In 06, I had been dating my boyfriend for about a year and a half. I worried about him cheating with other girls and vented to him about it. One day he told me, that he’d passed out at this party he went to and a girl had gotten on top of him, and his friend filmed it.I perhaps very naively trusted him. I broke up with him for a guy that I’m dating now, who is very smart. But I couldn’t handle the break up because everyone started teasing me about the other guy. I started dating and I got back together with this boy after a few weeks. Later he broke up with me. And I was devastated, I blamed myself. I then found out he was dating a girl that he had suposeably cheated with.
After this I decided I did not want a relationship and set about being single. I remained really good friends with the smarter guy and we all went to university. I then dated a guy that was friends with my ex. He raped me many times and ended up leaving me for a girl that was only 15/16 claiming he liked her innocence and because she wasn’t as smart as me.
I was then romanced by a guy that I started to really like. I heard he had a girlfriend but he told me he’d broken up with her. I continued to date him, then found out that he still had his gf and I stopped seeing him. It had only been a year and a half, but in this time I’d been cheated on, raped, and lied to…quite a bit.
I then spent the next year or so dealing with the rape. I started to like another guy who I talked to online. But when we decided to meet I freaked out so much that I stopped eating and just stressed about it. I had been dealing with the rape so much that the thought of being with another guy scared me. meeting up was horrible because I felt so ill and anxious and he ended up telling me that he was going back to his gf.
I quit my job because I was so confused and upset, and couldn’t keep calling in sick because I was crying too much or whatever – about the rape really. I still remained talking to the really smart guy from the start.
he buys me flowers and he’s amazing. We really get each other, sometimes. He’s buying a house and says that I’m the girl that he wants to be with and that he’s loved me since the day he met me which was 7 years ago. He’s a great guy. I’m also studying an undergraduate degree, which is good and keeps me busy enough.Anyway I really don’t like my boyfriend talking to other girls. it just really upsets me. He had a girl that he had been friends with. I confronted the girl and said, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk to my boyfriend and she got really offended. My boyfriend has hidden talking to other girls from me, because he thinks it will upset me. He doesn’t talk to other girls all the time. And he said that he’d do anything for me and in the end I win and that if she is going to keep talking to him like that, he picks me over him. So it’s all not an issue.
I want to know if it is okay to address that issue the way that I did? Am I being controlling? Because after talking to my boyfriend about how i found it uncomfortable, and him reassuring me that nothing was going on, and me believing him, I still felt this was the best way I could handle the situation. I don’t want my boyfriend hiding things from me..though?
No. It’s not okay, although with all you’ve been through it is understandable. Really, you’re in no shape to be serious with any guy yet. You’re only 19 and you’ve experienced rapes, betrayals, and rejection from several men. Now you’re with a smart guy you’ve known since you were 12 but you still don’t think you know him well enough to trust him.
You need not only time, but support and good advice, to help you recover your self-esteem and self-confidence. If you don’t find your own inner strength and peace with all that’s happened, you will always be over-reactive to any real or imagined slight. This will lead to more rocky relationships.
If your current guy is as nice as you say, you owe it to yourself and to him to do your own therapeutic work so that your relationship has a chance. Please look for a therapist who is experienced with helping people recover from trauma. Put your relationship on hold for a few months and invest in yourself.
I wish you well.
Dr. Marie
