Home→Forums→Relationships→I thought he was my forever til the end
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November 11, 2020 at 10:20 am #369033
KatieParticipantHi Anita,
That would be the healthy way to handle his anger. I have told him in the past that when he is angry, he can take a break from our communication and go take a walk, work in the garage, whatever. As I have said previously, we only saw each other on weekends so he was very free to type his anger away in a text message during our away time. I believed in talking about issues, other than this guy, when we are physically together, to see each others faces and body language. This I told him.
When we were together physically, things were actually better. Maybe it’s because I was physically in front of him and he knew how much I love him just by my actions. When we were apart was when his mind wandered. He did see a therapist the end of last year for only 3 sessions, and I sat in on the last session with him. The therapist told him that he felt my boyfriend and I should be spending more time together; he said just look at the way you are with each other. (We were hold hands; sitting close). But this therapist also told my boyfriend that this is not Katie’s problem, this is your problem. My boyfriend didn’t like that; he felt it was a relationship problem.
After the appointment I explained to my boyfriend that this is his problem, but it’s affecting our relationship. Needless to say, he didn’t go back to that therapist, and honestly they were not a good fit. I could see that as well. But, his was spot on with the “this is not Katie’s problem”.
Thanks Anita. You’re very helpful.
Katie
November 11, 2020 at 11:16 am #369036
AnonymousGuestDear Katie:
You are welcome, thank you for your appreciation.
“When we were together physically, things were actually better. Maybe it’s because I was physically in front of him”- I think so, you.. physically interrupted the movies in his head. “When we were apart was when his mind wandered”- apart, you were not able to interrupt the movies playing in his brain.
Away from him, Reality (your love for him Now) did not interrupt his Fantasy (you loving/ having sex with someone else in High School).
“this therapist also told my boyfriend that this is not Katie’s problem, this is your problem. My boyfriend didn’t like that; he felt it was a relationship problem”- his thinking is tainted by Fantasy.
anita
November 11, 2020 at 1:23 pm #369054KatieParticipantHi Anita,
I cannot imagine being in his mind. So tainted by the past. Not realizing how far he’s come in life, to what is supposed to be a better place. But I guess if you don’t get help for issues during your growing up years, at some point they come back and bite you. And in turn bite the one you’re supposed to love. This is why my daughter is in therapy now. She will always need to control her triggers of her PTSD, but hopefully will have the tools to use, and not take it out on others.
Katie
November 11, 2020 at 1:44 pm #369059AnonymousGuestDear Katie:
You wrote regarding the man that his childhood issues came back to bite him “And in turn bite the one you’re supposed to love“, and regarding your daughter, that she “hopefully will have the tools to use, and not take it out on others“-
– the interesting thing is that when a person bites the one he supposedly loves/ takes it out on others, not only do they hurt other people, passing on the pain, they also hurt themselves more, often not being aware of it. As you know, an abuser doesn’t get healthier by abusing another person, he/ she gets worse.
Healing starts with no longer abusing another person- not only for the sake of the other person, but for the sake of healing of the abuser himself, or herself.
anita
November 11, 2020 at 5:33 pm #369100KatieParticipantHi Anita,
I agree the abuser also hurts themselves. They lose the people who love them the most. My ex lost me a long time ago, way before the filing of divorce. He lost my kids as well, as they did not want any contact with him. So, he lost his entire family…wife and kids. The people he was supposed to love the most. Lost everything/one.
I hope my boyfriend in his therapy has begun to understand his abusive behavior from this past year. After all, abuse is a choice. He can choose to abuse and lose me, or begin to heal and perhaps have what once was.
The holidays are coming. It’s going to be hard, but I’m going to try my best to enjoy my family. My daughter and I were just in the store picking up a few items and all the holiday things are out. I had to really choke back the tears.
Katie
November 11, 2020 at 6:36 pm #369103AnonymousGuestDear Katie:
I will be back to your thread, read and reply in about 12 hours from now.
anita
November 12, 2020 at 6:24 am #369168AnonymousGuestDear Katie:
I couldn’t have said it better: they, the abusers lose the people who love them most. They lose everyone and they lose themselves.
“After all, abuse is a choice”- yes it is. I like the wording of emotion as e-motion, or energy in motion. Anger is an e-motion, it is an energy that is moving toward an action. To choose to not abused, a person has to take a moment of pause between the emotion and the action. In that moment, the person can stop or redirect that energy so that it does not express itself in abuse. In that pause, a person can make a thoughtful choice that fits one’s values and long-term best interest.
You wrote about your boyfriend (now on break): “He can choose to abuse and lose me, or begin to heal and perhaps have what once was”- you said it perfectly.
Regarding the holidays, do enjoy your family best you can, and I am here for you throughout the holidays.
anita
November 12, 2020 at 8:33 am #369176KatieParticipantHi Anita,
Thank you for your support. He did not spend last Thanksgiving with me and my family because of his OCD mental movies…he was angry at me and did not want to spend the time with me. But, that evening wanted to see me because he said he felt like he was trying to tell himself he didn’t want to see me but knew deep down inside that he did. Obviously, I will not be spending this Thanksgiving with him, but will with my family.
When our celebrated holiday of Christmas came around, he was head over heals in love with me again. He spent Christmas with me and my family, and couldn’t tell me enough how much he loved me. He described it as “opening a door and walking into a room that he didn’t know existed.” He was attentive and loving.
This has happened a few times in our relationship. Where he would find out about someone I dated, get angry that I was with someone else at one time, but then realize how much he didn’t want to lose me and how much he loves me. I would always say our love is like 9/11. It would take a disaster (me with another man in the past) for him to realize how much he loved me.
I’m not sure how this one will play out, but maybe the therapy will be helpful. But it really is like he can’t stand the thought of me being with anyone else besides him (except my ex).
Katie
November 12, 2020 at 9:03 am #369180AnonymousGuestDear Katie:
“he can’t stand the thought of me being with anyone else besides him (except my ex)”- as I was thinking about the reason your ex husband is an exception to his obsession, a new thought occurred to me:
– the woman he married, with whom he lived for over 25 years, it was a horrible marriage, a miserable experience for him. He does not miss her, I am guessing. But he misses all that could have been, back in high school, the girls he didn’t get together with. He wonders how different and so much better his life could have been.. with a different girl. His frustration is extreme, regarding having lost 2.5 decades, his youth, being with just that one woman he married, experiencing so much misery with her.
He then meets you and he sees your over 25 years of marriage as similar to his- you told him how much misery you suffered in your marriage. He doesn’t miss his wife at all, so he figures you don’t miss your husband at all. But he inaccurately projects his own longings to high school (the alternative life he could have had with a different woman) to you, meaning, he is thinking that you are longing for a different man, to the what-could-have-been.
anita
November 12, 2020 at 2:12 pm #369208KatieParticipantHi Anita,
Those girls that he did not get together with in high school is his mind is only me. He only wanted me.
Him inaccurately projecting his own longings from high school (the life he could have had with someone else, which he claims in his mind was me), meaning, he is thinking that I am longing for a different man, to the what could have been. Do you mean me longing for a different man other than him?
Katie
November 12, 2020 at 2:33 pm #369211AnonymousGuestDear Katie:
Knowing teenage boys, I very much doubt that he wanted only you when he was in high school. Teenage boys’ hormones are not exclusive to just one girl, that’s not how it works, as a general rule of nature (not in most of the animal world, and not in humans).
“meaning, he is thinking that I am longing for a different man.. Do you mean me longing for a different man other than him?”- yes, this is why he asked you all those questions, to find out if you had better sex with them, trying to find out if you are therefore still longing for them, if you still prefer them over him.
I know this is not true to reality, to what reality was for you. This is why I say that he inaccurately projects himself into you.
anita
November 12, 2020 at 4:49 pm #369221KatieParticipantHi Anita,
Thank you for the clarification.
I’ve always not only told him but shown him how much I love him. That how I felt for him I have never felt for another. I always left a love note on his pillow when I left his house on Sundays, wrote poems for him, jars of notes of love…
It’s amazing how the mind can work. After everything I’ve said to him and all the gifts from my heart…this.
Thank you for your insight. It does make me understand him a bit better.
Katie
November 12, 2020 at 7:24 pm #369235AnonymousGuestDear Katie:
You are welcome. It is amazing how the mind works, I agree. It’s amazing how he reacted not to the lovely things that were happening in his life, you leaving him poems, etc., but to what happened to him decades before. When the past feels so negatively intense, it gets triggered and replays itself over and over again, in one’s mind.
anita
November 13, 2020 at 3:55 am #369242KatieParticipantHi Anita,
It saddens me that those loving things do not hold as much value as the motion picture playing in his mind. That he can’t replace the past with the present. The things I did for him were just who I am. I value those in my life and show them, through small gestures/acts of kindness, what they mean to me. It’s something I won’t change about myself, I guess I just need to be careful of who I open my circle up to.
Katie
November 13, 2020 at 6:28 am #369247AnonymousGuestDear Katie:
It is sad that you suffer in this relationship-breakup limbo for no fault of your own. His ex yelled at him a lot, refused to postpone her smoking while in the car with him for his sake, cheated on him… while you left love notes for him on Sunday mornings. And yet, he was rude and disrespectful.. to you!
It makes me angry thinking this.
anita
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