LDR Advice from Michelle and Frank

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Manipulative boyfriend, what should I do?

I met this guy online a little of 7 months ago. We chatted on line, he left me his number and asked if I would call him sometime…whenever I felt comfortable. I called him almost right away. Our first conversation on the phone last all night for approximately 10 hours. It seemed that we had so much in common and wanted the very same things in a relationship. He lives in New York and at the time, I lived in North Carolina. Well, he lived in a town only about 10 minutes away from several of my Uncles, Aunts, and cousins. After getting to know a little of each other over the phone, we made plans to meet each other. Two weeks after meeting him, he paid for me to fly to New York to see him. It was a great experience. We had a terrific time. Right off the bat, he started introducing me to his friends. I felt like, I knew he was the one for me. I fell in love.

The relationship flourished and within a several months, there was talk about marriage. That is how serious we are about each other. When we met, he was honest with me in telling me that he dated a young lady for about 8 months and she was currently about 8 months pregnant with his child. He told me that they could not get along, so they decided to go their separate ways. I told him that I would not enter a relationship with him until the baby had been born, and they both knew for sure that they did not want to be with each other anymore. He assured me that there was no love between them and that they had not been together in almost an entire year. They did not even speak throughout the tenure of her pregnancy. She chose not to.

So, the baby was born a little over a month after we began to date and that is when all hell broke loose. My fiancé and his ex do not get along. It seems as though each of them are always putting the other down to make themselves look good. I have asked my fiancé to stop doing it. We argue all the time about him and his ex. They are not civil and it is taking a toll on our relationship. I have asked him not to mention her to me unless it is something that he feels he wants to say to me in retrospect to their daughter, but he can’t seem to help himself. He wants me to be a part of his daughter’s life as much as possible, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so. Sometimes I feel like he is in competition with his ex. He asked me if I was jealous of his relationship with his daughter, only about a week after he was allowed to have unsupervised visits with her. He tells me that he thinks that I am immature about his relationship with his ex and he thinks I get mad when he even mentions her name. I don’t believe that is the case. I get upset with him when I am talking to him about something that involves us or talking about the baby and he says for an example: “well one thing I can say is that my baby’s mom and I both have extremely great taste.” I don’t think comments like that are necessary, because I don’t care about what type of taste she has. Or he picks his daughter up from his ex and when he gets back to his place with her, he say’s: “It’s time for me to feed the baby, and then he pulls her bottle from the bag and say’s….WOW, this breast milk is hot……She must have just pumped it…..Feel it and I say No, I will take your word for it and he say’s another 4 times, feel it, feel it. I say, I really don’t want to feel it and then he continues to tell me to feel it and walks over to me and puts the bottle against my hand.” It makes me very uncomfortable, but when I tell him that it does, he gets mad and starts an argument. Most recently during an argument, he told me that he wished he had never introduced me to his daughter. She is 5 months old now. When I met him, he told me that he hated her almost and felt repulsed to even have to deal with her. He told me that she cheated on him and that the baby might not be his. I later found out from her that she believes he cheated on her. He still had pictures of her all over his computer and photos hidden under his mattress. He fakes a MySpace account posing as someone else to get access to her page. He did the same thing to me, but being the analyst I am, I uncovered his little secret within a month. I confronted him about it and told his ex about it also.

We had a huge argument about me having my ex as a friend on my MySpace page, but he has at least on of his ex’s on his page. I ended up deleting my ex from my page, but funny thing is…..One of his ex’s is still on his page. He has moved her to the back page, but she is till there. He went through my cellular phone and deleted all the number of my male friends and photos, however; he has pictures of him and another one of his ex’s on his computer….oh, and get this…..He keeps his cellular phone locked so that his personal information cannot be viewed. When I have asked him not to go through my phone and he runs or grasps my phone so that I cannot take it from him, I ask him to give me his phone and allow me to do the same thing, he takes his phone unlocks it, tampers with it for several minutes and then tells me oh, you can look there is nothing there…..No shit……I guess not, since he probably just deleted it all.

Now, he has changed. He uses his daughter as a shield. His attitude is that he doesn’t need anything or anyone else because now he has her. I was told buy a friend that it would happen, I just never saw him as that type. I was wrong. We argue so much to the point where I told him that we should part ways.

I really love him, I just know that he is very manipulative. He lies and I have caught him in many lies.

I visited him once and there were pantyhose in his bathroom trash can. He then told me that it was a friend of his, who has a daughter. Her daughter’s hose ripped so she through them into the garbage can. I was cleaning the bathroom and went to take the trash from the can….He was having a conversation with me…….and when he saw me grab the trash, he totally when into a panic and told me to get out of the bathroom because he really had to go really bad. The trash was already in my hand, he made me put it back. I had already seen the pantyhose, but he thought he was protecting it. He tied the bag up and placed it into the trashcan in the kitchen mixed in with other trash. He had to leave the apartment for something. When he left, I opened the trash bag in the kitchen trash and pulled out the pantyhose. I confronted him about it and he told me that they were from when his ex lived there. He said that he found them in the room and trashed them. He thought I would believe this because he in fact did have several items that his ex had left behind in his apartment that I had already seen. Being the nosey woman that I am….I looked through the bag and his entire apartment and there were only two pair of pantyhose in the black trash bag in his room and they were more like leggings and definitely not the ones in his trash. Me confronting him caused an argument of course.

Prior to me coming there, he disappeared one night and I couldn’t contact him. Finally the next morning, his friend contacted me (via MySpace) and told me that he was in the hospital. That same friend that contacted me happens to be the one (who was made up on MySpace). So, it was all a lie. He confessed finally that the MySpace friend was made up and when I said to him, well then it was you that emailed me telling me that you were in the hospital. How does that happen, if you are in the hospital? He has never told the truth about that to this day! He still wants me to believe that our relationship is pure……that is the one thing I take pride in…..commitment! I feel with everything in my spirit that he slept with his “friend” at his apartment and that is why he was not reachable. I just want him admit it. The sad part it, he knows that I know that he is lying but he still won’t tell the truth. I am losing respect and without respect and [without] trust you have nothing.

I have been totally committed to him, but at times, I don’t feel he deserves the level of commitment I give him. I am an Aries and it is in my nature to stop treating people as royal when I don’t feel like the same treatment is being provided to me. I don’t want to quit on him, but I am finding this relationship more and more unbearable. In the last past few weeks, I have become angry. I am losing respect for this relationship and everything that comes with it really fast. Thoughts of cheating has not crossed my mind, but lately I have wondered what it would have been like if I had chosen someone other than my fiancé to build on a relationship with. I have begun to compare my relationship with him to ones from my past and that is not a good thing. It saddens me. What can I do to savor this relationship, if anything? I am genuinely a good person, but when I fed up, I get really mean. Not mean in the sense that I do harm to others, but mean in the sense that I will walk away and never look back. At that point, nothing a person say’s to me means anything. When a person looses credibility with me, I don’t ever want to hear another word they have to say. I deserve great things…..we all do. If this man wasn’t ready for a committed relationship, why did he pursue one so strongly? I am a career-oriented woman; I have done pretty well with my life and career. I am single with a little bit of money in the bank and no children. I am starting to wonder if that is the way God intended it to be for me.

I know that I could be more effective in this relationship, but because of all the craziness that has happened and is happening, I feel like I have given up. I don’t want to praise this relationship and put it on a pedestal, because I don’t want for my friends and family to think that it is something that it is not. He blames me for failure and I blame him. We are rude to each other. I have a point and he has a point, neither agree with the others side…..ever!

The list goes on. I don’t feel like I can trust him. I know I can’t. He is a Pisces and they are known for cheating. When I have tried to break up with him in the past, he sent me messages saying that he was going to commit suicide and that basically, it would be my fault. He said, by the time you get this email, it will be too late. I will be dead. He is adamant that this relationship is going to work, I am not convinced. We argue all the time, almost every day and over really petty stuff. We can’t even agree to disagree…..yeah, that’s sad. I have burned out. I want an adult relationship. One without the drama. Starting today, I am going to calm myself by focusing on only the positive things and taking more time out for me. We have told all of our family and friends that we are getting married in a year, but I am having second thoughts. How do I fix this now? I am confused, sad, and very angry. Does he need professional help? Do I need professional help? Do you think that his behavior will continue because he thinks that he has gotten away with deceit? Should I remove myself from this relationship? Should I move on and pursue happiness in a relationship with someone on the same level as me? I need help!!!!

Shar

Michelle says…

You are right. Your boyfriend is manipulative. Guilting someone to stay in a relationship is wrong, but to actually tell someone that if they committed suicide it would be your fault, is beyond wrong. It is very controlling of him. Don’t be guilted into staying in this relationship. Not only controlling, he is possessive. By taking your phone and deleting your male contacts shows his extreme jealousy. It is also hypocritical of him since he hides the information in his phone from you. His unnecessary comments about his ex and daughter are his vain attempt at trying to make you jealous as much as he is.

This man is very deceptive. His efforts to cover up whatever happened the night when he was supposedly in the hospital are extreme. You state that you know he hasn’t been faithful, and his infidelity is obvious. Trust is important in a relationship, and if your fiancé does things to lose your trust, it is hard for him to earn that trust back. And it doesn’t appear he is trying. Without trust, as you said, you have nothing. A relationship will eventually crumble if there isn’t mutual trust between two people. It would not be smart to ever put trust into this man again.

You don’t need professional help. Honestly, the best thing you can do for yourself is to remove yourself from the relationship. He may need professional help, but that is his problem. You can’t fix him, he has to want to make changes himself. Don’t wait around for him to change, you’ll only be disappointed. If you feel that he will hurt himself when you leave, him you should contact local authorities. Don’t feel embarrassed in front of family and friends to say that you ended your relationship when you’ve already announced your engagement. This is the right thing for you to do for yourself and they will support you.

Michelle

Frank says…

I have read your email and thought about your situation. Even though you may love this man, it does not seem like this relationship can possibly work. He is disrespectful to you and does not appear to be capable of carrying on an adult relationship. You do not need to stay with someone who is emotionally blackmailing you by threatening suicide. Your relationship does not have a solid foundation. You both disrespect each other by lying and being secretive. I do not see any possible way that you two can have a future together. You say that you think God intends your life to be this way. That does not make any sense. God loves everyone and would not want you to remain unhappy. If you mean that God wants you to be single and just a career woman, and that is what makes you happy, then pursue that. You still have the ability to find other men and have children. You are never too old to date new people. It may help if you turn to your church for guidance. You need to get away from this toxic relationship any way that you can. Focus on your career and things that will fulfill you. You may want to consider some type of therapy so that you can focus on yourself and improve your self-esteem. I hope this has helped you in some way.

Frank

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