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January 19, 2023 at 9:22 am #414124
Anonymous
GuestDear Lily:
First, I will extract the main sentence in your post: “I suffer from anxiety and the fear that things are being hidden from me/ paranoia“. This is a condition of yours, a pre-existing condition to meeting him. So, let’s keep that in mind.
This pre-existing condition includes a strong obsessive element: it’s like a (mental) itch that you can’t ignore, isn’t it? It keeps itching you and you think that if only you scratch it this one time (i.e. receive an answer from him to this one question), it will stop itching. But when you receive an answer.. sooner than later, the itch returns, and you are compelled to ask yet another question, and another..
Before I continue, I need to ask: is the above how it feels to you?
anita
January 19, 2023 at 9:33 am #414125Anonymous
GuestDear Lily:
I want to add your words (the boldface and italicized features are my addition) to indicate what I refer to as you asking him questions being like a mental itch= obsession:
“When we got back together we both asked each other if we saw anyone else or slept with anyone else while broken up… About three/ four months ago.. I asked him again if he had anything go on with anyone else while we weren’t together.. I told him to tell me the truth or I would leave knowing that he lied to me… he ended up telling me he drunkenly hooked up with a mutual friend… I asked how it happened.. I asked if he came onto her and he said it was a mutual thing… I asked him why he didn’t initially tell me... A few weeks after he told me I felt so upset that I asked him the exact date of when it happened.. I asked him about that and he said yes he did come onto her (which he lied about initially). I asked if he asked her not to tell me… Since he told me this a few months ago I cannot stop thinking about it… he tells me he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, tells me it was a mistake and we all make mistakes.. We got into a fight about it about a month ago and he said he no longer wants to talk about it anymore and won’t answer any more questions… I’m not sure what to do, I feel scared that he’s still hiding something from me.. (I) want to ask to see when they texted to hang out…”.
anita
January 19, 2023 at 10:56 am #414129Anonymous
InactiveHi Lily
I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling with this.
I’m curious why you both broke up the first time? Was it a surprise to you?
Do you trust your partner? I think there’s a difference between him seeing other people when you’re broken up and him cheating on you. Are you worried that he’s cheated on you?
Why do you need the details of who he slept with when you weren’t in a relationship at the time?
January 19, 2023 at 2:50 pm #414134Lily
ParticipantAnita;
Thank you for replying! I think so, I do usually want to know more yes, I think I want to know more and more because I do not get a consistent answer from him, and I get dismissed very quickly because he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore… so it makes me believe something more is being hidden. I feel like if I am able to get the honest answers and even possibly proof? Or a in depth conversation, then I can move on and that “itch” would go away…
January 19, 2023 at 2:51 pm #414135Lily
ParticipantI’m not sure why there is a lot of html that shows up in my posts, sorry for that
January 19, 2023 at 2:55 pm #414136Lily
ParticipantHelcat;
thank you for replying, I do have a hard time trusting my partner when it comes to this situation, I sometimes have the fear that it happened after we had already started to date again, but he has said it didn’t. I have debated with myself why I want to know about something that went on when we were apart as well so thank you for asking that. I want to know because when we got back together we both discussed if we had seen anyone, and I lost trust when he continued to lie to me about who he had seen. He had seen someone else too, before her, that didn’t bother me. What bothers me is that it was a friend of mine, and they both chose to actively hide it from me. I feel betrayed. I feel I would have been fine with it if it was just out in the open from the beginning.
January 19, 2023 at 4:29 pm #414137Anonymous
InactiveHi Lily
It’s tricky since your partner has a habit of withholding the truth. You can either drop it and accept that he didn’t divulge because he was afraid of hurting you and losing the relationship or continue to ask him about it hoping he will reveal more hidden truths later on or speak to the mutual friend in question.
I can understand your partner hiding that would making you feel nervous because it could mean any number of things.
I can also understand why he felt like sharing that would hurt you and chose to hide it. I’m not excusing it, because lying by omission is wrong.
He tried to get back together with you for months. Shortly before you agreed he slept with a mutual friend. I can definitely see how sharing this might put your newly reestablished relationship at risk, which could be the reason why he waited until things were more settled to tell you. Or it could be that he got tired of the asking and thought being honest would put an end to it.
Can I ask how your relationship is outside of this issue?
The difficulty with pursuing this issue further is that it’s causing arguments. Is it worth putting the relationship at risk?
There may also be a 4th option. You could mention to your partner when you are having these anxious thoughts. But accept his boundaries. Don’t ask him anymore questions and take care to phrase things in a less direct way.
For example: “I’m feeling insecure. My anxiety is acting up and fears about what happened with our mutual friend are popping up again”.
I found that my partner is more receptive to my anxious thoughts when he doesn’t feel blamed in any way.
What are your thoughts about all of this?
January 19, 2023 at 7:00 pm #414140Anonymous
GuestDear Lily: I will reply to you Fri morning, in about 11 hours from now.
anita
January 20, 2023 at 10:10 am #414157Lily
ParticipantOkay Anita, thank you!
January 20, 2023 at 10:18 am #414158Anonymous
GuestDear Lily:
You are welcome. If my reply to you this morning would be of the good-guy/ bad-guy type (saying something like: Lily, you did not hook up with a mutual friend while separated from your boyfriend, but he did hook up with a mutual friend; therefore, you are the good-guy and he is the bad-guy and he deserves to suffer for it), would that make you feel better?
In the reply that follows, I will not go the good-guy/ bad guy route. Instead, I acknowledge that neither one of you is perfect (no person is perfect) and look at the reality of the situation, best I can, quoting from you and commenting. Before I start, I want to say: I understand how badly you’ve been feeling, “Conflicted” (the title of your thread) and so very troubled by the events that happened- or may have happened- during the time you were broken up from your boyfriend and beyond. I hope that this unnecessary suffering that you’ve been experiencing will come to an end sooner than later, and that you will experience calm and contentment instead.
“I suffer from anxiety and the fear that things are being hidden from me/ paranoia… during our therapy sessions, I expressed to him that I felt like he was hiding something from me, I just didn’t know what, but I had such a gut feeling… I feel scared that he’s still hiding something from me… I’m having a hard time trusting him… I just can’t shake the upset betrayed feeling I get when I think about it, and how I feel there’s more that is being hidden.. About three/ four months ago we were talking about dating/ hook ups in general and I asked him again if he had anything go on with anyone else while we weren’t together because I just had a gut feeling“-
– You shared that you suffer from fear that things are being hidden from you; from a paranoia (your word). Paranoia, Merriam Webster definition: “a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others“, Wikipedia: “Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality“. Healthline: “Paranoia is a thought process that causes you to have an irrational suspicion or mistrust of others… Mistrust of others and constant anxiety can make relationships and interactions with others difficult, causing problems with employment and personal relationships”.
Suffering from paranoia does not mean, of course, that everyone you meet is trustworthy, but since you are aware that you suffer from paranoia (you stated that you do): at the least, give serious consideration to the possibility that your suspiciousness and distrust of your boyfriend may be irrational, part of your experience of paranoia. You used the term “gut feeling” twice, in regard to your suspiciousness of your boyfriend, a term that refers to a feeling that is true to reality… but paranoid suspicion, although it feels to be true… is not true to reality. Let’s look at the reality of his behavior in the past and present time:
“I moved out and we had no contact. We would run into each other out at the bar and local places around our city. I remained no contact and acted as if he wasn’t around because that was how I was moving on from my heart break“- on your part, you ignored him when you ran into him because you wanted to heal your broken heart; on his part, being ignored by you probably hurt him and troubled him a lot.
“While we were broken up he would get drunk and bother me if he saw me out/ text me late at night, after me asking for him to respect my boundaries and leave me alone to heal“- on your part, you were angry at him for not respecting your boundaries; on his part, seems to me, he felt desperate for contact with you, and when drunk and his inhibitions lowered, he contacted you.
“He told me.. he was so drunk he barely remembers it… He said… I asked how it happened and he said… She said… I asked him about that and he said yes he did come onto her (which he lied about initially)“-
– it may really be that he was so drunk, like he said he was, that he really was not able to recall what happened: it is common that people forget what happened when they were drunk. Also, when a person is interrogated (repeatedly asked the same questions over and over again, or repeatedly asked questions on the same theme), a common reaction by the interrogated is to eventually say whatever it is that will make the interrogator stop asking questions. Interrogations do not promote honesty!
“I told him that I had not hooked up with anyone… A mutual friend of ours tried very hard to hook up with me and I declined out of respect for him (ex at the time)… he ended up telling me he drunkingly hooked up with a mutual friend/ neighbor of ours *two weeks* before we decided to start talking again“- you indicate perhaps a moral superiority over him, and in the context of hooking up with a mutual friend while on a break from the relationship, you were indeed morally superior to him… but in regard to interrogating a partner, and as part of the interrogation, threatening him (“I told him that I would leave knowing that he lied if he didn’t just tell me”), he has been morally superior to you, assuming he did not interrogate and threaten you.
“He even told the therapist he wasn’t and that it’s hard for him to deal with me ‘accusing’ him of hiding something… We got into a fight about it about a month ago and he said he no longer wants to talk about it anymore and won’t answer any more questions“- it is very difficult to be in a relationship with an interrogator, with a person who suffers from paranoia (“I suffer from.. paranoia“).
“Everything was going so well before I found out and it just hasn’t felt the same for me since he told me“- everything was going so well for a while, but when a person suffers from paranoia, the going-so-well doesn’t last long. If it isn’t one thing that triggers the suspiciousness, it’s another.
“This is so hard because I love him so much“- love him enough to stop interrogating him and instead, do all you can- in the context of quality therapy- to heal from and manage your anxiety and paranoia?
“I think I want to know more and more because I do not get a consistent answer from him, and I get dismissed very quickly because he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.. so it makes me believe something more is being hidden“- the more you interrogate a person, the more he/ she will lie to make you stop the interrogation. Interrogating a person does not promote honest, consistent answers.
“I feel like if I am able to get the honest answers and even possibly proof? Or a in depth conversation, then I can move on and that ‘itch’ would go away“- From personal experience with “itches”: no answer, no proof and no in-depth conversation with “the suspect” can take the itch away for good.
“I have debated with myself why I want to know about something that went on when we were apart… I feel betrayed. I feel I would have been fine with it if it was just out in the open from the beginning“- I am guessing that “from the beginning“, that is, when you were a child, you really were betrayed, that important things really were hidden from you (“the fear that things are being hidden from me“), and that emotionally, you keep re-experiencing that early life betrayal in the context of your relationship with your boyfriend.
We can communicate further if you’d like. Please let me know.
anita
January 20, 2023 at 10:20 am #414159Lily
ParticipantHelcat, I am trying to fully accept that he didn’t tell me so he wouldn’t lose me / hurt me. But I am an open and honest person and if roles were reversed I would have told him when he asked the first time. He had no plans to tell me, I basically gave him an ultimatum because I knew he was not telling me the truth, and that’s when he told me. Our relationship before this had come out was going great, I trusted him. I agree with your advice, to try and approach him with a less direct approach, he has told me he does not want to speak about it anymore and will not answer anymore questions. This makes me scared he’s still hiding something and that’s why he is being so dismissive. I just want to believe that this wouldn’t lead to more lies in future, and that I can eventually get over it and move on. I just don’t know how to quiet my mind and feel like talking to him is the only way but I just feel like I can’t, without a fight starting. I appreciate your example and when I do talk to him I am going to use that approach, thank you! I just feel like the only way I can move on from this is to talk it through with him eventually.
January 20, 2023 at 10:39 am #414161Anonymous
GuestDear Lily: I submitted a post 2 minutes before you submitted your most recent post (double posting), so you may not be aware of my post (above your most recent).
anita
January 20, 2023 at 1:04 pm #414172Anonymous
InactiveHi Lily
I’m glad that you’re going to do your best to respect his boundaries. It really is the only healthy way things move forward in your relationship. It’s equally important that your feelings are still acknowledged and heard.
Have you had any bad experiences where people have lied to you in the past?
I’m sorry that your partner lied and it took an ultimatum for your partner to be honest with you. As someone who values honesty, do you feel like that is more hurtful than what happened while you were both on a break?
In a perfect world. How would you want your partner to respond to you about this issue? What would actually help you rebuild trust and recover from this?
January 23, 2023 at 6:51 am #414325Anonymous
GuestHow are you, Lily?
anita
January 23, 2023 at 11:00 am #414330Lily
ParticipantHi Anita, thank you so much for breaking it down as you did. I appreciate and understand how you broke down your perspective on my paranoia and my interrogating questions, what you said i agree with. I do not believe myself to be morally superior to him, I just would’ve hoped he had the same respect I had for him when put into a situation where a mutual friend is involved. I understand he was drunk and trust that it lowered his inhibitions and he made the wrong decision to sleep with her. I just still feel very hurt by it. I have done a lot of thinking and believe he is telling the truth and it did happen before we started talking and dating again. I am working through my insecurity now that he chose her, even if we weren’t together, and that he chose to not tell me. I have done work in therapy to over come what I have been through in my past. Helcat; thank you for responding. That’s a good question “What would actually help you rebuild trust and recover from this?”. I think I thought that if I talked to him more and asked more questions it would help me be more at ease. I realize how being interrogated could cause someone to shut down, which is why he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. But I think I just need to keep focusing on the fact that it was a mistake, my insecurities feel high.. I believe I am hurt by the action itself (causing insecurity) and the lie as well. I think moving forward I have to focus on the insecurity of it happening and realize that I can trust that he is telling the truth even though he felt it would’ve been better to hide it initially.
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