[jane1111]

Hi, my name is Jane, I have been having trouble with my boyfriend and I appreciate your advice/help. English is not my first language so hopefully I can express myself well.

First of all, I am sorry for this long post, I just wanted to throw in as many details that I deemed important as possible to save some future questions, so thank you all very much for having the patient to read it all.

Here is some background, I am 30, he is 28. We met online 1.5 year ago.
I am an inexperience dater, have not dated in 8 years before I met him.
In the beginning, I noticed signs that indicates that he's not that nice/good of a guy, examples include: always like talking about himself, but becomes disinterested when a topic comes up that he's not interested. Shoots your opinions down quickly, saying "No, it's not good, here is my idea..." Even my friend said: "He's not as nice as I thought he is. I thought geeks are mostly nice."

Being inexperienced as I am, I stayed to make it work, thinking that each relationship probably have similar problems, and eventually it did get better, he became more committed into the relationshop, we talked on the phone everyday. But still, the "shooting down opinions" problem and neglecting my feelings problem were still there. One time he wanted to sleep with another girl, by not wanting to tell her he has a girlfriend, I got upset at his approach(we are pretty open, I didn't mind flings, but lying to get into another girl's pants is another story) after a week, he did change his status on facebook into "being in a relationship" because I was upset and didn't agree with his approach.

He also has a friend that he used to sleep with(she's nice, she draws boundaries and I trust her more than my boyfriend), we hung out together a couple of times, and he flirts with her which I didn't mind, and only made one request, don't kiss her in front of me. He appeared sorry and apologetic, saying he didn't know that would upset me. Then one week later when we hung out, he did it again. When I confronted him, he said he's sorry that he got the wrong idea of my words.

So eventually, I got fed up with my opinions being shoot down, and feelings being neglected, and ended it after 8 months. At the end, he admitted to some of his flaws, tried to rationalized some, but wasn't willing to work together to change them.
I also have to be honest to myself that I was being a doormat, and was not able to express my feelings as soon as I could.

Couple months later, he contacted me wanting to get back together, saying he did a lot of reflection on himself and figured out how bad he was. I met up with him and we started hanging out again.

At first I didn't think I would get back together with him, because at the time I was seeing 2 other people. But both fell through because one was too far, and one was too busy with school and work hence + going to go away to China shortly.

So during this time, I continue seeing my "Ex", and I could see a lot of effort being put in to the flaws that I bluntly pointed out to him after he wanted to get back together. We were having one of our best times, and I also learned not to be a doormat and voiced my concerns and feelings as soon as I can. He sometimes still make those mistakes but he would apologize quickly and rephrases what he says.

After 3 months of dating, 3 months ago we decided to start dating exclusively again. (so 6 months in total)

We also agreed that we are not to sleep around, if it ever becomes an issue, we will talk about it and deal with it, but now is not the time.

Now finally into the main story. He has this coworker female friend at work that I know of, he tells me he go dancing class with her, and go yoga sometimes with her, which I have no problems with.

2 weeks ago, he suddenly tells me that he's happy that he finally find a friend that he has connection with (he doesn't have much friends), and he feels like always going on a first date with this girlfriend because there's no intimacy and never will be, I asked him if he would've dated her if we weren't back together, he said possibly, but don't think it's going to work out because they have no common interest and he think she's too traditional. Then I asked him if she knows she has a girlfriend, he said no, then I asked if he's planning on telling her, he slowly answered:" mm....no..?" then my face changed, and asked him why, he said he doesn't want to hurt her and afraid the girl would go away if he tells her.

I got really upset, saying that everyone's going to call BS if you tell them that you guys are "just friends" which he kept on saying. And I said if you guys are "just friends" then there shouldn't be a problem of him telling the girl he has a gf.
He appeared apologetic saying he missed the chance of telling her, and thought that I would be supportive of his friendship. I responded by saying "I 100% support you having a friend and feel happy for you, but what you are telling me isn't "just friends", if you want to be "friends", be FRIENDS. If you guys are attracted to each other, and you withhold the information that you have a gf, I don't care that deep down you really only wanted to be friends."

He appeared to be regretful of what he did, and agreed to tell the girl. Couple days later he came up with this "idea" saying that after the girl comes back from a US trip, he will tell her saying that while she's on a trip, he reconnected with his ex (me), and we got back together because "I" asked him back out so that the girl won't feel she's not good enough for him.

I got very upset again, asking why he has to lie to a "friend" about us, to protect "her" feelings, what is there to "protect". And I told him in tears that he can lie about the timing, but not his feelings to me. And once again he agreed, appeared apologetic, appeared hurt because I was hurt, and he will tell her that he has fallen head over heels for me.

2 weeks later I finally met with the girl, and she seemed nice. Though within that 2 weeks, it was really bad for the both of us, I asked to break up 5 times but every time he hold on to me, hold my hands, get me to sit down and talk, and even cry asking me not to leave him.

One of the reason why I constantly wanted to break up was also due to a fact that he will sometimes say things like "If she does end up going away, I might held you responsible even though I know full well it's my fault." "You are asking me to tell her to truth, you are asking me to break her heart." or "All I did was didn't tell a co worker that I am dating." Every single time I would get upset, confront him, telling him what he said is not true, every time he would appear apologetic and kind of like "Oh crap, why did I say that" then start telling "You are not the bad person, I am. It's me who messed it up", I sometimes think that this guy just doesn't use his brain?

Within these 2 weeks, I also got really upset because I cried in tears asking him to not talk to her in front of me and not to mention anything about her before I have met her because I couldn't take it anymore, he agreed but he still talked to her the next day. His reasons were he doesn't want her to feel neglected and that he doesn't want to feel like he has to talk to a friend behind my back. Which I once again confronted him saying he could've just told her he will be busy for a couple of days, or talk to her in the washroom. I told him I was breaking up with him, then he finally stopped talking to her in front of me. I feel like it takes a lot of effort to get him to see and understand things, but will eventually get there? It kind of sucks because if he's just all bad I can just leave him but at the same time it feels like he's trying?

Now that I have met the girl, I am still having the feeling that I should break up. But have a hard time doing it, because it was really good before this happens. We have similar interests, we like going to places together, we both like smaller group of friends, the communication prior to this was good, I can always express my feelings and can set things straight if he mistakenly upset me by being insensitive(like starting to talk about himself when I was telling him my story that he asked for, he would be like "I am sorry, I should let you finish, it's your story). Prior to this, I felt that he's beginning to finally see his short comings, and there's a lot of laughter between us.

Now, I am worry that he doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know how to set boundaries, he didn't set boundaries, he's touchy feeling to girls and doesn't know when's crossing the line. My cousin and a friend of mine told me that they were actually uncomfortable with him touching them, and I actually told my bf this, that he doesn't know where to draw the lines, and make people uncomfortable. He looks at me with a bitter smile, didn't say anything. I feel like I have to teach/tell him all these stuff but really don't want to because that's controlling. I don't want him to feel trapped.

He said that now they the girl knows he's dating, they will both set boundaries, and before that, he ensured me that he will set boundaries so I shouldn't worry about the girl(which I have doubts before if he knows the boundaries he would've set it, but he didn't, it makes it hard for me to trust that he's capable of doing the right thing)

Do you think I should give this guy another chance? Since we did break up before and his record wasn't so great?
My bro and mom said he's just stupid but most of my friends including my dad told me to drop him.

There's a lot of good, there's also a lot of bad. It seems like he wants to change, but I also worry that he's not capable of doing it, and might one day, hurt me unintentionally because he doesn't know what he's doing.

Thank you for reading my very long letter.

Jane.

[hamster-bamster]

I was not able to grasp the reason for the joint decision to have an exclusive relationship. Still, the quality of "shooting the opinions of others down" will not go away - it is part of a human core unless one really tries hard to change the core. The lack of ability to tell how to touch others in ways that do not make them feel uncomfortable is unlikely to go away either and although you can definitely be commended for not wanting to teach him that because you do not want to be controlling, a separate issue is that, by and large, you cannot TEACH this ability because it is intuitive.

And there is a whole hosts of other concerns.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by jane1111

He also has a friend that he used to sleep with(she's nice, she draws boundaries and I trust her more than my boyfriend), we hung out together a couple of times, and he flirts with her which I didn't mind, and only made one request, don't kiss her in front of me. He appeared sorry and apologetic, saying he didn't know that would upset me. Then one week later when we hung out, he did it again. When I confronted him, he said he's sorry that he got the wrong idea of my words.

Did you speak in a language in which he is not fluent?..

Don't kiss somebody in front of me is a clear instruction/request that is not open to interpretation, so he cannot claim getting a wrong idea of your words. Had you said "do not flirt", which is open to interpretation, it would have been different, but "do not kiss her in front of me" is straightforward.

It seems that he can possibly be one of many if you are prepared to overlook some faults and flaws, but I fail to comprehend what went into your head when you decided to have an exclusive relationship with him.

[jane1111]

hamster-bamster, thank you very much for your response.

His first language is English, Canadian born. I am Chinese. And "do not kiss her in front of me" were the exact words.

I won't mind his flirtlyness , if he's up front about having a girlfriend, and not put himself into situation to cause complication, but it seems like he failed to do both. He seemed apologetic and kind of acted like he got kicked in the butt and realized he was stupid, so I am not sure if he will actually learn the lesson after all this?
Cause at times I feel like he is trying because I do see effort being put into his behavior.

I became exclusive with him again because I saw him changing a lot of his behavior. But when the incident about his coworker/friend occurred, all the past memories came back.

[jane1111]

oh, and, sorry for my bad English, what do you mean by "he can be one of many"?

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by jane1111

oh, and, sorry for my bad English, what do you mean by "he can be one of many"?

==> you do not limit your set of boyfriends to him alone, because it is weird that you decided to become exclusive with him, and your explanation for some reason is still weird.

[Ms.Beans]

oh c'mon doll! He keeps hurting you and clearly has bugger all respect for you and for any other girl he meets for that matter! Ugh..
Leave him and stay away from him!