Can you also clarify what you mean when you say that your partner was inappropriate with a girl 4 years ago?

Dear Stargazer17:

You are welcome. There will be two parts to this post. The first part is my understanding about what happened and how you feel about it. Please read patiently, over time, and correct me if and where I misunderstand:

You have an ongoing emotional ache in regard to an incident where you almost cheated (ache) on your boyfriend. You feel a lot of guilt and shame. You love your boyfriend very much and the ache is weighing very heavily on your heart. You feel like  you made un unforgivable mistake, that you are a terrible person for having made it, that you irreparably broke the relationship with your boyfriend, and that you are not worthy of him. You figure that because the ache was a one-time-event that will never repeat itself, telling your boyfriend about it will do nothing but hurt his feelings and cause him to see you in a way he didn’t see you before. On the other hand, not telling him, you feel that you are defrauding the relationship, and you therefore feel shame, guilt and anxiety  over not telling him.

At times you feel better but the stabbing pain of guilt keeps returning, and with it, the shame and heightened stress. You feel that if you forgive yourself, you will be letting yourself off the hook:  you feel like a criminal who needs to be punished for her crime. Your boyfriend can’t punish you because he doesn’t know about your crime, so you punish yourself on his behalf by suffering emotionally. You think that maybe your brain will not let you rest until you tell him absolutely everything.

The second part of this post is all about what you shared in this thread and my understanding of it, and again, please correct me where I misunderstand: (1)”I have been with my boyfriend for 8 years, from 16 years old to now 24. I have been with 2 guys…  I’ve not experienced much in terms of being single… To be honest the last while I’ve thought  to myself: is this really what I want, do I want to be with him forever“-

– One factor in the ache is that for a while before the ache, you were wondering if the grass is greener on the other side, wondering if in settling for your boyfriend, you were settling for less.

(2) “My parents are going through a horrible divorce and the thought of ever getting married and going through that fills me with dread“-

– Another factor in the ache is that for a while before the ache, you dreaded ending up getting married, then getting stuck in a bad marriage like your parents’ and ending up going through a horrible divorce.

(3) “WHY I did it (the ache)?- I was under the influence, I’m going through a shit time at home with my parents divorcing, just received a mental health diagnosis and I think I just went on this girls holiday and let out years of pent up anger/emotion out and acted bloody feral!!… I do really mean it when I say I hate myself for this and I probably will forever”-

– in objective terms, the ache was a small matter, but subjectively it is a huge matter because all of that pent up anger and emotion exploded into the surface when the ache took place, making the ache … a bloody mess. I think that for a long, long time, you’ve been carrying a lot of anger and emotion in regard to your parents’ marriage and divorce (and perhaps other things happening at home) while you did your best to appear and behave as perfectly as you could,  pretending- to the best of your ability- that all was well, and acting perhaps like… a kitten.  It took this recent small imperfection/ small mistake (the ache) to burst your bubble of perfection and optimism, and the kitten is feeling like a.. bloody feral.

When a kitten is a kitten who thinks that she is a bloody feral, she imagines that she is very powerful and has the power to destroy others. She thinks that no mistake is a small mistake, and any mistake can cause irreparable damage. She is trying to control her perceived uncontrollable power by keeping it down by placing a heavy weight of shame and guilt on top of it.

I will add another post later.

P.S. :”just received a mental health diagnosis“- can you tell me what it is?

anita

Dear Stargaz317:

You are welcome. Seems to me that it is very important that you make an appointment with your therapist and talk to her about what happened.

“I’ve been seeing a therapist weekly for around a year that has helped me tremendously. I have come so far and I’ve improved my self -awareness dramatically… I cancelled my appointment last week with her because I was too ashamed to tell her what I had done“-

– Your therapist thought highly of you (thinking that you improved a lot and that you are self-aware) , and you were afraid that if you told her about the ache, she will not think highly of you anymore, that you will lose her esteem and appreciation of you, right?

Just like you hide things from your mother, things you believe will make her think less of you… and just like you don’t want your boyfriend to think less of you if he knew about the ache?

anita

Dear Stargaze17:

No doubt in my mind that the best thing for you to do is to make an appointment with your therapist, who you say helped you tremendously for a year. But you’ll have to face some of your fear of making the appointment before you actually make it.  Let’s say, that you tell your therapist about the ache, and she reacts like your mother would in a similar circumstance, what would your therapist say or do when you tell her, what would her face look like, the way she looks at you…?

anita

Dear Stargaze17:

I sure hope that you will see your therapist next Friday.

In my case, I remember my mother giving me the evil eye, so to speak, when I made mistakes (or when she thought I  made mistakes), looking at me with this evilness in her face. Decades later, I used to have dreams where I saw her angry face looking at me in that way. In the dream, she said nothing, the look was condemning, or scary enough. Any such thing in your case?

anita

Hi Stargazer

It is reassuring that you are from a country where the age difference at the start of rt your relationship was legal. I’m glad to hear that your partner didn’t cheat on you, that the difficulty was minor and that he has been a great partner since.

So these feelings you had previously doubting the relationship were linked to your parents divorce? Can you tell me more about how your parents divorce is affecting you?

It might be important to discuss the impact of the divorce with your partner as well as everything else so that your partner can support you.

Can I ask, is there a reason for why you haven’t yet communicated all of these things with your partner?

It’s entirely possible that similarly to how you responded, your partner would quickly get over this incident of flirting with and kissing a stranger on holiday.

I think that people have done far worse things in relationships. It’s good that there has been a positive outcome in that it has rid you of doubts about your partner.