A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Hey everyone.. I know this is going to be on the lengthy side but I would appreciate your thoughts as this is really important to me. I started dating a man in the Navy a few months ago. We had been friends all throughout high school and I sent him packages and letters while he was overseas. I always had a crush on him but never thought he would feel the same way. I had heard a lot of negative things about his dating life prior to the Navy (cheated on girls and using them for sex). Anyway, he had just come back from Iraq and when I saw him for the first time and things felt different. We ended up hooking up for a week until I found out some pretty bad news. He had dated a girl for maybe three months (if that) in his freshman year of high school (over 6 years ago). When he landed in his base in the US after his tour, (about a month before him and I became an item) he called her and said he still loved her. She said she didn't have the same feelings for him.. she strictly loved him as a friend. I actually found this story out from a friend of mine.. my boyfriend hadn't told me this on his own. I asked him about it and he said he was going to tell me eventually and he also told me that he still does love her but he cares for me a lot too. He said he hadn't thought about her in the same light since him and I started dating and that I make him very happy. My problem is, I feel that if he wasn't over his first girlfriend in over 6 years with plenty of other hookups and a few serious relationships in between, why am I going to be any different? I'm terrified he's going to come home on leave and tell me he still loves her and it's going to break my heart. He and I have talked extensively about this and I feel like I'm actually starting to annoy him by bringing it up. I feel like I need a lot of reassurance though especially with knowing his past relationships where he has cheated and lied and manipulated girls to have sex. While that may all be rumors, it still makes me wonder. He tells me he loves me now after a few months of dating. He seems to genuinely mean it. I'm scared of giving up years of my life while he's not anywhere near me and I don't see him for periods of 7 to 8 months to have him break my heart in the end. Any opinions are greatly appreciated.. thank you in advance 3
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reader, anonymous, writes (1 October 2010): Your question isn't at all stupid. You do have a lot of reason to feel anxious here, and I'm not surprised that you are feeling insecure and in need of reassurance. It isn't really that normal or healthy for your boyfriend to be hung up on an old girlfriend from such a long time ago, especially when they dated for such a short time. (Had it been a 15 year marriage, it would be understandable - but a 3 month fling?) In fact, so unusual is it, that it suggests to me that he's not really in love with this girl, but fixated with an idealized view of her that he's developed over the years. Indeed, I imagine it was something of a shock to her to be called out of the blue by a freshman sweetheart and told that he still loved her - if something like that happened to me, I'd find the behaviour a bit bizarre.
However, on the plus side of the balance sheet, the fact that he rang up his old love, and told her how he felt, suggests he was looking for closure one way or the other before he met you. That may well be what makes your relationship 'different' from all the others - perhaps when he met you, he was actually ready to let go of the past. I imagine it came as something of a shock to him to hear that she had moved on long ago, and only saw him as a friend. In return, it does sound as though he has done his utmost to move on too. He says he loves you, and hasn't done anything to arouse your suspicions of his fidelity to you. Also, he clearly cares about your feelings enough to discuss this subject with you at some length. Maybe he's finally been able to move on from this crush, and perhaps you are part of his brand new life, in a proper adult relationship? If this relationship is to have a future, you may need to make a leap of faith here, and place your trust in him. At the same time, he needs to understand that his career, and his personal past combined, mean that you need extra reassurance of his commitment to you.
If there is one thing I think you guys do need to talk about, it's the fact that you will be away from each other for such a long time. As I said before, I suspect that such distance, and such disconnection from family, friends back home, is a significant factor in breeding this kind of obsession with a sweetheart from time past. When you're working away, it's easy to imagine that things back home stand still, when in fact they move on just the same. Finding ways of connecting while he is away is very important in terms of building a strong future together, and reassuring each other of your loyalty and love. That may mean going the extra mile to talk on the phone, or sending extra letters and small gifts to say you care. Work out a strategy and stick to it together!
You sound like you have bucketloads of commonsense, and plenty of intelligence. You're clearly nobody's fool, but you're calm and rational. I don't think you need to have any worries about your judgment. However, sometimes we need to have a little faith in other people, a little trust in them (and that can be very difficult to give if we've been hurt in the past). 'Cautious trust' would be how I'd describe the best way forward for you here, if you really like this guy and want to give the relationship a shot! Good luck.
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