[Wesly Pipes]

I'd like to start out with some background on my personality. I don't know what in my life has caused me to be the way that I am but I know that I have a very negative personality. I have always put up a front with other people. This person usually tailored to get them to like me.

I don't consider myself a liar to the extent of making things up to cover up what I've done but more that I fake compassion and empathy. The truth is I have never really cared for more than a handful of people. I consider myself manipulative and I know I demonstrate antisocial tendencies. I don't really have many friends and very less true friends.

Being around people is exhausting because the longer I'm around someone the harder keeping the front up becomes. I have substance as a person but when I'm with someone who I don't care for the more time I spend with them the more it seems that there's nothing to me. I usually only stick around to get whatever benifit I find I can get from them and then I kinda fade away.

I've been like this for as long as I can remember. For seven years this month I've been with a girl who has never seen the front. She's the one person I care for most deeply and feel actual empathy for. I don't have to fake myself to make her think I care about her. I just. Do.

But that has come with it's own complications. On the other side she has seen the person in me that grows cold and distant. She's seen the sometimes illogical and always destructive anger in me. I've made her feel unloved when that has never been the case.

My entire life has been a wall between everyone and the any trace of emotion in me and it has taken considerable work to get to the point that I actually try to let her breach that wall. In the beginning when I would get into a bad mood I would push her away when she tried to help. And that has worked with her personality to cause her on atleast 6 occasions to break my trust.

Truthfully I only knew about four of those occasions until recently. It's mostly been her flirting with other guys behind my back. I've come to the point where I don't blame her for those things. The first time I found out I could tell immediately that it was the truth when she told me that it meant nothing but it still hurt and I reeled. I damaged her confidence and her security in our relationship.

It happened again when she went out of town for a month. Another instance I think of her flirting with another guy but when I found out she saw it as an opportunity to show me what might happen if I continued to shut her out. If I continued this cycle of emotional abuse. I had a hard time dealing with that because on the outside she did a good job of making it appear that this guy was special. That she wasn't just flirting or sexting him.

I ended up completely pushing her away at one point. I started to connect with a coworker. We talked alot and it made me feel good. To feel like I could actually connect with someone else. I told her everything about what happened with my GF and it felt nice to have some support. I broke up with my GF for about a month before getting back together with her.

The idea was to stop talking to the other girl. I continued as just friends even though I had deeper feelings for her. When my GF found out I let her make the final cut. She said anything she wanted to stop us from talking. Ended up with the girl not wanting to talk to me anymore so my GF got what she wanted for a time. Until I told her that after all of that I sent a letter saying "My goodbye" and also how I felt for her. It put a strain on our relationship but I truly thought we were out of the dark. Through everything I got really depressed and hopeless and for the past few years I've been sort of just droning through life. Not really engaging my GF. She felt our relationship was mostly platonic through this time.

About a month ago she made a new friend and it has without many details escalated to them having strong feelings for one another. She's lied to me about it. When I have seen it she's told me that it would stop. It didn't. At that time I basically told her it was him or me. She couldn't have both of us in her life. She chose me. Or so I thought. Turned out that literally the next day after telling both him and I that she was done talking to him she continued. Even fabricated instances where he would try to talk to her and she shut him down.

When it finally came to light that she was talking to him she made it out to be that it was only for that one day. She even went as far as to seek praise for being "strong" all week and asking for understanding in the situation. Ultimately I found out that she was lying the whole time and that it had never stopped. Finally I've come to understand that the only person I can control here is myself. It's hard because it goes against my nature. I'm a control freak but I'm letting go of "them".

I'm focusing more on my feelings and what I can and should do in our relationship instead of trying to make her do what I want her to do. Most days it's easy but I still feel alot of doubt in her. She's lied to me so much that it's hard to truly trust her. She says that she can shut out the feelings with him and just be friends and I want her to have that it's just the trust issues make it hard for me to let it go. And obviously there's trust issues on her end that she's having trouble getting past with me. So I guess with all of that said my question is how do we deal with this?

How do her and I try to get past all the distrust together. Any tips will help. Please note that I am not looking for the advice that most people will give. I know what every persons initial advice is going to be. Please don't give it to me. Both her and I agree that we're in this together. There's just been a long history of hurting each other in our own ways that's making moving forward difficult. We're willing to put in the work to fix this together. If your advice is that we should break up then please don't give it.

[Skeezyks]

Hello Wesly: I see this was your first post here on PC. I'm sorry you're only now receiving your first reply. Welcome to PsychCentral. I hope you may yet find PC to be of benefit.

You wrote that you know what most people's advice is going to be & you said not to give it. You also wrote that if someone's advice was for the two of you to break up... don't give that either. Given the parameters you set, in all honesty, I'm not sure what you thought you might get here.

At the beginning of your post you offered some background on your personality. And it sounds as though you have had some struggles. I guess the only thing I can say here is that, perhaps, what you need to be doing is to be seeking the services of a psychologist or mental health therapist with whom you can explore, at-length & in-depth, what has been & is going on with you in terms of your own mental health, how that is impacting this as well as other relationships, & what you can do about it.

As you so correctly observed, the only person you can control is yourself. It may well be that your gf would benefit from some mental health therapy too. But you have no control over that. What you can do is to make the decision to do what is necessary in order to heal yourself. And, by doing so, perhaps you may also save your relationship with your gf.

I used to know a guy who was fond of saying: "If you want to know which way the bullet's going, look down the barrel of the gun." If you re-read what you've written here, particularly with regard to your own mental health struggles, you will see what you can likely expect your future to look like if you continue down the path you are currently on leaving your own mental health struggles unaddressed & instead casting about for remedies to the problems they have created. Believe me, I know something about this. I has, to a large extent, been the story of my life. Please don't follow in my footsteps. They don't lead anywhere you want to go. I wish you & your girlfriend all the best.