What I really want is to just get over this and possibly find a way to somehow help the situation. Something that would make me feel better and finally help me move beyond this and let it keeping from destroying our relationship! We’ve been through together so much and I don’t want this to be the reason this whole thing comes unraveled. Please help!

Anita,
Thankyou for you reply. I agree that an experience for me may as well have been unsatisfactory for me. However it is not having had a chance to be able to experience it, unsatisfactory or not, is what worries me. I sometimes wonder if having been with just her all my life will affect our relationship down the line. Specially when it isn’t the case for her.

Is it wrong of me to think about it this way?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by DP.

My parents had a love marriage but for as long as I can remember, it was an unhappy one. My father was unfaithful and after a point it was more than clear that he wasn’t invested in the relationship at all. Although he was never an abusive father, he’s walked out on us quite a few times and disappeared for months together.

As a kid I guess I was stronger in coping with this, because I saw my mother suffering and I guess I didn’t want her to worry about me on top of all that she had going on in her life. But as I’ve grew older and started dating (and I believe my ex played a big role in triggering this) I grew paranoid of being cheated on and abandoned.

Yet, the thing that nags me all the time in my head is that I’ve never been physically invested with any other girl before, and the fact that she has been with other people. I want to make it clear that I don’t think she’s promiscuous for having been with multiple people in her life or anything. I wasn’t her first but she was mine and it never really bothered me before. It started bothering me after the aforementioned hookups she had.

I can understand my parents relationship leaving me anxious about being cheated on, but I don’t see how it could be driving my main concern here..

Not really, no. My mother made sure we were protected from whatever was going on in their relationship. I had a fair idea of what’s going on but she never really made a show of what she was going through.

Thankyou so much for the back and forth on this by the way!

Well it was obvious she wasn’t happy. But by ‘see her suffer’ I don’t mean that she was always sad and crying. And it’s not like she talked about how my dad’s life must be going as you suggested. Like I said, she kept her children protected from all of this the best she could.

I felt empathy for my mother and have grown up to be closer to her than to my father. Needless to say my relationship with my father is a bit strained. I was angry and still feel angry sometimes even today.

However, I feel have been misleading with my title. I am unable to shake off her past. The impact my parent’s relationship created on my life and relationships is a separate issue i guess

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by DP.

Peter,

I have been practicing meditation for a few months now, something I started to specifically help me do this – “The practice is learning how to direct one’s consciousness and pull it back to the ‘still point’”.

This has been bothering me for a little under two years now and although its not there all the time, sometimes they take over my thought process completely leaving me with borderline panic attacks and unable to function. I really did try to focus my attention away from this and just move past it because I really want the relationship to work, but it’s been two years now and I can’t seem to which is why I’m reaching out for any other possible solutions.

Anita,

My girlfriend had just the same reaction when I voiced these concerns to her.. But no, my simple solution is not to hook up and level out the scores so to speak. I cherish what I have with her and we have seen each other through a lot for me to just end the relationship so I can go hook up. Cheating is obviously out of the question because apart from it being wrong in itself, I don’t think I’ll be able to live with myself seeing myself follow in my father’s footsteps. I feel stuck and distressed not because she has been with other people, but because I’ve been with nobody but her. It scares me that this feeling of worry I get now, the feeling of nagging i get in my head sometimes will grow into something larger that will eventually destroy our relationship.

About what distressed me before and why the relationship was such a rollercoaster? I had one proper relationship before this and she unfortunately cheated on me. So being cheated on, coupled with my parent’s failing marriage left me angry and paranoid. I found it hard to commit. As our relationship progressed I found myself distancing myself from her more and more. This wasn’t something that happened because we were incompatible but because I pushed her away because the idea of investing in a relationship again terrified me. I was scared and didn’t want to be cheated on again and I formed a notion that all relationships end badly. So I lashed out and pushed her away and broke up. She fought for me and we decided to give it another chance, which unfortunately ended in a similar fashion. After this we just cut each other out of our lives and decided to go separate ways (which is when she started seeing other people) and eventually fate brought us together again and I decided to grow up and really put effort into this relationship and not let the notions i had formed of relationships affect me. We’ve come a long way from how we started and I’m really proud of it. She has made me a better person and she’s helped me through a lot of issues in life especially my problems with commitment.