A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I have been with my boyfriend for 3 years now. He pursued me after we broke up with our respective exes, and after around 5 months I really fell in love with him. Our first year together was good. However, just over a year after we got together, I started to suspect he was cheating on me. I found a message on his phone which pretty much confirmed it, but when I confronted him, he made up some crazy story to deny it and I accepted it.However, it drove me mad, and I kept checking up and gathering evidence. Every time I questioned him or was caught checking his phone, he found a way to deny it, and managed to blame me for suspecting him. Basically, I lost 6 kilos in weight and came close to loosing my job because of the impact it had on me - he made me think I was paranoid and my behaviour was recking our relationship, when all I wanted to do was to be with him.Eventually, I had all the evidence I needed to know he was conducting another relationship behind my back - it went on for a year (she is now in a relationship with someone else) and yet even knowing for sure, I couldn't end it because I still loved him. It seemed that every extra thing I found out pushed my acceptance a bit further - the 2 or 3 nights he stayed away with 'a friend', and then the time he brought her back to my flat where we live together (him for free) and she stayed over in my bed for 2 nights while I was overseas for work! There were other things too.What makes it worse? He uses his wife, who he has been seperated from for about 1 year before I met him, as his cover story - since I have been with him, he has hidden our relationship from all his friends in our hometown using the excuse that he cannot risk his wife seeing us (may effect his legal status in this country if she wanted to cause trouble for him). I accepted this to start, thinking he was worth it. Now I believe the reason he won't be seen with me and won't introduce me to his friends because he is presenting himself to the outside world as single - flirting with, sleeping with and even having a relationship with other women with no risk of me finding out. I also think he pretends to his friends that I am his landlady (who he sleeps with when it suits him). What makes it even more worse? This woman is not the only one. I have seen women on Facebook who he flirts with, pretending he is single and looking for a relationship, suggesting they go on holiday with him (in his home country, meeting up with him when he goes home) and meeting up with them. He is always actively pursuing women, and meets up with other women in our home town regularly despite telling me we cannot be seen together. I also believe he has slept with other women when he is home, finding condoms that he told me were his brothers. And worst of all - while I know this man is poison to me and I should dump his sorry ass, regain my confidence and meet someone who actually values, loves, cares for and respects me, I can't seem to let go. After all this, I love him so much and don't want my life without him. Yet my life with him is miserable and I am constantly stressed, insecure and unhappy as well as bored. I am also scared to be on my own again and can't deal with the conflict that I would need to go through to discuss things with him (I am really bad with conflict, and he tends to explode and walk out if I dare to question him or try to talk to him about anything he doesn't like). Basically, he controls me and is indirectly mentally abusing me. But there is still part of me that hopes that underneath all that selfish, cheating, lying and using approach there is a lovely person. I think that he tends to seperate his realities and while I am comfortable for him as long as he keeps me where he wants me, he wants to be with me in the long term, but not at the expense of his freedom to play around.Plese please please help me to find a way to deal with this - why can't I leave him? I used to be confident, independent and successful, now I am insecure, dependent (not financially, as he contributes nothing financial to our relationship) and stagnating in my life. He gives me nothing and I accept it. This is sooo wrong. How can I find the confidence to either deal with the conflict and address all this with him, or to leave him when I still love him?
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 December 2010): Thank you so much angelDlite - your advice has given me hope for the future and something very practical that I think will really help me to deal with this. Its difficult to find strength when there is little left, but I will dig deep.
I really appreciate the time you have taken to answer. It means a lot, and you may just be my saviour.
xx
A
female
reader, angelDlite  +, writes (7 December 2010):
 you are answering your own question you know that dont you? i know its hard to make the final break though because i have been in this situation too (although not with someone as BAD as this!) heres what you need to do...
1 make a list. write down all his good points and all his good ones. be very honest with yourself when you do this.
2 make friends a bigger part of your life. they will make you feel less lonely when you do leave him (because i am sure that you will leave him one day!)
3 know this fact... human beings can get over ANYTHING. ok?
4 think of the future. do you want to remain with someone who makes you feel like this or would you prefer to be available for someone more deserving when he comes along?
5 only leave when YOU are ready. this will happen but we never know when. one day you will just get to a point with him that makes you think 'thats it. no more!' and there will be nothing he can do that will change your mind.
6 stop thinking he will change. you have worked on this for three years now. i know you probably think if you love him hard enough it'll soften him and he will love you back. i think if this was true then he would've paid you back with love and respect by now. you are looking for something that he is not.
7 after you have split from him take out your list that you have wrote of good and bad points and read it to yourself whenever you doubt that leaving him was the right thing to do. this will remind you not to go back to him when you are starting to forget the bad way he makes you feel.
i hope you find the courage to break yourself away from this man and realise that you will mourn the end of the relationship for a while when you split and that is ok and normal but ultimately you WILL be happier and have a better life away from him. the longer you stay then more he will grind you down into nothing, plus i can imagine a low life like this might dump you and take the descision out of your hands, though to be honest if he does do this i think its the best favour he will ever do for you.
i wish you the best of luck in your life. i hope this time next year you will be a different person coz i'm betting he won't be! xx
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