I’m trying to think how I knew that I wanted to be with my husband.

I would say that with him I felt loved and accepted for the first time in my life. I felt like I could share everything, not just the good parts of me. He accepted even the parts of me I don’t like about myself.

Hi Lella

I agree with you that the arguments are abusive. I’ve spoken at length about the abusive behaviours present during the argument.

However, OP suggested that they occurred very infrequently, twice a year and otherwise she enjoyed her relationship.

I’m not going to encourage someone to leave a relationship that otherwise they appear to be happy with. In my opinion, it’s is their decision how they feel about their relationship and how they wish to proceed.

You’re welcome to your own opinion. I’m sorry that my opinion makes you feel infuriated.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Stacy

A continuation of my reply earlier.

I would say that your ex liking every single a Tinder matches photo since 2015 is concerning. I think logically you know this. Even if he did most of it in the past before he dated you, it sounds like he was still doing it during the relationship. His behaviour could suggest an obsession with this person. It’s not a nice feeling to be dating someone obsessed with another person.

He did you a disservice by dismissing how you felt about these issues. I’m guessing that you were being considerate and gentle with bringing up these issues and asking him to stop linking her sexy photos. A gentle inquiry was easy for him to refuse. Did you go a little deeper in your enquiry? If not, why not? Were you afraid of upsetting him? It’s tough because when people try to avoid discussing serious issues, sometimes you do need to push the issue and be direct about what is hurting you.

I can see how much pain you’re in about all of this. I think it’s really important when you’re in a lot of pain to try really hard to practice self care. Is there anything that usually you find comfort in? For me, this is talking to friends, petting my dogs and cat, walking the dogs, going outside (I really hate being stuck indoors), watching tv. Everyone has their own unique needs. What do you need that comforts you?

I’d like you to read this next part when you have a calmer moment.

So when we experience a lot of verbal abuse in our lives, we internalise it and begin to abuse ourselves. One trick to changing this behaviour is taking a key theme and practicing repeatedly negating that.

Hearing other people say nice things to us and reassure us cracks the door to the possibility of the negative thoughts being wrong. But it’s practicing intentionally challenging your own negative thoughts that changes the belief that you hold about yourself.

You expressed a lot of different themes. Picking one reoccurring thought in your own words is most helpful. For me, it was I’m not good enough.

I would suggest only practicing the following exercise when you are feeling calmer. I found it can trigger abusive thoughts otherwise, which isn’t helpful.

So for me, the phrase I challenged was not being good enough.

Step 1: What is a good person? What does it mean to you?

Step 2: What is a bad person? What does it mean to you?

Step 3: Do you share any traits in how you describe a good or a bad person?

I found a balanced approach to be helpful at first because my mind would totally reject being overly positive initially. I think I found considering things equally and logically made it hard to deny the good things about myself. I worked up to being totally positive after a lot of practice.

Step 4: Now that you’ve identified some good traits. Record evidence of these traits occurring in daily life. I found this to be a difficult task initially. Starting out small can be helpful.

For example, a stranger dropped their keys and I returned them. I treated my friend dinner. When X person was sad I comforted them.

Another helpful tool, was writing down compliments other people gave me.

Over time, repeatedly doing these activities can be helpful in changing internal beliefs about yourself.

When we abuse ourselves and have low self-esteem we don’t see ourselves for who we actually are. These exercises help us to acknowledge the good things about ourselves that we habitually ignore.

I don’t think you’re like your family. I think you’re like a flower stubbornly growing in the desert or the darkness reaching towards the light. You have faced challenging circumstances your whole life, ones that would make a less capable driven person give up and  become cruel. You persist despite your challenging circumstances and you do so with kindness.

Hi Luna

I’m going to put a trigger warning up at the top here, for the next relationship story I’m going to share at the end. So people know to stop reading if they don’t want to read something that is a sensitive topic and might make them feel uncomfortable.

I’m doing better thank you! How are you feeling?

I’ve always enjoyed the format of forums for the same reason. It’s nice to write something longer, thoughtfully at a slower pace sometimes.

Autumn is actually my favourite season too! I enjoy when the leaves change colour and fall from the trees. I walked by a lot of rich houses with trees on my way to school and there would be crispy fallen leaves on the path. I enjoyed shuffling through and kicking them. Such a simple pleasure. It reminds me of being a child again. It’s also not too hot and not too cold, so that’s a bonus.

Are you planning on going on vacation this autumn/winter? Or do you have anything that you’re looking forward to?

That is true, boundaries are very fluid in personal relationships. It’s a process of two people coming together and reaching an agreement on things, or not and parting ways. I tend to prefer professional relationships in the workplace for this reason. There are strict standards for behaviour. Personally, people’s perspectives vary a lot on which behaviours they find acceptable.

I would agree about not being too rigid in the filtering stage, as you call it.

Yes, the mixed signals about whether someone is trying to flirt or be friendly can be frustrating. I think it’s also difficult because some people are not straightforward if they like someone and can be afraid to let people know that they like them if they’re not sure the other person likes them back. Then again some people just enjoy flirting and don’t particularly want to go anywhere with it.

You mentioned that one difficulty you are having is finding someone who is on the same page as you about what makes a healthy relationship. I’m curious about what your idea of a healthy relationship is?

I agree, I think that’s why this forum is a great place, people can share in a safe space and get the opportunity to meet lots of kind people.

I’m glad that you’re enjoying my relationship stories. This next one is a not so fun a story, but sometimes dating is difficult.

I’m going to include another trigger warning here so anyone reading will know where the sensitive part is coming next.

So basically, there was this guy I liked who was a friend and I thought he liked me. He said he wasn’t ready for a relationship. We fell into a friends with benefits style situation briefly. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I suffered from low self-esteem and was told by my biological mother that this is what men wanted. Ultimately, the situation was too upsetting for me because previously I was a virgin and there were some consent issues because of abuse as a child. I wasn’t confident enough to outright say no to someone who didn’t make an effort to check if I was comfortable. After a couple of times I called the whole thing off because I was just getting upset afterwards.

I hope that wasn’t too tough to read. Wishing you all the best, it’s a pleasure talking as always! 🙏

Hi Stacy

I think with your recent ex you’re placing too much responsibility on yourself. People struggle with the same issues they’ve always had in relationships. Likely, he’s always struggled with difficulty during natural conflict. He strikes me as a wishful thinker in positive times. I don’t think he meant harm during conflict. He just wanted you to feel better with minimal effort. Whilst he had his own issues and unhealthy behaviours. I don’t see things on the same scale as your abusive ex.

I’m so sorry to hear about your 4 year relationship with your abusive ex. Some of the things he said to you were awful. No wonder you experience difficulty with being assertive and boundaries.  He emotionally beat you down to the point where you didn’t believe in yourself.

There’s a lot of information out there about assertive communication and ways to manage relationship conflict in a healthy way. A website I used to teach myself about it is called Skills You Need. It provides lots of theory, examples and it’s free.

You’re right, ultimately no one has to make any changes that they don’t want to. But if you think about healthy relationships, they’re about compromise. It’s not about making unreasonable requests, that would be controlling and abusive. But reasonable requests a partner may choose to consent to, because it enhances the relationship.

For example, with trust issues. I too don’t like the idea of flirting and I’m aware it does sometimes happen in relationships. My husband chose to consent to my request because it was reasonable, I was in no way attempting to limit his contact with his friends. He was aware that if he didn’t, I would likely continue to be concerned by his friends calling him pet names which would add unnecessary stress to the relationship. It’s all about working together to reduce stress. He cared about my comfort in the relationship.

I totally agree with your concerns about the previous ex with the Instagram account with the sexual pictures of barely legal girls.  It would make me uncomfortable too. I am aware that some men think it’s okay to lust after younger women who are of legal age. Ethically, I don’t because of the age difference and differences in maturity. These are valid concerns.  He was gaslighting you when you confronted him about these issues.

I don’t think you’re a negative person Stacy. Yes, you have anxiety and trust issues. There’s nothing wrong with that. Many people have similar issues, though they can manifest in different ways. I see these things as a product of your environment. You’ve experienced so much in your life. That ex you had lacked empathy for all of the painful experiences you’ve been through. Instead of praising your strength for doing your best to work your way through it all. He tore you down which is disgusting to me.

It comes more naturally for people with easier lives to be more confident. For people who have experienced a lot of trauma in their life these things are more difficult and take effort and active nurturing to achieve.

I’ve come from an abusive background growing up. I think the main thing a therapist did was challenge my unhealthy thoughts and teach me to spot abuse from others. Her belief in me as a person was very healing.

Outside of therapy I did a lot of work on my own to heal parts of myself that struggled with self-worth. This meant practising being kinder to myself. Restructuring and reframing negative thoughts. Lowering my anxiety. Forgiving and accepting myself. Working on personal development, so I could like myself as a person. Practicing meditation. Developing skills in assertiveness and practicing maintaining healthy boundaries.

After doing these things, I felt like I had all of the right pieces, but it didn’t click and fit in my head. Practising loving kindness meditation was the final step for me. I focused on nurturing positive loving feelings for others and in time that extended to myself.

At the end I realized that simply pursuing these changes, and starting this journey is an act of self love. Even if you don’t feel the results yet.

I was wondering, if you have a central negative thought about yourself? Mine was not feeling good enough or feeling unlovable.

You are truly a beautiful person Stacy! Your strength and kindness despite the difficulties you’ve experienced is inspiring.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Anonymous03

Just continuing with some additional thoughts.

I’m glad to hear that you don’t argue very frequently with your boyfriend. Once every few months is quite good. However, it seems like the past couple of times when arguments do happen, it has been quite bad.

I’m glad that he’s improved his behaviour in other areas like the leaving mid chat.

I can see why you were so hurt, not only did he bring up your ex, he mimicked your ex’s behaviour reminding you of the bad break up. I don’t know if the latter was intentional or not. Does he know much about that break up?

I can see why you’re concerned especially with the past 2 arguments being really painful and hurtful. I think that also makes it hard to let go of. These aren’t regular boring run of the mill arguments where you’re squabbling about something small and silly. It has actually been genuinely hurtful.

And with the arguments happening so infrequently, and being intensely painful, it’s easy to remember what the argument was about.

I would say that one good thing is that you can both comfortably take some time to discuss things at a later time. It’s a very good tool for descalating.

I think you did a really good job standing up for yourself with the discussion about the recent argument! Very well done!

I think you came up with an excellent strategy of shutting down arguments where your partner has been drinking.

I think the important thing to remember is that other than the infrequent intense arguments, the relationship seems to be in a great place. Would you agree?