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female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes: I need help - especially from guys!My boyfriend is 40, and I am in my early 30s. He also suffers a lot with anxiety (both social and sexual).We have been living together for 3 years. We get along great, and we rarely argue. We have a lot of fun together, we enjoy the same things, and we have sex many times a week (I have tried my best to provide a warm and loving environment at home, and as a result his performance anxiety has really diminished). We both have full-time jobs that we enjoy, and we are doing OK for money too. However, as I said, my boyfriend is prone to anxiety. Most of the time, it exists at a generalized level in the background - we talk about it, and we try to find ways of managing it. However, just recently, for a short period it become unmanageably bad. He went into a state where he said and did things that were very hurtful.For example, he tried to break up our relationship, saying that he had doubts whether I was the right person. He made a lot of personal criticisms about me (for example, that I didn't 'enhance his social status' and that our relationship 'wasn't good because it wasn't like Mills and Boon'). He also broke off our wedding. I talked to him calmly about these feelings (even though I didn't feel calm) and we agreed that it would be a good idea for him to see a counsellor. He's now attended 2 sessions, and found it really helpful, and is going to stick with it. He's been opening up a lot more about how he's feeling, and I've been trying to help him to understand why this is happening (a lot of it comes back to his very anxious and angry father) and to be a stable rock for him to lean on as he goes through this time of trouble. He's now feeling much better, and much more stable. He has apologized briefly for having doubts and said that he thinks he was mistaken. However, inside I am absolutely devastated, and really shaken up. I am trying my hardest to be supportive, but I feel insecure and vulnerable - the fact that he could switch so quickly from apparent happiness into this state of entire negativity really bothers me. Some of the things he said to me just keep going round my head, too - like 'you don't enhance my social status'. I don't know what that means, and I am hoping someone on here can help me to understand. I am not big and successful and powerful and important, maybe that's it? But I have never sought those things, or pretended to do so, and my boyfriend has always known that. Part of me wonders if he holds my low class background against me. You see, I come from a very, very difficult place, and I've spent most of my life trying to escape it. I was abused as a child, I ran away and was homeless as a teenager. I stayed in school and worked really hard to win a place at a great university... I worked as a waitress in a horrible club all night to fund my way through, and ended up with a great degree which won me scholarships to do an MA and a PhD, which I got aged 25. I decided I didn't want to be an academic, and now have a good job where I work to help others instead. I am not hideous to look at, and I try my hardest to be a good person in the community around me with voluntary work and neighbours. Yet it doesn't seem to be enough. What am I doing wrong? Am I never going to be good enough for this guy?
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, anonymous, writes (10 March 2012): "However, inside I am absolutely devastated, and really shaken up. I am trying my hardest to be supportive, but I feel insecure and vulnerable - the fact that he could switch so quickly from apparent happiness into this state of entire negativity really bothers me."
He is not stable obviously and he has said a lot of horrible things to you which normally would be enough for you to walk away, but since you love him and you had a good relationship overall and maybe you're scared to leave or to lose him or to be alone or whatever you stayed and tried to help him.
I think though the time has come to decide if this is what you want for your life- someone who doesn't appreciate you and who would prefer a woman who can raise his social status, whose moods will flip all over? I don't think this is going to have a happy ending. He called off your wedding- do you think you're going to be able to forget that if you do actually marry at some point?
A
female
reader, PerhapsNot  +, writes (7 March 2012):
 "he tried to break up our relationship, saying that he had doubts whether I was the right person. He made a lot of personal criticisms about me (for example, that I didn't 'enhance his social status' and that our relationship 'wasn't good because it wasn't like Mills and Boon'). He also broke off our wedding."
This is so unacceptable in so many ways, that if someone said this to me, I would be gone. Let me preface this by saying that I usually give a lot of criticism and that I am on the receiving end as well. I have no problems with the people dishing the truth and taking it. There is NOTHING normal, or acceptable about attacking someone's socio-economic background. What kind of a scumbag would say "hey, you're not doing anything for my social standing"? I think that is very telling of his character. I would NEVER even think, much less say something like this to anyone. This is so shallow, materialistic and pretentious that I would have left immediately.
And then he told you that you're not the one and broke off your wedding plans. Why exactly are you with this guy? I don't believe for a second that anxiety has anything to do with:
1. Telling someone you don't want to marry them because you feel they're not the right person for you
2. They're not increasing your social standing
If anything, this is how he feels. So he apologized for telling you you're not the one. Did he tell you that you are the person he wants to marry with a 100% certainty? Are the wedding plans back on track? Has he apologized or explained himself when he dissed your social standing? If you feel like you're never good enough, you just may not be enough for this elitist douche.
You've been very supportive and understanding, even to a fault. If you can sit idly by and support someone that is making you feel like less of a person for whatever reason, then there is something wrong with you. There is something wrong with your self-esteem to let someone say these things to you.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (6 March 2012): You've been a very loving and supportive girlfriend.His counsellor will help him work through his feelings. You will need to be patient.I thin it is a good idea for you to focus on yourself for a while. Spend time with friends and family who love you and spend time and money on yourself, doing things you enjoy.This isn't a situation that will resolve itself quickly, but by looking after yourself and making him responsible for looking after HIMSELF, then you will be in the best position to move forward with your life, either with him or without.I wouldn't dwell too much on the 'reasons' he gave for his doubts, as it sounds as if he is having some doubts about the relationship but struggling to pin these doubts to definite reasons, he's probably just saying the first thing that comes into his head. His counsellor will help him examine his feelings more closely, and then you guys can talk again.
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