I have been going out with my boyfriend for 11 months. I found it extremely difficult to be honest with him as I had been sexually abused as a child. I learnt at a very early age that telling the truth got you know where as my parents did not believe me that my brother was sexually abusing me.I tried several times during this period to tell him the truth about my past relationships, my addiction to drugs and the fact that I had slept with someone else. Throughout the relationship I continued to lie as I did not think he would love me for me and I thought he would abandon me just like everyone else. I guess in away I have shown him not myself but a fake person.I have been in two previous relationships and I have never really been present with these people. As I have always been inside myself and never been able to let anyone close to me. This is the first person ever in my life that I have been honest with and that after 11 months I can now be myself and he has given me a tremendous gift of me being to be me and in turn I have given him me.This man I love very much and i have now told him the truth about everything over the last 11 months. By me lying it has put a huge strain on the relationship and he does not know if he can trust me anymore and he also thinks that we now have no foundation for a relationship.He also thinks that I have no values and he is always negative about the relationship. I don’t know what to do as I love him and I have realised that i want to spend the rest of my life with him. Please help as I do not want to lose him.
I understand why you kept the information about your past to yourself, and I also understand why your boyfriend is upset that you didn’t level with him. At this point, all you can do is to put yourself on his side of the fence and listen to his feelings. Reflect back his words and ask him to confirm that you have understood him.After he speaks honestly, you might then tell him, ‘Because I didn’t tell you about my past earlier on, you seem to feel that you can’t trust me to tell you the truth in the future. Is that right?’When he agrees, you might say, ‘Other than this one area in which I withheld information, do you have any other evidence that I have been untruthful to you?’ When he says, ‘No, ‘then you could continue, ‘Is there any other possible interpretation that you can find for my behavior–beside the one that I am a liar who can’t be trusted to tell the truth in all matters’If he is open to exploring other alternative interpretations of your behavior, you could tell him that it is your character to tell the truth at all times. However, in this one area, you had been trained not to speak about it by your parents you shut you up with their disbelief. Without knowing it, their behavior programmed you to think that no one would believe you, so why bother mentioning it.This programming occurs on an unconscious level, meaning that it is beyond awareness. It was only when you realized that you were not speaking about the subject and examined the reason why that your unconscious programming became conscious to you. Then, the conscious, honest, truthful part of yourself took hold and prompted you to tell him what happened to you.You are in fact so honest, that you risked yourself, and risked his negative reaction to not having heard sooner, just so you could tell him this aspect of your past. Had you been a liar, you would have kept up the lie and never spoken. It was, in fact, your love for him that made you want to take the chance to tell him what you never could tell anyone, not even your family.Tell him then that if he doesn’t want to trust you again, that it’s all right. But, you ask only one thing. That he study your behavior from here on out and see if you ever give him any cause to think that you are not being truthful. He can put you on trial for six months, and then reconsider whether he can trust you based upon your performance.I hope this helps. Please let me know.
