Need advice - help

[SnowCrystal]

Hello everyone:

I am new here to LoveForum. I am posting here in regards to someone I have been involved with off and on...

Let me tell you briefly about the history my partner and I have first:

I was orginally with my partner from 2004 until 2007. We got engaged in 2006. We met in college, and he was really the first guy I officially became BF/GF with. The times we shared together were amazing. However, not long before I was going to graduate college (I grad. in Jan. 2007), around Oct. 2006 I started getting daily panic attacks, that gave me symptoms that mimicked heart attacks. I was sent to the ER countless times with severe chest pains. Each time the tests came back clear. They would inject me with 1-2 mg of Xanax or Ativan after running all of the tests, then send me home.

But the attacks continued on a daily basis. Some days the attacks were better than others. I was still trying to finish my classes as well. I barely managed to graduate. I did manage to see my GP about it, and she at first prescribed me with Toprol, a beta blocker to assist with the panic attacks. It helped a bit, but not completely. My boyfriend at the time and I were planning to move in together after college, so I was caught between looking for apartments, fighting my panic attacks and just trying to finish school up.

December finally came and I managed to finish all of my courses. I had to remake a lot of exams or submit projects late. Thankfully my professors were very understanding. My boyfriend also proposed to me in December, and I could not be happier, despite my health conditions at the time. But then things slowly started to go downhill after that...

We moved in together. I still needed to get treated for my panic attacks, since I still was getting chest pains. My GP prescribed me an SSRI antidepressant, which rebounded and gave me horrid NEW symptoms that appeared: it caused me to get head electrical sensations that surged up and down my spine, symptoms that mimicked partial seizures and TIA's, you name it.... and it would make me extremely dizzy and lethargic afterwards. I was now getting these type of attacks (instead of the chest-related attacks) daily... it was a living nightmare. One time I can actually remember waking up in the middle of the night screaming, as it felt almost like my brain was fizzling... I cannot really describe it. It was horrid. I had attacks that lasted anywhere from 5 mins to an hour or more...

I finally managed to see a psychiatrist who actually LISTENED to me... NONE of my doctors believed me when I said it was the Zoloft doing it. My GP brushed it off as just panic attacks. And because of my debilitating condition, I was back and forth to my parent's home from the apartment (I had moved in with my BF in Dec.) I did not get true treatment until about March or April, maybe later.

I finally started to see improvement after starting benzo treatment, taking 2 mg's of Lorazepam 3x daily. I also changed my diet, and mixed with the benzo treatment coupled with the beta-blocker I was taking with it, my life started to seem like it took a turn for the better! But then, things with my boyfriend / fiancee at the time went downhill..

One day he just snapped at me. He started to blame me for not doing 'my duties as a girlfriend/fiancee,' and yelled at me daily, blaming me for this and that. He would come home from work, and every day it would be the same thing: him yelling at me telling me how horrible I am being to him, etc. I could not work at the time due to my condition, and he was the one working, while I stayed at home just trying to make it through the days since I could hardly drive or do anything without getting a panic or Zoloft-related attack. Yet it was RIGHT after I started to get better that he started acting like this.

It got so bad, that it got to the point where he backed me into a corner.... and I would just cry. Everything between us had been great, up until that point. I was too broken to fight back. I was torn from all that I had been through. I had no drive or motivation to yell back. I just cried instead, and it just made him yell at me more...

By Oct. of 2007, I gave him back the ring, numb and emotionless, and left and moved out. I still remember that day. He knew something was up. I was packing my bags, and I had gotten everything together and my family was on their way to get me. He rushed home from work, ran into the apartment, grabbed me and cried. Apologizing for all he had done to me. That he didn't know why he did it, but he just wanted me to stay. But countless times I had heard 'I am sorry' and 'I love you.' just for him to repeat the same thing the next day. It grew to have little meaning to me anymore.... I could not cry as he wept, for the first time in all of the years I dated him, in front of me. I had never seen him cry prior to that. At least not for me.

I left. He dated several other women after we broke up, and I too tried to move on. We tried getting back together at one point back in 2010 - 2011. He had just broken up with ANOTHER GF of 3 years, and he was obviously emotionally unstable and not ready to get into a relationship again with me. I broke up with him again in Feb/Mar. 2011...

Just a few months ago we got back together a third time. I thought he had matured. He seemed like he was more stable in his job, etc. However, just recently he has talked about going to a New Years party with a "GIRL" friend of his that he knew years ago. The thing about it is, he never mentioned her name, and when I confronted him about who it was, he did not say who. Not ONLY that, he mentioned about how he did NOT want to bring me 'because it might make her uncomfortable being around a couple when SHE is single.' Huge red flags lit up for me.... and not only that, it has just upset me greatly that he was MORE worried about impressing this girl than inviting me along. Not only that, but how DARE he even not even consider hanging with me to celebrate the new year... and instead was so apt on seeing this GIRL who he claimed 'he hadn't seen in years.' Yet am I just overreacting? Or do I have every right to worry? What is your take on this?

The first time we were together things were great. But both the second and this time around, he has not seemed to want to let go of the ex's of his past. He still 'wants to remain friends with them, if he can.' I have nothing against him having friends, but I sure as HECK do not want him hanging out with another girl unless I am there, and he even mentioned 'there would only be a few people there.' I found it even more suspicious that he did not wanna tell me WHO she was. I have a feeling it is an ex of his, but I have nothing to prove this, since he continues to just avoid that topic all-together. After asking him HOW could he consider going to see her, ON NEW YEARS, over being with me, he said that he is going to spend time with me on New Year's instead, and just NOT go to see her. But why would he even think about seeing her at all, and without me? Or am I just being too paranoid now due to our past? What is your take on it?

[Wakeup]

But both the second and this time around, he has not seemed to want to let go of the ex's of his past. He still 'wants to remain friends with them,

.. and with you as well. Afterall, you've been his ex three times now. He can't seem to let anything go without running back to them or keeping them shelved for furture use.

Your half-assed relationship based on fear of being alone and not much more is a huge waste of your time, Snow. Do the brave thing and break up with him, go No Contact For Evva and get this part-timer out of your life. You deserve to be with a guy and he deserves to be with a gal that stays in his life. Time to step down off the merry-go-round of dysfunction and start with a clean slate.

I hope your panic attacks are under control now. I think you'll find that if you're not always angst-ridden over this dud of a guy, you'll find they manifest much less.

[SnowCrystal]

.. and with you as well. Afterall, you've been his ex three times now. He can't seem to let anything go without running back to them or keeping them shelved for furture use.

Your half-assed relationship based on fear of being alone and not much more is a huge waste of your time, Snow. Do the brave thing and break up with him, go No Contact For Evva and get this part-timer out of your life. You deserve to be with a guy and he deserves to be with a gal that stays in his life. Time to step down off the merry-go-round of dysfunction and start with a clean slate.

I hope your panic attacks are under control now. I think you'll find that if you're not always angst-ridden over this dud of a guy, you'll find they manifest much less.

I did not get back with him because I fear being alone. I got back with him because deep down I still love him and what we did have the first time around. I would not be with him out of fear. I am more than competent to live without him on my own, but I WANT him around.... if that makes sense. These nuisances annoy me but more often than not we are very happy together. I am not angst-driven either. I forgave him from the past times. But the memories I have are the way things used to be. Those good memories that I remember of the first 3 years up until before he snapped are what make me love him so much even to this day.

He also did tell me how he cheated on his other ex of 3 years with a girl we both know. Even though he 'assures me it will never happen with us,' I guess my fear because he did tell me about this is he could end up cheating again since he likes to keep all of his ex's so close. He also tends to constantly blame himself for the mistakes he made in the past, and because of this he cannot let his past go.

My frustration is that he cannot let them go. He wants them in his life. Instead of pushing them away, or them pushing him away, they stick around. He screwed the same girl he cheated on his second ex with after me and him broke up. I have no problem with who he was with back then. The problem is is that he cannot just let them go. He bought the girl he screwed (and cheated on his second ex with) a $125 massage gift card for Christmas, for instance... :/ She was always around me and him the second time we dated. She hit on him behind my back and while I tried to tell her to back off, he literally told me 'I will not diss her for you!!' And that was when I ended it the second time around. I dealt with it for months until he told me that...

[Cerby]

SnowCrystal, I have to ask you...Why?

People lose the ones they love every day, it is a part of life, but the truly weak are the ones that think they can try again and overcome the same underlying issues that brought them down in the first place. I know that you think you love him, and that he has changed, but the reality is that people generally don't change. It takes a lot for an admitted cheater to reform, and it sounds like your guy has all his previous sexual partners on the shelf for him to bang as he pleases. I promote giving positive advice around here, but not to those who are putting themselves knowingly in a bad situation.

Step back for a bit, read your first post (minus the depression related items at the top, that isn't relevant to the final outcome of your relationship the first time) and evaluate it from a third person perspective. Honestly, you look like kind of an idiot for trying this again, and I am certain that it will fail again, especially since you're already having problems and you just got back together.

Accept that this relationship isn't for you, because the longer you hang on, the more time you lose with trying to find someone who IS actually compatible with you.