Dear Katie:

“He would often want to know if he satisfies me sexually, constantly wanting reassurance”—> You reassure him—>He doesn’t believe your reassurance because in his mind a voice keeps saying to him: you are not good enough, other boys are good, you.. are.. not!!! —> He asks you about the other boys, in particular about one other boy: what did he do to you, how did he do it, did you like it…. what kind of magic did he do to you that I am unable to do???—>

—> You tell him that you don’t remember, that it wasn’t anything good or magical—> he doesn’t believe you—> he asks you again and again; like a police interrogator, he keeps asking you the same questions in different ways, assaults you with an onslaught of questions, trying to break you so that you will admit the truth..  because all along he is believing that voice in his mind that is telling him: you are not good enough, you are less-than, you are less-than the other guy, etc.—> you try to tell him that high school was long ago, that your memory is so poor—> “there is no answer that would ever stop the onslaught of questions; no answer that would satisfy him and be done with it”.

“I never even thought in his mind he was going back to high school. I can hardly remember high school, and I told him as much. I’m 58!”- his emotional- sexual experience in high school was so unpleasant and intense that he never forgot it’ he keeps re-living it.

“I do not answer any question about the guy in high school. I really don’t have the answers he’s looking for because my memory is so poor”- what he is looking for is for the voice in his head to be silent, to no longer tell him that he is not good enough, that he is less-than. Your voice cannot silence the voice in his head. It is not about what you say- it is about what the voice in his head keeps telling him.

There is absolutely nothing you can do to silence that voice; he is unable to silence that voice, his therapist so far has not been able to do  so.

“I hope his therapist is qualified to help him. If not, the relationship will not survive”-  to quiet that voice (beyond what certain psychiatric drugs can do, if he was willing to experiment with the SSRI anti-depressants), he would have to talk to his therapist about his emotional-sexual experience as a child, starting earlier than 13, look for what started his core-belief that he is not good enough/ less-than others. He would then have to examine the core-belief and figure out if it was true, when it was formed.

Only if and when he changes his untrue core-belief, the voice that keeps repeating this untrue core-belief to him will gradually lessen and lessen until it is no more.

There is nothing at all that you can do to help him. In reality, as you tried to help him in this regard, he was angry at you for allegedly lying to him, for believing (so he believes) that you know that he is less-than but you are not telling him.. so he tortures you with his onslaught of questions, expressing his unjust anger at you at times in passive-aggressive ways, and verbal abuse.. he is hurting you.

The best you can do in this situation is no longer give him the opportunity to hurt you in the ways he is hurting you.

anita

Dear Katie:

You are most welcome. “I don’t respond to any text messages that touch on the past”- good choice.

“Our last two communications he did not mention anything of the past, so perhaps that’s progress”- it is progress if he does not mention your past ever again. If he mentions it again, then the two times he didn’t were only a break.

Progress would be if instead of talking to you about your past, he will be talking to you about his past.

“Can you tell I’m holding on for hope?”- yes, you shared that you are hopeful, emotionally exhausted, and considering ending this relationship, but also hopeful. Did you mean to ask me if your hope is realistic, or if you should be hoping?

anita

Dear Katie:

In regard to this man and your future relationship with him, it is realistic for you to hope that the two of you will one day resume a relationship and live together, but I don’t think that it is realistic for you to hope for the same kind of relationship to resume, the kind where (in your mind, and perhaps his as well), the two of you “seemed perfect for each other.. happy to just be sitting next to each other on the sofa holding hands. Just simple, easy things”.

The simple, easy that you experienced was just a break from his complicated, difficult inner experience of life. The next together with him is way, way more likely to involve a lot of distress for you than it is be simple or easy.

If I had a magic wand I will change a lot of things in this world. In the context of this thread, I would make his OCD disappear, make him understand that he is good enough and so, make it possible for him to be the loving, mentally-healthy partner that you need him to be.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by .

Dear Katie:

Remember that it’s not right for him to torment you with what torments him. He should endure his suffering without inflicting it on you. Love means just that, to not inflict suffering on the one you allegedly love. My concern is that he is angry at you, as if you are the cause of his suffering, while you are not at all the cause of any of his suffering.

anita

Dear Katie:

“Once he found out about the high school guy, I all of a sudden was not who he thought I was”- who does he think you are then, did he tell you who he now thinks you are?

anita

Dear Katie:

If he indeed knew and loved you ever since 6th grade and all through high school (“We went to school together as kids, 6th- high school seniors. He claims he’s loved me since 6th grade”)- then how can it be that he did not notice for two whole years in high school, while loving you from afar, that you were “with 1 guy for a couple of years in high school”?

Maybe what he claims to be true (“He claims he loved me”) is not true, maybe it is highly exaggerated, maybe during school, he at times felt love for you, at other times he felt love for others (but mostly felt angry at everyone).

* If he cares about/ values being “pure, innocent”- does he not value honesty as being something that is pure and innocent (and exaggerating/ distorting the truth- impure and guilty?

“His first sexual experience was with his wife; mine was in high school. I guess he thought everyone should be like he was”- no, he wishes that he was like everyone else. He’s been jealous for a long, long time that he did not experience what others did in high school, and he still is jealous of you and of the dead guy, on whose grave he wants to spit, as he told you.

In school, he saw himself as the odd one, and not in a good way. Other students were the lucky ones, the fortunate ones, the happy ones (in his own mind), while he was the only unhappy one. He envied Everyone, was angry at Everyone. Fast forward, he meets you and makes believe somehow, at times that you are like him, on his side of Unhappy. Later on he.. finds out that you are one of the Everyone whom he still envies, at whom he is still angry.

anita