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female
,
anonymous
writes: I am trying to understand why my boyfriend is acting a certain way given that he was the one who pursued me so actively. We got together a month ago having been very close friends for 9 months. 3 months before we got together he stated that he really liked me and that he was worried that he would lose me to another man while he got over the split with his ex. He took the split extremely badly. They had been going out for nearly 5 years. She was cheating on him. Anyway, he asked me to be his girlfriend in August and by mid September I said I would be his girlfriend after we had discussed my concerns. I have always wanted to be with him. He said he wouldn’t be unfaithful to me, and that to bear with him if he ‘freaked out’ because he said he has never been treated well by a girl before. He seems very sincere, so alot of this may be due to my lack of self-esteem. I tend to hide my lack of self esteem quite well by being very bubbly.Anyway, I am beginning to think that it is not that he was treated badly but that he wasn’t thinking about the way he was treating them.Now the problem is as follows: he has started to mention how pretty other girls are. I have a theory: I think because his self-esteem is so low too and this fear of losing me to another guy, he is trying to make me feel so inadequate that I won’t leave him or he is trying to tell me that if I am not careful I will lose him to another girl. He never commented on other girls when we were just friends. In fact, when we were friends he totally restored my faith in men because in 10 years he is the only guy I have met that I can truly be myself with. So, I always try to remember this when I find his behaviour challenging.I am really confused in that I don’t know which I would prefer: him being open and honest about noticing pretty girls or him being secretive about it. I think I would prefer him being open and honest. I wouldn’t mind it if most of the comments were aimed at me.Although he has never admitted it, he seems to get very insecure when other people contact me. If someone phones or texts, or I have been out with someone, he always wants to know who it is. For example, the other night a friend texted me when I was out with my boyfriend and his best mate. He didn’t ask me who it was (I think because his friend was there) but started going on about this girl at work - I’ll call her ‘C’. My boyfriend has told me about her before: saying she is ‘an absolute sweetheart........she’s ‘x’ years of age, etc (my boyfriend has always liked older women and she is older than him but younger than me). He raves about her. She is married and expecting a baby and my boyfriend has taken it upon himself to find her a decent car. I don’t know whether to feel good that I have a thoughtful boyfriend when it comes to other people or bad about it. See he can also be really shy at times so while he may be telling other people how amazing I am, he doesn’t tell me! (I have never seen a guy so nervous as when he asked me to be his girlfriend).Well, anyway as soon as I got this text he started going on and on about ‘C’ to his friend saying that he must make sure he finds her a car, how he would have to text her the following day, etc, etc. etc. I am not usually bothered by this sort of thing but it is starting to get to me. See I wonder if the fact that I am showing him I am not bothered by it is is actually making him worse. Someone said to me it is a form of attention-seeking; he wants to see I am bothered by it because then it will show him I care. Then when we got back to his place we watched a DVD and he commented on how nice one of the movie stars was.Also, we have agreed to take things slow. He always seems to be talking about sex. We kiss and cuddle if he initiates it. We cuddle if I initate it but if I initiate kissing, he won’t respond which further makes me feel rejected.I’d like helpful comments as to why he is behaving the way he is. It even crossed my mind that maybe he wanted to split up with me so was just trying to annoy me as much as possible yet he has been talking about things he wants us to do in the future.I have double bluffed him before which seems to work - he was commenting on girls again and I jokingly said ‘you look at the girls and I’ll look at the boys’. It seemed to hit a nerve because he went serious and said ‘well I believe you can look but not touch’.Do I have anything to worry about do you think?I think he would be really shocked to learn that, if anything, his behaviour is starting to make me want to withdraw from him rather than make me want to show I care.
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at work, girl at work, his ex, insecure, kissing, self esteem, shy, split up, text Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, Ivanna22 +, writes (18 October 2006):
 Frank B kermit, that was an excellent answer.
A
male
reader, Frank B Kermit  +, writes (17 October 2006):
 They guys sounds like a moron, and I beleive that your interpretations of him trying to intimate you are right on correct.
He does not realise how much throwing it in your face is working against making you feel unique to him. It is not that he is looking. We are men...we all look. BUT that does not mean to throw it in the faces of the women we care about. I am a seducer, and I would NEVER do that.
If you break up with him, get him my book on Women's Emotional Needs entitled Everything Out of HEr Mouth is a Test, as a going away present.
If he does not want to lose ANOTHER relationship, he will read it and learn to be a man, and a good partner to a woman in the future. Christmas is coming, if you dump him in December.
-Frank B Kermi
www.franktalks.com
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