Emotional Struggles with Boundaries and Intimacy in First Relationship

[Lieseluke]

Hi girls and guys!

I am 20 years old and I have recently (April this year) entered my first relationship with a guy and I currently find it very challenging emotionally to navigate this area of my life appropriately. I hope to get some new perspectives on this topic (please do not judge) and ideas of how others handle these things.

My situation is this: 
When we met, neither of us had had sex before although he had been in some sort of loose relationships with two other girls whom he only kissed. He told me quite early on in the relationship how he had actually been desperate to get a girlfriend for a while and that he used to worry that he would never have sex in his life and that he had a time when he listened to a lot of pick-up advice. Our communication has actually been very open (compared to my usual experience with people)  right from the start and we discussed things like relationship expectations, boundaries regarding cheating (though we have not properly settled on this completely yet) and our own feelings.

Well, at some point he told me that one of the girls he "dated" earlier, was back in town and that he wanted to meet her because he still felt attracted to her. We discussed it, things went back and forth,  and maybe he will get the opportunity to meet her at the end of October and I do not know how to feel about it. Sometimes I feel very jealous because he basically told me that if I was okay with it he would like to have sex with that girl and that makes me confused as in how to think about our relationship. And other times I feel quite open about it and would rather encourage him (since he said that it is not about leaving the relationship but rather to explore sexuality and so on). 

A few days ago we talked about relationship matters and he said that sometimes he feels disgust when we are kissing or after sex and that he does not exactly enjoy kissing (which I had suspected but not really admitted to myself). He also explained that when interacting with girls, he often immediately gets into that 'how-can-I-make-her-interested' pick-up mode and thinks about having sex with other women. It does hurt me but at the same time I try to understand it from a male's point of view (since I know from Leo's videos and some other sources that male and female psychology can be quite different). Yet I simply cannot quite understand how this attraction and relationship thing works for men. Like I cannot get a 'feel' for it. 

Besides, he still seems to care about pick-up/learning how to attract women and sometimes I wonder whether it is normal to be in a relationship and kind of simultaneously work on your dating/attracting skills as in"preparing" yourself for the next relationship or at least the state of being single again. When I get this vibe from him, I react by trying to detach more and also think about whether/how I could prepare myself for the "world after this relationship." However, I actually do not like the mindset or the feeling that I get when treating the relationship as something that already has an expiration date.

Overall, we seem to struggle with different views on intimacy, sex, feelings and maybe what we want the relationship to be like.
However, he is an amazing guy (he introduced me to Leo's channel btw) and I had many great experiences with him so far and I do care emotionally about him a lot, so I do not want to throw away the relationship (only because not everything goes smoothly) but it is hard for me to view it as a learning or growth opportunity solely and I wonder whether I am ready to take the insecurity of not knowing where this goes, feeling like I should already detach from him in order to be able to cope well with a potential break-up in the future.

If you make it here, thanks for reading and I would really appreciate some new thoughts on this

[Preety_India]

 

This is not an okay relationship. It's a subtle form of emotional abuse. 

He is taking you for granted. 

A healthy relationship is not defined by such loose behavior. 

Why does he need another woman when he has you? 

No decent man makes his girl insecure. 

Would he be okay if his girl is cheating on him? 

You need to have strict boundaries regarding. No cheating means no cheating. 

Relationship means the giving and receiving of exclusive love. That's it. No other complication 

Anything outside this definition will hurt the woman. 

I have been there. Done that. I came out feeling horrific. You get your heart burned in the end. It's not worth it. 

Have a man who deserves your love and not someone who claims to like you and then starts navigating other women. He is playing you. 

He wants to test how much you can take. 

Not having boundaries eventually hurts the woman very badly in the end. Even scars her emotionally. 

Your body and heart is a temple, not to be used and abused in the name of love or relationship. I learned this the hard way. 

Don't settle for a man who treats you like an option, he can have whenever he wants. 

Let the man treat you with respect. Or else it's not worth it anyway. 

Relationships may break in the end for whatever reason. But as long as you are having the relationship, it shouldn't be hurtful because then you are the losing party. Make sure that the relationship helps you enjoy your life, it helps you feel comfort and happiness and emotional joy and not DRAMA FROM MEN 

He should treat you right since he is your boyfriend. If he doesn't treat you right, then he is not worthy of being your boyfriend at all. Let him find some chick who does the same drama that he does. You don't deserve this and he doesn't deserve you. 

The whole relationship period should be a happy period for a woman. 

I went through a lot of emotional stress, extreme trauma because of the man mistreating me in my relationship. 

It's absolutely not okay. Just not okay. And I mean it. Because I have dealt it. It's awful. 

And the woman only realizes in the end how awful it is. Get out of this relationship and given him the clean bill. He can find someone like him who has no values. 

He is trying to signal you that you should put up with this. He might even try to gaslight if you protested his behavior. 

You're just 20 years old so you don't have much experience of relationships. I have been down that road and it only becomes worse as time goes dealing with such men no matter how wonderful and sexy and charming the man might be, the pain is really bad. All the emotional hurt. 

It's never worth it. 

Only and only be with a man who treats you right in a relationship, whether he is attractive or not. 

Just a man who treats you right. Just these words. 

Any man who treats you like a doormat, an option, an object, a disposable entity and does not respect your emotions doesn't deserve your love. He is already showing up red flags. 

What I find with such men is that when they show such red flags they also have the means to cover their asses by giving all sorts of justifications and rationalizations  and making you feel like the guilty party for simply being a woman and feeling like a woman. 

If you're attached to him then it would be very difficult for you to let go of the relationship, but if you don't have a strong attachment, it's much easier to do this. 

Don't waste your time with this man. He is a waste of your youth. You can spend your youth with a good man who treats you generously and kindly. 

Such men are traditional assholes. They keep breaking hearts as they go along in life with no remorse. 

The fact that you're asking this is already telling me that you are not feeling okay inside. And I know how it feels. If you are too attached to him, you will start forgiving his behavior until it becomes too much. 

For your emotional safety right now, tell him straight up that you won't put up with this bullshit. Don't take any excuses. Be firm 

I had low self esteem so it took me a lot of time to confront my ex boyfriend and ask him about his pathetic behavior. When I was very firm, he stopped his nonsense. But even then, they don't completely stop, they fuck up in other ways. So I had to drop him from my life. 

Your life is too precious to give it  to any random attractive dude and deal with his drama. Such men are like this. 

You deserve to be treated well and never put up with a mistreating guy.. 

You deserve to be with a man who treats you properly. 

Any man who treats you wrong should be rejected immediately unless if he has made a mistake. But that whole mistake crap "I'm sorry I hurt you blah blah blah" is just a ploy to win your sympathy.. 

They will use the mistake card and when you forgive them, they will start the same behavior again. 

A man who truly loves you will respect your feelings and treat you right. 

A man who treats you wrong does not love you, just pretends to. 

He is bullshitting you and he is bullshitting himself. 

Get out of that relationship or serve him an ultimatum to stop his behavior. 

The best is to leave such a man. He will learn his lesson. 

 

Edited October 8, 2020 by Preety_India