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Old Aug 10, 2017, 10:57 PM
Bill3 Bill3 is online now
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Member Since: Mar 2009
Location: USA
Posts: 10,967
I might have missed this above, but how long have you been seeing her?

So it sounds like there are a lot of positive effects on both sides so far.

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she does tend to be a walking trigger for my cPTSD stuff, what with her outlandishness, her way of dressing, her sexy hot clothes she wears on stage, her fake boobs, etc.
There might be advantages to this: She could be a sort of treatment for you. You have the chance, with her, to learn to deal with the triggers rather than get upset or leave or whatever else might have happened with them in the past. It sounds like, so far, she triggers you but that triggering has not been so major as to threaten to become a dealbreaker.

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Yeah, I've got jealousy issues about past boyfriends and behavior of hers, and i'm working on that stuff.
What have you been doing to work on that stuff?

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the fact that at the start of us she wasn't completely disengaged from her narcissist ex does have me on eggshells about him. she had stuff of his to return, tons of pix of them on a recent vacation, a yellow pad sitting next to me at the breakfast table that i looked in. she was venting her rage at what asshole he was.
To me, the significance of the above depends on how far removed in time she is from that relationship. It sounds like not so long, given your expression recent vacation. It does not surprise me that she would have some residual entanglement with him. I consider that rage to be an entanglement of sorts. If she was really past him he just wouldn't matter, he'd be irrelevant and there would be no rage.

So therefore to me this is something to tell her if you are going to see if you can save the relationship with her. But I wouldn't come at her wanting to forbid things. My approach would be to tell her how her contact with him makes you feel, and see what sort of reaction you get, and specifically see what if anything she offers to do to help you. I mean, it is easy to say No contact ever but I wouldn't be eager to create an explosion point when some contact can quite likely occur just in the normal course of life. Trust, when possible, is much better than forbidding and/or snooping.

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interestingly, while she presents herself as this naive little flower (despite how she dresses), she had fall more wild (i guess) sexual experiences (three ways w/ two guys, a lesbian period, married men, all in her youth, i think) while all my life i've been about a plain-vanilla as you can get. So, in our relationship, although she would deny it, I am the true naive one.
Is this something that you would want to pin down with her, who is more experienced/naive? I wouldn't. The way I see it, she might need to have that image of herself. Why would you want to destroy that self-image? Remember this:

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

--William Blake

Many of us have images of ourselves that could not stand up to the searchlight of truth, but these images have their value for us. Stay away from attacking or destroying hers in the name of truth.