....Too much stress

[ScuroFenice]

Lately I've been having a lot of stress, especially with finals results, the betrayal of trust of my ex boyfriend and now my grandparent's concern with another boyfriend (who I haven't personally met since he lives on the opposite side of the US) and the pretty much certain delay of Christmas in our household because of it......I just need to write about this and see if anyone has an opinion.

I'll start with my ex. He, like my current one was a long distance relationship and he had been saving up over 4K to see me through November, then I found out he was married but getting a divorce, but he was in a relationship with me anyways because he was "getting out of his marriage anyways".....he liked to control and had clinical depression and before I even told my grandparents that, they were paranoid that he was a predator since well....I had never met him personally....Anyways, I broke up with him because one night he kept texting me when I was watching tv with my family and asking then demanding then pleading for me to talk to him because he was really stressed...then he hinted he was considering suicide because i wasn't there for him and I refused to talk to him because he himself said a couple weeks earlier when one of my OTHER friends threatened suicide that if someone talks about committing suicide they're not really going to do it. I mean yeah, I was concerned and told him not to do it but the last text I got from him that night was "too late"....the whole next day I was worried sick but was scared about calling or texting him because I thought he needed time or I was terrified that I would find out that he was dead. Then that night, the girl he was getting a divorce with texted me from his phone and said if she hadn't gotten to the house 3 minutes later he would have died and that he was in the hospital. I talked some more to her, saying I was only 19 and had been in only one relationship before which lasted about three weeks and I was very inexperienced in relationships. She told me I should have been there for him and basically hinted that I should have dropped everything and given him my full attention. Plus she said "you know right from wrong, your age is no excuse". She asked me if I wanted to talk to him and I said yes in which I told him I was breaking up with him since i didn't want to hurt him anymore and make him want to commit suicide. Plus he was controlling and hurting me. So I broke up with him and made the mistake of still being friends with him....all this time I had a friend who I would talk to or go to for comfort if my boyfriend was being particularly depressive or negative and he had expressed his love for me while I was still with my ex....so I got together with him; he's given me nothing but the best treatment and love for over a month.
So now to the main part of my story. My grandparents didn't trust my ex at all and didn't like that he had done the suicide thing to me (later on I found out he hadn't really tried to kill himself but he had actually checked himself into a hospital to prevent himself from doing something, but he had told his "wife" to text me and deliberately hurt me and make me feel guilty that it was my fault he had tried to kill himself....what kind of person does that to someone let alone their own girlfriend?). My grandparents told me they didn't want me in an "online relationship" because of my ex but I was already with the other one who had comforted me so I hid it from them, not wanting to disappoint them or have them try to convince me to leave him.....I really do love him and he trusts me and I trust him.....but they think all he wants from me is sexual pleasure and porn pictures.....which I know for a fact isn't true, but they're just concerned about me and keep saying that I was so outgoing and fun and an extrovert, then I changed into an introvert because of video games and crap and not having an actual relationship where I can see my partner face to face....I'm 19 still so they can't force me, but my grandma says we won't be celebrating Christmas until this issue is resolved....in which I think translates to: I leave my boyfriend, talk to my bishop and repent of all my sins, completely get off of video games and take a semester off of school, NONE of which I am prepared for and refuse to do......My current boyfriend has done nothing but love me and be there for me, but to my grandparents he's just another faceless character that I've thrown myself to because I want to be with someone.
.....and I'm scared of talking to them about this because I just think they'll try harder to get me to leave him and try someone they approve of....I have had four past people I've vowed to wait for or was in a relationship with and every. single. one they didn't approve of and gave me so much stress I just broke it all off, giving me unbearable pain and tears.....I want to show them I'm not just looking for attention, I actually want a steady relationship and this one I'm with I just have a feeling that he's right for me.  

[n3verl4nd]

I'm so sorry something like this has happened to you but I have had experience, none like yours of course, with dating through the internet and I get where you're coming from when you say your grandparents to aprove but they just don't understand. Honestly I think you should sit down with them and tell them the truth and really explain to them how you feel and how he makes you feel, comfortable and loved like you said. Understand that it will be hard for them because they just don't want you getting hurt again, they aren't the bad guys, you just need to help them understand. I had a similar problem once but it was with my best friend, our seven year friendship was on the line because I was so in love with this guy. Hear what they have to say too because my friend convinced me to break up with him because it was a bit different circumstances but now that I look back I am glad I did, of course I'm not saying that's what you should do but I think you should at least listen to their point of view a bit and maybe you'll realized something you hadn't before. By the way you can always pull the whole "I'm in love, don't you remember when you fell in love? That magical feeling.... blah blah blah" all that mushy stuff, my friend almost fell for it smile
Goodluck,
Katie  

[ScuroFenice]

welittlekat

I'm so sorry something like this has happened to you but I have had experience, none like yours of course, with dating through the internet and I get where you're coming from when you say your grandparents to aprove but they just don't understand. Honestly I think you should sit down with them and tell them the truth and really explain to them how you feel and how he makes you feel, comfortable and loved like you said. Understand that it will be hard for them because they just don't want you getting hurt again, they aren't the bad guys, you just need to help them understand. I had a similar problem once but it was with my best friend, our seven year friendship was on the line because I was so in love with this guy. Hear what they have to say too because my friend convinced me to break up with him because it was a bit different circumstances but now that I look back I am glad I did, of course I'm not saying that's what you should do but I think you should at least listen to their point of view a bit and maybe you'll realized something you hadn't before. By the way you can always pull the whole "I'm in love, don't you remember when you fell in love? That magical feeling.... blah blah blah" all that mushy stuff, my friend almost fell for it smile
Goodluck,
Katie

thank for the reply...but unfortunately right now I'm single...he broke up with me because he told me I kept hurting him and i was trying my best not to and...i don't know what happened, I think it was he was really sensitive from previous relationships and in a sense he kept expecting me to go down the same road? Also he has hiding me from everyone he knew including his parents and that really struck a cord for me, I kept feeling like I was kept in the dark because i wasn't even worthy of being shown off (in that sense, I am not prideful that way at all) I just wanted people he knew know that I was in a relationship with him but he kept using the excuse he was too shy, but for the full two months (haha long...not) he never told ANYONE we were together which really really stressed me out and I kept bringing it up then he would get stressed....also he was talking to another girl about things he considered I did wrong and hurt him, someone I didn't even know and that really hurt me....why couldn't he talk to me one on one about what I was doing and ask if we could work it out? Instead he went to another girl and talked to her about things that went wrong...he told me she was neutral and didn't take sides but I looked up things about this and every response I read to similar situations said the listener would sympathize with the complainer....so she probably thinks I'm a horrible person.....and after we broke up, maybe a week or two he told me he was getting feelings for her so I don't know if he was getting them while we were still together and that helped with making him even more dissatisfied with being with me? Because he was getting feelings for someone else?
I was depressed for at least a month after he broke up with me and...something changed in me, it's so much harder to trust people now....one of my really good friends I've known almost two years asked if I could give him a chance but I balked and told him I wasn't ready and even so I needed to know more about him.....and my grandparents would flip a lid because the so called "long distance relationship" in their eyes is an online relationship. My grandma doesn't even consider those relationships. She told me straight out that I was single that entire time i was with someone online which really pissed me off. The feelings were real on both sides (or at least my side) so why wouldn't it not be real? and I would try to talk to them but they are older (almost 60) and do not believe in online relationships at all. They're really hard headed and if they think something is wrong, it's wrong and they always look at all the bad with things I do, never the good.  

[n3verl4nd]

Man, you keep explaining my life, to a certain degree of course but I know exactly how you feel! I had a very long-lasting long-distance relationship and he ended up breaking it off with me of course and after that I didn't think I could go on trusting anyone, to this day I still have issues trusting people and he made me feel insanely loved and special but of course once we broke up I was absolutely crushed. Even more so he did the same thing, except it was his ex. He had told her about how I was such a terrible girlfriend, when really I wasn't at all and I don't know what she had to say back but guess what, just like you they're together now. Plus they're happy together which only makes things worse. When you said you had a chance with a friend of yours awhile ago I did too, during the summer my friend and I talked but we didn't really know each other before hand, anyways we became amazing friends and finally it got to the point where I knew as a fact the he really liked me, it was beyond beyond beyond obvious to a point where it kind of scared me so I sorta ended up breaking things off with him. Though he did something that kinda pissed me off which was one of the reasons I broke our friendship up but it was mainly the fact that he liked me so much and I was just too scared, he too now has a girlfriend he loves, really really lost my chance there. Long story short I had a similar experience with a chance I had once and another experience of having my heart broken and now having a hard time trusting people, I know where you're coming from and I know first hand that it really sucks, I hope things resolve themselves in the end.