My boyfriend and I have been together 10months but known eachother over 25 years. Now that we are together he realizes that he may know too much about me, details of my past, the good the bad the painful.. it haunts him he says. There’s constant reminders in daily life that remind him of things that have happened to me but mainly he acts like he’s disgusted in the people I’ve been with, he had nothing to do with my past and yet when he gets a thought in his head he actually gets mad at me justifying it by saying it’s my fault cause I told him everyrhing.. he says he loves me so much that it hurts to think of the people I’ve previously been with, but he’s sabatoging what we have because of a life lived before him. It’s to the point where he wants to filter my Facebook, remove contacts he doesn’t feel I need to be in contact with, he is trying to change the routine I have with my kids father when it comes to pick up and drop off cause he feels threatened by the idea that him and I actually get along and co parent the way every seperated parent wishes to be. When he gets mad about the thoughts he has he basically calls me a slut, if I wasn’t a slut then none of this would be happening.. my life was full of pain and heartbreak, so u can imagine how it feels to be called a slut when that was far from who I was. I feel like I’m being punished for confiding in him before we even got together. He is the only person I’ve ever told my story to, why doesn’t he see how much he is hurting me and us? I don’t understand, maybe it’s a mental health problem? He seems like he may have codependency and attachment issues, a neediness to be by my side all the time
Wow. You are really being mind f*****d by your boyfriend.
His cover story is that he loves you so much that it hurts to think of the people you’ve been with. Then, he attacks you by calling you a very disgusting name.
It sounds like he’s jealous of those you’ve been with before. He is apparently threatened by your ongoing attachment to others and to your ex, the father of your kids.
And he’s trying to manage his feelings by controlling you and wanting to filter your contacts and tell you who you may and may not be in contact with!
You need to ask yourself how much you want to keep this relationship? To the point of allowing yourself to be abused and controlled?
I don’t care how much you love your boyfriend; his behavior is off the chain! And, you have to love yourself more! Loving yourself must include putting your foot down with him.
Yes, this is his issue. It seems to me that the thought of your having had previous relationships sends him over the top, as if your past is a threat to him. He has some serious childhood Old Scar that is causing him to react and behave in the way he does. He was either abandoned by his parents or abused in some way. It also seems as though he is jealous of a sibling who received more parental attention than he received from his parents. When he thinks about your being with other people before him, it’s as if his unconscious is jealous of the attention that you were paid by others. He is making an unconscious association to his own early life story.
The triggers are an “inside job”. In other words, he is drowning in feelings from the past and he churns up the feelings in order to discharge some of the pain. The way he churns up his past feelings is by making himself think of your past, before him. He uses your past as an excuse to vent his buried rage, which is literally poisoning him from within. Your past becomes his own emotional enema. He whips himself into a fit of rage and is symbolically raging at the players from his past. Rather than getting in touch with what he’s really angry about, he transfers and displaces his old feelings onto you. You have become his emotional toilet bowl!
The result of his childhood abuse is deep feeling of unworthiness. As a result, he is afraid of losing you. So, he tries to control your contact in an unconscious attempt to keep you all for himself. His fear of losing you (or not having always been the only one in your life, as your past proves) is what sparks his controlling and abusive behavior. But, I promise you, even if you were to give in to him and lock yourself at home and talk to no one, he would still not be satisfied. He reminds me of the classic wife beater who makes his partner stop contact with anyone outside of their relationship. Once she gives in to the control, he has her under his thumb and she is too trapped and dependent to get out!
He needs to get in touch with his own feelings about his childhood. He needs to drill down and figure out his Old Scar and then heal that rather than attempt to control you. My book Kiss Your Fights Goodbye has a series of exercises that help people figure out the Old Scar that is causing their relationship fighting. And the book shows you how to use your relationship to work together to heal the Old Scar. To do this, he must commit to copping to his own poop and not dumping it on you. If he refuses to do this work with you, then you have some serious decisions to make. If he refuses to own and work on his stuff, and you choose to stay with him, then it’s your turn to look at what Old Scar you are playing out by staying with someone who treats you in this way.
Please keep me posted on how you make out with him!
