A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Hello everyone, I’m looking for an unbiased opinion.My partner and I have always had somewhat of a unhealthy dynamic - I’m anxiously attached and he is dismissive. We’ve worked hard on rectifying this dynamic through therapy and our own work. He used to have a tendency to be secretive, I could tell and it uses to exacerbate my anxiety. One thing he used to do is not have sex with me - this lasted a year and his explanation was becuase of the dynamic between us. However. In the meantime, he would secretly masturbate to videos and images that he had stored privately on his phone of people he used to have one night stands with. He also uses to have a private Instagram where he would search women he claimed he unfollowed from his personal one and his personal account was following a lot of what I think are inappropriate pornographic accounts. One one occasion I saw a woman sent a video to him and he “played” it but didn’t delete her. So he was aware of who he was following. He likes to pretend that his inaction of not deleting people makes it ok.Anyway, He kept this non sex phase going for a year and despite me asking what I could change to have sex (I really tried - the amount of hours of self exploration was immense). He broke up with me for the umpteenth time last august but left his laptop. After years of not quite knowing the truth I decided to log in - this is how I found the folder and I also found he joined tinder the very night he broke up with me. He found out I knew and was apologetic. He came back the next day and asked if we could give it another go. We agreed that we would yet I asked if I was able to have access to his phone when I requested - he said yes, he has nothing to hide. As it happens, I’d not asked for months and months becuase I didn’t want to be reliant on that in me gaining trust and I think it’s unhealthy. However, I noticed a few days ago that he has hidden his friends list on Facebook. Given the past we have had, my conclusion was that he is following people he doesn’t want me to see.I confronted him calmly and asked why he had done that and he said privacy reasons. I asked if he had an issue in me seeing the list and he said “my phone is yours” - but I didn’t bother looking. Later on that evening, I asked again and he got the friends list out but the look on his face worried me. I asked if he would be ok if I had a look and he said he felt controlled. He then went on to describe how I’m controlling and he wants a second opinion of rhw relationship. ToMe; I don’t think I am but of course we never know how we come across. What doYou think?
View related questions:
broke up, facebook, his ex, one night stand, porn Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 April 2022): Forgive my language BUT, it's your boyfriend who is the absolute arsehole in this horrible scenario.
Ask yourself a question. Do you think that in a loving and mutually supportive relationship, a partner would ever behave as your boyfriend has? To have you begging him for sex, willing to change anything about yourself to get him to finally look your way and give you some attention, affection and sex....and you're thinking that YOU might be controlling??
No, no and no. He has done such a good psychological job on you that you no longer can see the wood for the trees. It's no wonder. That's what this type of psychological abuse aims to achieve. To have your head spinning so hard, you don't know which way is up anymore.
I have been through abuse in its many forms, so PLEASE don't think I'm judging you in any way. I'm angry for you.
To withhold sex but 'privately' masturbate to other women he has known is unthinkably cruel. He made sure you knew what he was doing. It wasn't meant to be private. He meant you to find out what he was doing. Otherwise it wouldn't have held the power to hurt, humiliate and subjugate you as it did. It worked didn't it? He had you on your knees to him, begging him for sex. He had you believing that everything was your fault. Because of your 'dynamic'. Do you know why this dynamic even exists in your relationship? Because he has made damn sure that it does.
His actions that you describe throughout your post are enough to make you anxiously attached and he, well, he is dismissive because it makes you beg. And boy does he love to see that.
I really want you to wake up. I really want you to see your boyfriend for the horror show that he is. He left his laptop for a reason!
Abusive people are so clever. And this is what you are suffering. Abuse. Psychological abuse and mental cruelty. Intended to bring you to your knees, emotionally. To destroy every ounce of self confidence you ever possessed, so that you are HIS.
So that he can control YOU. So that he can keep you wherever he wants you, to use you whenever he wants you and for you to be grateful for the crumbs of his attention.
I know that on the surface he probably behaves like a decent bloke. The one that you fell in love with. This is so you don't suspect what he's up to.
This may all sound rather far-fetched to someone who doesn't know about abuse and who certainly doesn't suspect it.
I have been in three abusive relationships and once I FINALLY understood what was happening, I read about abuse til the facts were coming out of my ears. And my hope is to help people, usually women, who are being abused by their partners, but don't realise it.
I was the same. I was always confused. Nothing really made any sense. I was always standing on shifting sands and egg shells. When I came upon a book about abuse which listed the things my boyfriend was doing, EVEN the phrases he used, my jaw was on the floor. To think that the person who supposedly loves you is out for your destruction is very hard to believe.
But I'm asking you to believe it too. Abusive people have a whole selection of abusive tactics to use. No two abusive relationships need ever be the same, because the abusers choose which tactics they want to use to keep their partner unsure, insecure, doubtful of their own judgement, confused and increasingly reliant on their partners.
I suffered mental cruelty when my ex-boyfriend would tell me repeatedly that he would never make me jealous, never behave inappropriately with another woman, because he would hate to be treated that way, so when he did EXACTLY that right in front of my eyes, I thought I must have got it wrong! Talk about brainwashed. It happens. And it happens to intelligent people. It can happen to anyone in fact.
Your boyfriend has brainwashed you. Persuaded you that the reason he doesn't seem to want you (I write 'seem' because he does want you, he just wants wants a subservient, broken version of you) is all your fault. Your 'dynamic'. That HE created. So you ask him how you can change. That must have been a red letter day for him.
I could write and write about this, probably not very well. It's difficult to try to choose the right sentences, the correct scenarios that are going to strike a chord with you. To get you to look at this with different eyes. I haven't written an answer to a problem on this site about abuse for a long time, because to be honest, it's still difficult for me and it emotionally exhausts me. It brings it all back. But your post has moved me to do so. Because (and I don't mean this nastily, don't forget I'm on your side all the way), he has you eating out of the palm of his hand and you don't suspect a thing and I can't let you go in being in the dark if it's at all in my capabilities to throw some light on this for you.
So, I'm going to suggest a book for you to read (without your boyfriend's knowledge) called 'Why Does He Do That? by Professor Lundy Bancroft. He wrote the most fantastic book about abuse I ever read and I read a LOT.
He worked one to one with abusive men for 15 years and learnt the tactics they use, the two or more faces they have, the danger they pose, to your mental and emotional health, if not yet your physical health. Although the emotional stress I experienced has morphed into physical symptoms that will be with me for ever sadly. A nerve problem that has affected me every day for the last seven years. Don't let this be you.
He can explain to you better than I can what your boyfriend's behaviour is all about. His actions in some form will be between those pages. I have given this book to so many women I have lost count. My sister, two of her friends, her next door neighbour, my next door neighbour, my best friend...I could go on. Abuse is rife and it takes many forms.
Please read the book. It will empower you to understand that your boyfriend is making you feel like crap on purpose. That all your efforts are pointless and leading you to a dead end you won't want to end up in.
And finally and sorry if I have waffled on for too long not making much sense, but lastly if anyone on this site mistakenly advises you to go to any kind of counselling with him, ignore it.
Your boyfriend KNOWS that his behaviour is wrong. He knows exactly how it is affecting you. It's what he wants. He doesn't want a loving, mutually supportive relationship. He wouldn't treat you this way if he did. SO, going to counselling where you will be encouraged to voice your fears, your doubts, your inner insecurities is just like giving him a great big birthday present wrapped up in a bow. Because, if he is abusive and I believe that he is, he will NOT take this info you have just given him and try to mend his ways. NO. He doesn't WANT to mend his ways. He is doing this on purpose.
He will take any info you give him about your feelings, your insecurities and use them further to his advantage. To abuse you further. I'm aware that there are aunts/uncles on this site sometimes, who can't believe this and think that if you attend counselling together, that your boyfriend will undertake a personality change, suddenly become the sort of man who wants a harmonious, loving relationship. That ain't gonna happen. He's already chosen his path. He likely has a personality disorder. Few people without a personality disorder could behave as he has. And people with personality disorders do not change. They can't. They see the world, themselves and others in a distorted way. You and counselling won't change that. You've already realised that he uses his secretive ways to exacerbate your anxiety. You're right. And all these other behaviours are for the same reason.
I'm sorry to bring you this, but, once you know what is happening and if you decide to leave him, then you will have regained some control over your own life. Most certainly go to counselling on your own if you feel it will help. I tried it and sadly found a counsellor who, although she had emotional abuse listed as one of her specialities, asked me first off what it was I was doing to make my boyfriend angry. That was such a kick in the stomach, when you know as well as I do, that you do everything in your power to mend things and not upset the apple cart. I obviously never went back to her, or anyone else. Hopefully you might have better luck.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 April 2022): You You do have an unhealthy dynamics."He broke up with me for the umpteenth time"...and, you are still with him what for precisely ? Do you get a badge of honor when you get dumped the 20th time ?..this sounds like a very much "on and off " relationship, so, alas, basically...not a relationship because it lacks in committment and continuity. It may not lack in love or feelings or attraction, but whoever said that love conquers it all - was wrong. I don't doubt that, at least on your side, beside love there was the willingness to make things work at all costs,as shown by the long time spent with your therapist. But willingness to make it work should not become blind stubborness- if it does not work, it does not. If you cannot be happy with him, and viceversa, you just can't.As for, "are you controlling ?", yes you are - but not wildly, crazily so - meaning that apparently he gave you ample,ample reason to make you feel you'd better control him. Then again , isn't this sort of a moot point ? The problem is that you don't trust him- and that he has shown you already that he is not to be trusted very much.So, maybe this specific time he is candid like a lily and there's nothing inappropriate in his phone right now- but you still cannot trust him, so how, and why, carrying on a relationship like this ?
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 April 2022): It's confusing to try to understand this.He had access to you for over a year without any sex?I wonder what kept you going.It seems fairly conclusive that he relies on porn and you are finding this hurtful.There is so much access to porn these days that it can literally wipe out a relationship because it never argues, never wants anything and requires no effort from the viewer.So in a way the best answer is to just move into separate lives where porn can expand to fit the time available.This is an incredibly common or frequent problem in many peoples lives.The non-viewer of porn starts to feel increasingly isolated and disconnected.On the surface everything seems fine.As a couple you present a pleasant exterior to the world.But unless the addict wants to change there will be no improvement!It is also difficult to move on emotionally and physically while the other person is still around every day!During the pandemic couples have relied on each other more than ever and still hung onto their addictions.If you feel you will be permanently wasting your time with this guy you should return your rings to him in an envelope and consult a solicitor for a divorce.If you keep demanding to go through his phone you will be deemed to be controlling because he is an adult and can do as he likes.I'm not sure about being "anxiously attached"...I imagine that's a way of saying you feel compelled to project your anxiety onto him and that also would come across as controlling.You could try to let go of the anxiety and get some anti anxiety meds from the doctor if you cant.Of course lengthy counselling would help you to deal with your anxiety but as the health systems are pushed to the brink of collapse I think that could be difficult to arrange.The ball is in your court regarding this.You really have no right to insist on going through his phone etc.But you do have a right to try to improve your own life by stopping following his every move up and thinking a bit more about what you would like for yourself from your own life.Maybe your not even married so you really don't need to have a commitment to him.If he's going on tinder he is definitely out looking for quick hook ups.Instead of trying to control him maybe you should start thinking of ways to leave.
...............................
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (8 April 2022): It's not like there is an official standard. I personally wouldn't like my partner examining every little thing I did online. As long as he's not sexting people or making plans to cheat on you, why do you care so much who he's following or friending? You do sound a bit like the Spanish Inquisition!
...............................
|
