How can I stop comparing my ex to my current boyfriend?

[JstLooking]

Last year I was engaged to a man who absolutely broke my heart. We lived together, had just signed a two year lease on an apartment, everything was great. The morning of Christmas Eve he left and never came back. Didn't call or anything. Just disappeared. I got myself taken off of the lease, picked myself up by my broken hearted bootstraps and found a new home, new friends, new job, etc. I started dating and dated a few very nice men.

 

Then I met my current boyfriend. Things moved quickly - we live together and have only been together about six months - but I am very, very happy with him. He is a wonderful man and I feel very lucky to have him in my life. He is absolutely nothing like my ex-fiance.

 

My problem is this: since last year at this time, I was living with my fiance, everything was great, etc. this time of year is making me unexpectedly anxious. I thought I had dealt with what happened last year, but maybe I didn't. I keep getting sad and suspicious of my boyfriend and thinking that every morning when he leaves it's the last time I'll see him. He knows about my ex and the story behind it, but really doesn't like talking about it (no more than I enjoy chatting about his ex's). He knows that something has been bothering me lately - I just haven't been myself. He has said in the past that he is worried that I would compare him to my ex and so I don't want to tell him that what my problem lately is is that I kind of am doing that.

 

Is there any way that I can just get over this? Am I just being plain ol' silly? I know that bringing up this topic with my boyfriend, that he will listen and respond positively, but in the back of his mind he'll realize that I'm comparing them. I don't want to make him worried...I just want to stop acting like this.

 

Any help? Advice? Thank you!!

[UCFKevin]

You know what? Just be honest with him. Tell him what's going on and how you're feeling. Hopefully he'll respect you being open with him and won't get upset. I wouldn't.

[midori]

Originally posted by JstLooking

Then I met my current boyfriend. Things moved quickly - we live together and have only been together about six months - but I am very, very happy with him. He is a wonderful man and I feel very lucky to have him in my life. He is absolutely nothing like my ex-fiance.

 

That is awfully quick, isn't it? Especially considering that you were coming out of a very hurtful situation.

 

He knows about my ex and the story behind it, but really doesn't like talking about it (no more than I enjoy chatting about his ex's). He knows that something has been bothering me lately - I just haven't been myself. He has said in the past that he is worried that I would compare him to my ex and so I don't want to tell him that what my problem lately is is that I kind of am doing that.

 

Sometimes healthy relationships fall into place quickly, sometimes they evolve more slowly. Either way, a large part of what makes a relationship healthy is if each partner is able to acknowledge and deal with the other's situations: their work, their families, their hang-ups, their habits. You're in a relationship to know and be known -- surely that's what love is about.

 

Your relationship started off quickly, but it doesn't sound like it's healthy because there are parts of you that (you feel) you are forced to suppress. You've got a recent history of hurt. You didn't sort through it before you jumped into this relationship, and the relationship appears to be requiring you to act as if the hurt never occurred. That's not going to work, obviously. As you're seeing.

 

So you and your boyfriend are faced with a choice: your relationship can expand to incorporate all of who you are (and who he is), which includes old wounds and unanswered questions. Or you can carry on as you have been, determined to ignore some rather large issues which may well overwhelm you sooner or later. Or you can break up now.

 

If your boyfriend has made your ex a verboten topic, that's a problem. Why does he feel he would compare unfavorably to your ex? Why does he fear that you'll conclude he's no different than your ex? What about your lignering pain is threatening to your boyfriend? He's not the one who inflicted the pain, after all. Usually people shy away from pain in others if they feel responsible for it. Or if they're generally lacking in empathy. What's the story there?

 

And then there's you: you haven't processed what happened with your ex. So you're still in the dark about what was going on, and you therefore cannot be reasonably confident that it won't happen again. Working your way through something like that is difficult and obviously doesn't happen overnight. But it certainly won't happen if you dont' let yourself live with the questions it raises: why did he leave? why did he leave like that? why did he behave as if everything was wonderful up until his leaving? There were probably warning signs that you missed (as we all do. I've failed to read the writing on the wall more than once). Why did you miss them?

 

And why have you jumped right into another relationship?

 

Your current situation doesn't have to be doomed. But both you and your boyfriend need to be realistic about a) why you're in the relationship, and b) what your needs really are. One thing that occurs to me is that in both relationships you are or were about to co-habitate with your boyfriend. Which is nice and cozy, but it means that your basic living conditions are bound up in the health of your relationship. Puts more pressure on keeping a smooth surface -- but at what cost?

 

I have found that when I've missed the warning signs in relationships it has been because I was too focused on, or attached to, the peripheral things that the relationship brought into my life, things that I valued and didn't want to lose. Or because I was too bound up in my vision of the future, of what my partner might ultimately be (fully trusting of me, fully engaged), so that I didn't pay attention to the fact that he wasn't in a good place at that moment.

 

Living together is fine. But probably not the wisest choice for a woman who got dumped the way you did and who had hooked up with a new guy within the next four or five months. Dating guys, even getting into a semi-serious relationship, can be a good distractor. But you've placed a lot of eggs in a basket that you didn't examine too closely.

 

If you and your boyfriend aren't able to talk openly and with sympathy and trust about your past experiences then I would advise you to get your own place, so that whether or not you two stay together won't affect your immediate living situation.