why do i want to sabotage my relationship?!?

[DazedAndConfused42]

right, please don't think i'm an utter cow but i have in the past cheated on pretty much all my ex's. the only person i have remained truly faithful to is DP but think i'm sabotaging this relationship too.

Things have moved very fast for us, DD was born only just short of us being together for 2 years and she is now 14 months. Yesterday was our 3 year anniversary and it was really incredibly dull. DP cooked a lovely meal but we didn't sit at the table, we just sat in front of the tv as per usual (DD was in bed and it was meant to be a nice romantic night but it didn't happen).

Aside from that though, my mind is going mental with all these thoughts of cheating and leaving DP to find someone new. But deep down in my heart i know i never ever want to leave him, he is the only person i have ever truly loved.
He does have some issues though, he has a very short fuse and is currently trying to deal with his anger problem. He is making progress and on the outside things seem to be looking up for us but on the inside i am in turmoil.

I couldn't speak to him about my feelings as he has always said i'll probably just cheat on him like i have everyone else, but i have always been determined to not let that happen. But there's still something in my stupid head that wants that excitement of doing something 'wrong' or naughty. It is getting out of hand. I don't think i would ever do anything physically with anyone other than my DP any more but just the other day i was fantasising about sexting my sort of ex (it was always a casual thing with this guy so i know he would respond to the sexting). I keep fantasising about doing things with old lovers and old friends all the time and it's even getting in to my dreams!!! What can i do to stop this? i don't want to ruin this relationship, my DP is the best thing that has ever happened to me and we have a beautiful daughter together and i want us to remain together for very long time. So why can't i get these thoughts out of my head?!!

i think Barbaraw you are asking Dazed to assess her relationship my focusing on positive too?

The good times are frequent too, so that's not to be dismissed.

I do think this is beneficial Dazed but please think about the times when you feel like crap.

Is your P making you happy? The fact that you cant raise things without fear of argument/ reaction from P is not right.

Do want a weekly drama/huffing/feeling really distraught as you can't communicate with P?

Do you want to groped and feel that you have to step up your libido?

Its give and take but not balanced all in one person's favour all the time.

Af and Pictish seem to give solid advice and you know how much you can deal with.

Could you put a % of how often you feel like utter crap versus how often you feel great?

catballou, oh noooo, I dont think the relationship is ok! Im just not as to the point as the others. i was composing/ typing whilst you posted yours.

To be very clear, I think when someone has anger issues they need to address, this is very serious.

OP, i just dont want you to jump into a decision to end/pause the relationship lightly nor do I want you to feel like absolute crap a great deal of the time because that can really damage your self esteem and these issues probably wont be hidden/ invisible to DD if the current state of affairs continue.

Thanks Catsanddogs. I was focusing on the positive because from Dazed comments, there seems to be lot of good in the relationship. I'm not saying to put on a rose-tinted glasses and forget about or dismiss the "bad times" and thank you Catsanddogs for bringing the questions up so that Dazed can think about it from different perspectives. I believe none of us (apart from Dazed herself) have enough information to say the relationship is right or wrong and even if we had all the information it would only be "right" or "wrong" from our own perspectives. The person who matters here is Dazed and how she feels about the relationship as a whole and what she believes is going well and what needs improvement. From her comments, it seems to me that she wants to make it work and all I was doing was to try to encourage a heartfelt understanding for both her and her parter's behaviour. It's hard to understand anything if we jump to conclusions and start putting "labels" on things and behaviours.

Certain "things" and "behaviours" need labelling because they are damaging and not compatible with a healthy relationship.

Not acknowledging them as such, and focussing only on the positives sweeps them under the carpet. Where they fester and promote further unhealthy dynamics.

Like the one demonstrated here by the OP herself. She is blaming his "anger" on her not giving him enough sex. That is a shocking example of victim blaming she's got going on there, and should be "labelled" as such.

I agree Eggy.

This man doesn't like women, does he? He's got no respect for them; he doesn't regard them as being 'people' and for him they're the equivalent of plastic blow-up dolls, put on this planet to gratify/satisfy his desires.

One minute he's Mr Romantic lavishing you with compliments and the next he's Mr Short-fuse full of anger; he's 'permanently horny' and he has a 'ridiculous need for sex all the time'.

It seems to me he's trying to prove something to himself and I'd hazard a guess he's in denial about his gay gene feminine side.

I'd hazard another guess that you've picked up on this which is why you're spending an inordinate amount of time fantasising about men you know to be manly hetero types.

Aaargh, again, there are problems in the OP's relationship - the relationship isn't ok!! I would love the OP to open up a bit more about how she feels about the anger issue and the pressure for sex.

Sorry Barbaraw but I think abusive, nasty behaviour can be objectively identified from someone outside of the situation.

OP, please can you tell us more about how his behaviour makes you feel?

I was just wondering how people would feel if a work colleague was constantly groping them, making lewd suggestions and had a lousy temper. I think, even if you made a great working partnership in all other respects, you'd be looking to get him off your team and fired for abusive behaviour.

Isn't it slightly odd, then, to consider such behaviour acceptable or normal in an intimate relationship? I would have thought you'd want more respect and consideration from your partner than a colleague, not less.

aha, garlic, but some people buy into the idea that because he fancies her sooooooo much he can't help himself

and she is his wife, so he's entitled, ain't he

and if she don't put out, she risks him going elsewhere because his sex drive is so massive

blah blah fucking blah

Yeah, wouldn't it be awful if such a catch went elsewhere ... !

OK. We need to call things what they are and again I'm not saying anything should be swept under the carpet, but anger does not equal abuse and it can certainly be a "healthy" emotion depending on what the person who is angry does with it! Also, I could not tell that anyone was "blaming" anyone and again this is a perfect example of making judgments. Calling things "victim blaming" assumes there is some sort of "abuse" going on and that one person is deliberately harming the other person, which might not be the case at all.

@Catsanddogs - I completely agree! Abusive behaviour CAN be objectively identified from the outside, IF you have enough information. I would not be at all surprised if DazedAndConfused42 would NOT want to share any more details or talk about her feelings as it seems there is quite a lot of "hostility" and judgment here!

However you look at the OP's relationship, both parties to it are conflicted and it's not coming across as being in any way 'healthy'.

Barbara, OP writes: His anger seems to be improving for the time being and i am trying to support him but it is hard. Especially when he does something i see as totally irrational and i tell him so, it just makes him worse.

She's not talking about someone who gets annoyed and needs to work out his irritation. She's described a serious problem that even the perpetrator agrees he needs help for. I don't understand why you're invested in painting it as healthy/normal/okay?

Barb, do not try to insinuate there is hostility and judgement towards the OP on this thread

that would be a shitty thing to do

OP, my dh is similar and though I also would not call it abuse, its not right either. He also likes to compliment, buy flowers, cook meals etc, but he wants his pound of flesh, I.e. he gropes constantly, talks dirty, and when I complain he says he really fancies me, I.e. it's my fault for turning him on.
He likes to dominate, although he does not physically threaten me. He will do something nice, like a weekend getaway but won't ask my input on booking details, he calls it making an executive decision. I call it being a selfish twat who likes to call the shots. But abuse?
We are going to counseling, but appointments are few and far between. Still, only way to go IMO.

Hmmm. There's a reason why the Freedom Programme book is called "Living with the Dominator".

I have not invested in painting IT healthy/normal/OK, whatever you mean by IT. I did say that anger CAN be healthy and that being angry or having "anger issues" does NOT necessarily equal abuse. I also said that having thoughts and fantasies is normal. At no point did I say that being abused is OK or encourage staying in an unhappy relationship, but what you just said there is a perfect example of taking words out of context and making it something it is not, just like you are taking their relationship out of context and making judgments about something you don't really have much information about.

@EggyFucker - I'm not insinuating there is hostility and judgment TOWARDS OP!!!!! I'm just saying that there is a lot of negative comments flying around and people making assumptions and judgments. I said I would not be surprised if she would not want to share more details because I certainly would not want to talk about my intimate relationship with people who don't know the ins and outs but are quick to judge and make opinions about OP, her partner and their relationship.

OP asked for advice.

On the Relationships topic

If you don't think people should give their opinion about her relationship, Barb, you don't quite understand the premise.

I clearly might not be understanding the premise of this forum but it seems to me that OP's questions were not along the lines of "Is my relationship right or wrong" or "Should I put up with my partner's anger? Her original question was "Am I sabotaging my relationship and explained her thoughts and fantasies. A lot of people picked up on the anger of her partner as it is CLEARLY a challenge, which is causing stress in the relationship and once again let me say that I am not dismissing it or in any way condoning harmful behaviour. I agree that the anger "issue" needs to be explored and there is a lot of great advice flying around. Unfortunately only a few people are actually curious enough to get to the bottom of OP's questions and find out more about the situation, so that they can make an opinion based on more context. What concerns me is that there are quite a few words being used which have negative connotations e.g. "blaming" "victim" "abuse" "perpetrator" "bad tempered" "misogynistic" and this is the type of language and attitude that I call hostile and negative.

ah, yes the anger thing seems to have been picked up on, as well as sex stuff. They are all parts of the relationship that myself and DP are working on isolating and eliminating. He talks about his 'beating anger' book to me and some of what Barbaraw said was actually in the book!! Hence i picked up on that and took on board her advice. I know on this topic there are some horrendous tales of abuse in relationships, i don't experience any of those things. It is possible to be angry and have an anger problem without it leading to abuse, which it what is happening with us. DP has his issues, his problems, and he knows this. We are trying to sort them out and work through them, but that wasn't really what my original post was about... of course looking back there are underlying issues that are probably causing my fantasies and this thread has highlighted that for me, so has proven quite useful. There will always be the people who shout 'leave him' but we are working through our issues together, if that ever stops then i would leave, but not while we are still trying so hard. I'm not exactly an angel either, i can be distant, i don't know what i want half the time and i can be passive aggressive, so neither of us are perfect but we are trying to make things better.

Now hopefully these daft thoughts will go away soon... :)

OP, the thread you started last month where you describe "walking on eggshells", "being fearful of raising issues with him" and refer to him as "aggressive" doesn't paint him as someone who is "trying hard"

Dazed, have perhaps i misunderstood. i thought you were distraught from his anger and felt under pressure about sex stuff. so the anger isn't directed at you or in relation to the things you have said or done according to P? Then you must feel pissed off but not on eggshells?

To answer your OP, yes, it is not abnormal to fantasise about things but there are obvious limits/caveats like obsessing or taking steps towards fulfilling your fantasies. Delete your ex partner's number. No temptation then. The fantasising is maybe that you hankering for a better relationship/ less roller coaster like or to escape the recurrent crap that you face with an arsey P.

Im going to bow out of this thread now.

I really hope that you and your P can find success or a happy medium some way. Relationships are never without their problems but if your esteem is being lowered etc, then seriously, take control.