How do I have a healthy relationship?

[OldGoth]

I'm in my late 40s. I experienced physical abuse and emotional abuse as a child. The latter continued until I cut contact in my late 30s. I've had therapy and generally things are OK.

I read back over an old thread I wrote on here a couple of days ago and I honestly didn't even recognise myself as the person who wrote it things have changed so much!

As a result of the trauma, I have only ever had short lived, abusive relationships. Some have been genuinely abusive, some I now see that it was probably my trauma that elicited certain responses from others (not blaming myself per se, but I have a history of dating emotionally unavailable and cold men who couldn't give me what I desperately craved because I couldn't cope with it when they were different).

For the past 6 months, I've been in a relationship with a man I have known socially and in a friendly capacity for a few years. I always looked at him and felt he was exactly the sort of man I wanted to be with yet it never occurred to me that I could be.

Everything came to a bit of a head last year when a man I had been seeing for a couple of years became so ridiculous in his unkindness towards me that I couldn't be upset by him, only laugh. It was like a light bulb flicked on and everything from past just presented itself in complete clarity.

I'm none of the things I was told I am! And even the things that were objectively true weren't negative qualities, they were just not welcomed by people who were so plagued by their own insecurities that they were angered by me.

The man I am now in a relationship with is everything I could have wanted in a partner. Is he perfect? No. Would I want him to be? No. I love him but I know that if it were to end tomorrow, I'd be absolutely fine.

I have no doubts about him specifically.

And yet...

5 months is the point at which I have previously ended all my relationships. I'm past that and I'm now experiencing an overwhelming urge to end things with him. I can feel myself shutting off emotionally. Not in the way I interact with him but inside. I'm raking over ridiculously small things and using them to justify to myself why I need to end it.

By not doing so, I feel I'm just delaying the inevitable. I fully expected, and have spent my whole life accepting, that I would grow old alone and die alone. To be presented with the possibility that this doesn't have to happen feels stifling and suffocating. And I feel silly and foolish for even considering otherwise.

I read threads where people talk about being with partners for 10/20/30 years and I can't even imagine being in a relationship for 1 year.

He's a good and decent man. He's had 2 significant relationships of 10 and 20+ years and I feel I'm doing him a disservice because I don't have anything like the relationship skills and experience to bring to the table.

I'm a mess. But he doesn't know and he only sees the positives.

You seem to have high self-awareness so perhaps speaking with a good therapist about the areas where you feel you’re lacking key relationship skills and qualities would help either defuse your fears or give you specific things to work on?

Unless he's psychologically disordered he knows you're not just all positives and in the same way you accept his complexities he accepts yours. Could you talk to him about this fear you have of sabotaging? After all, this is the heart of healthy relationships.

Have you discussed with him your relationship history and the reasons behind it? Have you talked with him about your fears about long-term relationships?

You sound so self-aware, and so some of this is just going to be sitting with the feelings, accepting they are there and not a true representation of what you believe but a manifestation of unhelpful past coping mechanisms. It sounds like you’re doing that already - sitting with the feelings - but you might need to take the next (scary) step and discuss “the future”.

For instance, the idea of not being alone in old age is stifling and suffocating. Why is that? Are you projecting into a future where you lose your independence and autonomy? If so, it doesn’t need to be that way, there are lots of ways to be in a LTR that don’t involve total togetherness if what you need to be emotionally healthy is a bit of separation.

He's had 2 significant relationships of 10 and 20+ years and I feel I'm doing him a disservice because I don't have anything like the relationship skills and experience to bring to the table.

I’d also say, flip this around. He’s only had 2 significant relationships with 2 people - and relationships are very individual, and the ‘skills’ you learn are somewhat dependent on the other partner in that relationship too. So he’s only had practice with 2 people. You’ve kissed a lot of frogs by comparison, and learned from that too. You’ve also done a lot of therapy and work on your own emotions so you have a deep understanding of your needs and beliefs. You’re not the junior partner in this.

Also you can't overestimate the effect of childhood trauma over your responses now, have you thought about therapy to address core emotional wounds? Most counselling services offer very reasonable rates to those on low incomes.

@speakball

Unless he's psychologically disordered he knows you're not just all positives and in the same way you accept his complexities he accepts yours. Could you talk to him about this fear you have of sabotaging? After all, this is the heart of healthy relationships.

That's partly what I can't accept.

I feel I have to be 'perfect'. He doesn't think I should be and says ally little quirks and foibles are the things he loves about me.

I almost don't want to talk to him about it because I don't want to put doubts into his head.

I’d also say, flip this around. He’s only had 2 significant relationships with 2 people - and relationships are very individual, and the ‘skills’ you learn are somewhat dependent on the other partner in that relationship too. So he’s only had practice with 2 people. You’ve kissed a lot of frogs by comparison, and learned from that too. You’ve also done a lot of therapy and work on your own emotions so you have a deep understanding of your needs and beliefs. You’re not the junior partner in this.

Two long term significant relationships and others that either worked or didn't work for a shorter period of time. I didn't learn anything other than keeping myself safe.

I've never had anyone treat me the way he does and not because there's anything amazing about it, just because he acts and speaks with kindness and love.

some of this is just going to be sitting with the feelings

Yes. That's what I'm doing at the moment. Sitting with them. Listening to them - what are they telling me? What do I need? But that's almost part of the problem because I don't know.

I suppose it feels a lot like, the longer we spend together amd the better we get to know each other, the less I think he'll like me. No matter what he says to the contrary.

@OldGoth

I suppose it feels a lot like, the longer we spend together amd the better we get to know each other, the less I think he'll like me. No matter what he says to the contrary.

OK.

So that’s a deep-seated vulnerability rooted in the trauma you have suffered from your primary caregiving relationship in childhood and adulthood.

(I know you know this! Just thinking it through as I type)

So it’s not that you’re suffocated by the idea of being with someone long-term. It’s still just the same old protective defensive instinct rearing it’s head - expose yourself as bad/unworthy before he ‘finds out’ and that way you’re in control; you hurt yourself to stop him doing so.

Relationships are all about becoming more vulnerable as you trust someone - they’re a paradox because in order to deepen trust you must make yourself vulnerable but you must trust to be able to do it.

You have to trust him that he loves your quirks- they’re not a design flaw they’re a feature. If he’s telling you this with both his words and his actions you are safe to trust that he means it.