Aversion Therapy

OK. So who has a giant rubber band they can lend me?

The inadequate Boyfriend has to go. Unfortunately I am a NICE person, am in LOVE with the man (god only knows why), am SEVERELY SUSCEPTABLE TO GUILT as my jewish real name demands, and am loyal to a FAULT.

Because I am nice, I do not want to inflict pain on others unnecessarily. Even when they deserve it as he so clearly does. It hurts me to see those I care about hurt, and, well, I don't even know that if I tried to hurt him that it would, because you would have to care/have a heart for that to happen and with him this is questionable at best. To be honest it would hurt me even more if I tried to hurt him and it didn't, so there's a second reason to just leave that can of worms with it's lid firmly in place.

Because I am in love with him, my emotions run away with my common sense. I can't see clearly. Not at all. My judgement is completely impaired, my motives hardly altruistic. I need to ignore my heart and think with a clear head and that is exactly what I cannot do. I love him, I want him, my heart is aching and I want to do whatever it takes to have him/ease the pain no matter whether this is right for me or not.

I do not deal well with guilt. I am the kind of person who feels guilty walking INTO a store as I pass the shoplifting-detector things. INTO. What the fuck could I have stolen to feel guilty about before I've even gotten inside???? But there you go, that's me. Queen of guilt, and at least 80% of it is completely wrong for me to feel. If there is any tangible way (and sometimes not so tangible) for me to be even slightly responsible, I will feel guilty until it is done. If it's the right thing to do, then I just have to do it. I know it's ridiculous, but the thing is, it eats me up inside if I don't. I know these people don't even feel slighted half the time. And I know that even the ones who do, have gotten over it long before it stops keeping me up at night, twisting my stomach in knots, and making me unable to eat yet constantly needing the loo. Its physical. And he knows this, and plays it to his advantage. And I can't help it, because I feel so much worse than he does, that I give in because whatever he wants cant be as bad as what my refusal will do to me.

I am loyal to a fault. Sometimes even beyond it. I have given my word that I would do some things for him. He doesn't deserve it no, but I gave my word. And unfortunately I actually want to do this for him. I want him to be better off (of course I do, I love him and want the best for those I love). By my nature I am very selfless and giving. Often to my detriment. Added to that I am a very strong person. So I give and give and give, wanting the very best for my loved ones, and helping in any way I can because that is who I am. I give so much that I end up digging myself a hole. Sometimes financial, sometimes time-wise, sometimes emotionally, or physically, or I dont do something I really should have for my own benefit, or whatever else, or a combination of them all. I do this knowing whatever mess I create in my own world I am strong enough to clean it up. I know I shouldn't, I know it should be me coming first, but I like to give.

So, I need aversion therapy. And when I was little I bit my nails. I was given a rubber band to snap on my wrist whenever I bit them, or wanted to. It hurt. It stoppen me wanting to bite my nails. I now have lovely nails. I never bite them. I need an Anti-Inadequate-Boyfriend-Device. A rubber band. A patch. A 12 step program. Whatever.

I need to be rid of this addiction. It is absolutley no good for my health.

************************************

This has been coming for a while. I have told him some things are deal breakers for me. I have tried to be an adult. I've tried to explain (as well as understand it myself) that love isn't always enough, that sometimes things JUST. DONT. WORK. It doesnt have to be a blame game. I cannot speak for him, only for me. He has his complaints too (entirely wrong and irrelevant ones of course, but he does voice them LOL).

There are things I want, nay, need at this point in our relationship, that I am not getting. Reasons are almost irrelevant at this point. There are certain things that I desire in a relationship and they are missing from ours. These are not things I can accept being without.

There are things he does that I vehemently abhor. I consider them absolute and total deal breakers. These are complicated issues that came to light only recently as collateral damage from the BIG FAT LIE. I have allowed 2 months for the situation to sink in, to be re-evalued by both of us, and for discussions to take place and for decisions to be made. That hasn't been done on his side. And because of that, have not been completed on mine either. But I know in my heart that although I am trying to see his point of view, trying to find a compromise/solution/whatever, this is not something that I will ever be comfortable with, and I don't honestly believe that I should have to be.

I believe that, although I have been cryptic here, I have been absolutely clear to him. And nothing has changed. I could not even get a definitive response from him saying that he refuses to make these changes.

I feel it unfair in the extreme that this man who has asked for my patience, understanding and consideration for years now, has not the decency to step up to the plate. One of these items in question has been on the discussion table now for over 2 years. For more than 2 years I have been told "soon". 2 years is not my definition of soon.

In fact this was one fo the pivitol points in last nights argument. Am I pushing him? YES. Too damn right I am. And yes I know it is his absolute pet hate, and I honestly do not care in the slightest. I feel completely vindicated of any wrongdoing in pushing for an answer to just a couple of the main points of contention between us. I feel that in over 3 years of waiting, being patient and being asked to "bear with me" I believe I have earned the right to push.

I dont want marriage and babies and a joint mortgage and living together and family portraits in matching outfits. I dont want promises of happily ever after and miraculous overnight major overhauls.

I simply wanted to know what the reality was. I didn't want empty promises and good intentions unfullfilled. I wanted an end to the pipe dreams. I wanted to know where I stood.

I got my answer.

Actually I got answers to things I didn't even ask. I got answers to such pearlers as:

* Why it is no wonder that I have no friends
* Why my family are right to be assholes to me
* Why any other man is out of my league
* Why he will not be beholden to "any bitch"
* Why all we do is argue
* Why he doesn't call as often as he did when we first got together
* Why I am unfuckable
* Why I am unloveable
* Why I am a terrible mother
* Why I am a terrible housekeeper
* Why it is all my fault that he is in his current less-than-enviable-position
* Why I have destroyed him financially
* How awful my child is
* How I have no self respect
* How I am a walking joke to his friends/family
* How I am destroying his relationship with his business partner
* How I cannot be trusted

As an added bonus I now know
* How he doesnt want to spend time with me
* How all Im good for is a blow job
* How he has no desire to fuck me
* How he dreads my phone calls
* How he can't wait to leave me
* How he doesn't want a relationship
* How he has never been with anyone as terrible as me
* How he left his ex wife for so much less than what I do to him
* How he wishes he wouldnt wake up in the morning
* How he never wants to hear from me nor see me ever again
* How he regrets ever having met me
* How he regrets every moment he has ever spent with me

That isn't even all of it. I know he says some of these things to be hurtful. I know he can be a hateful, hateful man. I know he says he said all these things for my own good, to make me hate him and therefore move on with my life.

But knowing all these things, doesn't change other things I know. I know I dont deserve to be told those things. I know I am not the terrible person he paints me as. I know that in amoungst the spiteful, hateful, hurtful things he threw at me, that he believed them all, at least a little bit if not more in order to even think them to say them.

And when it comes to not wanting to be with me, well, that was what I was accusing him of in the first place. Of not being IN this relationship, and simply stringing me along, using me for whatever he could get for the lowest price he needed to pay.

I know that he manipulates me, in more ways than I have mentioned here, particularly in the way he argues with me. He never lets me finish a sentence. He never answers a question. He askes me questions without listening to my answers, usually by cutting me off mid sentence again. He changes subject over and over. He fires accusations off like a machine gun and uses the same diversionary tactics again when I ask him to substantiate his claims. He always makes me back up my assertions with proof (which luckily I do 95% of the time - not that it does me any good). He frustrates me on purpose, yelling and cussing, abusing and accusing me, cutting me off mid sentence and changing subjects to the point where I yell back at him, and then demands that I not yell and speak to him with respect. He pushes my buttons for fun and frustrates me to the point where I am so tense I am a shaking, muscle clenched, hair rending, short of breath mess, screaming at him to let me speak, at which point he will declare me mentally unstable and in dire need of psychiatric help.

I am not crazy. I am being mentally and emotionally abused. I am being manipulated. I am being played. He is good, VERY good at it. He is 13 years my senior and has considerably more life experience, wisdom and knowledge in the art of deception and manipulation. he has a nasty streak that i cannot even begin to fatholm. My mind, heart and soul simply does not function in that way and I do not even want to learn. To him I am a game, and I think I must be a decent toy. Who else but an admirable adversary would require so many changes to the rules, the game board, the players.......

This shit must stop. My life is not an amusement arcade for him to frolic in. Now, if I could just stop my heart from loving him, and my insecurities and self doubt from believing him, my ears from hearing, my eyes from seeing, my body from feeling, my mouth from speaking, my stomach from lurching........

Pass me that elastic band.

*SNAP*