My boyfriend shames me

[Key Elements]

@Preety_India you know, tbh here, I think patience is a key word. For example, he and most other guys, maybe, are not willing to be good acquaintances or friends for a long stretch of time. If this happens, if the exes were more willing to 'just be friends' from the beginning, then you would have seen their characteristics better. You might want to hang around 'happily married couples,' or other ppl from different walks of life. It's just to observe different ppl and learn from them. I'm picturing that your exes just want to hurry into an intimate relationship almost immediately. I don't know what you were thinking in those moments, but to me, any guy approaching me out of nowhere is a very unattractive quality because I don't know him at all. It doesn't make sense to me why he's behaving like that. I just assume that all he wants to do is just to get laid, and that's it. It probably shows in my face that I'm getting pissed, and so they stay away. But, of course, some can't read facial expressions. In my mind, I'm saying to myself, "why is he doing this? You don't even know what I want in a guy. You don't know what my boundaries are. And, I'm not going to tell you too. Because if I did, most likely you're going to tease me and call me funny names." See, I bet a decent guy would not only wait a while, but he would have self-reflected enough to discuss boundaries--any boundaries. And, he wouldn't go around gossipping to his guy buddies or gal buddies about whatever you said. What are the pros and cons of any boundaries? You cannot just pass off a boundary as a con and just say, "hey, anything goes for the better." There has to be some planning.

Hint: boundaries turn approaching guys off. They don't want to do the work.

[Guided]

24 minutes ago, Key Elements said:

@Preety_India you know, tbh here, I think patience is a key word. For example, he and most other guys, maybe, are not willing to be good acquaintances or friends for a long stretch of time. If this happens, if the exes were more willing to 'just be friends' from the beginning, then you would have seen their characteristics better. You might want to hang around 'happily married couples,' or other ppl from different walks of life. It's just to observe different ppl and learn from them. I'm picturing that your exes just want to hurry into an intimate relationship almost immediately. I don't know what you were thinking in those moments, but to me, any guy approaching me out of nowhere is a very unattractive quality because I don't know him at all. It doesn't make sense to me why he's behaving like that. I just assume that all he wants to do is just to get laid, and that's it. It probably shows in my face that I'm getting pissed, and so they stay away. But, of course, some can't read facial expressions. In my mind, I'm saying to myself, "why is he doing this? You don't even know what I want in a guy. You don't know what my boundaries are. And, I'm not going to tell you too. Because if I did, most likely you're going to tease me and call me funny names." See, I bet a decent guy would not only wait a while, but he would have self-reflected enough to discuss boundaries--any boundaries. What are the pros and cons of any boundaries? You cannot just pass off a boundary as a con and just say, "hey, anything goes for the better." There has to be some planning.

I think you're onto something here. I never could understand this whole 'let's build sexual attraction so we can fuck as soon as possible' thing, 

I guess other guys would say I'm 'losing out on opportunities passing by every day', but, at least in my experience, trying to go from zero to hero with girls in the shortest possible amount of time invariably ended up with disappointment! Hell, to this day, I don't enjoy approaching unknown girls and women with the intention of initiating a sexual/romantic relationship. Too much unnecessary pressure, too much tension from the get go. (Not to say I don't do it at all though - sometimes the mutual attraction is so strong my body just moves to approach by itself.)

I'm glad there's some people out there who see it similarly. 

@Preety_India Honestly, I know the sense of attraction will say you want him/her NOW but this thing really does takes patience!

Try to let the tension build over time and see what happens! All the man to woman relationships (even the so called flings) I've had in the past were with women who I saw on a frequent basis throughout my normal day. She was just simply around. I never had to push or consciously try to meet her or create more attraction - I just did it naturally, without thinking, through authentic communication and awareness of her body language. (I was of course aware of the attraction) We simply got to know each other better through daily/semi-daily contact, and it is how I learnt more about their personality and, of course, boundaries. A person will usually tell you what their boundary is themselves, if they sense you are a viable partner. This philosophy of no-chasing might seem like you're 'missing out', but honestly, you aren't missing out on a single thing. Actually, yeah, you are missing out on some unnecessary stress and frustration. Sounds like a good deal to me.

I hope this makes some sense, apologies if I'm rambling too much  

[Preety_India]

@Key Elements  I think in my case it was more about naivety. I was just naive and his affection caused me to believe that it's true love. As women we are taught growing up that we should manage,we should adjust, we should be patient and kind and motherly and understand a man's weakness. I think I was trying to fix the relationship throughout the relationship rather than thinking that it's toxic to me. I have a lot of dignity in myself as a person,I have no idea how I allowed myself to be mistreated,the only reason that comes to my mind is that I was passionately in love and justifying my efforts to keep going in the relationship as a sign of my true love and loyalty to him. It was like a test I had to pass to prove my love.

With the kind of blackmail language he used, I was being prepped to think that I am only loving if I can prove it. 

I knew him only for two weeks before totally falling in love with him,which says a lot about how stupid I really was. 

My exes didn't come out of nowhere. Either they were my neighbors, college friends or workplace friends. They weren't complete strangers. So I knew them before the relationship. But they were very sweet which is baffling to me, how manipulative a man's approach towards a woman can really be. 

I'm a naive believer, I trusted too much too quick. Part of it was because I always thought being judgemental is so cruel. So even if they had a bad past I was still able to forgive their past or their flaws very easily. 

I remember one of my exes who said something sexually awkward to me like public sex, and at the time, I didn't even think very seriously about it. I was prone to taking everything lightly as long as it was " love ". ... because I never believed that a person can hurt in love. It's a sort of naive trust . The lack of skepticism in me which is the lowest. The level of openness I have that can be easily taken advantage of. 

Now I really don't know how to think of relationships. If I take it as a science and analyse it under a microscope everyday, it will get too mechanical like career planning . Plus there is still no guarantee that it will be good because men have so many different faces they hide from a woman. Let's say I marry the best guy, he treats me with a lot of respect, but what if he changes dramatically 3 months into the marriage. What if he starts drinking or gets a job problem and then begins to take out his life frustrations on me till the point of divorce .

The fact of the matter is that we can never know for sure if a person is really good or really bad , we can only judge based on present behavior, but a good person can turn bad and vice versa.

Nor is there a guarantee if a marriage will really work just because the lovebirds were happy in the first year before marriage. Things can radically change over time 

The only thing we can do is establish probabilities. The probability of a good future  with a  person who is showing good behavior is high. The probability of a good future with a person who is already showing red flags is extremely low. 

The key is patience. And not rush both emotions and sex. The problem is that men don't wait. They won't sit around for long. But here is the important part, if he really loves he will wait till the woman is convinced he is safe to be with, so a woman can set the rules 

Ahhh. Well I didn't know this much about relationships when I was dealing with them, wish I had this much knowledge as I have now. Now whatever I know is directly from experience, bad experience rather. 

I remember a saying that goes like this ...if you are too slow to learn,you will learn the harder way. 

If you are quick to learn, you won't have regrets. 

I still don't fully regret the whole experience. It was mind blowing. It taught me a lot about people,about men, about relationship dynamics , about my own psychology, about sex, about romance and affection, about relationship challenges and about narcissistic abuse. 

At least I'm more matured than before. Now I at least know what to avoid in a man or the type of men to avoid. 

I was clever with one thing. Although I was passionately in love with him, I did not go ahead and marry him blindly, a mistake many young women make in their lives and regret their entire lives. They get pregnant with the wrong man. 

I'm grateful that I wasn't physically abused. Because just an hour ago I read about a married woman in Sharjah beaten by her husband where she lost one eye. That's how bad things can be. 

I'm still grateful that this was only emotional psychological abuse. And thank goodness I didn't marry him. Because I could have been homeless or in jail just for trusting him so much in the name of blind love . 

I guess the human need for love is extreme. And when you are deprived of love in childhood this need becomes exponential as an adult and manifests itself as codependency as it shows in me. 

But self awareness is the first step towards spiritual development. I'm now aware of the kind of person I have become as an adult. This relationship exposed my weaknesses. It worked as a shield. Sometimes bad experiences teach you valuable life lessons. This shield means in the future I will be hyper aware of people I engage with and avoid destructive pathological people easily. I've got lifetime protection from bad people because I'm now very sensitive and alert at catching the behavioural signs which are dangerous for my mental health. 

I have avoided the personalities similar to my exes. But this guy was different from my ex. His style was different. So it was an entirely new experience for me. 

But since I'm completely physically safe, I should just feel grateful for what I have. 

Of course it's like once bitten twice shy . I have suffered so much in the relationship that I will never take any risks again. I don't want to lose my life and sanity in the name of love. 

And love is not love if it's destructive. 

I'm glad that I'm a better person today and that the experience has taught me certain things about people and life. 

But I won't make anymore mistakes just for the sake of learning. This experience has been more than enough to teach me a lot. 

 

 

 

[Preety_India]

34 minutes ago, Guided said:

I think you're onto something here. I never could understand this whole 'let's build sexual attraction so we can fuck as soon as possible' thing, 

I guess other guys would say I'm 'losing out on opportunities passing by every day', but, at least in my experience, trying to go from zero to hero with girls in the shortest possible amount of time invariably ended up with disappointment! Hell, to this day, I don't enjoy approaching unknown girls and women with the intention of initiating a sexual/romantic relationship. Too much unnecessary pressure, too much tension from the get go. (Not to say I don't do it at all though - sometimes the mutual attraction is so strong my body just moves to approach by itself.)

I'm glad there's some people out there who see it similarly. 

@Preety_India Honestly, I know the sense of attraction will say you want him/her NOW but this thing really does takes patience!

Try to let the tension build over time and see what happens! All the man to woman relationships (even the so called flings) I've had in the past were with women who I saw on a frequent basis throughout my normal day. She was just simply around. I never had to push or consciously try to meet her or create more attraction - I just did it naturally, without thinking, through authentic communication and awareness of her body language. (I was of course aware of the attraction) We simply got to know each other better through daily/semi-daily contact, and it is how I learnt more about their personality and, of course, boundaries. A person will usually tell you what their boundary is themselves, if they sense you are a viable partner. This philosophy of no-chasing might seem like you're 'missing out', but honestly, you aren't missing out on a single thing. Actually, yeah, you are missing out on some unnecessary stress and frustration. Sounds like a good deal to me.

I hope this makes some sense, apologies if I'm rambling too much  

I did get to know all of my exes gradually but still a bit faster, not too slow. I'm impulsive plus I show codependent behavior which means I will get emotionally bonded super fast. Like within days. So in some ways my own weaknesses made me a favorable target for abusive relationships. 

That's how exactly abusive relationships are. There is something in the woman also, like a deficiency that keeps such a relationship afloat. 

However there is one crucial difference. I wasn't the kind of person too desperate for a relationship and diving right in for any man who showed interest. Often I wasn't attracted to men who were attracted to me..plus it wasn't like he said he loves me and I'm laying in his bed the next night. It was manipulation. There was tons of manipulation which I'm very angry about. Because if they were more authentic about who they were, I probably would have had second thoughts. The manipulation meant I had no way of knowing what person I was really dealing with. It's like 6 months into the relationship, I feel like I'm dealing with a different person. My ex (not this guy who the thread is about) was two faced. I realised after many months what his true face really was. He said one thing in the first month of the relationship and completely flipped in the 6th month. Maybe I'm not a great judge of character,but it gets incredibly difficult to know a person inside out when they are being extremely deceptive. 

That's why I honor authenticity in men now much more. An authentic man saves a whole lot of pain and stress for himself and most importantly for the woman he is claiming to love. 

 

Edited November 15, 2019 by Preety_India

[Key Elements]

@Preety_India what I mean by good acquaintances and 'just be friends' is, for a stretch of time, are you able to be free with him and talk about all different kinds of stuff with no trouble? And then, by the end of the day, independently, the both of you go off on your own and do your own things: career, entrepreneurship, life purpose, hobbies, etc.

Oh boy, , lol, here's a difficult topic to talk about. I bet it's a test of commitment, and how well you and your significant other self-reflected enough to talk about it from all different sides. Almost no one talks about it: boundaries. Boundaries are not one-sided. If a person calls himself open-minded, why is he only looking at it from one side? He can't add more than one side to it, to whatever it is. I'm just going to start by saying two examples of the most unpopular boundaries nowadays, and let ppl think about it. I'm not saying they're my boundaries or someone I know. I'm just saying them as examples. Two unpopular boundaries that no one thinks about nowadays: 1) asking someone close to you, "are you a virgin?" 2) sex after marriage. You see, even these two things have more than one side to it, and imagine not being able to talk about subjects like this with someone you're planning to marry. 3) what are your views on gays? 4) how do you feel about going to this country in the near future? And name an unpopular country. 5) Oh...good one: how do you feel about cousin marriages? You know, why do I feel that narcissists and ppl who don't put too much work into themselves will only answer these questions with the answer of: eeewwww! Or, something along this line?

[Preety_India]

Just now, Key Elements said:

@Preety_India what I mean by good acquaintances and 'just be friends' is, for a stretch of time, are you able to be free with him and talk about all different kinds of stuff with no trouble? And then, by the end of the day, independently, the both of you go off on your own and do your own things: career, entrepreneurship, life purpose, hobbies, etc.?

Oh boy, , lol, here's a difficult topic to talk about. I bet it's a test of commitment, and how well you and your significant other self-reflected enough to talk about it from all different sides. Almost no one talks about it: boundaries. Boundaries are not one-sided. If a person calls himself open-minded, why is he only looking at it from one side? He can't add more than one side to it, to whatever it is. I'm just going to start by saying two examples of the most unpopular boundaries nowadays, and let ppl think about it. I'm not saying they're my boundaries or someone I know. I'm just saying them as examples. Two unpopular boundaries that no one thinks about nowadays: 1) asking someone close to you, "are you a virgin?" 2) sex after marriage. You see, even these two things have more than one side to it, and imagine not being able to talk about subjects like this with someone you're planning to marry. 3) what are your views on gays? 4) how do you feel about going to this country in the near future? And name an unpopular country. 5) Oh...good one: how do you feel about cousin marriages? You know, why do I feel that narcissists and ppl who don't put too much work into themselves will only answer these questions with the answer of: eeewwww! Or, something along this line.

Yes you are right about it. Narcissists are very difficult to deal with. They shut down a discussion and deliberately sabotage a discussion because they're too insecure to provide a platform of defense to the partner. 

A classic example of a conversation with a narcissist goes like this 

Target partner  " I have to talk about something"

Narcissist  "what"

Target partner   "what do you think about same sex marriages"

Narcissist "hmm"

Target partner so 

Narcissist " what do you want me to say"

Target partner "I'm just asking for your opinion"

Narcissist " why are you asking me this?"

Target partner " I'm just asking"

Narcissist. " I don't know how to answer that"

Target partner  " ok"

Narcissist. "What the hell, are you a lesbian?"

Target partner "no "

Narcissist "then why the hell are you asking this"

Target partner "how does that mean I'm a lesbian"

Narcissist "what's wrong with you"

Target partner "what happened"

Narcissist "you are dumb"

Target partner " I'm not asking because I'm a lesbian"

Narcissist "I didn't call you a lesbian"

Target partner "you said that"

Narcissist "what's wrong with you"

Target partner "I'm just asking"

Narcissist " this is too much, I need to watch TV " bye

 

You never get around where you will have a successful discussion with them where the concerns and opinions of each other are openly discussed. When the target partner tries to defend, they get insecure out of the fear of being proven wrong so they just shut off the discussion. 

 

[Martin123]

@Preety_India Just found this thread, good for you! I am so exhilarated that you realized what you're worth and dumped his toxic ass (sorry not sorry for the harshness ).
Abusive individuals are very difficult to deal with for someone like you who's sensitive and is most likely willing to give everyone a chance just because you don't want to be harsh, critical, judgemental and have general faith in the innate goodness of people. That's not wrong at all, but it is so wonderful seeing you find your way into the discernment that while there is goodness in all, in many individuals it's not quite ripe and you are much better off being with yourself or someone who can honor the light within you just as much as you honor the light within them.
So awesome, totally cheered me up.

[Preety_India]

12 hours ago, Martin123 said:

@Preety_India Just found this thread, good for you! I am so exhilarated that you realized what you're worth and dumped his toxic ass (sorry not sorry for the harshness ).
Abusive individuals are very difficult to deal with for someone like you who's sensitive and is most likely willing to give everyone a chance just because you don't want to be harsh, critical, judgemental and have general faith in the innate goodness of people. That's not wrong at all, but it is so wonderful seeing you find your way into the discernment that while there is goodness in all, in many individuals it's not quite ripe and you are much better off being with yourself or someone who can honor the light within you just as much as you honor the light within them.
So awesome, totally cheered me up.

Thank you so much for your support. Appreciate it and it means a lot to me. 

 

 

[Martin123]

11 hours ago, Preety_India said:

Thank you so much for your support. Appreciate it and it means a lot to me. 

 

 

The pleasure is mine!  

[Byun Sean]

@Preety_IndiaJust found this. You may already know this but If you haven't already investigate some of your beliefs. Often times we develop our beliefs about what love is like through our relationships with our parents in early childhood and it gets rooted in our subconscious. This can cause us to attract dysfunctional relationships over and over again because we are unconsciously seeking a particular recreation of the relationship with one of our parents. Question any beliefs you have like that so you can free yourself from this.

[Preety_India]

@Byun Sean  it has nothing to do with my childhood or my belief about love. It had more to do with manipulation. Maybe more to do with pua beliefs. 

 

Anyway I have moved on and happy to have dumped.