heartbroken

[lissa]

well,let me get straight to the point. I have been in a relatioship with my boyfriend for three years. the relationship had it's share of ups and downs,which is normal. There has always been trust issues that I had to work on in this relatioship, due to how the relationship manifested. But I have always had unconditional love for my man. I have been by his side through many hard times, I was there for him when noone else was. I have been very comitted to this man. I will admit in the beginning I was no saint,I still don't look at myself as one. But I have bettered myself as far as I stopped drinking, I don't go out to the bars,I am living my life in a honest fashion,with dignity. I am very SQUARE! Maybe too square for him. he always tends to hang with the rowdy crowds,always where the action is right in the middle of anything that is going on. He doesn't like me to go around his friends because he says he don't want me in that enviorment. Sometimes I would wonder about that,i sometimes think that he and his friends think that I think I am better than them. Which I don't think that at all. I do have a problem with some of his female friends because of the way they carry themselves,I have a insecurity I know and I am working really hard to overcome it. But I feel sometimes these female friends have more of a connection to my man's pyche than I do. He sometimes has a wall up,making it impossiable to communicate. I think this all goes back to the time he was incarsarated. Through his twenties he was locked up. He is now 35,but sometimes when I think about it I think he is trying to live for all those years he wasn't free. Alot of his friends are like in their early to mid twenties. They seem to like to party all the time. I am 26 I have already grew out of that phase. I am very sophisticated for my age,although I am still young at heart. Anyway,one day in july we returned home one morning from a outting, he said he was going somewhere and he would be back. he gave me a kiss goodbye said he loved me the usual. But it has been 48 days,he has returned while I am at work,he has taken a few clothes, socks,a couple of posessions. Everything else he owns is still here with me. I love this man very much and know he has alot of stress in his life to deal with. But I also love myself and do not want to be played for a fool. I have only talked to him a few times since he has been gone. He will not return my pages,I do not know his recently obtained cell phone number,or where he is staying. I have gotten in contact with his mom. She did not call at all. So she obviously knew he wasn't here. Although she was shocked when I told her i hadn't seen him in like 2 months. I smell something fishy. Although he says he loves me and I need to be patient because he is handling his business,ect I am insecure anyway so I automatically assume to myself he is with another woman. But then I ask myself why would he have left all of his stuff? He is usually a very blunt person. but in this case he just will not talk. When I do try to talk to him to get a understanding he gets angry. He says he is sick and tired of being asked what is up,ect. But I tell him he is doing me wrong by not giving me the understanding that I need. I am so heart broken because I don't know what is going on,I don't see him,talk to him on a regular basis or anything. The seperation has hurt me so bad. I have allowed it to depress me. I am tired of feeling this pain. I told his mom the other day that if he doesn't want to be with me then he needs to tell me that and come to get his things. He tells me he loves me well his actions are not showing it. I know i donot deserve to go through this. But I put him through alot of pain in the past with sarcastic remarks,and hurtful accusations. Sometimes I feel like he is giving me a taste of my own medicine. He used to tell me that he doesn't have to stay and put up with that,he didn't desrve to be treated like that. I don't know. I love him,but I don't want to be played like a fool later either. I think his mom knows what he is up to but doesnt want to tell me. She did tell him that I have been a very,very good friend to him and I donot deserve to be treated like this. That statement made me wonder,does he have his mom thinking we were only friends? She doesn't think that,does she? I mean we have been affectionate infront of her ect... I don't know! He saw my mom today and my mom said he acted like he was scared to talk to her. Like he was pissed or something. I paged him later from a number he wasn't familiar with, just to see if he would call back. He did only because he didn't know the number he was real sweet and pleasant. I asked him to the movies tonight he accepted but never showed up to go,never returned the 2nd page. That right there makes me want to just throw in the towel and really start the healing process. But I have so much love for this man. I think he is depressed and just living a self defeating life style. He is very moody,overly stressed. I yearn to help him. But instead he centers himself around others living the same rowdy life. what do you think? I want straight forward good or bad answers.

 

Thanks for reading my problem.

 

lissa

[sparkle]

Please use paragraphs next time you post or no one will reply to your posts. It's killing my eyes trying to read the big blob and make any sense of it.

 

Well I did read part of it before I couldn't read it anymore, but from what you're saying, this guy walked out one day and hasn't contacted you for 45 days. You're wondering what to do???

 

Ummm...he's been gone for 45 days and he doesn't want to talk to you...that should give you a PRETTY GOOD CLUE that he does not want to be with you right now. Maybe it had to do with your remarks and you telling him what to do. Or maybe he just lost interest. Or both. Or many other reasons...I don't know.

 

But what I do know is that if someone wants to be with you, they'd contact you EVERY day and try to see you every other day. If not, he's not interested anymore.

 

Forget about him...this relationship ended 45 days ago.

[midori]

Dear lissa,

 

What a tough situation. I can't say I've been there before, but a couple of things seem like the most plausible to me.

 

1) He is a weird, strange player whose love (could it really be love?) for you is outweighed by his need to play the field and keep you dangling at his convenience.

 

2) He is involved in illegal activities that he doesn't want to touch upon you in any way.

 

You'll know which fits better (if either do), but the way I see it neither of these scenarios has any hope in them for you. The first is obviously hopeless for your relationship. Besides the hurt and anger staying with such a person would undoubtedly bring, just think about the very real risk to your health that being with a man who is sleeping around carries.

 

The second, while kind of romantic in a dangerous and deluded kind of way, still really isn't at all promising for a good relationship. For one thing, you never see the guy. You might as well be having a long-distance relationship, but at least in those there is regular communication via phone, email, letters, etc. You don't even have that. So how is it a relationship? Another thing is that if your guy is involved in illegal activities, what are the chances that he's going to get arrested and incarcerated again, or even killed? Also not helpful to building and maintaining a loving relationship. Lastly, your suspcion that there are other women in his life is all too likely to be correct. If he is living in the criminal world and trying to operate according to his own "logic" and sense of what's right, he may feel justified at keeping other women in his bed as substitute girlfriends, even though he tells himself (and you, and these other women) that his heart belongs to you.

 

Either way he seems to have cast you in the role of noble, patient, loving, loyal woman. And while that might sound like a nice role to have, when you think about what it entails it's rather lonely and unsatisfying don't you think? And why should you be playing a role of his creation anyway -- you sound like a smart, strong woman who is able to make changes in her life when she needs to and who is clear-eyed enough to see things for what they are. You should be deciding how you want to interact with the man you love, not playing some cookie-cutter role. That noble, patient, loyal stuff seems a bit limiting. And even if he starts to come around a bit more at some point, he'll still have this other life (and perhaps other women) on the side. Even if you became his wife, the mother of his children, what's to stop him from having part-time relationships on the side with women who belong to his other world, the world he keeps from you? He can justify that by saying "lissa's so innocent, she doesn't know anything about this stuff and I want to keep it that way. But sometimes I need to be with someone who understands the stuff that goes on." Oh, and don't forget the risk to your health if he's sleeping with other women (who are sleeping with other men ...)

 

From what I understand, prison life can be a hard thing to walk away from. It can shape a person's view of themselves and what their options are in the world. If your man doesn't really have the coping skills necessary to make a successful foray into the world of law-abiding grown ups, he'll probably end up back in prison, where at least he knows the lay of the land. I don't think there's anything you can do to change that -- do you? No amount of patience and loyalty and love could give him the tools he needs to break out of the pattern of behavior that has him trapped. Those he must acquire himself. You can't change him, no matter how much you love him.

 

Do you yourself want to get caught up in his illegal activities, even if only as a bystander? Do you want to settle for an unrealistic, unsatisfying role that he defines and controls? I know I wouldn't.

 

I think you should walk away. Gather up his things and drop them off with his mother, with a message that,no hard feelings, but you're not willing to be involved with a phantom who keeps secrets from you. Don't let him back into your life unless he can make a full accounting for what's been going on. And I would, frankly, still not let him back into your life if there's anything illegal going on. Why on earth would you invite that kind of trouble into your life? For love? I doubt even that's worth it.

 

My real instinct is to tell you to get out, now, with no second thoughts and to never ever speak to this man again, no matter what. Because to my outsider's ears he sounds like nothing but trouble. I know though, how hard it is to see things in black and white when you're mired in the middle of something and your heart is involved. But even when you look at the subtle details of this scenario, it only spells unhappiness and trouble. I'd be very very surprised if anyone could pull a happy ending out of it.

 

Good luck lissa.

 

-midori