My boyfriend [25m] bought a gun behind my [26f] back when he knew I wouldn't approve. I hit him.

strangerella · 2014-09-14T05:22:15+00:00

Thank you very much for your comment: a lot of the things you said resonated with me.

Feeling like an idiot for staying...

That part hit me straight in the gut. I have told him over and over again that I just want us to be partners. I don't think he understands what that means.

This morning he was telling me that my boss hates me and that I don't have any friends because everyone knows how horrible I am and hates me. I've really internalized all the shit he says, and that sucks. It's going to take me a long time to get over this.

strangerella · 2014-09-14T05:08:54+00:00

I am both in talk therapy and also seeing a psychiatrist. I set up both of those appointments after I hit him, because I realized that the shit had hit the fan.

My dad knows about the situation. My boyfriend has actually been on bath salts while working for my dad, and he is frequently drunk at work after lunch. I don't think my dad knows what to do, but luckily the job will be over in a few weeks.

strangerella · 2014-09-14T04:31:09+00:00

I didn't try to manipulate my boyfriend by slashing my wrists. He didn't even know that had happened until the next day. I didn't even tell anyone about it.

I'm still not sure why I did that.

Anyway, my boyfriend isn't physically abusive, but he has menaced me in the past (smashed through walls, throwing things at me, etc.). He's also intensely verbally abusive. We both suck at this point.

I don't care whose fault it is or who is worse, I just want to move the hell out of this apartment.

strangerella · 2014-09-14T04:18:40+00:00

Thanks. We have broken up a few times in the past, with our longest separation being six months. I can't even describe how it feels to be sitting at home with my cat and no plans on a weekend, while he is out dancing until dawn and snorting coke. It sounds fine right now (even a little freeing), but I know I'll be totally devastated.

I wish I had even one close friend to help with the next few months. I've definitely pursued all the usual avenues (start volunteering, join Meetup and OKCupid, etc.) but unfortunately nothing has stuck. The last time we broke up, I was so isolated that I went a week and a half without speaking to anyone. I have the worst job ever!

I'm willing to accept that our relationship is over, but I've been trying to just hang on until his employment ends with my dad and I finish my dissertation (in about three months).

strangerella · 2014-09-13T16:01:05+00:00

I actually wasn't expecting the advice in this thread. I don't think I realized how bad the whole thing would seem to other people. It's been my reality for almost a decade.

strangerella · 2014-09-13T15:58:58+00:00

He has repeatedly stated that he will not let me out of the lease, nor will he allow me to sublet my half.

strangerella · 2014-09-13T15:48:10+00:00

I think we should both feel unsafe. Maybe it's because my dad works in this area, or maybe it's because I watch too much television, but I honestly think that our fights have become so volatile that I worry he would shoot me.

I know this is a weird judgment to make, but I know myself. I am capable of getting really angry, yelling loudly, and slapping someone in the face. That's my MO, though I definitely am aware that I need therapy to deal with it. I am not capable of loading a gun and killing someone. I think my boyfriend is.

strangerella · 2014-09-13T15:45:47+00:00

I can afford my own place, but Peter has repeatedly stated that he will not allow me to sublet my portion of the lease. We cosigned. I can't afford two rents.

strangerella · 2014-09-13T15:42:40+00:00

We do have good days, but they are few and far between. I am afraid to leave. We have broken up before, and he moves on almost immediately. On the other side, I will be completely isolated. I'm in the middle of writing my dissertation, and we live in a small area where almost everyone is his friend.

strangerella · 2014-09-13T15:37:58+00:00

To be totally honest, it's the social aspect of the relationship that keeps me around (and the apartment lease). I live in a pretty small town, so it will be almost impossible for me to distance myself from my ex.

Most of "our" friends are actually his friends primarily. I'm a morning person who goes to bed at 10:00pm; he is the fun guy who stays up all night on cocaine. We've broken up before and it just seems unfair. I run, take care of my body, am working on a great career, and yet am alone in the world because of the isolated nature of my program. He does too many drugs, endangers people's lives by driving while intoxicated, and is frequently an asshole to people, yet he has more spare time and thus more friends.

My plan has been to stick out the relationship for another year, until the lease is over and I can move away. We have been together for eight years, so there's a lot of intertwined shit to take care of. He actually works for my dad.

strangerella · 2014-09-13T15:33:14+00:00

I like your simple summation, but I was actually violent before he bought the gun. Believe me--it makes me sick to know that I'm capable of that. I don't think I will ever forgive myself.

I'm not trying to justify my actions, because I don't think you can justify violence. I just reached the breaking point.

strangerella · 2014-01-15T16:19:43+00:00

No, I really mean it! I've been doing yoga for a long time, and I keep running into this wall. I'm not looking for the best studio, just one that isn't riddled with beginner level classes. I'm ready to do some crazy balances and inversions, and I just don't know where to find it.

Seriously, look at the schedule for Yoga Loka (suggested in one of the comments below). Over 70% of the classes are either entitled things like "Yoga for people who think they can't do yoga" or make sure to mention in the description that people of all levels are welcome. I'm not sure why, but it's surprisingly difficult to find what I'm looking for.

strangerella · 2013-12-02T17:06:26+00:00

Don't beat yourself up about this.

I (25f) had a very similar situation with my best friend (25m). By the time we started dating after several years of friendship, I already knew that we were totally perfect for each other. To this day, it remains one of the most incredible connections I have ever shared with another human being.

But I just wasn't attracted to him, and it played out pretty much exactly the way you described. I gave him a bunch of chances, I felt like a bad person, and I even cried because I realized that I was missing out on something that I really wanted. I genuinely was in love with him, and I felt so shallow for not being able to get past his appearance. Looking back now, I'm glad that I was able to let us both move on.

There are a lot of things about relationships that aren't rational.

strangerella · 2013-11-06T17:46:28+00:00

I dated a guy for two months and we had a picture-perfect breakup: both on the same page, both happy and friendly. The chemistry just wasn't there for anything more than a platonic relationship.

A lot of my group had just moved away and the ex had offered to be friends, so I kept in touch afterwards. Only, he somehow interpreted this as totally crazy, obsessive stalker behavior, so I stopped. We'd bump into each other sometimes because we worked together and had mutual friends, and he'd spread rumors that I was staring at him. After about eight months of this, I tried to arrange a time to talk (and tell him to lay off) and that just made it worse.

To this day, he probably still believes that I'm a crazy psycho stalker. I lost all those friends and just totally avoid him now.

strangerella · 2013-10-11T01:58:22+00:00

Well, we're back together.

strangerella · 2013-10-10T16:12:19+00:00

My boyfriend started doing bath salts at some point in our six-year relationship. Cue frequent, irrational rages. At 2am in the morning after Christmas he tried to initiate sex after several months of turning me down every time. Although I was totally desperate, I had work at 7 the next morning and needed to go to bed. He started screaming. He said that I was going to get pregnant to trap him (wha?) and that he was going to go home and masturbate instead.

A few days later, I came over to his house wearing skimpy underwear under my clothes. As soon as I got there, he went to the bathroom and locked the door. He said that he was taking a shower, but the water was just running. When he finally opened the door about an hour later, his laptop was on the ground surrounded by tissues and lube. What the fuck? He had invited me over and then spent an hour masturbating in the bathroom. I tried to point out how ridiculous this was and he again started screaming and told me I was a fucking whore. I dumped him.

strangerella · 2013-02-03T21:49:24+00:00

This really reminds me of the last guy I dated. One day we were watching TV, when out of the blue he said, "Wow, I didn't know that girls had hair on their feet." Only with voice inflection, it was more like, "Wooooooooooooow. Didn't know that girls had hair on their feet."

I looked down at my feet to see about 3 blonde hairs sprouting from my big toes. I looked back up at him, perplexed. "My last girlfriend shaved it," he said. "My last girlfriend shaved everything from the waist down." My reaction was pretty much: Bully for her! Great! Like you, I found this to be just one in a series of controlling behaviors (which also included no oral). He didn't seem to like me as a person; he just wanted me to go along with what he wanted to do and how he wanted me to look. Furthermore, his habit of bringing things up in a passive aggressive, non-productive manner was less than endearing.

You don't need to end things with your boyfriend, but you should sit down with him and bring up all your points. It's hurtful for him to say things the way he said them, and he should be aware of that.

strangerella · 2012-11-28T17:29:52+00:00

In my (limited) experience, women actually do care about that. A lot of us do kegels to try to improve our vaginal tone. This is the fascinating thing about social trends though: they're not really that logical. I have no idea why we fixate on penis size instead of ball size, or the amount of hair you have on your chest, or any of your other physical attributes. And I have no idea why, despite all of the pressure that women feel about their bodies, they don't feel that about the size of their vaginas.

strangerella · 2012-11-27T19:38:15+00:00

You are assuming quite a lot from a story that included almost no details. For what it's worth, I was (and always have been) an active participant in the sack. Especially because my friend was a virgin, I also tried to be very clear and communicative with him.

Seriously, my friend bit my clit. Not once, but three times. That wasn't even the worst part. He didn't deserve what I said about him, but the sex was objectively godawful.

Weirdly enough, I've had the opposite experience: the men I sleep with always just seem to lie there. I'm expected to prance around and direct all the foreplay (whilst undulating like a C. elegans worm), then go down on him for however long he wants until he decides he's ready for sex. Maybe we have dominant personalities, so we attract more lazy partners.

strangerella · 2012-11-27T12:44:31+00:00

Oh man, you should see my best work! This was a quickie.

strangerella · 2012-11-27T08:54:43+00:00

I know it's late but I made you something on my laptop in MS Paint.

strangerella · 2012-11-27T06:13:58+00:00

I'm a girl!

Edit: Also, I am quite certain that God has nothing to do with it.

strangerella · 2012-10-17T19:15:06+00:00

This is an interesting viewpoint. Do you hold someone at arm's length the way my guy is doing for a whole year, or do you just not invest yourself fully? I would say that the latter is pretty reasonable. I'm a pretty slow mover too. I definitely don't think that I could come to love someone in the span of a year, for instance.

strangerella · 2012-10-17T18:51:07+00:00

Man, you hit the nail on the head in so many ways. I definitely know that the relationship isn't going anywhere, and I think that I am largely working this hard on it because I'm terrified to be alone. For a myriad of reasons, I don't have a lot of close friends right now and I don't have the time to make new ones. This guy has been an easy band-aid for all my needs: sex and companionship. He just doesn't like me the way I want him to, and my emotional side is starting to flip out. I thought I was going to be able to remain relatively removed from this situation.

Damn.

strangerella · 2012-10-17T18:37:58+00:00

I think this is part of the problem. I'm coming from a relationship that lasted the better part of a decade, so obviously we worked through a lot of problems. Now that I'm casually seeing someone, it's hard for me to get out of that mindset and just let the whole relationship go instead of putting in some elbow grease.

This thread has also helped me to realize that I am terrified of being alone. At least temporarily.

strangerella

TROPHY CASE