…every..day.

    It’s miserable really and I feel out of control of it at this point.

    Best way I can describe it is: in real life, I have Arachnophobia (extreme fear of spiders). As logical of a person as I am, I know that crying when I see a tiny spider on my desk at work is irrational…but its what my brain knows. Its knows we don’t like spiders.

    I almost feel like that.  I have done this for so long I don’t know where to being to condition my brain out of it…

    Sometimes I feel like I dragged him down with me, because overall his life was pretty together when I met him.

    I almost feel responsible for most of his problems.

    Im getting a little emotional typing this because I do know I am responsible for my choices but I just idk, I have just lost touch.

    #191287
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    I am losing my focus and want to attend to your recent post with better focus and that will be in the morning, in about sixteen hours. I might add a short post on this or that thread before I turn off the computer. Will be back to you tomorrow.

    Add anything that may be relevant before than, if you want.

    anita

    #191293
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Okay. Talk to you tomm! 🙂

    #191481
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    I didn’t realize how depressed you have been. You have this style of sharing that is so light, it doesn’t reveal that heaviness, figuratively and literally, your weight gain being a burden to you in more than one way.

    How do you feel that you at harming your boyfriend, didn’t know his life was together when he met you. Was it and how do you think you contributed to his life no longer being together?

    Back to you, to the style of your sharing and how it doesn’t reveal this intense depression, how do you do that? Not showing that depression? That is amazing to me. Most people feeling this depressed, I think, complain a lot about it, and you would know they are depressed right away..?

    anita

    #191623
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Sometimes I feel like he cared for me so much that he let me start to influence his choices fairly quickly.

    He used to work out everyday. He barely ate meat. He was in really good shape.

    He seemed financially stable. Keeping in mind I didn’t know him very well so that just could have been my outward perception. But he always left me under the impression that money wasn’t a issue of his.

    I feel like as he gained feeling for me he stopped doing the things he enjoyed like everything was about me. At the very same time I know he enjoys being with me. I have to say I noticed coupled with some slight distrusts in me I felt sometimes like he knew he had other things he could do but he would give that up because yes he wanted to be with me but he almost found it less stressful to know what I’m doing and disregard what he was doing generally before he met me. Then go do the thing and then wonder what or where I was…this was probably a little over a month into dating him.

    Sometimes I felt like in order to “make me happy” he would spend amounts of money that now in hindsight he probably shouldn’t have.

    Yes these were all his choices but I don’t know I sometimes feel responsible.

    ____________

    Yeah my ability to not harp on the negative yet exist within it I guess is a assumed trait from my childhood. “Nobody likes a complainer”, especially when there is no change in motion. So to me why complain about something that I am not doing anything to actively change. Its annoying for me to even hear out loud as I say it so I am sure anyone listening would assume the same.

    I don’t know; I hate being a downer. That’s just never been who I am; aside from my extreme want to do nothing more and more everyday. That’s not to say of course that I was never in a bad mood, just I am never the person to put myself in a position to be around others socially and be bitter becky. I would just stay home…to say the least I stay home a lot now. I don’t feel good enough mentally to exist with my friends and other people and offer the same energy as I used to; just fun and carefree.

    I feel like a lot of people wouldn’t understand where my depression stems from or they don’t care and find my reasons to be a cop out or invalid or the many reasons why society brushes its shoulder at people with depression. Especially African Americans. Its just not taken as seriously. Which is more frustrating than anything; trying to convince people of what is clearly in front of their faces. I am clearly not ok.

    At the same time I know EVERYTHING can be worse; that “someone always has it worse than you” mantra always plays in the back of my head while someone tries to understand how a person like me has most likely a more than just acute motions of life of depression. My boyfriend has even said “What do you have to stress about, I don’t get it” Not to say he dismisses it, but that was his first reaction.

    So I mostly just don’t talk about it, even though many of my (daily) choices clearly reflect it. Sometimes I breakdown when I let it all in but in the end I feel like if I harped on it, it’d make me feel worse.

    #191629
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    It is to be expected when a couple of people love each other, living together, that there will be some losing  on each side, so  to be together.  If what you and Glenn gain for being together is greater than what you individually give up for being with him, that is worthwhile for you, a Win. Same for him, if what he gains for being together with you is greater than what he gives up, then it is a Win for him.

    It is not realistic to expect a loving relationship to have no individual Lose elements. The total should be Win.

    For example, if he is not in good physical shape, as in not being healthy, because of the relationship with you, that is a big Lose for him. If he is healthy but doesn’t have the huge muscles he had before, that is not a big Lose (unless his livelihood  depended on it maybe).

    Unrelated to you, to your thread, I’ve been thinking recently, an hour ago, actually, about people who complain a lot, the woe-me, poor me, see how much I suffer people vs the I am fine, none complainer people, like you. Will you tell me more how it came about, how as a child you figured it is better to not complain and to appear fine even though you were  suffering inside? Maybe give me an example?

    anita

     

    #191695
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Yes, what you said makes sense. He tells me that its not my fault. He said in a round about of sorts basically yeah he gained 50lbs; because the women he loves happens to enjoy cooking and going out to eat and if she’s making cupcakes “I GUESS IM eating cupcakes” lol. He’s told me, even if he could go back he would do it again. That makes me feel better but I still hate to see him so down.

    As I child it just always seemed like no one really cared about how I actually FELT. They concerned themselves about my WELLBEING , my “NEEDS” and sustenance of my life.

    My feelings were easily hurt. In hindsight though typing this now the thought actually comes into my head that maybe It wasn’t that my feelings were hurt so easily as much as people never really cared about how they spoke to me or what they said about me.

    I used to cry a lot as a child (7-14). Pretty close to hysterically I used to get stress nose bleeds as a younger child when I would cry, it was a lot.

    Nobody has really ever asked me that before but even trying to remember to answer you I have this memory of being a child laying on a couch crying  and as an adult now I can in a sort still refeel that moment…I don’t kno those feelings felt like yes someone must have hurt my feelings or done something but more so I wanted someone to acknowledge me crying…so I would keep crying. The idea that no one cared that I was crying made me cry more, made me sadder. I remember getting up after some time. and the entire pillow I was crying on was covered in blood and my nose was gushing blood…NOW she (my mom) cared..

    Even my family there was a moment I just felt like they DO NOT CARE how what they did, or what they just said makes me feel.

    I was for lack of a better word; CRY-shamed. I stopped expressing my emotions basically at that point.

    I used to take so much pride in not crying. Now as an adult I know that’s really nothing to feel good about or not.

    When I was 14 my mom went to prison. I was in a pretty emotionally hostile living situation after that. I remember from that time till I graduated being pretty miserable and not really being able to do anything about it.

    When I graduated I moved 4 hours away to college, I didn’t know a single person here, and I just left. I’ve been slowly growing apart from really everyone in my family. I see them holidays. We barely talk, but the thing about it is, I know they don’t care.

    For most of my life I felt like a burden. I just feel like people/family really only cared about if I had what I needed to live and survive; because my mom wasn’t always doing what she should have, but even her included that was the priority.. no one actually ever really cared if I was happy, or how I was feeling, no one inquired.

    So I guess I had to stop caring about being happy because as a child no one cared about it either. To me happiness is not an noun its more like a adjective. When it comes to childrens happiness, I feel like in a wayits a learned behavior. Its a learned set of skills and coping mechanism down to seeing the best out of a situation to working hard at what you love.

    Its weird because my brother had that; he had a extension of our family that gave him that stability.

    But I just don’t feel it. I never got it, I’ve never felt that feeling of real happiness.

    #191713
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Glad to receive such an early reply from you. I woke up so early this morning that at this point I can’t focus well. Will be back to the computer in about fifteen hours, will read and reply then. Take good care of yourself.

    anita

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