# My partner has a pattern.. I don't know If can trust him anymore.



## justinej85 (Jan 19, 2011)

Apologizing ahead of time as this post may be a long one!

Quick background: MY boyfriend and I have been dating for 6 years, on and off, mostly on. I am 25 now and he is 27. 
Throughout our relationship, at least once a year, he goes through a point where he wants to be single (this usually hits around winter).. he likes his freedom, no strings attached. Soon after we break up I find that he is instantly talking to other women, hanging out, etc. And sometimes I even found that he had been talking to them right before our break up ( while we were in a rough patch in our relationship) but it hadn't gone any further than talking. He always came back, practically on his knees, telling me how I'm so amazing and he never stopped loving me and that he didn't know why he left in the first place.
Our relationship has mostly been amazing, people envied us. Until that once a year thing hit and he was ready for independence.

Our relationship now: We had been going strong for over 2 years without a break up and minimal fighting. Until we had our son( who is now 6 months) We struggled as new parents to compromise, I wanted to continue school, he thought i should be at home. etc etc... After months of arguing he broke up with me. (by the way winter had just hit) I was scared, and devastated... we argued for a few days over it (still living together) I just decided to take it day by day and not bring up a relationship with him... I gave it a rest. After about 3 weeks he finally told me that he loved and missed having a relationship with me. So we decided to work it out ( I was still skeptical and confused about how I had felt, after so many break ups and heart aches i was desensitized ) He told me i never showed enough affection anymore and it seemed as though I didn't care about his needs.. and then I think to myself.. I can't even remember the last time he went out of his way to do something nice for me?! I think there was an underlined disconnection for me. So anyways, after him telling me he wants to work it out a couple weeks pass, he goes out one night and the next day I find a conversation between him and a girl who works at teh same hotel I work for. In this conversation he was telling her how "I was about to go home until I saw you out. You looked so sexy in your boots and glasses. SOOO hot!" then they plan on goign snowboarding together the next day. I confronted him...with sooo much anger. We fought he apologized and began to cry and sob harder than I had ever seen him cry... I told him we were done and I left for work while he stayed at home with the baby, crying.
I went out that night. And the next day I found yet another chat between them that they had the night I had gone out. It basically was about our break up and then eventually turned into a sex chat between them. Once again I confront him screaming and yelling upset... and once again he is crying and saying that he isn't even attracted to her he just wanted the attention, that he liked the boost esteem he had gotten from it.
He is begging and pleading for me not to leave him and has agreed to professional counseling.. as he obviously has a pattern for the need of attention from other women. He admitted that he thinks it was from his childhood experiences of being molested 3 times by women.. he thinks that it has some how caused him to desire attention and feel wanted.

What do I do? I know that I love him, and I like the idea of us as a family.... but i have resentment toward him.. and I don't know if I can continue to trust him.


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## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

You might get more help in the "Coping with Infidelity" forum...

I guess the thing I see is that the only person you can control is you. And you have to decide what's acceptable to you and put down your rules/boundaries, along with the consequences of breaking those rules. Otherwise there's not consequences for him doing what he's doing. So why should he change his behaviour?

Even if his behaviour is caused by him being molested by women as a child, you still have to decide if his actions are going to be tolerated. 

A good start for him might be complete transparency to you. You having full access to his texting, phone records, e-mail... Keep in mind that he can easily go "underground" with that, though... Set up an e-mail account that you don't know about, buy a pre-paid cell phone, use software for texting/messaging instead of SMS, etc. Installing a key-logging program on the computer (if he uses that) so you can see what's going on there might be a good idea. 

C


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## loren (Sep 13, 2010)

PBear said:


> The only person you can control is you. And you have to decide what's acceptable to you and put down your rules/boundaries, along with the consequences of breaking those rules. Otherwise there's not consequences for him doing what he's doing. So why should he change his behaviour?


:iagree: Even if he means well and loves you, he is lacking incentive, which is the biggest drive for any change in human behaviour. Think about it, that's why people still smoke under the threat of cancer. The 'threat' is not enough incentive.


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## Rob774 (Sep 27, 2010)

Soooooooo many Red Flags here, more than i've seen in a very long time. Simple enough, if you wish to live a life with a guy you can't trust, give him a 4th chance and 5th chance and so on. Go ahead and marry him and see how that works for ya. He's basically given you a resume that says... " I am no good." If you choose to let that stay in your life... nobody but to blame for yourself. Its a reason why day care centers don't hire ex-pedophiles. How will he change - WHY would he change when you keep letting him back in your life???


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## major misfit (Oct 17, 2010)

Rob774 said:


> Soooooooo many Red Flags here, more than i've seen in a very long time. Simple enough, if you wish to live a life with a guy you can't trust, give him a 4th chance and 5th chance and so on. Go ahead and marry him and see how that works for ya. He's basically given you a resume that says... " I am no good." If you choose to let that stay in your life... nobody but to blame for yourself. Its a reason why day care centers don't hire ex-pedophiles. How will he change - WHY would he change when you keep letting him back in your life???


:iagree: 
This man is SHOWING you (repeatedly) who he is. You really need to believe him.


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## Dharobe (Jan 19, 2011)

Dear justinej85
I hope you’ll hear me out as what I’m about to say might appear a bit radical, a bit different to any other advice you’ve been given, then again it may not!
Firstly, there are two things you need to note. One is that this is not about you and the other is that you need to accept your boyfriend as he is, because that is the reality.
Now you might be seething to hear me say that and I ‘get’ that a response like that is totally normal, but like I said I hope you’ll hear me out, because I really care about you and boyfriend (and your baby boy) and you seem like you’d both like to work this out.
When I say it’s not about you, you might say – ‘well I know that’. However, your angry and upset response to finding the ‘chats’ tells me that you’ve made it mean something about you. It might be that you don’t feel good enough or that it means you’re unlovable – have a dig around inside to find out what you’ve made it mean about you. When you unearth it, it will resonate with you and you’ll know for sure what you’ve made it mean. Whatever it is,(and I’m guessing here and I could be wrong ) it is affecting your self esteem and making you react instead of respond. A good supportive website to visit is SelfEsteem4Women.
Now to the second point. Resisting what IS, rarely changes anything and can be very stressful. I think you’d really benefit from reading ‘Loving What Is’ by Byron Katie. It might even be available on audio if you prefer listening than reading. Now this doesn’t mean that you have to put up with your boyfriend’s infidelity. If that’s a deal-breaker for you then you might consider moving out. What it does mean is that if you can see the infidelity in a different light, drop the resistance, stop trying to change him and love him unconditionally as you both work on this issue, you’ll feel a whole lot clearer and balanced over it and this will give him the space to make the changes he needs to make. He’s already half way there with the realisation that his issue has probably arisen because of what happened to him when he was little. If you can see your way to thinking about this issue from his perspective in that it must be really horrible to feel like you need constant approval and attention, enough to risk the relationship with someone you love, then this is a much more resourceful way of responding. What’s needed here is compassion for the both of you. I’m guessing that at the moment this might be difficult for you but I think if you read the book by Byron Katie it will get easier.
The bottom line is your boyfriend has to want to make the change himself otherwise the changes won’t last. The key for you both is to talk about the issue when you are both calm and rational and to agree not to raise voices and accuse and blame. Because I can’t speak to your boyfriend, I can only suggest things for YOU to do. However, when you make some positive changes to how you communicate and raising your self esteem, your boyfriend can’t help but change too.
I hope this helps.
Big hugs.


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