Probably will need to break up with my boyfriend

[marycontrary]

I have this boyfriend of two and a half years. He has a lot of great qualities---loyal, honest, reliable, caring, clean...but he has a *, bitchy temper a lot of the time. He just ruined a backpack trip that was supposed to be for two weeks. It was nonstop bitching and complaining....even when we were do what he wanted. This is the 3rd trip he has acted out on, and I will never go on another trip with him again.

I have confronted and set boundaries many times. I have asked that we or he do(es) therapy---but it just does not seem important to him. He tells me he is aware of sabotaging things, but that he just can't help it.

There are a lot of things I admire about him, but the low level mal contented, bitchy attitude is very triggering for me. I have a really big thing about men who yell and get pissed off, as the men in my life up until recently, including family, were very abusive.

But looking at myself---I think a lot of my growing has caused me to outgrow our relationship. I have successfully controlled much of my dysregulation, gotten into shape, and have improved a lot of areas of my life. Men, in many ways, have just brought me down. If I could find a partner that was a serious about having a clean, disciplined life as me, that would be great.

Understand, I have had to make a LOT of sacrifice that most people would find too extreme. No gluten, caffeine, or dairy....allergic to all of them. No TV or netflex. Few possessions. No high heels, credit cards, or contact lenses. No hair products, little makeup...again sensitive to a lot of things being an rehabbed person with aspergers. I will say that I look really damn good and I am in the best shape in my life. Responsible, but very austere.


But let me tell you...after 30, when habits become entrenched, I am finding that most men have behaviors too unhealthy to be around. When you work hard at becoming healthy, you realize what a small club you are in. 

[Elly]

When you work hard at becoming healthy, you realize what a small club you are in.

When you get so ill in the first place, that's already almost everyone out of the circle of empathic people. Narrowing that down to shared values and mutually beneficial chemistry...don't stop believing, I say. Compromise isn't required, especially if you feel that it's just not worth it. The best advice I ever heard about these transitions is to "love them on their way out of your life."

[wingnut]

This is wisdom. You are seeing yourself grow where he is not.
Two and a half years - be aware. The time to act is when these things become obvious, lest it become 3 years, 8 years, 20 years. Oops.
I don't know what opportunities you have to meet healthy people, but I find that they tend to travel in packs. There are healthy (mentally and physically) men out there. Don't settle for less than you deserve.

[marycontrary]

You guys speak much wisdom.

"love them on their way out of your life."....wow, deep wisdom I will carry with me. Thanks.

Wingnut...I know this. I am absolutely not desperate, and really I need time to concentrate on my art and my small business. *, F__K buddies are even too much drama, even though I could really use the sex. I am grateful to live in a beautiful city, beautiful country, with lots of options.

But like I said, I am not desperate and not really looking. When it comes, it comes....

Thanks so much again! 

[flookadelic]

Marycontrary...firstly congratulations on getting into such good shape and successfully swimming against the dietary, sedentary tide of our age. Superb work! I am sorry that the bar to secure long term relationships are set high when we improve but ultimately that's a good thing. I'm lucky as my wife is the sanest person I have met. But the most important relationship in my life is the one I have with my traumatised brain. I have learned to see it as my wound and not my enemy and so live a life full of compassion and insight, even love towards all it's jumbled, pained and dissociative spasms. It kind of feels like I have a sane mind running parallel to a cptsd brain...but being able to very slowly bring it under calming influences...without this primary relationship going on...wound not enemy relationship with my cptsd then my current relationship would be another disaster waiting to happen.

Anyways...sorry! I digressed a bit. But I just wanted to say that I think you are absolutely right...and what's more have earned the right to be right! Seek to bring others up to your level, through practical example rather than just words, and don't let them drag you down to theirs!

[marycontrary]

Flook, thanks so much for the deep insight and kind words. I work to be really disciplined because, as you might related, it is really the only choice.  The medication route was a total disaster. After a score of failed therapists, I have a great one, but he is $80 an hour, so I have to really be choosy when I can go and have very clear questions lined up.

I can only get better with lifestyle modification, totally inside and out. Every day I work like a demon on this trauma damage. I simply can't afford to screw up. I am so glad you have your kind spouse---makes all the difference, I know. I cannot fathom a spouse that does not totally bring me down. My boyfriend has done a lot of wonderful things, but his dysregulation is damaging my recovery, and I told him that.

Yes , self compassion with the tangled brain is indeed the key, my friend.

[flookadelic]

Once one's compass is set aright, no matter what the obstacles and obstructions success is assured. It may not always be in the way that we imagine ("make plans and watch God laugh") but it will happen once we have that key.

Once I was the implacable enemy of my implacable enemy. I hated myself and tortured myself...I even attacked myself for being so weak and weakened myself further! But in a way my trauma became, amongst other things, a mirror. If I showed it aggression, fear and hate, that's what I got. Only by understanding it as a wound and not an enemy could I ever hope to break out of the darkness I assumed to be my "natural" home. Now, when the voice of cptsd arises or an EF flashes up, I remember (through long practice) to be kind and compassionate towards it. In that moment of love, I am re-found. Gradually over the years the intensity of the trauma has lessened somewhat, so I assume I must be doing something right! Well, at least it works for me. There's no way I'm being prescriptive. Others will find what works for them and as long as it works that's wonderful!

[marycontrary]

Flook, I had an evil SOB inner critic as well. You do it poetic justice---you hit it right on the head. I literally sat with him for over a YEAR just watching and feeling (like a movie) him run his course. That SOB had s strong, strong lockhold on my autonomic fight or flight system. That was his literal, mechanical power. The power over my sympathetic nervous system. Nothing else.

I have worked really hard to "decouple" the SOB from that part of my nervous system. For the first time in my life, I actually like and try to respect myself. I don't cringe when I look at the "mirror" anymore.  You are so totally right about the mirror. And understanding it as a wound, not as a human pile of excrement. I don't know if you see this in yourself just yet, but for the first time, I really respect the work I have done in my life. A lot of people in our situation just repeat the trauma, and destroy our kids and our relationships. I mean, if that does not gain entry into heaven, or generate a big pile of good kharma, I don't know what does.

As far as romantic relationships---I am realizing that I have to be REALLY anal retentive about being exposed to bad habits of other people. Seriously, a man has to REALLY have his sh... together before I can be serious about a relationship. Notice I did not say rich, degreed, or handsome.  I offer really super high partner qualities (just from the self work and discipline, not from genetic gift we can't control) and I expect the same.  The inner critic would once have said that I have my standard toooo high, "no body is perfect", etc.....but I tell him to go screw himself.  To be in a romantic relationship, I need somebody who works on themselves just as hard as I do.  Who works at self knowledge, gratitude, sustainable development.

 

[flookadelic]

Thank you Mary Contrary. One of the deepest regrets I have from those years of seeing my trauma as a terrifying powerful enemy and not a wound is the cost in my personal relationships. Only after I changed my view and thence relationship to the crap could I begin to see what a confused, angry, selfish co-dependent mess I had been. That hurt. But only the truth helps. It may be smelly and have appalling table manners. But only the truth helps and for that reason I have lost my fear of it.

So I only got up to the mark of being a half decent partner a few years ago. My great good fortune in meeting a very sane partner is appreciated on a daily basis. She is all about fearless moral inventories and not making one out to be special because of ones differences. "Just because you're different doesn't make you useful" gives you an idea of her * intolerant world view. Humility as perspective rather than pretence...and the confidence to strike when a positive difference can be made.

You are so right to keep your standards. We elevate or degrade ourselves by the company we keep...none more so than our partners. In Hinduism this is called "darshan" - positive company of positive people. That has to be a disciplined policy as random bumping into people and just allowing them in rarely leads to darshan. In my experience at least.

[marycontrary]

Flook, thank you so much. You take what I am feeling and add such poetic justice. I was too angry and very codependent as well. I had put up with and put up with for all of my life, so I was very bitter.

Finally broke up with my boyfriend this weekend.  It was friendly. I told him that if he could get a handle on his anger, we would have a chance. But I am not holding my breath. I don't expect anything. I feel total compassion for him, as he is a very good person.

Just can't stop crying. Just one more thing on the huge pile of loses. Can't say I have a * of a lot going for me. No family, no stable home, no partner, no pet. Can't keep a damn thing. 

[schrödinger's cat]

Oh, Mary.    I'll be thinking of you today. I hope the clouds clear up very soon.

[flookadelic]

Some things, like your ex boyfriends anger cannot be kept and happiness ensue. It is so easy after the event to focus in on the good things that have been lost rather than remembering why we chose the path you did. Deadwood is tough to shake out of the tree because some always falls on your head. But them's the rules. I expect I may have recommended "when things fall apart" by Pema Chodron before. But please forgive me if I do so again. Given the loss that cptsd peeps accumilate around ourselves or have inflicted on us I think it should be de riguer reading! I hope you finf deep consolation and comfort in the many small but wonderful things of life...as well as in the bigger stuff too. Don't want to see a friend hurt.

[keepfighting]

Hi, Mary,

hope you're feeling a bit better today. 

I had a bit of a sh*tty weekend myself and had a good cry yesterday. Sometimes crying is the best thing you can do for yourself. It's a sign of self compassion.

I am sorry you've suffered so many losses in your life. I admire how you are honest and authentic and the main reason behind your life decisions seems to be the drive to keep yourself sane and healthy. It shows you have compassion for yourself and others. I am just sorry that the necessity to keep yourself healthy has forced you to break up with your boyfriend now.

Please be good to yourself and allow yourself time to grieve and heal. Sending good thoughts and hugs your way! 

kf

[marycontrary]

Thanks to all of you. Some real words of wisdom. I am very familiar with Pema's work and dharma talks. I know, these are things I just don't need in my life.  I know this.  It is very hurtful to realize that a lifetime of busting my a**, caring for 4 family members till they died, being faithful and loyal, practical, frugal, having integrity, being intelligent, and staying out of trouble have gotten me jack s***. Zero.

All Pema Chodren had to contend with is a cheating, lying husband---that was enough to send her into nun-hood and to write a book (don't get me wrong, love her stuff).

I see loving families everywhere I go down here. People with strong roots, living in the same neighborhood for decades. That is a flat out alien reality for me. It is alien to me that I can ever trust a man with sharing money affairs or business affairs, I have been burned so many times. It is alien to me the idea that I will not become suffocated by the relationship with a man. The idea that a close person is not there to destroy my soul or to try to run a hustle scam is alien. I have been burned by employers so many times, lied to, cheated out of pay, that I cannot fathom going back to science or teaching....my real calling. Sleazebags. Literally nothing I have done to build things has made any material impact.

The only thing I seem to be really good at is tossing toxic people into the dumpster with relative ease. And this bothers me, as there appears to be so damned many of them.

[schrödinger's cat]

So this loss seems to have scraped the scabs off a few other wounds, if I'm getting this right? Something along those lines happened to me too, a few times. It's like our subconscious says: "oh, you're grieving a loss? Whoa-hey, let's grieve ALL THE LOSSES EVER." As if ONE wasn't enough. What you're going through sounds very exhausting and difficult. I hope you're okay. Take care of yourself!