I am a horrible person in relationships

[steps2change]

It's only recently that I have seen the pattern. I am literally the needy controlling one that all you MNers warn others about.

3 longterm (ish) relationships.

High school boyfriend. Nothing particularly serious but used to see each other every other weekend and one night in the week. If anything came up on these scheduled times e.g. a party he wanted to go to, I would kick up stink - it's our time together, you have every other day and night to see mates. Avoided meeting any of his new friends when we both went to different colleges. Ended it after 3 years - can't remember what reason I gave but he adored me and I was a bitch.

University boyfriend. Met him in the first couple of weeks as we lived in the same halls. Latched on to him like a limpet. Spent a bit of time with his friends, but this got less as time went on and it became more specifically me-and-him time. He was going to move in with 3 girl friends of his, signed the contract for the house, and I managed to talk him out of it to live with me and a couple of our mutual friends, leaving his 3 friends high and dry and he pretty much lost those friendships. When we lived together we both did see our own friends, but I would tend to try to orchestrate this so it would be on the same night. Avoided meeting his family. Spent 90% of our free time together, and even if I didn't kick up a fuss I still struggled if he went out to spend time with other people for some reason. Ended it after 3 and a half years - got bored. Again he went to the end of the earth for me and I was a bitch.

Current relationship. 3 years in. Long distance. Old enough to not kick up stink but still have this weird possessive nature - expect to have some kind of text conversation / call every night, if he has someone staying over will often stay up late so that I can speak to him when he is free, generally feel unsettled and anxious if I know he is out with other people or at home with guests, even though I wouldn't be with him anyway as it is long distance. Many arguments about arrangements to see each other. He is away this weekend with friends. He likes to tell me all about it but I find it hard to listen to - jealous I guess. We said we wouldn't speak until he got back on Monday - but I got drunk last night and text him at around 2am to test the waters and see what he was up to. Also have a weird anxiety thing regarding if I text him and then don't get a text back for many hours - will spend all of those hours feeling anxious and invariably not focussing on what I am meant to be doing in my own life. Prefer to agree on no contact at all when I know he is definitely busy or with company, otherwise I will wait to see if he will contact me and be disappointed if not.

A lot of the recent relationship stuff is just "feelings" that I struggle with. It does sometimes spill over into behaviour but not as much as it used to (current bf wouldn't take all of my previous shit!)

But I feel a shitty person, feel like I have some kind of personality disorder or something. I just want to be normal and have a happy healthy relationship. Sorry for the essay but it has only recently dawned on me that I have had the same issues right from being a teenager.

Advice? Self awareness helps a little in terms of not reacting to things, but it doesn't stop my internal anxiety / upset.

did you feel included in your parents 'happy that way'-ness? or did you feel outside of their little cocoon too?

suppose it needed be a feeling of being shut out by them - could be as simple as being people with very little need for connection and interaction themselves they failed to meet your needs for those things in a quite casual rather than notable way. there's a great book i read recently on emotional neglect in childhood that made a lot of sense to me. i think it's called 'running on empty'. the author was quite clear that whilst with some of us it comes with abuse of other kinds of parents with personality disorders etc for many it isn't abuse or bad intentions they just didn't have what is needed in order to nurture emotionally maybe because they didn't have it themselves as children and didn't even see there was something they weren't doing for their children itms?

definitely worth a read i think.

it also addresses the way that we have an emptiness we don't know how to fill because we didn't learn and how that impacts on relationships and stuff. that preoccupation can be created by that 'lack' that nags at you and you're trying to fill without even knowing what it is you know? if your parents had little need for emotional connections or social stimulation then in all likelihood they probably didn't meet your need for it.

sorry for multiple posting - here is the book.

I read a bit of the book that punygod suggested last night, and it had a few bits about how people become the way that I am, things to do with childhood and the way they were parented - but I have no complaints about my childhood, I was very secure at home because it was always constant, but I was also an independent child - I would usually be out in the village playing with local kids in all weathers, would amuse myself a lot of the time, was confident and happy - much more so than I am now! It was only really when I became a teenager that I realised that a lot of families weren't like mine. Didn't help that we had no relatives - no aunties / uncles / cousins on either side, no living grandparents.

I wonder if actually I am just a lot like my parents - whether that is more down to nature or nurture I don't know - but once you leave the family home that security and stability is quite a challenge to recreate for yourself, and I cling on to partners because I want someone to fulfil that? I don't have a huge desire for being social - by that I mean that I have a reasonably "social" job where I meet and deal with new people every day and there is lots of team work and interaction - and by the end of the day I am glad to go home and chill - it is rare that I would seek out a group of people to spend an evening with, although I have friends who I see.

I think I am just at my happiest and most settled when I am with my partner. But need to find a way to accept that they can find equal happiness in other areas of life and may need more social stimulation than me.

I will definitely have a look at the book you have suggested - it is all interesting and useful stuff.

This is interesting. My husband has an anxious attachment style and I am avoidant. . Recently I've been on the receiving end of what appears to be protest behaviour. I'm fed up with it.

Reading some of the example protest behaviours, sorry to say I recognise a few of those. Does your husband have any insight into what he does and how unhelpful all those things are? Because until very recently I would do those things and genuinely think I was justified or in the right - it was my partner who was misunderstanding or letting me down. In the past few months I have definitely been more self-aware, which helps to a degree, but it does take a lot of self control because my gut reaction is still some of those protest behaviours.