Can someone tell me what it feels like to be properly loved after being in a relationship where you felt mostly insecure?

[sleeplessnights56]

My DP makes me feel incredibly insecure. Not in terms of cheating but in terms of our future...everything he says is generally different to what he does. He rarely includes me in big decisions and tends to go through life very selfishly. He doesn't care too much if I feel upset,

I don't think this is me, but it could be I suppose? Maybe I'm expecting too much.

Has anyone found happiness after being in a relationship like this, and if so, how is it different?

I am in my second marriage after a very very long relationship (15 years) which was emotionally abusive. He was a selfish, commitment phobic, cheating, lying man, and it just escalated and escalated. The first to few years he was charming, then very slowly it unravelled. We only ever married because after a decade I left, and he wheedled me back with a proposal and promises. We did marry, but that was pretty much ruined as even the night before he whispered to me in a room full of guests that he was fairly sure he wanted to get married but not sure to me. Why I didn't just walk away I will never know, I was very weak from years of being put second and in some strange way didn't understand what proper love felt like and thought that was it. It most certainly wasn't! In the end after multiple affairs in our marriage he was diagnosed as a sociopath. Not a surprise as the end, the the journey was long and it didn't happen overnight. Maybe more extreme than you, but you get the idea.

Now I am married to a man with a 'normal' views of life and behaviours and it is a world apart. I don't constantly have to think about emotional things, or analyse behaviour, or wonder what is coming next. That stuff (although you don't always realise it at the time) is frankly exhausting. You turn yourself inside out so much for such selfish people, and spend so much time thinking about them and their stuff, that you don't give enough headspace to you. The whole thing becomes skewed then you run the risk of becoming emotionally dependent as well, and it's just wrong on every level.

I don't HAVE to work massively hard at my marriage now, it just works. We fit like two pieces, not like something which takes energy and effort. There are no games, no battles, no strategies, no adrenaline ups and downs, no panics, no tears and we work as a team, aiming for the same things. And best of all I don't have to think about any of that stuff either. My brain felt so free, it kind of emptied of all that rubbish. I can think about good stuff instead. Real love doesn't hurt, it just feels comforting like a blanket. I don't get fireworks when he walks in the room, but I love him like no one else and always will, and I know he feels the same.

Are you married? How long have you been together?

Thanks so much for your reply!

The way you describe your relationship with your ex is exactly what I am going through. It is like a battle. And ups and downs, panics, tears etc. It's awful.

I'm not married. I thought I wanted to marry this man, but like you say in your post, I have no time to think about me, ever. I genuinely don't. It's all about what his next move will be..it's become second nature to me to only think of him. My fault, too there I suppose.

I feel so screwed up from my relationship, as if it is all my fault. The worst characteristic of my DP is that he seems to have absolutely NO empathy. I can be crying on the phone and he doesnt seem to show any sign of reaction. It's horrible. yet I feel so traapped as we planned our whole future together.

I was with a man who made me feel very similar to what you're describing. It's emotional abuse and it wears down yourself esteem.

Abuse doesn't have to mean someone screaming and grabbing you violently. With my ex it was very insidious, he'd do things that made me doubt myself and if I'm honest the more he pushed me away or acted like he didn't care the more I'd try to change myself or appease him so that he'd love me. When I walked away, he came running back with promises of children, marriage and a perfect life. Suffice to say I fell for it and within two weeks he'd gone back to his old ways and I just had to draw the line.

How long have you been together and do you have dcs?

Being properly loved is not the amount of hard work you describe. It feels like team work dealing with all of life's ups and downs together. Not you scrambling to change yourself under a misguided illusion that he'll eventually love you or he'll eventually change. Quite frankly, relationships like you have described leave you with a battered sense of self. Even the question you ask in your OP is in a way self-answering, you know that what this man is offering you is not love. In fact he sounds as if he holds you in contempt.

Lack of empathy can be a sign of many things, depression or something more linked to his personality, or just that he's emotionally leaving and can't get to the point of saying that?

I almost felt physically addicted. All that emotion equates to huge physical responses and it almost wasn't a normal weekend if I hadn't been reduced to tears at least twice, during which time it would become more and more extreme to try and gain a response from him which there wouldn't be. Unless I really really pushed him then he'd chuck something across the room. He couldn't process emotion like I could, I still don't understand what it must have been like to be in his head. Outwardly everyone thought he was a bit quirky but lovely, it was only when I left and I told a few close friends how it really was and they were astonished. They all said if they'd known they would have supported me in leaving much sooner. It was a very very destructive and unhealthy place to be.

I hear he has buggered up subsequent relationships in a similar way!

I don't have regrets but I do feel aggrieved that I 'gave' the best years of my life to that man. Every single event during that time was altered or affected by him and his ways. Every film, concert, holiday, night out, event, wedding, birthday, every single one tinged in some way. And if not tinged then tinged with worry that it would be. I remember looking at other couples and feeling different and sad, and resentful. And yet feeling that we were just a tiny bit different and maybe it could change which tantalisingly kept me there.

I can't tell you what to do, but I will tell you that life is very short and you shouldn't waste any of it on someone who doesn't make you happy right now as things are, without 'changing'.

I am not very good with words.

I feel completely loved.

DH respects me, my voice, my choices, my thoughts- he shows this with not only his words but also his actions.
He thinks I an amazing and tells me this, but it also shows in things he says to other people about me, however he is aware of not so positive parts to my personality, he is very good at how he responds to these and checks me if I am going to off whack- but he does this in a way where he is still being supportive.
He discusses things with me, respects my opinion (even when we don't agree) and we will work together to get to an outcome we are both happy with.
I know there is not anything he would not do for me, and our families if humanly possible.

It sounds to me you are a passenger on his train.