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female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes: I feel very bad. My first boyfriend of almost 3 years broke up with me. Basically, once he heard about my past, he thought I was a whore, and because I lied about the past a couple of times, he lost his trust in me. Now, I know lying was wrong, but I didn't want him to learn every detail of my past and I also was scared of his reaction. Now, to clarify, this past means that everything happened BEFORE I dated - or even, met - him. It was mostly kissing and oral sex, once. But mostly kissing and he thought I was a whore.We've broken up several times before. Tonight we talked because he called me and he told me it wasn't likely that he would log on MSN. Tomorrow morning we were going to rehearse with our band. I was online, and like an hour after we talked on the phone, he logged on. He asked me what I was doing up so late, and I said I was waiting for him, he said how come if he'd told me it was unlikely that he'd log in. I said I though that maybe he would... but he assumed that I was talking to someone else, and said he was pissed off with me. I said "f*ck the rehearsal", and he called it off.Later I called him and he called me a whore and a liar, and that I was probably chatting with some other guy, I said I wasn't and I started crying and he told me we better break up. Then, I was so hurt and angry that I wrote an email, saying that I'm glad we're over, that he's an abusive man and that he has no right to treat anyone like that, not even if he hates someone, he has no right to call someone names. He's a psychology major, and I told him he might have studied psychology, but it's worthless because it doesn't reflect in his actions and that he's a bad person, that I hope he never makes this mistake with another woman again and that he better never speak to me again.I'm in love with him still, so I felt guilty about that, and called him to tell him to please not read that email. He said he would anyway, and that he was pissed that every time I was angry because of something, I'd write a hetful email. He told me to "f*ck off" and hung up on me.I feel really awful, because he's had girlfriends before, never had such long relationships as he had with me (claims he never loved any of them, but that I was the only one he loved), but these women were cheaters and all, and as far as I'm concerned, he NEVER abused them. So why me? What did I do wrong that I turned him into an abusive man? And how can I get over him? He doesn't love me, that's for sure, so he'll probably get a new girlfriend way faster than I will heal, so when I see them together (small town), how can I cope? Most importantly, how can I heal? My self esteem is CRUSHED!
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (24 July 2009): Sorry but it doesn't sound very likely to mend.
Your gut feeling is right. The lying did him at least as much damage as anything you actually did. (BTW what you did doesn't sound so terrible to me.)
Retroactive jealousy is a powerful thing. There's no fixing it or fading it when you're in his position. And it's difficult to cope in your position especially if you don't understand it.
Just try to understand that he's not choosing to think this way about your past just punish you for the hell of it. Whether you feel any regret about the past or not, the things in your past that he doesn't like are emotionally inflicting pain on him right now in the present. (It's just plain old evolution that makes a lot of guys and some girls care about their lover's past sexual habits.)
His only way to spare himself of feeling torn up over this was to make sure he didn't get close to someone with a past that he couldn't deal with. So he got close to someone who told him a past he could feel okay with. But then as soon as he had let his guard down with you and got attached, you changed your story and dumped him into exactly the painful territory that he had been led to believe he was avoiding.
So he reacts with anger towards the person who put him into this painful position against his will. You.
BTW, you mentioned his other past GFs cheating on him. That's liable to REALLY magnify his senstivity to retroactive jealousy too. You can certainly blame them for at least some of this problem now.
A
male
reader, Yos  +, writes (24 July 2009):
 His abusive behaviour is not acceptable.
Having said that, his reaction is not unusual. If a guy learns that his girlfriend has lied to him about her past sex life, it's a common reaction for him to freak out like this. Right now he'll feel he has no reason to trust you, and that what happened in your past is probably much worse than you are saying. That you are covering up the truth. His imagination is picturing you with other guys and that's too painful for him to bear, especially when he no longer trusts you.
He may still love you. The intensity of his reaction to this is because he cares about you: if he didn't then it wouldn't matter to him what you'd done in the past. But the anger and jealousy he feels now is incredibly strong, and he's blaming you for it. So he can't see a way out other than breaking up. Which is understandable.
From your post it sounds like the relationship is over. From this I think you've learned the importance of not lying in a relationship. If this topic comes up with a future boyfriend I suggest gently steering him away from it (it's not good information to go digging around in, for obvious reasons), but don't lie, because that breech of trust will kill a relationship. I've learned this lesson the hard way, and now try to a stick to an 'agree to not ask and not tell' policy. Then everyone gets to protect their privacy without having to be dishonest.
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