Hello! I desperately need outside perspectives.
I've had an on and off "serious" relationship with a man, for 3 1/2 years, and we've lived together for sum of 1 1/2 years. He's 31 and I am 26. We've been on and off primarily because I am unable to trust him... (we all know how strong a lack of trust can help a relationship become)
In the beginning of our relationship... he deluged me with the tragedies that were his former loves... particularly his first love and his first girlfriend and his last unrequited love. Hours into hours about them, and so often he would repeat stories and statements. One of the girls, if not more than one of them, was bound to come up within our conversation; regardless if it was about something as trivial as shoes or something much deeper like personal values ... whether we were on the phone, chatting over the internet or talking in person. It was very apparent that he was more interested in those girls than in me and I was initially just very wary of him as a serious intimate prospect. Not to mention he would say things like, "it's weird I'm attracted to you... you're not at all my type". The ex-flame onslaught probably went on for about 6 months... although the last outburst happened after we had been together for a little over year .... to which he was passionately recalling (once again) how his first girlfriend cheated on him... and how he should have ended up with his first love because they belonged together anyway (and that she would have prevented him from ever being with his first girlfriend somehow... oh, if only his first love didn't sleep with another man, too... hey, "I" could have been prevented, too!).
While ultimately he seemed more tore up about his first girlfriend than by the other girls, she bothered and bothers me the least... I guess because she was the only he wasn't still spending time with? Meanwhile... proclaiming an exclusive interest in me.
Eventually I withdrew from him upon discovering that he had dinner with his first love, baked cookies with her and then took her out to the movies (she's married and her husband wasn't with them) and upon discovering he took his unrequited love out to lunch a few times. I was already having a difficult time coping with the fact that he saw his unrequited love nearly EVERY day (being "best friends" with her husband... who is still unaware of his best friend's "transgressions" with his wife [there were apparently a couple of sexual incidents between them before I even knew him]). I actually once humored my boyfriend and went over to his best friend's house --- after knowing that my boyfriend had been absurdly into her and likely still was --- but she claimed to want to befriend me and my boyfriend was eager to have us all "become friends"... it didn't work out, because she came up to my boyfriend from behind and wrapped around him and the smile on his face crushed me. I suffered through the rest of the evening on the living room couch, trying to control my hurt, while my boyfriend pretty much ignored me and spent the evening with her... claiming that she didn't want to see mushy stuff between he and I and he was just trying to respect that within her house. WTF? That was another time I withdrew from him... but I digress.
He's always chased me wildly when I've tried backing off... but after discovering the one on one outings he had with these "former" flames... I wasn't receptive to his chase. He was frantic, and I naturally just seemed to detach and move on. After ignoring him and not having spoken with him for a couple of months, and him ceasing the attempts to contact me... he at some point tried again, and I felt pretty safe and apathetic at that point so I, for better or worse, answered his phone call.
We had a very long conversation. I let him know how disrespected I had felt. I let him know that I wasn't going to tolerate wasting myself on someone that wasn't over their past and I let him know that I deserved more than being settled for. I let him know that I NEEDED mutuality within a relationship, that I wanted to put my partner first and be put first and that I was only open to something exclusive and with the potential to be long-term. He just kept apologizing profusely and telling me that he only wanted me. That I've misinterpreted everything and that I was wrong to ever think he could be hung-up in his past and that it's always been platonic since his "fall-outs" with these girls and nothing more. That he "loves" me and no one else.
Then he tells me he is putting his house key under his mat and that I can come into his place and search through everything if I wanted to --- his safe his room his computer --- that he is leaving his e-mail account and passwords on his desk so that I can access them and read all of his correspondences between whomever too. I saw him a few times first. He managed not to bring up any of his former loves. We actually mingled -and it was lovely. But then he goes to his "best friends" house again and I get uncomfortable. When he returns, he tells me he's going to see his parents in Oregon for a few days. I tell him that it bothered me that he still sees his unrequited love --- he tells me to go through his place while he's in Oregon... that the key will be there. That I have nothing to worry about. I'm all he's ever wanted and needed and he's often thought about proposing to me.
And stupidly, I take up his offer to scour his place and his belongings.
There's all kinds of horror there, especially on his PC! LOL. I can't figure out why he let me access his place!? I was so overwhelmed with everything and I didn't react well at all and was and still am unable to appreciate his "openness" with me.
During one of my withdrawals from him, he wrote to his first love that he wished she could clone herself so that he could have her clone... becauseI'm not like her and she understands him so perfectly. Then she wrote him back with xoxoxo and some other that made me ill. He wrote to his unrequited love that he loved her, in the beginning of our relationship. He had pictures of all of them and folders full of love poems that he wrote for and about them. He recently had asked for the written love letters from his first love too... piles of them were on his desk. Really... piles. In a chat log he talked to one of his friends about me like I was disposable --- worth the sex but nothing else (although it was before we were even sexually intimate together wtf?). He also kept photographs, of course, of his former loves. And never once asked for one of mine LoL. Still hasn't.
We still haven't sorted it all out. I was hurt more than ever after that and I just wanted to recede away. He cried and he has tried explaining things to me in so many different ways. I still don't trust him. Overtime he deleted all of their pictures, letters, etc. But only when I let him know I couldn't tolerate any of it if he actually wanted to try to work through this with me. But it was a long process. When we moved in together I found things he had claimed he had disposed of --- pictures, letters with his first love that were sexual --- etc. I feel like there's just been too much, that too much has accumulated and I don't know how to deal with it all. Even though my current reality is that he doesn't seem to be in contact with either of them anymore, that he's put all of his energy and time in our relationship for the last several months, etc etc...
I love him more dearly now than ever before. Besides my struggle with pondering his ability to be "faithful", I love his qualities and personality.
I just have to either trust him or move on permanently from him. This back and forth is tearing more than our relationship up, it's at least affecting me as an individual (and from what I can see, him). I just want to know if it's crazier to trust him now, or to NOT trust him?
I've had an on and off "serious" relationship with a man, for 3 1/2 years, and we've lived together for sum of 1 1/2 years. He's 31 and I am 26. We've been on and off primarily because I am unable to trust him... (we all know how strong a lack of trust can help a relationship become)
In the beginning of our relationship... he deluged me with the tragedies that were his former loves... particularly his first love and his first girlfriend and his last unrequited love. Hours into hours about them, and so often he would repeat stories and statements. One of the girls, if not more than one of them, was bound to come up within our conversation; regardless if it was about something as trivial as shoes or something much deeper like personal values ... whether we were on the phone, chatting over the internet or talking in person. It was very apparent that he was more interested in those girls than in me and I was initially just very wary of him as a serious intimate prospect. Not to mention he would say things like, "it's weird I'm attracted to you... you're not at all my type". The ex-flame onslaught probably went on for about 6 months... although the last outburst happened after we had been together for a little over year .... to which he was passionately recalling (once again) how his first girlfriend cheated on him... and how he should have ended up with his first love because they belonged together anyway (and that she would have prevented him from ever being with his first girlfriend somehow... oh, if only his first love didn't sleep with another man, too... hey, "I" could have been prevented, too!).
While ultimately he seemed more tore up about his first girlfriend than by the other girls, she bothered and bothers me the least... I guess because she was the only he wasn't still spending time with? Meanwhile... proclaiming an exclusive interest in me.
Eventually I withdrew from him upon discovering that he had dinner with his first love, baked cookies with her and then took her out to the movies (she's married and her husband wasn't with them) and upon discovering he took his unrequited love out to lunch a few times. I was already having a difficult time coping with the fact that he saw his unrequited love nearly EVERY day (being "best friends" with her husband... who is still unaware of his best friend's "transgressions" with his wife [there were apparently a couple of sexual incidents between them before I even knew him]). I actually once humored my boyfriend and went over to his best friend's house --- after knowing that my boyfriend had been absurdly into her and likely still was --- but she claimed to want to befriend me and my boyfriend was eager to have us all "become friends"... it didn't work out, because she came up to my boyfriend from behind and wrapped around him and the smile on his face crushed me. I suffered through the rest of the evening on the living room couch, trying to control my hurt, while my boyfriend pretty much ignored me and spent the evening with her... claiming that she didn't want to see mushy stuff between he and I and he was just trying to respect that within her house. WTF? That was another time I withdrew from him... but I digress.
He's always chased me wildly when I've tried backing off... but after discovering the one on one outings he had with these "former" flames... I wasn't receptive to his chase. He was frantic, and I naturally just seemed to detach and move on. After ignoring him and not having spoken with him for a couple of months, and him ceasing the attempts to contact me... he at some point tried again, and I felt pretty safe and apathetic at that point so I, for better or worse, answered his phone call.
We had a very long conversation. I let him know how disrespected I had felt. I let him know that I wasn't going to tolerate wasting myself on someone that wasn't over their past and I let him know that I deserved more than being settled for. I let him know that I NEEDED mutuality within a relationship, that I wanted to put my partner first and be put first and that I was only open to something exclusive and with the potential to be long-term. He just kept apologizing profusely and telling me that he only wanted me. That I've misinterpreted everything and that I was wrong to ever think he could be hung-up in his past and that it's always been platonic since his "fall-outs" with these girls and nothing more. That he "loves" me and no one else.
Then he tells me he is putting his house key under his mat and that I can come into his place and search through everything if I wanted to --- his safe his room his computer --- that he is leaving his e-mail account and passwords on his desk so that I can access them and read all of his correspondences between whomever too. I saw him a few times first. He managed not to bring up any of his former loves. We actually mingled -and it was lovely. But then he goes to his "best friends" house again and I get uncomfortable. When he returns, he tells me he's going to see his parents in Oregon for a few days. I tell him that it bothered me that he still sees his unrequited love --- he tells me to go through his place while he's in Oregon... that the key will be there. That I have nothing to worry about. I'm all he's ever wanted and needed and he's often thought about proposing to me.
And stupidly, I take up his offer to scour his place and his belongings.
There's all kinds of horror there, especially on his PC! LOL. I can't figure out why he let me access his place!? I was so overwhelmed with everything and I didn't react well at all and was and still am unable to appreciate his "openness" with me.
During one of my withdrawals from him, he wrote to his first love that he wished she could clone herself so that he could have her clone... becauseI'm not like her and she understands him so perfectly. Then she wrote him back with xoxoxo and some other that made me ill. He wrote to his unrequited love that he loved her, in the beginning of our relationship. He had pictures of all of them and folders full of love poems that he wrote for and about them. He recently had asked for the written love letters from his first love too... piles of them were on his desk. Really... piles. In a chat log he talked to one of his friends about me like I was disposable --- worth the sex but nothing else (although it was before we were even sexually intimate together wtf?). He also kept photographs, of course, of his former loves. And never once asked for one of mine LoL. Still hasn't.
We still haven't sorted it all out. I was hurt more than ever after that and I just wanted to recede away. He cried and he has tried explaining things to me in so many different ways. I still don't trust him. Overtime he deleted all of their pictures, letters, etc. But only when I let him know I couldn't tolerate any of it if he actually wanted to try to work through this with me. But it was a long process. When we moved in together I found things he had claimed he had disposed of --- pictures, letters with his first love that were sexual --- etc. I feel like there's just been too much, that too much has accumulated and I don't know how to deal with it all. Even though my current reality is that he doesn't seem to be in contact with either of them anymore, that he's put all of his energy and time in our relationship for the last several months, etc etc...
I love him more dearly now than ever before. Besides my struggle with pondering his ability to be "faithful", I love his qualities and personality.
I just have to either trust him or move on permanently from him. This back and forth is tearing more than our relationship up, it's at least affecting me as an individual (and from what I can see, him). I just want to know if it's crazier to trust him now, or to NOT trust him?
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