I feel like I don’t deserve him because of hiding somethig

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This topic has 17 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 4 months ago by Anonymous.

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July 15, 2018 at 9:28 am #216707

Azalia
Participant

This is the first time I’m reaching out on this forum but I can tell people are very nice and understanding so thank you for any advice. Long story short , I have been dating this wonderful guy for 1 year and a half but when we started dating around the 2nd month I made the biggest mistake of my life. I was in need of money and because I’m introverted I always had a hard time finding a job, I had just turned 18 I can’t recall how but I got into the underwear selling gig and also pictures among other things (all online but im not going into detail because I hate to think about it). We hadn’t started serious barely knew each other and he sometimes made remarks about my small breasts that made me feel like he was just a f-boy having fun with me but somehow we became closer and fell in love around the 3rd month so I stopped everything immediately and promised to never do it again.

Fast forward a year later and the relationship with my boyfriend was reaching its peak, when he suddenly got an anxious thought and asked me if I was hiding something, I said no that night and tried to comfort him but since that day I was overwhelmed by guilt for lying and ended up telling him what I did a few days later. With one exception that at the moment I didn’t think was relevant but later after forgiving me he asked if there was something else , I said no again when in reality there was one detail , I had let a friend of mine help me with the gig for a share of what I made and he would be in charge of finding the offers and well editing pictures.. I felt that I couldn’t tell him this at all because he had already forgiven me for that other confession and this would only lead him to think I had something with that friend and other insecurities when really I never did but there would be no way to convince him of that, specially because said friend had been acting weird a few weeks before complimenting my pictures and my boyfriend was suspicious that he liked me but I denied saying that he was being friendly but he asked me to stop talking to him which I did immediately that day because even though he had been my friend for 4 yrs, we did have a past nothing romantic just sexual (all online because we met on a chat site) and became friends after that so I felt that still talking to him was bad considering everything that happened and how I hid the past about me and the friend from him.

On the day that I confessed to my bf, the friend texted me (forgot to block number) saying he missed me and felt bad he was losing a friend etc and confessed he liked me but was too late now but he still asked if I could go travel to see him and I was so depressed and focused on my boyfriend that day praying to God that he’d forgive me , I told the friend off and that I was mad at him for influencing me wrong to do that underwear gig and told him he wasn’t a good friend and our friendship was toxic etc .

When I confessed to my mom she adviced that I do not tell my boyfriend this detail and so did my friend, saying it would only hurt more but now It has been about a month since I confessed to my bf and I still have a lot of guilt for keeping this one detail from him and I feel like I don’t deserve him, whenever he does something good for me I feel joy for a moment but then cry because I think that he deserved better than this , I love him so much and we get along so well I sometimes think we are connected and that also makes me fear he will feel this anxiety I’m feeling again, like he did before and I’ll feel compelled to tell him. Im also worried that the friend will somehow find us and tell everything out of anger of me rejecting him even though he doesn’t know much about me or him and is states away.

Sorry this has been longer than I thought but I just feel sometimes that maybe breaking up would be better so that I stop feeling like this and he finds someone as perfect as him, but now he has bought me a new video game console and I’m just so sad because I don’t feel like I deserve anything so I bought him one too and that helped a bit but idk how much longer I can bear with this, We love each other so much but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get over the guilt and be happy again.

July 16, 2018 at 6:30 am #216863

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Azalia:

Did I understand correctly, that you are no longer in that online business you were in and no longer in contact with the man who was also involved in it (and with you, sexually)?

If so, I suggest you tell your boyfriend only what you are afraid that he will find out himself, only what is possible for him to find out. Tell him those things with a few short sentences, just the facts and a bit about how you feel about it now.

If the behaviors you regret are in your past, he doesn’t have a right to know about those behaviors, they are not his business, really, unless those behaviors can affect his life.

You wrote, “I just feel sometimes that maybe breaking up would be better so that I stop feeling like this and he finds someone as perfect as him”- if breaking up is the only way for you to stop feeling this guilt, then better break up. But maybe it is not the only way, and if your relationship is healthy otherwise, better not break up.

“as perfect as him”- but he is not perfect, is he: what makes you think that he is perfect?

anita

July 16, 2018 at 9:08 am #217033

Inky
Participant

Hi Azalia,

Is your boyfriend God? I think not.

The next time he asks you if there’s anything you’d like to tell him, reply with: “I don’t know. Is there anything you’d like to tell ME? (PREGNANT PAUSE)”

Him: (mutters something)

You: *Arch your eyebrows* *Stare at him* *Slowly avert your gaze* *shake your head*

You two are still very young. So what if he does find out? I’m still not sure what the big deal is and I’m a Puritan old lady compared to you. You can legitimately say by then if confronted, “That was so long ago! I was, what? Seventeen?”

Don’t worry about it,

Inky

July 16, 2018 at 12:51 pm #217089

Azalia
Participant

Thank you for replying Anita and yes I have not been in that business for over a year now and cut off contact with that man. I have told him a month ago what I did but I never mentioned anything about the guy who helped me (not sexually involved at all anymore for years except for the business) and that is what is killing me sometimes because I feel like I should be completely honest but now it could be too late to say that because he seems to be healing from my confession very well and telling him would just make everything worse maybe. Last night I mentioned to him that I feel like I don’t deserve him but he told me to not feel that way because he knows it was a mistake and he doesn’t even think about it anymore. That helped a bit but then he said he was glad my conscience was completely clear now and I just said yes even though it’s not true because of that one detail but I hope it goes away if I ignore it.

I guess you are right on the fact that he doesn’t need to know everything but I don’t Know how to get rid of this guilt, my mom says time will help but if you have any advice on this please let me know and thank you again .

July 16, 2018 at 12:59 pm #217093

Azalia
Participant

Thank you Inky,

He knows about what I did except about the man who helped me with the business. I guess I just feel bad because it all happened while we were ”dating” and I don’t like keeping secrets or I wouldn’t like him to find out about that guy and having the wrong idea and hating me forever because my boyfriend is a really good guy. But you are right we are really young and I still don’t know if we’ll be together for a long time. Thank you, I liked your reply with a bit of a comical twist.

July 17, 2018 at 8:42 am #217249

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Azalia:

I don’t think further confessions are a good idea. It will hurt him and not help you, so what would be the point. About your guilt, that is something best you talk about in psychotherapy, if such is an option for you, talking about it in the safety of therapy sessions with an empathetic and capable therapist.

You can also express that guilt right here, if you feel comfortable doing so. Members are most often supportive. I assure you that I will be supportive if you share more.

You use the word confession, as if you are a sinner and he is an authority on sin and virtue. He is a good man, I understand, and that is wonderful. But you read like a good woman yourself. A good woman who feels bad.

If you choose to share here, please do. I am suggesting that not without some concern, but if therapy is not an option for you, and if you don’t have someone safe and empathetic to talk to in person otherwise, sharing here and being “listened to” respectfully and empathetically here, may help you.

anita

July 20, 2018 at 11:54 pm #217965

Azalia
Participant

Thank you Anita, your words are very wise and helpful. I apologize for the late reply but it has been a crazy week. I got into a car crash last night, thankfully I’m mostly fine. This in a way has helped me focus on the fact that I must be alive for a reason and that is to live my best life , but it has also sparked my anxiety again.

A day after I created this topic, somehow my brain started to feel more calm . I guess because my boyfriend’s words helped me heal a bit and I wasn’t thinking of coming back to this website to be honest, just because I was starting to feel almost normal again and didn’t want any reminders. But here I am back again because of this accident that has brought the bad feelings back.

Reading your last reply helps me tremendously, I do feel like I owe him the whole truth at times as if I was a terrible sinner but I do know it’d only cause more pain and that I have grown as a person. I unfortunately don’t have insurance currently so therapy is not an option right now but I do think it’d help maybe if I can in the future. Thank you again to you and everyone in this forum who are all very kind people.

The thing that keeps bringing me back to feeling guilty is that I feel like I’ve lied so much to keep this whole secret and my past, there is no one that knows all of my life 100% and I guess I always had this ideal of my life partner knowing all about me and vice versa ; the bad and good . And now this has become impossible with him. I think maybe I have the wrong idea of how relationships should work? I try to be as honest as possible but this mistake has just ruined my chance at being fully honest with him ):

July 21, 2018 at 4:15 am #217971

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Azalia:

I hope you fully recover from the crash, and welcome back.

You wrote that you “always had this idea of my life partner knowing all about me”- I think that the motivation behind this idea, this desire that he will know all about you is to be fully approved, to be fully okayed by another.

It is not about the telling him of everything but about him being okay with all that you are and have been past and present, to know ALL about you and say to you in response: you are okay. I love you, always will as you are. I will not leave you.

If I am correct, then for as long as you believe that you are un-approvable, there will not be enough that you confess and he okays, to make you feel safe. There will always be something, a thought that you just had that he must know about, a feeling you had that may have been wrong… he should know about it, and so on.

What do you think?

anita

July 21, 2018 at 8:53 pm #218051

Azalia
Participant

Dear Anita,

I think you hit the spot. I do feel that way. I guess as everyone I would like to be approved fully for who I really am or what I did. I know it is probably impossible, like you said “every thought about something wrong” because as of right now I feel bad even for the slightest of things that I don’t tell him like if a random number calls on my phone, I feel the need to tell him so that he knows and won’t think anything bad just in case he finds out about it. Maybe it’s because I still feel scared that he won’t trust me completely ever again.

I am feeling a lot better than before, I’m accepting that I might just have to keep some things to myself for the best of everyone but at times I do feel like I want him to be okay with everything that I did, but reality is he might not and that is what makes me sad, makes me feel like I am a bad person because he wouldn’t be okay with everything I did so I must be bad and even worse when I think he thinks I have been completely honest already when I haven’t. I have tried my best though, thinking that keeps me going.

July 22, 2018 at 5:17 am #218079

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Azalia:

Part of you believes that you are a bad person (“makes me feel like I am a bad person”). You have a core belief that you are a bad person. So you are afraid to be found out. You live in a perceived dangerous situation, that at any moment, because of any random thing, he will find out that you are a bad person.

I know this core belief in myself and I experienced the compulsion to “confess” to anything and everything so to come clean, to expose any possible badness before it catches fire, so to speak, and destroys anything good.

My way through this is on one hand to pay attention to what I do, so that I approve of what I do, so that according to me, I am doing the right thing for myself and for others. On the other hand, I went back to my childhood to examine the origin of this core belief, when did it come about, how, why.

I hope to read more from you.

anita

July 24, 2018 at 1:40 pm #218585

Azalia
Participant

I am currently trying my best to do the right thing every time so that I can feel good again, just thinking that I did something bad in the past and him not knowing about all of it makes me feel bad every time.

Maybe time should help as I see myself doing more and more good things.

Thanks for the advice, I don’t think I ever believed I was truly a bad person but I do have a big conscience that even as a child made me feel bad for the smallest of things, I was always scared of dissapointing my mom at school so I was always the best, etc. I’m not sure if maybe that’d have to do with now feeling like I’ve disappointed the ones I love (even though they have been very supportive through this) and the fear that I could dissapoint my boyfriend even more. I’m having a hard time trying to convince myself that not telling him everything is good even though it is because the whole truth could hurt him. First time I feel like a bad person because I made a big mistake, and I can’t believe I did it.

And the fact that he has been so good to me and still is after the confession makes me feel like I’m never gonna be able to be as good as him.

July 25, 2018 at 4:10 am #218641

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Azalia:

Why do you think that you were so afraid to disappoint your mother as a child; what brought about this fear, I wonder. When you didn’t do well in school, didn’t do well in one test, let’s say, what was her response?

Another question, if you would like to answer, when your mother got angry at you, when you were a child, how did she express her anger at you?

anita

July 27, 2018 at 9:42 pm #219041

Azalia
Participant

Hi anita, sorry for taking long to reply some days I just don’t feel like remembering but it does help to talk here I appreciate your continuous support .

Memories of my childhood are not all very clear I think I have blocked a lot of the bad stuff but if I remember correctly whenever I got a bad grade I’d cry even if it was like a B; my mother would get mad if it was a C she wouldn’t hit me or anything but definitely always had this facial expression and big deep voice of anger and disappointment that was all I needed to feel anxious about anything bad that she could find out. But sometimes she would surprise me and be really sweet and understanding if I did something wrong. I guess I never knew how she would react.

Whenever she was angry she’d give me a talk with her “scary” voice and threaten me with some punishment if I didn’t correct myself. She only slapped my face one time as a child but other than that her voice and attitude was enough.

I’m not sure why but just typing this made my anxiety go crazy right now .

July 28, 2018 at 2:24 am #219059

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Azalia:

I am okay with you taking your time to reply. You wrote that you “don’t feel like remembering” (your childhood) and that “just typing this (childhood memory) made my anxiety go crazy right now”- this is why many members don’t reply at all when I ask about their childhood. You practiced courage when you replied a few hours ago.

A child gets scared when shown aggression. It doesn’t have to be a physical contact aggression such as hitting. A “facial expression, and big deep voice of anger and disappointment” is enough to scare a child. As a matter of fact, other animals get scared of an angry voice as well, of an expression of anger that does not include physical contact.

It is so because any expression of aggression signals a child/ animal/ adult, that a greater expression of aggression is next.

Notice this: you wrote, “whenever she was angry she’d give me a talk with her ‘scary’ voice and threaten me with some punishment if I didn’t correct myself“-

Your very inclination to confess to your boyfriend is your effort to correct yourself and avoid the punishment you fear, and that is that he will leave you. You want to confess to him what you did wrong, so that he will forgive you and not punish you. In other words, you see your mother in him and you are afraid of his punishment. Am I correct?

anita

August 3, 2018 at 9:54 pm #220249

Azalia
Participant

Hi Anita,

Thanks for not minding the late replies.

I have been doing a lot better this past three days. I’m not sure if it could be the hemp oil I have been taking for anxiety or just myself.

But I am back here because every weekend it somehow hits me (the argument happened on a weekend) I guess subconsciously I just freak out a bit inside, but I feel it is getting less painful overtime to think about this or I hope so.

I believe you might be correct about my attitude towards wrong doings, I am very afraid of disappointing anyone and I guess it all comes down from how I’ve been raised as a child. I am afraid of him finding out and not understanding and having the wrong idea of me. Now I am not that afraid of breaking up because I’ve realized some things I don’t like about him relationship wise, but I do love him as a person and would hate to lose his friendship. Now I’m trying to think about the things my boyfriend has disappointed me in so that I won’t feel so terrible. I notice that I have this idea of him being perfect when I am alone stuck in my head, but when I am with him somehow I feel less bad, maybe because the illusion of perfection breaks.

I know this sounds like I don’t love him or am thinking of breaking up, but I do love him I just keep having moments where I’m insecure about this relationship, I’m not sure why. I keep thinking maybe it is all because I subconsciously am forcing myself to hate him so that if he founds out I won’t be hurt. A part of me really wants to be with him forever and another doesn’t see a future. I hate being on shaky ground like this , it makes me feel like I’m not gonna be able to ever be happy with love.
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