Why is he secretive?

[staticline]

I am a 23 year old woman and my boyfriend is 25. We have been together for two years, and since I am currently a hard up student nurse we each live seperately with our parents. For the large part we have a good and happy relationship.

My boyfriend has a general pattern of avoidant/secretive behaviour, I'm not entirely sure whether this is peculiar to him or our relationship.

Recently I attended a work funtion with him at the races. Some of his friends from work were also there with their girlfriends. I was chatting with these women when my boyfriend approached, and one of the girls latched on to him immediately;

"We had a great time when we went out clubbing before didn't we? We should definately do it again!"

Since he'd never mentioned this girl and I didn't know they had a prior association, I looked at him puzzled. I ignored it and continued to socialise with the group.

Clearly, my boyfriend had realised I had noticed this and kept bugging me "what's wrong?!", "talk to me?!" even though I showed no signs of upset and had no intention of discussing until there was an appropriate moment, we had both had a little to drink throughout the day.

Eventually I said "Look, it just bothered me a bit that you'd never mentioned socialising with those other girls or going out on those nights at all"

Quite innapropriately defensive and accusing at this point, he told me that he had covered it up because he thought I might be upset. I'll make it clear at this point that I have never had any problems with him having nights out with the guys or whoever - it had just never been an issue for me. At points I have even encouraged him to get out and do it since I'd noticed he hadn't for a while! Yet he'd aniticapated it might upset me and went quite out of his way to hide it from me.

He also said that he often lied to me about how much he had to drink on nights out. For a long time he's been telling me that he seems to have a bad reaction to alcohol after "just a few pints at the most..", and in my concern I've nursed him through many a horrible hangover. I've never had a problem with his drinking either, and drink plenty myself - especially on a night out.

I felt wounded and humiliated and accused. Wounded to have been lied to and not trusted to be understanding or accommodating of his social needs. Humiliated to be finding out from other people. Accused of holding him to standards I've never held or expressed - of unreasonable reactions I've never had.

I am at a loss. I am now questioning the motivation for his (what seem to me, pointless) cover-ups and lies. I would be very interested to have some male insight into this! Is it reasonable to expect that men might be secretive about such things for other reasons, or is it possible he's hiding it because he's upto no good? Is he hiding the extent of his drinking because he fears my thinking him irresponsible, or because he in fact is irresponsible?

Please help!

[smackie9]

It would be different if he was having an affair, or out man whoring it up but he is not. He is your typical guy that doesn't like dealing with an angery, jealous GF, not that you are but he may have had to deal with this in his past relationships and just assumed that you would be if you knew so he just avoided it. Obviously he just did it to keep the status quo, and had no intention of hurting you....it's just lack of better judgement....he was just being dumb. Now that the cat is out of the bag, he is ready to talk about it and from now on knows he has no need to not tell you his activites. Now that you have reached this part of your relationship, it's time to encourage him to communicate more with you, and not fear any repercusions. It's all good.

[smackie9]

There is no need to be paraniod about it.

[staticline]

Smackie thanks for your insight and reassurance.

I have had a talk with him tonight about what my expectations are and reassured him that he does not have to lie, that I want him to have the things in life he needs and makes him happy. He still seems pretty suspicious of this notion, but hopefully in time this will sink in and all will be okay.

=)

[smackie9]

Sounds to me he has some trust issues, go figure lol I guess he has to learn that not all women are the same.

[lahnnabell]

My ex-boyfriend was like this. He was quite good-looking and had several female friends that he considered friends, while the girls (very clearly) had other ideas. I could tell by how often they would call or text him, or the cutsey messages they'd leave on his wall. For a long time, I ignored all this and prided myself on the fact that he was with me.

The issues I had with his behavior were similar in that I didn't appreciate it when I found out that he'd hidden information from me that he had no reason to hide. I felt stupid and embarrassed. Like when you don't tell a child where you stored the sweets 'cause you know they'll just get into trouble. I felt like a child. I understand that he thought he was doing me a favor by keeping the info from me, and I tried to make him understand that his distrust in my rationale and emotional stability really hurt. And it made me wonder if he was doing something that I really wasn't supposed to know.

Eventually time passed and I got over the immediate frustration, but it caused a rift. I was second-guessing myself all the time after that, questioning my own instinct and feelings. We ended up breaking up for other reasons (he moved away), but I always wonder if it would've come down to that anyway. We went through a serious rough patch because of his hot and cold behavior that was putting a strain on my priorities to myself. I predict that it would've been easier to eventually just cut my losses and try to either find someone that was better at hiding things and keeping them hidden, or had nothing to hide in the first place.

[staticline]

I felt stupid and embarrassed. Like when you don't tell a child where you stored the sweets 'cause you know they'll just get into trouble. I felt like a child. I understand that he thought he was doing me a favor by keeping the info from me, and I tried to make him understand that his distrust in my rationale and emotional stability really hurt..

I can certainly relate to that. I do feel like a child that can't be trusted to handle their emotional reactions in a reasonable way. On the other hand, bizarrely, I feel like I've been placed quite unwittingly in the authoritative postion of a mother figure. I would like to have an equal partnership made of two halves. Of course I want him to be accountable in our relationship, but not to feel fearful and answerable to me in this sense. It's a very frustrating dilemma and I guess it's suggestive of his immaturity when it comes to relationships. I know that in the long run I will probably need for him to develop a more balanced attitude for it to work.

Eventually time passed and I got over the immediate frustration, but it caused a rift. I was second-guessing myself all the time after that, questioning my own instinct and feelings.

These are my fears. Each time something like this happens it becomes harder to trust him and negates my sense of intimacy with him as I wonder how well I really do know him. It's really exhausting to have these notions of a crazy irrational woman projected onto you when you're doing all you can to accommodate their freedom, needs and happiness with a level head. It's enough to make you crazy and irrational! I guess he doesn't know me very well either.

Thanks for your post, it's given me food for thought. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's felt like this.

[lahnnabell]

It's a hard issue to work through because you feel so slighted. You want to be able to express and work through those feelings, but I know you're afraid that he'll just see his concerns about you being an irrational female confirmed. If you do want this to work, you will now have to make adjustments to how you interact. I suggest you think very hard before diving into this. Because you are the one with a stronger sense of emotional intelligence, you will have to be the driving force. You are accepting this role (yes a motherly role) by staying with him.

And this will not guarantee that he'll learn. I find most often that it takes a drastic change for people to change their bad habits (ie. break-up - and even then it takes time). He doesn't yet understand why or how you feel disrespected. I suspect he had a girlfriend or mother that was super controlling. Probably both.

It's not your responsibility to fix him. If he can't trust that his girlfriend can act like an adult and treat her like one in turn, that's his problem. Don't make it yours.

[bulrush]

Smackie thanks for your insight and reassurance.

I have had a talk with him tonight about what my expectations are and reassured him that he does not have to lie, that I want him to have the things in life he needs and makes him happy. He still seems pretty suspicious of this notion, but hopefully in time this will sink in and all will be okay.

=)

Glad you talked with him about it and reassured him. You will have to do this multiple times, even without being asked, for him to trust you. He seems to have had bad experiences with overly angry or controlling girlfriends.