Crazy Belittle Thing Called Love
My boyfriend of five years has gotten super moody. He picks fights with me and even gets a little verbally abusive and condescending. I know he's a good guy, and I want to help him sort through his stuff, but I'm finding myself flirting with other guys and fantasizing about cheating on him. I am not the kind of person who cheats, and I feel terribly guilty even having those thoughts.
--Demeaned
Ideally, "I've never felt this way before!" reflects something a little more romantic than longing to tunnel out of your relationship with a sharpened spoon.
I wrote recently about a cocktail of personality traits that are associated with a susceptibility to infidelity in a person -- basically those of a narcissistic, lazy con artist with all the empathy of a bent tack. That finding is from research by evolutionary psychologists Todd Shackelford and David Buss, who also studied the emotional circumstances in a relationship that might lead one of the partners to cheat or to want to (even if that person isn't some ethically bankrupt, empathy-deficient turdpiece).
They found that there are two personality characteristics someone can have that make a relationship particularly miserable. One is emotional instability -- marked by mood swings and a gloomy obsessiveness about things beyond one's control. As Buss explains in "The Dangerous Passion," when emotional instability is paired with quarrelsomeness (and all of the ugly condescension, sniping, and emotional neglect that goes with it), relationships become "cauldrons of conflict." This, in turn, raises the odds that one's partner will seek solace in the, um, back seat of another.
Part of being in a relationship is taking out the trash when it starts to overflow -- including the psychological trash spilling out of the dumpster that has become "you." Talk compassionately with your boyfriend about the need for him to start figuring out and fixing whatever's causing him to act out in toxic ways.
Don't expect change at "Poof!" speed, but look for signs that he's taking meaningful steps to dig out of his emotional winter. Give yourself some time markers -- maybe the two-week mark, a month from now, the three-month mark. This should keep you from just blindly continuing along with a partner whose interests could be advertised as: Enjoys dive bars, French cinema, long screaming arguments on the beach, and staying up till dawn pondering the age-old question, "I KNOW YOU ARE, BUT WHAT AM I?!"
Could be anything; that last blood test, the last quarterly review, his latest credit score, memories of a great time with a woman before he found you so did he screw himself up.
As to the last, the grass is always greener in the pasture you just passed.
Point is, you may not like what you find. Better if he manages it by himself or with a professional (counselor).
Richard Aubrey at June 6, 2017 6:52 PM
"I want to help him sort through his stuff..."
LW, that's not your job. It's HIS job to pack and stow his own baggage. You can support and sympathize, but as much as you would like to help, he has to that work by himself.
One word of caution, if you are already scoping out landing spots for when you eject from this relationship, please think honestly about how committed you are. Don't use "another guy" as a way to avoid having a difficult conversation with your boyfriend.
bkmale at June 7, 2017 7:05 AM
The thought occurred to me that the BF might be a narcissist, but five years into the relationship is a long time for narcissistic traits to appear. Most narcs can't keep the mask on nearly that long.
Something's going on. It could be that he just wants out of the relationship. But it could also be clinical depression. I think bkmale has the right approach: offer support, but don't pry. Make sure he understands that you will keep in confidence anything he tells you. (You will do that, right?)
Beyond that, it's on him; you're not a professional therapist. As Amy said, you will want to set some deadlines for seeing signs of progress. If several deadlines pass and you're not seeing signs of progress, it may be that there is nothing that can be done, at least not in the context of your relationship. At that point, you'll want to think about getting out. Don't let a sinking ship drag you down with it.
Cousin Dave at June 7, 2017 7:57 AM
My ex was exactly like this, and, LW I am sorry to say, it's unlikely he will change. Because sulking and sniping at you is his coping mechanism for all adversity.
And that's why you find yourself flirting -- those guys are being kind to you, and it feels nice.
You mention that "he's gotten" that way recently. It's possible he was always that way, but the high of your relationship mitigated his natural sulkiness. And now complacency has set in. At the 3-year-mark, I told my ex's mom about his "new" behavior and she sighed and said, "Oh no, he's doing the grumpy-bear thing, isn't he?
I was hoping he'd grown out of it."
I agree with Amy that you should try to work with him (if you want to), but set benchmarks. And some ground rules. For example, maybe you're fine with him sulking all day, but he needs to say something like, "I know I'm being a total drag right now, but I need to work through this. So do your thing and I'll let you know when I've snapped out of this mood. I love you."
Under no circumstances, however, should he be mean to you. That needs to stop.
sofar at June 7, 2017 7:57 AM
Letter writer's boyfriend may want to break up with her, but could be passive-aggressively trying to goad her into doing the heavy lifting here.
JanetC at June 7, 2017 10:28 AM
Letter writer's boyfriend may want to break up with her, but could be passive-aggressively trying to goad her into doing the heavy lifting here.
Also VERY possible.
sofar at June 7, 2017 10:31 AM
4 choices for LW:
1. As suggested, if the LWs boyfriend has previously been a goodun, then he may well be looking for a way out, so dump him
2. The b/f is now showing his true colours, so dump him, and find a nice guy.
3. The LW wants to stay with the B/F so has to start addressing the behaviour - confronting him every time, saying the behaviour is unacceptable and not backing down - this may still lead to (1) anyway.
4. The LW still wants to stay with the B/F, but has someone on the side, so when the B/f acts like the boor he is, she can smile, turn the other cheek and think of the pleasure she has with the other man.
Why do I suggest number 4? I am married to a boor (whirlwind relationship, married in haste) , can't leave for financial reasons, have a very long term friendship (11 years) with someone I see every few months. When the boorishness starts, I either think back several few weeks or forward several weeks. Works a treat. Oh and I also do no 3, living in hope that the behaviour will change - it hasn't yet, but helps my self esteem.
Cam at June 9, 2017 1:52 PM
A relationship is about 'better and worse'.
Let's move that same metric to something else. Cancer. Do we have a two week, one month and three month window, where if they aren't getting better, it's time to pack your bags?
Or, if you note your significant other swimming too far out to sea, do you speculate "I wonder if he will make it back. Should I say anything? Isn't he an adult? He should be allowed to make his own mistakes...even fatal ones without any input from me."
Is that how you want your partner to treat you? If you WANT a partner who will do their best to look out for your best interests, you better at least try to BE that partner for them.
Otherwise, you are, like a Cat, only hanging around for the free food and a warm spot to sleep.
Note: This is not a call to be a perma-punching bag. Nor is it a call to just let them lounge in their crapulence. It does mean spending a bit more time and effort at something worthwhile than you would reading a trashy fantasy series ala J.K. Rowling to see if the situation sorts out.
FIDO at June 10, 2017 8:14 AM
Maybe he is just going through a particularly stressful time, maybe you just didn't noticed it before. Maybe this is how he deals with stress and hasn't had enough stress to make him act like he is right now. You can give him some time and he might come out of it. If it turns into weeks, weeks could turn into months and months WILL turn into years. for one thing, if he stays in this funk, he may need a jolt to get him out of his funk. Secondly, if you put up with this behavior towards you, he will come to see this behavior as normal.
I finally left a thirty year marriage because I put up with behavior like that towards myself and it became the norm. I wish I had spoken up years earlier and made him accountable for his behavior. I put up with it, tried to placate him while my self esteem was whittled down to almost nothing. When I did say anything he would emotionally bully me into backing down or worse, ignore or even laugh it off. He never hit me, yelled or said really nasty things to me. That would have been easier to deal with. When I told him that we needed to go to marriage therapy, he told me that that was not going to happen. It was always my communication problem and my psychological problems.
I never cheated on him but years later when I discovered that someone was actually attracted to me (My self esteem by then was so low, I thought I was truly an ugly, unattractive person) I flirted like I was single. That is all on me. I should have demanded marriage counseling or left him far before it got to that point.
I agree, you can give him support and even some space if he needs it but if he is going to let himself spiral down into this depression and it becomes the norm, I would get out of the relationship before he takes you down with him.
Becky at June 15, 2017 10:17 AM
@"LW, that's not your job. It's HIS job to pack and stow his own baggage"
If she's his partner, then it's exactly her 'job', that's what a true partner does, help support him in whatever that process is. Instead, she's thinking of cheating. He's either got external stress, or he's stressed because he senses his girlfriend is thinking of cheating (while he's going through a tough time), or both.
Lobster at June 16, 2017 6:41 AM
Boat motor won't start. Can't figure out why.
ken at July 3, 2017 4:43 PM
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