Repeating Negative Cycles in My Relationships

Reader’s Question

My boyfriend and I have been together for two years. When we first got together, I had just left a relationship so abusive I had to place a restraining order on my ex. I know I should have taken time to heal and not jumped into a relationship with my current boyfriend so quickly because I took out a lot of my unresolved issues on him. I was verbally and emotionally abusive and had become a carbon copy of my ex. Despite all of that, my boyfriend moved in with me because he loved me. He went out of his way to make me happy, but I was blind as to how I was treating him and had no idea how much work he was putting into our relationship. Finally, he broke up with me and I was devastated. His family rightfully told him never to go back to me again and threatened not pay his school tuition if he were ever to contact me again.

My boyfriend and I wound up sleeping together and eventually getting back together. I know he was not really ready to have me in his life again because he did talk flirtatiously with a girl on AIM as some weird form of revenge and originally hid our reconciliation from his family and co-workers. He told me that he was too embarrassed to let people know that we were together. At the time, I felt I deserved this treatment.

Recently, the loving man I used to know has turned into an exact copy of the bitter abused/abuser I used to be. He attacks me verbally and he goes out of his way to fight. He tells me that he knows how terrible he’s become, but I just have to get used to it because that is how it is going to be. He’s run up about $3,000 on my credit cards and is unapologetic, saying that he earned that money because he had to put up with me.

His family and I will never get along because of the past. They harassed me during the time of the break up to the point I had to change my phone number. They also kept track of his phone calls to me.

What prompted me to write this is the fact that my boyfriend has just told me that he would like to go to Japan and teach English when he finishes college in two years. He told me that he’d like to do it alone. I know that this is his dream and I support him. I don’t want to go to Japan. It’s not my dream. In fact, I will be enrolled in my first year of medical school this coming fall, so I cannot even consider going with him.

I do not want him to look back on his life and have regrets. However, I asked him if he would commit before he went, he said he would not. He said that if he proposed, it would be because it was right, not because he was going away. I agree with him, however, he wants me to stay in America and wait for him. With all that’s happened, he expects me to be back here waiting for him.

My father has told me that I need someone on my level. These types of decisions are so very hard when you love someone as much as I love him. I don’t know what to do.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Of course it’s not possible to make a reliable assessment of your situation without direct knowledge of your circumstances, but some things really stand out in the story you tell about your troubled relationship with this young man.

You appear to alternate between vilification of others and brutal self-condemnation. You also seem to engage in some unrealistic over-idealization. Despite the extreme and contradictory nature of many of your perceptions, you come across as certain that your perceptions are accurate. Yet, you are deeply confused about what to do.

I would suggest that although your feelings might be intense and your convictions firm, you might really need to take a few steps back and engage in some deeper soul-searching and with some guidance from a counselor of some type who could be more objective. Passion and conviction are no substitutes for genuine love and good judgment.

You seem to have some awareness that you really don’t want negative cycles to repeat. But from what you’ve said, it appears that history is indeed repeating itself. You were probably correct in your initial assertion that you shouldn’t have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Your story is filled with tumult, passion, and contradiction. Take some time to really know yourself, to sort through your legitimate wants and needs, and to face the inner conflicts you need to resolve before seriously contemplating a relationship you hope will be a lifelong commitment.