I've been in a relationship with a man for just over a year. And tbh I feel like a fog is lifting and i can see that the relationship may be toxic, I think i just dont want to let it go as i really bought into 'us' and everything he said to me, he has seemed like the perfect guy for me - very similar taste in music, movies, books, a major shared hobby, both love travel and want the same things out of life, strong physical attraction etc etc. He is 45, I am 36. Both divorced. I have one dc, he has none but says this was because he knew he and his wife wouldn't last but that he would want children of his own, with me. At times it has seemed so good to be true, how much he says he loves me and how he has never felt like this before.
But. I find him quite domineering and possibly controlling/jealous, and I can't push it down and put on the rosy glasses anymore. Since I've met him, he has had a problem with my 'past', as in the fact I have had a few relationships and one night stands as well as obviously being married before. He had 2 gfs as a teen before meeting his wife at 18 and then they were together for 24 years. I was married 7 years, before that had about 4 2-year relationships and in between had some fun, nothing crazy just casual stuff/ons. Pretty normal I think for a 36 year old woman in this day and age. But for him, he says he can't have sex without love/feelings, and he has only slept with 4 women including me, whereas my 'number' is probably more like 20. He brings this up a lot, asking me if i did things (such as taking a bath with him, or certain sex stuff) with other boyfriends, and being a little weird about the idea of it. He also makes comments about how if I loved other boyfriends and those relationships ended, how do I know I wont lose feelings for him too. At the start, when we were friends first before dating, he encouraged me to be open with him and open up but i think that I shared way too much as i felt too comfortable with him, now he uses stuff against me I said months ago.
The other night, he also said he'd searched me and my ex husband online as he wanted to know if I had been in love with my ex-H as much as i am with him, and found our honeymoon website and he said i had misrepresented my (very unhappy, emotionally abusive) marriage when i had talked about it because i'd had this 'huge' (it was actually pretty small) wedding and romantic honeymoon, 7 years ago(!) According to him because he had a cheap reg office wedding and no honeymoon, his own marriage doesn't count as a sign of that type of 'love' and he and his wife were just like friends. He then called into question that i had had a boyfriend from his country (when i was 19) and that although he had also had girlfriends at that age, he hadn't been 'travelling round the world having sex with them'. He is also frequently saying stuff like he doesn't know who I really am and he isn't sure he can trust me, because i had an 'exit affair' from my marriage which I deeply, deeply regret (it wasnt with him.) Then other times he says he thinks i am amazing and he wants to be with me forever. He is upset i havent told my ex-h i am seeing someone else, although we have very little contact now He also says I am too obsessed with talented people (well, men) as I love a lot of male singers/actors and he says I will just leave him for the next shiny thing. Case in point, we went to a one man play at the theatre which I love as it's so intimate and a strong actor can really carry a whole play, and afterwards he sulked all the way home then started an argument saying I obviously fancied the guy (who was middle aged and not attractive at all) because I said i really enjoyed the play. He is also jealous of my dd's bio dad who I havent had contact with for 3 years, because i once said I had really been in love with him (before he left me when i was pregnant) and he has more than once said if dd bio dad came back, he thinks I would leave for him, which is really nuts IMO.
He had a religious upbringing and has some pretty conservative ideas about money, politics, and his brothers and dad sound awful with DV and treating their women badly. He prides himself on not being 'like them' but actually i think maybe he is misogynistic, like Mr Sensitive in lundy bancroft!?
He says he is not jealous, he says he is not controlling, that he doesnt care about my past, but I actually think that is BS. I don't think he will ever get over the fact that unlike him I didnt have just one relationship for my whole adult life. That I have had sex outside of a relationship. He even once said he wished we were both virgins when we met(! given our ages!!) and that he didn't like thinking I had loved other men before and he wants to 'feel like someone special'. I constantly tell him how much I love him, I have written him love poems, etc.. but it is never enough. His insecurity is just killing it. We have argued so many times about this stuff and today i just feel done, but not even sad about it.
This will not get better, right? Or can it, if i lay it on the line now?