Dear Umm:

You and your current boyfriend talked for a few months, and then proceeded to date. In the beginning of the dating relationship everything seemed fine. Next, there were some arguments, and recently- a lot more arguments. He initiates the arguments and the topics are your friends, your male co-workers and your exes. He is in the habit of digging into your past, bugging you about what he thinks that you did wrong. For example: you talked about a female friend who didn’t treat you well, and his response: he sent you a photo of your ex-boyfriend who cheated on you in a past relationship. If I understand correctly (?), you talked to that ex for a few years after he cheated and after the relationship ended, but haven’t talked to him for years since. Your current boyfriend brought him up because he was troubled about you having talked to the ex after he cheated on you. He wanted “to show you what a toxic person is”.

“I’m confused.. I told him, past is past, and he wasn’t there, I cannot change what I did in the past”- he is troubled about his past, about his own inability to change what happened in his past. When he told you that he wanted to show you what a toxic person is, he was probably troubled by a toxic person in his past, a person who may still be in his  life presently.

If you see this as a possibility, bring it up to him: ask him if he is angry at someone toxic in his life, projecting his anger onto you, overthinking your past because he is still troubled by his past (use your own words). If he insists that he is not projecting anything onto you, and that it is You who is The Problem- then my answer to your question: “is it worth (it)?, is No. If he is open to consider what you suggest to him, then maybe it is worth it.

Feel free to post again, and if you choose to have a conversation with him like the one I suggested right above, after the conversation- you can share here about how it went, and I will be glad to reply to you further.

anita

Dear Umm:

You are welcome. I don’t have Facebook or the like, so I am not familiar with how it works. You wrote that he went  on your (married) ex’s social media and saw one of your ex’s photos that you clicked on “like”, and some that you “clicked  on ‘love’ icon”- I don’t understand: did you attach a love icon to your ex’s photo years ago, before he got married and way before you were in a relationship with your boyfriend?

anita

Dear Umm:

I would have considered some of your boyfriend’s distress as valid if you clicked on love icons on photos of your ex-boyfriend (photos of him alone) knowing that he is married to another woman, and/ or while in the relationship with your current boyfriend).

But if this is not the case: no love icons on your ex-boyfriend’s photos since you’ve been in a relationship with your current boyfriend, and previous icons were clicked on photos of your ex and his wife, then his distress is not about your past but about his own.

“he asked for my ex’s first and last name a day before, and I thought it was just casual”- do you remember how it came about that he asked for your ex’s name: was there a talk about your ex that preceded his request?

anita

Dear Umm:

From my experience and my understanding, your boyfriend is emotionally wounded and is in pain. Every time he asks you questions about your exes, he is trying (although ineffectively) to free himself from his pain. It is as if, in his mind, the “correct” answer by you, will free him from his pain.

Asking you questions about your past, may have become his habit, maybe an obsession. If I am correct, then what happens is that every so often, triggered by this or that (be it a name of a restaurant or your use of a particular word in the story about the friend who mistreated you), he feels something like a mental itch that he .. just has to scratch, so to speak, by asking you yet another question. You answer him, he finds a relief from the itch, at best, but it is only a matter of time before he feels the itch again, and he just has to ask you another question (or spy on your/ your exes’ social media accounts).

Again, if I am correct, then he feels that there is something wrong with his behavior and he tries to not ask you question, spending a lot of time troubled but keeping silent.. until he gets especially triggered, the itch is too strong and he rushes to scratch it by either asking you yet another question and/ or spying on social media accounts.

This might have been his behavior with his ex-girlfriend as well, spying on her social media account, and that’s why she blocked him (“his ex blocked him”).

You wrote earlier: “I wonder if he still loves his ex.. now I end up feeling I am a back-up person in this relationship.. like I’m in the middle of their unresolved case”-

– if what I suggested so far is true enough, then his pain, his emotional wound was not formed as a result of his previous relationship, but way back in his childhood. His pain is not an indication that he loved his ex-girlfriend more than he loved you. It is an indication that when he feels emotionally attached to a woman, the injury opens up, and he feels the pain.

Does this make sense to you, and do you  know anything about his childhood?

anita

Dear Umm:

“His dad in fact, took care of his older sister a bit more”- I wonder if his tone of voice and facial expression was different than usual when he told you that.

No doubt that when he was a child, he loved his father very much. If his father favored his sister, I bet he was upset by it, trying to get his father’s attention/ trying to successfully compete with his sister for his father’s attention. Having failed at it again and again is enough to create an emotional wound in a child. Fast forward, a girlfriend’s exes are also a competition, in his mind.

True, your exes are in your past, but because of his significant emotional injury, he can’t tell the difference between the past and the present: he is re-experiencing the past in the present circumstances of his life.

“After he shared that he went on my ex’s social medias.. he said, he will not do it anymore”- like I suggested, he feels badly about his behavior, he knows it’s wrong. Problem is that when the itch increases, his need to scratch the itch also increases by going back to social media.

When you complimented him the other day, wanting him to feel better, it didn’t work because your compliment triggered his emotional wound and caused him hurt and anger. Like I suggested above, he is re-experiencing the past (the hurt and anger) in the circumstances of the present (you complimenting him).

“he gets sensitive easily by things I say.. he will get upset.. and it triggers another argument”- his emotional injury is big, widespread, so it often gets triggered by what you/ people say. Seems to me that he needs at least a few good months of counseling/ psychotherapy, to start healing from his emotional injury. I am certain that you cannot be his therapist, or otherwise start him on a healing process. It takes a professional who is capable of being objective (a girlfriend, even if she is a therapist, cannot be objective and therefore, she cannot be her boyfriend’s therapist).

anita