My girlfriend (30F) and I (31M) have been together for more then 3 years now. We get along really well on a personal level, have a deep and meaningful connection and love to spend time together. Unfortunately, I have I very problematic personality in relationships, I cheated on her several times, which I never confessed. She had to find it out each time through friends or my phone (accidentally). I mean I still feel for her, and I know on a conscious level that what I do/did is horrible, but still, on an emotional level I don’t feel this. Although I feel a great urge of self-harm and high anxiety every time I cheated. This happened in my prev. relationships, and I feel like it would again…
I tried going to therapy, and I am currently on anti-depressant medication.
I feel entitled to everything, and I feel no regret of what I have done. In my mind I see it as OK because my current gf had more partners than I did before, so that gives me an excuse (I know it doesn’t, but somehow still feel this…)
I want to be a better person, but also, I don’t feel like it is possible for me in this relationship. I feel like I can not settle with her because we met while I had my prev. gf, and this betrayal lingers around the whole relationship.
Unfortunetly (or not, idk anymore) my gf is MADLY in love with me and will not let me go. I tried to break it off several times, but both of us gravitated towards each other and got back together sooner or later. I tired to explain it to her that I am no good, but she insists I can get better through therapy, and that we can work on this.
So my question is twofold:
1) why am I such a dick and how the hell can I change this?
2) how to break off such a relationship? It seems less and less possible as we “grow” together day by day….
Feel free to judge me, I am not proud of this situation at all, but I need to change this because it eats us up (obviously).
13 comments
You were probably broken at an early age. Breaking up is as simple as telling your partner that it’s over. It’s a courtesy to provide brief reasons, but not essential.
How do you avoid it? You are an adult human. Just don’t cheat. It’s fucking easy to not do something.
How do you break up? You are an adult human. Use your words to break it off
Just as importantly, why does she want to stay with you? I’m assuming your relationship started by you cheating on an ex, with her?
She’s not madly in love with an abuser. You risk her getting STI’s and the threat of you walking out to be with someone else is always there. I promise if you ended the relationship then she would quickly realize how much she didn’t love you and how toxic and codependent your relationship is. She would not want you back. The trick is addressing the codependency. You need to just go no contact for good. It’s not love that brings you two back to each other, it’s trauma bonding, poor self esteem and codependency.
So be an adult. Break up with her and go no contact. Stop getting into serious relationships when it’s obviously not what you want. You have to want to be better to get better and it sounds like you’re happy enough to just fuck around, so do that instead.
Say it to her. Normally I would say you should try to be nice. But in your case it’s probably the best you scare as far away from you as possible.
Blah blah blah…I want to be a better person, but I still want gratification no matter the cost to her. Blah blah blah. It’s not my fault. Blah blah blah.
Change requires two things:
* A willingness and desire to change
* A motivation to change
You apparently do not have either. Even more, based on the tone of your post, you almost enjoy and revel in being the person you are.
No matter how perverse the behavior, people always do that which gives them the most psychological benefit, even if they themselves see the behavior as bad.
The situation may “eat you up” (and no, not obviously), but the benefits you subconsciously (or consciously derived) from the behaviors outweight the guilt or whatever other negative consequences you’re feeling.
In other words, you get more from being a dick (your word) than you do from being a decent person.
Who knows – you may think that you don’t deserve love, so push people away by behaving badly. Or, you may enjoy the validation and power from treating someone like garbage and having them keep coming back for more.
Whatever benefit you’re getting is more important to you.
You spend a lot of time analyzing feelings and thought patterns so that you come across as being very self-aware and able to take responsibility for your behavior.
But all of this is bullshit. All of this analysis and self-awareness is just a way for you to *avoid* taking responsibility.
Who cares about how you justify it or the “lingering” betrayal leftover from how you got together. (Thats utter nonsense, btw, and you know it).
It’s not complicated. You’re making choices, that’s all. You can choose to break up, but you’re not. Just as you could choose to be faithful, but you’re not.
Nobody cares about all this other nonsense self-analysis you’re spewing.
If you don’t want to stop cheating, then don’t. Keep going. She’s not going to leave you, so you can keep doing this indefinitely. Is that what you want?
If you want to break up, then break up. You’re not “gravitating” towards one another; it’s not some mystical phenomenon. You’re making boring old decisions like everyone else: you’re choosing to keep this going, that’s all.
You say you want to change but lack the will, motivation, desire, and drive to make the choice to change. You CHOSE to constantly cheat just like she CHOSE to stay with a notorious cheater (your choice of words). To quote what I said to a cheating ex 7 years ago, “All I’m hearing right now is excuse after excuse to help you sleep at night with a slightly better conscious after choosing to cheat.” Life is hard and sometimes you just gotta have the will and desire to make the tough choices. That being said though, to answer the first question, you have to look within yourself to find the answer. Maybe something happened in your past that made you choose to take the dick route. For both of you, I think therapy would work.
You’re a fucking weirdo.
You’re a 31 year old man, your brain is fully developed. Please use it and think logically, not emotionally, how you would be able to solve everything you just mentioned. To the rest of us, even with developing brains, we know the answer is very obvious.
Edit: I’m starting to think this is your karma. Enjoy the stress!
There’s a few things to consider.
Let’s start with a neurological aspect of it. I think this is a huge part for men. Another reason why pornography is also addictive for men.
Every time, male, or female, we orgasm, we have a huge release of dopamine from our brain. This is the feel good feelings that we thrive and live for. That being said, our dopamine releases are tied to a reward system in the brain. So when we need or are looking for something to feel good, and we reward negative behavior to get that response, we go to that thing that gives us the greatest response. This is why I cocaine and meth and feta mean are so addictive. They release high dopamine responses in the brain so people will seek that more and more. That’s the first thing. So in this case, when you have an orgasm, specifically, it also releases things like oxytocin with other chemicals. Oxytocin is known to bond to people for those feel good feelings. This means the more you create dopamine responses through orgasm the less of a bond you have with the person you’re with if it’s not with the same person over and over. You’ve conditioned your brain to search for those responses and not have it tied to a specific healthy reward in a specific person. Understanding that definitely helps at least for me. Help me change because I wanted to.
The next thing comes down to things you were influenced by in your childhood. It depends how your families modeled healthy relationships. Conditioned you to accept or tolerate or engage in specific behaviors ideas and conversations.
The last thing to me is figuring out why you need those dopamine responses in an unhealthy way. For me, I needed validation in getting those responses gave me more validation because it made me feel wanted by other people. You have to learn to validate yourself, and learn that what we truly want at the end of the day is intimacy. Learning to tie those things together is crucial for any healthy adult relationship.
did not expect all this answers, thanks for all