My Adventures with JMSG, Part 5

A little more detail

Today I got an e-mail from him:

“It seems I no longer have access to the pictures of us on Facebook and I couldn’t access your page. Is this just another Facebook malfunction or is something up?”

Ugh.

This irks me to no end. I can see he is trying to appear just “curious” if “something is up” but I know him. His FIRST thought about it is that “something is up.” I don’t know why he can’t access my page on Facebook. I didn’t take him off my friends list. I also wouldn’t prevent his access without telling him I was doing so. The fact that he even thinks I would do such a thing is just yet another example of his mistrust of me and his chronic insecurities in general.

Something similar happened when we were breaking up. Without telling ME, he changed his status on Facebook to “Single.” Because we were listed on each other’s pages as “in a relationship with (boyfriend of Blue)” when he changed his status it automatically affected my page’s status. Mine defaulted back to just a simple “in a relationship”. I had to go in and manually change it back to “single.” However before I even knew I had to do that, I got this e-mail from him:

“What the hell? You are already in another relationship and announcing that on Facebook? I can’t believe it. I am going to vomit. I feel betrayed.”

I had no idea of course what he was talking about. So I went at looked at my Facebook page and saw my status as “in a relationship” then checked his page and saw that he had just recently changed his back to “single.”

I was sooooo annoyed by his stupidity and reactive willingness to assume the absolute worst, and then feel all the feelings as if it were true.

So I explained to him what happened – that he created the whole thing – then created his own feelings by reacting in an irrational manner – to his own doing!!!!

I really wanted him to see that his insecurities, his mistrust of me, his fear of betrayal by me, were all created by him. It has NOTHING TO DO WITH ME because I wasn’t the one who cheated on him.

Over and over, it just seemed like he was waiting for the moment that I would betray him in some way – lie to him, do something behind his back, you name it. The email above which I received today is just another example. He thinks I am cutting him off without telling him. That he goes there first shows me the nature of his negative thinking, which I have seen from the beginning.

He is all too willing to go to the worst case scenario then stay focused on what is happening right here, right now. It made it almost impossible to solve problems with him because when I would bring up a problem he would assume I didn’t want to be with him anymore when I never said such a thing. I was just trying to solve a problem and he would blow it out of proportion.

That tendency is part of the reason why I decided I could no longer be his girlfriend. I couldn’t tolerate his reactivity and how then I would have to talk him down, just so we could focus on the original problem. Exhausting.

So I wrote him back this morning:

“I have no idea why you can’t access my page on Facebook. Last week I couldn’t access your page then later I could. I just chalked it up to problems with Facebook or my internet connection. I would never change your ability to access my page behind your back.”

I am feeling lately that I have to have ANOTHER break-up conversation with him, because really, if I didn’t want him to access my page, that would be my right.

My Adventures with JMSG, Part 4

I am still here, although no longer in the US. I shipped overseas back in March and while I have been receiving your comments, for some reason I cannot post them. I will try again later.

As for JMSG, things have been...well....up and down, and down....

While I wrote about him before, I kept to myself the troubles that were brewing. Maybe because I really care(d) about him and didn't want to plaster all my personal stuff about this relationship to strangers. But also, with my leaving the country, I have had little time to spend time blogging. When I was in town, I was with JMSG and when I wasn't, I was away training and preparing for my year abroad.

Things came to a head with us back in March after I had left. Once I had time to myself, many things began to surface, or rather these were things I could no longer ignore. During the first few months of our relationship, incidents began to occur which caused me to raise an eyebrow and ultimately change my feelings about our relationship.

Rather than rehash all the details, I will do my best to summarize:

He knew I was leaving. He knew this at the onset of our relationship. I could tell he was trying to convince himself this was okay. He wanted to maintain our relationship while I was away. At first I was okay with this, but after a time, I was not.

He began showing signs of insecurity, which seemed to be connected to his last relationship (she cheated on him) and triggered by my imminent departure: in several ways he began seeking my validation, my reassurance, my promise that I still loved and wanted to be with him upon my return. Once or twice okay, I played into it and tried to reassure. But this didn't help. His insecurities kept mounting and several times ended up in a serious meltdown of his emotional functioning. All it did was push me away. Each time, I wanted to go away from him further and further. The last time it happened on Valentine's Day, I realized I reached my limit.

Each time he would "freak out" about us and go to excessive emotional lengths to get me to reassure him, he would then feel bad and promise it wouldn't happen again. But it kept happening and when it did, it created a dynamic of me having to calm him down, having to make him feel better, and having to "take care of him" emotionally like a mother would do with a tantrumming child. It was effecting my affection, my love for him, and ultimately my sexual desire.

I had none left. I kept avoiding sex. I was no longer attracted to him. He would then feel rejected and the whole cycle would start over. He coudln't understand that his emotional neediness was a turnoff. It spiraled and it all hit me after I left and been separated from him for about a month. While I was with him, it was like I was constantly putting out the fires of his emotional disregulation. So when I was no longer doing that, my feelings about the repeated episodes finally had a chance to sink in. I finally had the chance to self-reflect on how the whole thing was impacting me emotionally.

I was no longer happy in the relationship. He seemed needy to me, constantly asking for more instead of looking at the reason why he wasn't getting what he wanted. I just wanted to escape him, run away, and get space.

So finally I talked to him about it. It was a tumultuous time for him - me giving him the news of my feelings, because it was the very thing he had feared: his frantic efforts to keep me from leaving him actually created the thing he feared the most.

We ultimately decided to no longer maintain a committed relationship while I am gone. Although things have cooled down and we are talking on a regular basis, I no longer feel the burden of having to maintain something that was shaky in the first place.

I feel relief, but also some sadness that things did not work out better. I have not completely written him off, as we have both agreed to see how we feel when I come home.

That is of course, if neither of us falls in love with someone else in the meantime.