Men: why did my guy treat me like this?

[drakewood]

I wanted to share my story about my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, I'll call him Mark.

We met at university, we were in the same friendship group. Mark was the shy, nerdy, awkward scientist guy in our friendship group who never had any luck with girls and never knew what to say. I was in a long-term relationship with a guy at a different university, Patrick, at the time (we were together for seven years in total). I knew Mark fancied me (our mutual friends used to mention it to me) and so I was always a bit careful not to lead him on. But, as we were in the same friendship group, slowly over time, we became friends anyway. We were friends for years after we left university and I used to chat to his brother and visited his family occasionally.

I was still in a relationship with Patrick and after university I moved in with him. After a few years Patrick proposed to me and I said yes, but somehow it didn't feel right. I just put it down to the big life change and to nerves. Then, not long after he'd proposed to me, my mother became seriously ill. I expected Patrick to be there and be unconditionally supportive, but he wasn't. He was too busy with work and he said he didn't have any spare time to spend with me to help. I couldn't believe his reaction. Mark stepped up and he went with me and looked after me and was supportive and caring.

After my mother died, Patrick and I decided to move abroad together for a year, to have a change and do something different. I was a confused mess and thought it would be a good plan. Instead, I found myself boarding a plane to the other side of the world dreading spending a year with my fiancé Patrick and just wishing I could turn around and go back to Mark, where I felt cared about and loved.

During our year living abroad, I broke off my engagement with Patrick and eventually started living on my own.

I then moved back to England, found a new job and told Mark I was in love with him. He said he felt the same way.

I truly thought this could be a 'happily-ever-after' story. Mark seemed to have liked me for years, I felt like I'd never been so happy with a guy, and wondered why I had let myself stay in my previous relationship for so long. At first it was a dream. He told me he'd liked me for a long time and never wanted to be with anyone else, that he wanted to spend his life with me. I must admit I was a bit surprised, as this felt very early, but in the context of us having been good friends for years, it didn't seem implausible. I definitely became more attached and invested a lot more because he seemed so keen and was pushing the closeness and emotional intimacy, whereas I would naturally have taken it more slowly.

Then, after a few months, the problems started cropping up. Mark became distant. He didn't want me to meet his family, although they already knew me as we'd been friends for years. When I told him I didn't want a relationship where he shut me out of parts of his life, he sent me a text saying we should break up. I was devastated and begged him to change his mind. He did and things seemed to calm down again.

Then he started doing strange things, we'd be out with my friends and he'd say it was too much for him and he'd have to leave early to spend some time on his own. Or I'd call him and he'd pretend that he was at home on his own, but I could tell from the background noise that he'd gone out with his guy friends to the pub. I tried having really open, honest conversations with him, where I explained that I wasn't restrictive and wanted him to live his own life and the most important thing to me was honesty. It didn't seem to help very much and he wouldn't respond and seemed to be withdrawing from me more and more. He'd cancel on dates, or leave early. He didn't seem to want to spend any time around me. I found it incredibly bizarre and upsetting. I used to challenge him on it and try and talk to him about it, but he'd just shut down.

After a while, if our conversations became heated at all, he'd just pick up his rucksack and say he was going to leave because he 'couldn't do this relationship anymore'. He said that when I tried to talk to him, he found me scary. I used to find this really distressing and upsetting and I made sure to always try and talk calmly. However he then started saying that he felt like I was lashing out at him and was emotionally abusive. I found this really upsetting.

I kept questioning myself and wondering if I was too needy or emotional, because I'd been through my mum's death and the breakup of a long relationship.

After a while, I managed to get a transfer to a company in Europe and thought I'd try working there for six months, just to give myself some time and space. I talked to Mark about it and we agreed we'd see each other every few weeks and it could be a good thing for our relationship to have some time apart.

A week before I left England, I had an important exam. I spoke to Mark on the phone the night before and he was really unsupportive. I just lost it and told him that he didn't deserve to be in a relationship with me, he had been treating me badly for months. After my exam finished, he called me and broke up with me. Three days later, he was back in touch again, saying he'd made a big mistake and all that he wanted in his life was me. He came to mine and showered me with flowers and tears and we got back together.

I moved to Europe and saw a counsellor who talked to me a lot about how I saw myself and if I had enough self-confidence. I spoke to her a lot about Mark's idea that I'd been emotionally abusive and concluded that actually he struggled with emotionally heated conversations and while I'd been annoyed with him on occasions, that didn't constitute abuse. We had a lot of sessions and it was really helpful.

Mark came to visit a lot and at Christmas (just a few months ago) he invited me to his mum's for Christmas. I was overjoyed to spend Christmas with his family and I felt like things had really turned around in our relationship since I'd gone to a counsellor and spent some time away. He spoke to me about engagement rings and even which of his surnames I might take. We started making plans to try living together when I got back to England. By this point we'd been in a relationship for a year and a half and although some of it had been rocky, I felt like it was going much more smoothly and the last few months had been fantastic. He viewed flats and we sat down and discussed our preferences and talked about how we imagined our home to be.

Two weeks before we were due to move in together, he changed his mind. He called me, while I was on a work trip, staying in a business hotel with colleagues, to tell me that he couldn't live with me any longer. He said he loved me, but he just couldn't do it, because he felt too scared of me and he 'needed to feel safe in his own home'. I was devastated and also frightened about having nowhere to live (clearly I couldn't crash at my mum's!).

I asked him to come and visit me on the next weekend to talk to me and discuss what this meant for our relationship and talk to me face to face rather than doing everything over the phone. He refused. He said he was too scared that I'd be angry and he didn't want to see me just yet. I couldn't believe it.

I spent the next week trying to find somewhere to live and once I had I started trying to think about our relationship. I asked him again to come and see me and he wouldn't.

When he finally did come, two weeks later, I told him I wasn't sure about the relationship any longer, because he'd treated me so badly over the last couple of weeks. He just sort of accepted that, although he did cry and seem upset and I felt really bad for him.

I gave it a couple more weeks and kept thinking about it and finally I said to him, how about we try living near to each other, i.e. in the same area of London and try going to relationship counselling? He refused. He said he'd been too hurt when I said to him that I wasn't sure about the relationship and 'why would I want to live near you'.

I again, couldn't believe it. I told him that it was over. I sent his things back to him.

He started sending me emails telling me he wanted to be my best friend and I was a really special person, but he'd just found my emotional abuse too difficult. He specified my emotional abuse as times when I'd told him he was horrible, callous towards me and mean to me. I had said those things to him.

I found these emails (which were really long) and the message that I was emotionally abusive really difficult to deal with.

I haven't seen him now for just over a month. A week ago, I cracked late one night (I wasn't drunk!) and called him up asking if he'd reconsider. He said he missed me, but didn't want to be in a relationship. He said he'd really like to see me and hang out as friends. I felt like an idiot. It seems like such a bad idea to hang out as friends and I've refused.

I've found the whole thing incredibly confusing and painful. I still think about him every day and miss his company and affection. I know I did go through a lot, with the constant break ups and my logic tells me that actually he didn't treat me very well and then tried to blame me for any problems. However, I do keep doubting myself and wondering what I could have done differently. Then my feelings tip towards anger for the way he treated me.

Any thoughts would be really nice and helpful. I just want to try and get some of my feelings about all this out and make sense of my story! I'm living alone in a houseshare now, with people I don't really know, feeling quite lonely and sad, and wondering how my decisions have got me to this point in my life. I still can't understand his reactions and most responses from girlfriends tend to be that he's clearly bad for me and treated me badly and I'm lucky to be out of the relationship sooner than later.

However it would be so great to get a guy's point of view. What was happening here?

[basilandthyme]

To be fair, it sounds like you also gave a fair share of bad treatment to him - so let's just call it even. Your counsellor may have agreed that you weren't being abusive to him - but your counsellor only hears your side of the story. If Mark felt that you were being abusive, then clearly there were communication issues which you also needed to fix.

The takeaway from this relationship? When you're in a relationship and there are so many problems, you must learn to walk away early. Dating people is about finding Mr Right - it's not about finding Mr Wrong and trying to fix him. In this case, when you said early on that you couldn't be in a relationship with someone who blocks you from their family, you should have followed through on your decision - not begged someone who's incompatible to stay with you.

[Wakeup]

I think you may need to work on your communication skills and learn to use your "I" words because twice in your story you mention that Mark finds you "scary."

When you use your I words you're talking about you and how you feel and you're refraining from putting the other on the defensive if you do it with finesse.

Example:

You using your good communication skills:
"I feel sad when we have made plans and they fall through" (waits to hear response)

You not using them:
"You broke our plans, you are always causing me disappointment" said in a harsh, demeaning tone.

Anyway: You're sad now because you're rehabbing from the addiction of having him in your life. In time and how well you utilize that time, you'll be over him and hopefully have worked on how to communicate your discontent so its listened to more readily.

Good luck.