My boyfriend hates my guts, please help me ltb

[Mouseyinmyhousey]

Back story is that I have been with my boyfriend over four years, I have one dc from a previous relationship, dc was a baby when boyfriend and I got together so boyfriend is all dc has ever known as 'dad'. Relationship was great to begin with and it was always envisaged that we had a future, marriage, moving in together, him being a parent to dc. He talked about the 'future' moreso than me as I didn't go in to it expecting anything.

After about a year together a started wanting a bit more. Eating together as he'd always eat at his mums, planning to move in together, him not dropping me last minute to see mates, him not speaking to women online he'd met on chatrooms. He withdrew massively at this point and I was made to feel as though I was mental and possessive for wanting a bit more commitment. And I actually doubted myself in a big way.

Since then I'm ashamed to admit he's pretty much treated me like shit, he's very good at taking me for a nice dinner or buying me a lovely present but he's pulled so many stunts, breaking up with me, lying and going behind my back, leading me up the garden path only to drop me like a lead weight, I'm mad really not to have just called it a day. I can't possibly go into it all as I'd be here all night but he has pulled some pretty rotten stunts.

Around Christmas time after something else happened I decided enough was enough and ended things. He wasn't too bothered at first but after a few weeks started begging me to get back together, he knew he'd been an idiot, knew he needed to commit, hadn't realised what I meant to him and what he really wanted in life.

I'd had a good few weeks to think things over in my own head and had decided that I wasn't crazy for wanting a boyfriend who was a partner, who after 4 years together would move in, get married, let me get closer to his family as they so desperately want but he's kept me at a safe distance. I knew what I wanted and told him so and that I wasn't going to pretend anymore.

He agreed it was absolutely what he wanted too. He made a huge gesture and bought me a new car as my old one was falling apart, well I put a bulk to it and my old car as deposit but he put most of the money to it. This was one of the things we have argued about in the past as he has a sports car sitting in the garage, a nearly new car, a sports bike and a work van, while I was driving me and dc round in a car with the brakes going. While boyfriend was happy to lodge in my house half the time letting me feed him and do his washing. So I suppose it was his way of showing me that he does care.

Things were a bit better for a few weeks, but then he just went back to his old self.

We just had a lovely weekend it was his birthday and I took him shopping to buy some gifts, we went for a nice meal, got on really well.I raised the subject of the future and it's all come tumbling down again. He's decided that I'm not happy as I'm always 'at him' about moving in or getting married. He needs some space as he can't see how it's going to work. With him this usually leads to weeks of not speaking until he decides he misses me and got it all wrong.

He left a few things here at the weekend and has snuck back in while I was at work to take them. He doesn't have a key and he'd actually snuck my back door keys out so he could get in when I wasn't here. I've also found out he's had the week off work and made out he only ahd the day off, probably because he was scared I might have a few days off too.

I don't know what more I can do to make this man happy, I'm a nice person, I'm kind and I love him very much, I think that I'm attractive and I'm sure he finds me attractive, we have fun and lots of laughs, we've lots in common, we get on well generally and I feel a spark as in we always have lots to talk about and we're very affectionatte to one another.

I can't be doing with the games anymore, all I want is a normal life together but he seemingly doesn't want the same as me. He has a new issue with me every few months. It's getting ridiculous, my dc has started missing him terribly when he goes home and even crying for him.

I have to call it a day don't I? But I don't know how to stay strong.

Oh you poor thing! I know what you are going through, this guy is so manipulative :(

Please contact Womens Aid. You need all the help you can get with this situation.

Sorry for the strange rambling I was just really upset and needed an outlet.

Nothing has happened for the past month in fact he's been acting really nice and I've just been coasting, but I've been starting to feel quite depressed, quite anxious and stuff.

I said I wanted some kind of solid commitment by the end of the month if we were to continue in a relationship. I'm not even sure what I thought this was going to achieve, perhaps my attempts to try to justify things to myself.

Surprise, surprise though he's told me I'm a bully who wants everything to be. on my terms ans pushing him into things won't help. He's seen the light apparently.

I look back at my first post that was two months ago but it feels like a lifetime ago because so much has happened.

I know I've had the best advice possible here and in rl but I don't even trust myself, I feel like an alcoholic who's fallen off the wagon. In fact I've woken up today feeling like I've got a hangover and I don't even drink.

I feel as though I want to run away with ds for 6 months to almost recover from all this. But instead I've got to carry on as normal for ds and faking a smile to the outside world.

Walkacrossthesand, I've probably said this before, but I think the reasons are, I love his nice side, or at least I think I do. I think I want to feel like I'm part of a 'proper' family. Perhaps I've started to think I'm not lovable because I see all these people, happily settled down and um not and living in such dysfunction. Things working out would somehow make me normal, and like everyone else.

But I so realise normal would be stopping all this and living a calm and stable life with ds, but the longer it goes on the more swamped I feel. And in sure I could manage to clear my head over the next few days/weeks but then what stunt is he going to pull.

i think you need to go no contact.
he isn't going to change he just pretends he might to keep you controlled.
even if he gives you solid commitment and moves in, he won't stop the headfuck and will just move out again or threaten to, you will be worrying when he's going all the time.
my ex was just like this, nearly 4 years on and off any sign of me wanting a bit of stability for my ds and off he'd go. even the eating at his mums they could actually be the same person.
i realise now that i wasted those 4years. im not there yet and i also did loads of second guessing myself after being dismissed and put down for so long, but im happier now.

you and ds are a family, a small family but you can be a happy one and that's what matters. one day you can make it bigger with people who deserve to by a part of your life.
do you want more kids mousy? that's my biggest regret from wasting so long with my ex. in the time i was letting him treat me like an idiot i could have met someone nice normal and able to commit and be thinking about a brother or sister for my ds now.
he will probably always be an only now.
you know this guy will never give you what you want

Yes I think I would have liked more children in the right circumstances but I probably never will now.

Oh Mousey, I was a lurker on the thread back in May. Please finish with him. He is making you miserable. Much better to wait and meet a decent man and maybe have another child further down the line. A child with this one would not be a good thing, he is playing mind games and wearing you down as it is.
Don't engage any more, go no contact. I am worried you believe things he says and are blaming yourself? You are NOT a bully, you are standing up for yourself and he doesn't like it. He is trying to gain more control of you.
You will have a much better life for you and Dc without him.

"I feel like an alcoholic who's fallen off the wagon"

You ARE. You are a co-dependent and relationship drama addict.

Loads of us have been there and you can recover. There are steps you can take........first thing is educating yourself about why you cannot validate yourself....what was your childhood like? Were you listened to or were you supposed to "be no bother" and suck things up and just "get on with it"?

Read books, e.g. Women Who Love Too Much. Anything about co-dependency.......get educated. You know you need to leave, it's obvious.....but that bit of doing it will not be done until you understand why you are addicted to this drama and your self esteem is so low.

Alternatively, just LEAVE HIM. Just go into robot mode, go no contact and educate yourself while you are on your own. You really have 2 choices.....a lifetime of SHIT or a few months of a less smelly shit.

Read every word of this

Thanks mcmooncup, I think I KNOW why I'm like this in a lot of ways. I've started to understand what this is all about. It's not that I enjoy the dramas, I honestly don't, it's more that I get swept up and pray the next drama won't come this time.

Perhaps I can change my.phone number as a start? I make excuses not to, like ds friends parents have my number, such and such need my number for that appointment next week.

Great start.
Mission for the day.

I KNOW I've created a fantasy relationship with someone who's never going to get real with me, I've got the Baggae Reclaim book. I KNOW the script.

I've ended things, done no contact, ignored for weeks. Somehow there's just that bit of inner strength which I haven't got.

Even now subconciously there's a part of me thinking, he doesn't mean it, he'll ring me later or next week like always to say he didn't mean it, he was having a bad day/week and he's sorry. And I want to say 'no, fuck off, that's not how you treat people you love', but somehow I'll give in to his determination. But of course everytime he does this, it resets everything back to the beginning doesn't it? So he still doesn't end up having to do anything.

Somehow, despite me putting up with utter shite for over 4 years, I'm a bully and putting 'pressure' on him for simply laying my cards on the table.

I honestly don't even know what I think about anything anymore. I don't even know if deep down I'd even want the commitment if it came, I can never trust or believe what he says, I'd always be waiting for him to cheat or lie or dump me again.

I'm keeping this thread going in part as an outlet and just to hear what I need to hear again, but also because it's evidence, in black and white of the circles he's got me spinning myself in.

This is the third time in the matter of 2 months, it's as though I'm waiting for some magical revelation or answer to end it.

if you don't make a huge change and stick to it, your life will be like this forever.

that's a long time. xxx

i was stuck in a back an forth rut, for 3 yrs op.

I'd get the strength to say that's that, then it would all cave in over time.

I was at a point where i thought i would never feel any differently, and that that was my life.

My situation is different to yours, but it was one where i was so desperate to see him change that i hung in there, believing it could work out.

It took 3 yrs, but the final insult, from him hurt, and i stuck to my guns.

I didn't think it would get better, i honestly didn't, and i had to go a long way down to come out the other side, including a breakdown and illness, which is better now, alot better.

have hope in yourself, have discipline, you deserve it .xxxxx

You know what it is too piratecat, I think that there's a bit of me that thinks, it can't go on like this forever. Even he won't want to be doing this when he's 40. But maybe he will?

He says things like 'I've changed loads from when I did that, I've done this, and this, I'm not so bad'. He says 'I know I take my time to do things but I will do it'. Or sometimes he denies things he done or refuses to acknowledge them.

All irrelevent really, however I guess I have known people stay in terible relationships for years and the relationship is still terrible when they're in their 50's and 60's. But they are married/living together.

Would even he really keep doing this for years and years?

You have to remember that the status quo suits him just fine, mousey - he comes and goes as he pleases, he's not tying himself up in knots analysing and hoping. So he's not going to change, commit, etc - but he will kick back hard if you decide enough is enough, and you have to expect, be prepared for and get through that. Every time you say it's over but take him back, is increasing his conviction that you'll never go through with it - you're going to have to prove him wrong, which will be hard. But as others have said - worth it.

It's true walkacrossthesand he's pressing the reset button, and blaming me but in reality it's just part of his game, even if he doesn't realise it conciously, it's still very intentional to keep things at the level that suits him.

That realisation has come easy to me, it's the power battle that comes next.

Mousey This is how he is, of course he can go on like this forever because this is his personality. He has been like this for the last 4 years, what makes you think he will change in the next 10? Please don't stay in this situation for another 10 years hoping it will change, because it won't - or at least, not in a good way!

A man who actually cared about you and was worth a damn would not be treating you or your DC like this. He's treating you both really badly... he may be promising lots but he will never deliver and you must believe that.

Waiting for "some magical revelation or answer to end it" is a really bad plan. Grab the bull by the horns and do it yourself, taking control of the situation will make you feel so much better.

You can be the hero of this story, you can be the strong person your DC needs, you just need to start standing up for yourself and your DC. You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

Mousey hi, hope you're ok. Stay strong.

Yes, I know a man in his late 40s who is still like this. I went out with him for a while about a year after my ExH left me. Like you, I loved his fabulous side, and he made the grand gestures. But inside he is a grade A shit and behaves like a grade A shit to every woman he knows.

The cold withdrawal, the online chats, the failure to properly commit, the getting close to your children in order to stop you dumping them.... Classic stuff.

Actually I did break up with him quite quickly, thank God, but even to this day he will try to 'get back' with me, but I know it's just a control thing for him.

One of his grand gestures about five years after we split was to get a job back in my old home town which he knew that I missed, and asked me to marry him and uproot to go and live there with him. Yeah, that would have lasted the whole 5 minutes and I'd have been left right in the shit. (He didn't take up the job.)

I am happily with someone else now (whole other thread!)

Please stay no contact. Good luck.

Mousy, please read the 'Listen Up' thread in 'relationships' and also this

One day I hope you'll be posting a similar thread about you

xxx

Thanks, I wish I had some strong women in my life, I think the fact that I don't is a tiny part of my problem.

That's what's great about MN. Lots of strong, caring women to give you a reality check when you need it.