A
male
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Trust issues. Overcoming or suppressing? I ask myself this everyday when dealing with friends, co-workers, family, and unfortunately...my girlfriend. I find myself feeling madly in love one moment and undoubtedly upset at the thought of mistrust, her procreating with other men, or the mere though of her simply leaving me.My trust issues stem from a past relationship in which I conceived a child with my now, ex-fiance. She would constantly be talking to men, leave the house immediately after I got home from work, spent money on things that I physically never saw, and refused to work. I asked myself...'Where did this money go?', 'What could she be doing?' and 'Why am I putting myself in this situation?'. I began investigating strongly and found rather disturbing things that happened while I was either at work or while I was deployed. This caused (What I like to characterize it as.) "Trust Trauma". I ended up losing my job, my electric was shut off for nearly a month, subsequently I lost my house, and eventually my car. She left me broke and broken.My current girlfriend and I started dating while I was unemployed, had no money, and living back home with my parents. One day my parents decided to tell me, I had to find a new place to live and subsequently kicked me out the same day. My girlfriend took me in, fed me, bought me cigarettes, gave me a place to shower, and the space I needed to get myself put back together.Only five days after she spent day in and day out helping me, I finally found a job. The next week I found a nice place to live and two weeks later I received a promotion. Life, which was so tragically changed after I got back from the Marines was finally starting to get back together.Things sound pretty peachy so far don't they?My girlfriend has a tendency to put herself into situations I don't think she knows how to handle correctly. My "Trust Trauma" began to transpire with her when she started reconnecting with old friends from a town she used to live in. I started investigating early on this time because of what happened with my Ex. Another man was calling her "babe" in texts and she NEVER said a thing to him to get him to stop till I caught it and told her that, that is very disrespectful to me and she made it stop and closed all ties to him when I told her how furious this made me and that I don't feel comfortable with her "hanging out" with him or talking to him. I looked further into things to see if she was being honest and true to me. I "asked her out" while she was on vacation in a different country with her father and she said Yes...but some messages she was sending to ex-boyfriends and other guys just days after we were dating was, without a doubt a little more than "Just friends." type of messages.I brushed that last bit off because I asked her out, over the computer, while she was on vacation, and had no way to call me. (Very romantic - I know)This all happened months ago and now things have really slowed down and I haven't run into any of these problems anymore. Her and I are both (In a non-conceited way) very physically attractive people. We approach situations differently. I don't think it's right for me to have many friends that are girls, her on the other hand has friends that are guys, and one of them is her ex-boyfriend that she had a fling with just 6 months ago. She claims there are no feelings there between them and they are just good friends. I try to accept it - he acts nice to me and seems cool when I'm around, but I don't sit well with it at all either.I know I may be over-thinking a lot of this and part of me wants to just let it ride and see if she means what she says when she loves me and cares about me. When she says she wants to move in with me and start a real life with me. She even gave up the college she's wanted to go to, (Which would be 3 hours away) to goto a college 20 minutes from where I live. She does A LOT for me and puts up with me always asking "Are you sure I'm not holding you back?" and "Are you sure you want to be with me?".I know those things aren't right to constantly say...but this time around - I'm trying to protect myself and not lose everything again.So now that there is background on the subject...Will this type of situation have to be "Overcome" or "Suppressed"? I truly have strong feelings for this girl. I am in love and I cannot picture myself without her - but would it be best to be without her?I appreciate all of your help and the time taken to read such a long post.
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reader, anonymous, writes (14 December 2010): There is never a situation where you should suppress anything. Okay maybe if you're under fire from an elevated position and need to move somewhere then you will lay suppressing fire but as far as emotions go you always overcome. Never suppress.
Look at the start when you were initially dating and not yet official she was in contact with guys that way still, that's pretty normal really. But at the end of the day none of those were as good as you and she chose you.
Now it's all well and good protecting yourself from being hurt but there is a point where that protection can be so extreme that it is the very thing that is hurting you.
I have a rule, I always take the lessons I learned from previous relationships into the next one, but I never take the problems I had in that relationships into the next one. Different woman, new relationship. Don't transpose the behaviour of your ex onto her.
I know it's tough but you do have to let it ride and deal with the fact she might never hurt you. The very nature of love is that it's always a risk, always. You put all your emotions on the line each time, if you don't and you can't let go then you really can't enjoy the relationship you never allow it to develop naturally and freely because you impose too many restrictions because you're scared of getting hurt.
Now I don't know if you were a combat infantry man or a desk clerk in the marines but your training would have been the same, you were trained to weigh risks proportionately analyze every situation and plan according to every minute detail. But in every situation you faced the unexpected would arise, you knew this and you rolled with it when it happened but you never for one second thought you were not going to go ahead and complete whatever task you were given because something unexpected might happen because it might not happen too, but the key thing is that you were confident in your ability to deal with every situation as it arose and you always put yourself at that risk to get what you needed to done.
This is the exact same thing, you love her, you want to be with her, you want to be happy with her and you want to make her happy. Those are your goals, that is your task. Now you can't prepare for the unexpected with fear that it might happen right? You go with the knowledge you'll deal with it should it arise but always confident because you have the right tools and training to deal with it.
Well this is the same, your last relationship while a painful nightmare was the best training you can imagine for being betrayed, no one can nor will ever be able to mess your life up so badly again. You've gone through it before and it nearly destroyed you, no matter what this girl does she just will not able to do that, because whatever may arise you have the tools to deal with it.
You have to trust her until she shows you can't so far she's shown you that you can, that's the risk but it's also the unexpected so you can't prepare for it, it might never happen if you use that as reason to not let yourself go with this girl, not let yourself go in case you get hurt then you won't get to enjoy this, you won't be able to allow yourself to love her as much as she might deserve.
Above all you cannot let your ex ruin this relationship too, you cannot let what she did sour this one, or it will be just another time she has screwed you over. You can't let that happen. Give you girl freedom and try not to restrict her or smother her. Trust her until such time as she proves herself untrustworthy.
It would not be best to be without her, simply if you can't do this with a girl that so far has shown you nothing but good faith then who will? Do you want be alone forever because you don't want to take the risk? Screw it man, always take the risk because what you fear might never happen and you know that if it does you will deal with it then.
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