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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Am I being precious? Really not sure if I am asking too much or not.

87 replies

whostheJohnsonnow · 29/08/2015 22:13

Just that really. I would appreciate some opinions.

I've officially been with my DP for 9 months now. In all that time he has never once taken me out on a proper date. When I say proper I mean a date where he has arranged it, and decided where we go etc. Yes we have been on nights out, but I have ALWAYS been the one to suggest the venue, and basically implement the whole thing.

I've mentioned several times (meaning about a million times!) that I would love him to arrange to take me out...just once! It just never happens. He was supposed to be taking me out tonight, but even at midnight last night had no idea where he was taking me, saying that he would "look for something"

Am I being a spoilt princess just to want him to take the initiative? I just feel a bit rubbish about it all. Even this morning he was asking if I wanted to "do something" tonight, but no mention of what that thing might actually be. It's really starting to become an issue, and I'm not even sure if I have any right to let it be one?

OP posts:
ARV1981 · 31/08/2015 07:12

Aghhh sorry he's a total shit.

But at least you get to leave knowing that even if he got a job and pulled his finger out, he'd still not be a great bf. And that you deserve better.

Because really, you do. Leave him now. Block all contact and get your revenge by having a happy life filled with joy, laughter, fun and love.

thehypocritesoaf · 31/08/2015 07:47

Ah, well now you know for sure Sad

What a crap 'boyfriend' he is. Please don't tolerate this.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 31/08/2015 07:58

It's like they love me for how I make them feel

I think you're spot on there, I think lots and lots of relationships are actually about people loving how the other person makes them feel rather than genuine love. I think you need to take a look at your own patterns too and honestly ask yourself whether your feelings bear any relation to this? You say you're a caretaker - do you feel wanted and needed when you are busy running his life and chivvying him into being a better person?

Also you say he's young - are you young too? Dating can be tricky but you need to be uncompromising. You don't need to be lonely if you make use of the good friends you have.

whostheJohnsonnow · 31/08/2015 10:33

I'm in my thirties, so really not that young. Old enough to be taken for an old (er) fool; which I clearly have been here.

I have had counselling in the past; with varying degrees of success. Currently on the list for NHS counselling, and going back to GP on Friday to have my meds upped.

Genuinely terrified that there is something wrong with me though. I feel like I'm broken, but how can I fix it when I can't even identify what is wrong with me? It's like he fell out with me in the space of 4 weeks. As soon as I start being "horrible" he's off like a shot. It just proves me theory that people only want me when I'm permanently happy and smiling.

I gave him SO much, and he's ended up semi despising me. How the hell does that even happen? I would quite like just once in my life to have a relationship that doesn't end with me sobbing on the floor.

OP posts:
Twinklestein · 31/08/2015 11:55

There's absolutely nothing wrong with you, and everything wrong with them. You sound like a lovely person, you work hard at two jobs, you're obviously very caring, the problems lies simply with your man choices. You're not finding the male equivalent of you. Someone who wants to look afer you as much as you want to look after them.

You're interpreting bfs major character defects as some kind of judgement on you. They're not.

It's not a question that your BF doesn't love you enough to get a job, he doesn't love anyone enough, that's how badly he doesn't want to work.

The freedom programme is a great idea.

Twinklestein · 31/08/2015 12:00

It just proves me theory that people only want me when I'm permanently happy and smiling

No, it proves he was a total loser and you've gone out with other men who were tossers too. When you started to step up to normal adult behaviour, he ran away.

I think you get what you expect in life, and if you have low expectations of men, you end up with men quite low down on the evolutionary ladder.

Twinklestein · 31/08/2015 12:01

You started to expect him to step up ^^

whostheJohnsonnow · 31/08/2015 13:20

Thank you Twinklestein. I probably am taking it too personally, and it says more about him than me.

I don't think my boundaries are that skewed now generally though. I've binned a few men off in the last few years cos I've known they weren't suitable. This one is different though. I've known him for nearly 3 years, and I really do love him.

I thought he loved me too. He's done such a massive turnaround in the space of a month. Yes I have been pretty horrid lately, but I've had so much stress. He lost his job, I'm exhausted from my 2 jobs and I have depression & anxiety to boot. To be told repeatedly that I'm being horrible, and this is basically all my fault because of that is utterly heart-breaking.

OP posts:
TalkingintheDark · 31/08/2015 13:21

The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with you, but there is something wrong with the way you see yourself - and that's not your fault, it's the fault of the way you were brought up. Because the way we see ourselves comes very much from the way we're treated by those around us in our earliest years. They don't call them the "formative" years for nothing.

So if, one way or another, you learned as a child that you didn't have any intrinsic worth, or that your worth lay only in what you could do for others, this (possibly unconscious) message would go very deep in you and you would carry it with you into adulthood.

Then you would be drawn to people who would be likely to see you and treat you in a similar way - because it's what's familiar so it feels "safe", even thought it's the opposite of safe. So then your new experiences compound the original damage to your sense of self and confirm the pre-existing patterns, which in turn lead you to rinse and repeat, and it's the classic vicious circle.

So your job is to address this faulty image of yourself that you were given as a child, and to refuse to believe it, no matter how much the evidence seems to back it up. Look for all the evidence of the opposite. Believe instead that you are a good person, a decent person, someone loving and caring and hardworking, with a lot to offer the right person - that right person being someone who will love and care for you equally.

It takes work, but instead of using your time, energy and money trying to better the life of this miserable man, use it to love and care for yourself and turn these patterns around.

No, counselling isn't always effective - there are some truly shit counsellors and therapists around, unfortunately - but there are also some really brilliant ones. Shop around, find someone who you feel really "gets" you, someone who will help you get to the heart of whatever dynamics they were that conspired to make you feel so worthless, and challenge them. You've had a long time to learn that you weren't worth much and didn't deserve love, now it's time to re-learn everything and see that you are worth a lot and you do deserve real love.

All of us replying to you on this thread can see that, I'm sure - and the change will come when you too can see it and believe it. I hope you can.

Btw, am speaking from experience here - truly dire relationship history in the past, but I've been with my DH for over a decade now, and he loves and cares about me as much I love and care about him. It's extraordinary when you've been used to being treated like crap when you finally get together with someone who's actually the same as you, one of the good guys. It seemed impossible that I would ever be in this position, and my 40th birthday came and went before I found him, but it happened. Don't give up on yourself, who else is going to fight your corner if you don't?!

TalkingintheDark · 31/08/2015 13:25

X-post. Sorry it's so painful for you at the moment. It sounds awful. But he really wasn't good enough for you. One day you will be able to see that.

Twinklestein · 31/08/2015 13:40

To be told repeatedly that I'm being horrible, and this is basically all my fault because of that is utterly heart-breaking

I understand it feels painful, but you must see if for what it is: a massive great lie.

He's simply an immature twit who twists your normal problems of adult life like stress, and your expectations of him to act like an adult, as 'being horrible'. Then he tells you breaking up is your fault when actually his refusal to engage with adult world that is the problem.

Why d'you even think he's telling the truth when he says that? He's so clearly trying to dump the whole responsibility onto you?

Twinklestein · 31/08/2015 13:45

It takes work, but instead of using your time, energy and money trying to better the life of this miserable man, use it to love and care for yourself and turn these patterns around.

Absolutely this. Write this down and stick it on your fridge.

It turns out this wretched little man didn't even want to be fixed, and isn't even grateful for what you've done for him.

You might as well have spent all of that time and money on nurturing yourself.

You need to stop trying to rescue and fix other people, and have the compassion and value for yourself to do it for you.

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