How Do You Move Onto Trust?

[Ms.Impervious]

I went to an all-girl high school and didn't start dating till after I finished high school. I met someone when I was 19 and it was through him that I met my ex-boyfriend. It was so crazy how we got together. He stole my number off his friend's phone and called me to meet up with him. That night is a night I will never forget. I never laughed as hard or so much in my life with someone on a first date. He was smart, funny, energetic and kind. He loved books and children. I thought that God finally gave me someone that I could be with. Ever since I started dating and such, I have always found myself in these incredibly s***ty situations. I know there will always be girls who will be prettier than me but at the same time, I know I'm not bad looking. Still, I have met and dated men who are purely pigs. Its given me such a bad impression of dating and men, overall.

 

I have had the experience of

A) Being with someone only to discover that he was still with his girlfriend

B) Being with someone and being notified an hour after the first time, that his engagement was back on. That and being taken advantage of when I wasn't even conscious.

C) Being tossed aside after the first time with a person I was dating

D) Being infatuated with someone and having them use your feelings to thier advantage.[/FONT][/sIZE]

 

And so on...

 

And the funny thing is that they always come crawling back months or even a year later and expect everything to be all peachy with me. They have called asking me to take them back. I was stalked for a while by someone because he was adamant about getting back with me. The guy I met my ex thru (although with a new girl who is currently pregnant with his child) still calls me. Its flattering to know that you are good in bed but at the same time, it really sucks. When I met my ex, he was aware of my past. He actually never forgave his friends for messing with me. He promised he would never treat me that way and he never did. He made everyday count and made me feel special and like a princess. I'm not talking about being waited on, hand and foot. I mean just kissing and cuddling without anything else and just being together. He was wonderful. There was a glitch though. When I met him, he was in the middle of a divorce. We had many talks about this before and during our relationship. If I felt that he was in any way still in love with her, I would not have pursued this. All the while we were dating though, she would still call him to hassle him. She lives in my neighborhood and was looking for me. He was taking her calls becuase her father had stolen his truck and was not returning it. I hated how she bothered him and how she bothered us. He would get harrassed by his father-in-law too, getting calls at 4am. The day he got the call about his car being sold was the day I ever saw him agitated. THE VERY NEXT DAY, his wife calls to say that she is pregnant and from there, everything went downhill with us. Long story short, I went through a month of waiting and two months of depression. I really lost it. I started turning away from my friends. I am always the first one to be going out and during those months, all I did was stay in. I kept to myself and I was angry all the time. I have always had trouble sleeping ever since I was a child and with that going on in my life, it got worse. I was walking up 9-10 times a night with 4-5 hours of sleep. I cried everyday. I snapped at people easily and didnt' want to talk to anyone anymore. I stopped partying with friends and started to drink to feel numb

 

It took a lot to get over this. I tried writing letters and even though I knew they I would never send them, it really helped me with some issues. In the beginning of the headache, I didn't blame my ex at all but at the end of my thinking, I came to the conclusion that I should partly blame him because because of how he shut me out the second he found out, how he kept me hanging on, how he refused to break up with me when I asked him and how he failed to include me in his decision. I would have accepted his decision but he never for once, included me. I never made it a me-me-me thing. I gave him all the time he had. After realizing that, I started to revert back to my old self. I started laughing and going out again and started looking forward to another day instead of expecting to wake up to another pointless one. I'm at a point in my life where I've accepted that he's not coming back. I've been wanting to move on but I keep on meeting dumb f***s who really don't catch my interest (i.e. they don't have any direction in thier life and seem to have a "whatever" attitude towards life.) There has been someone in my life whom I've known for a year and although he doesn't know every specific detail of my poor history with men, he's picked up that I'm afriad of trusting men. He realizes pretty much that the only guys I trust are the ones on my speed dial. We've had talks and he's asked me to trust him and to not see him in that light. We've started hanging out recently and even though I know there are signs showing that he would like to pursue something with me, I ignore these facts because personally, I'm really afraid I'm wrong at reading signs but also I don't know how to get close to him. He's the first guy that's caught my eye in the past two years. I've always kept one eye on him ever since I met him. He's really smart, witty, a go-getter, and he's got the most stunning set of blue eyes. He always has respect for people. There was one time where miscommunication occurred and he misread me and thought that I didn't like to be touched. Pretty stupid but it took me a while to figure out why he stopped hugging me. (That has been corrected)

 

Anyone have any suggestions on how to move and to trust people? Please don't misread me for some kind of a feminist individual. I don't think that all men are scum. I just have a very negative past and sad as it may seem, the thought of finally being with someone who is taking the time to get to know you to lead to something else is unreal. I kept on meeting s***ty men and although I do not lack in self-esteem, the thought of being good enough to sleep with but neccesarily be with started to swirl in my head. Its a hard concept to deal with but nonetheless, something that seemed proven with my past. I am incredibly frightened and seem to freak out. Any suggestions as to how to calm down and to trust

 

I apologize in advance for the length of this post.