My Toxic Relationship Pattern

[ajohns0122]

Hello all,

From looking at my past relationships, I've noticed that there's a pattern. Usually, when I get into a relationship with someone that I really like, things go extremely well for the first 2-3 months and everything is great. However, after that 2-3 month mark, I usually get this really bad gut feeling at some point and after that, me and the person I'm dating usually start to grow progressively more distant until we inevitably break up. This is happening right now in my current relationship. Things were great for the first 3 months but then, one day I got the gut feeling and after that, things started to go downhill. At this point, me and my girlfriend barely talk and it looks like a breakup is coming soon. I hope I'm wrong but I think the writing is on the wall. My hypothesis is that I'm so happy in the beginning of a relationship that I pull the person too close and then they get sick of me after a few months and want me out of their life. I've tried distancing myself in the past, though, and that doesn't seem to have helped. Does anyone have any insight on what my problem might be?

[pcmaster]

Is the sex the same as it used to be? What helps me with keeping in longer term is talking every second day. So one day when you dont talk you kinda rest and next day is easy to talk a lot cause you missed her. If you spend every day together of course it will get boring. Perfect would be 3-4 days together a week. Then rest of the time do your own thing.

[ajohns0122]

Is the sex the same as it used to be? What helps me with keeping in longer term is talking every second day. So one day when you dont talk you kinda rest and next day is easy to talk a lot cause you missed her. If you spend every day together of course it will get boring. Perfect would be 3-4 days together a week. Then rest of the time do your own thing.

We have not had sex in quite awhile. I should mention, however, that we have never had frequent sex because current my girlfriend is a single mom with a young child. The child also sleeps in the same room as she does which makes it even harder to have sex. At the time when we were having more frequent sex, however, I can't recall any "bad" experiences.

In my past relationships, the sex was good almost every time. I've never had significant or frequent problems with PE or erectile dysfunction in the past.

[pcmaster]

Well thats seems to be one of the reasons why things have winded down

[super147]

You talk about a gut feeling that you get and I'm wondering if this is actually insecurity. You get into a relationship, it's going really well, you feel reassured and wanted. Then, perhaps, she does or says something that seems a little cold or distant to you, she doesn't return a message or a call for a while, something changes, and your insecurity kicks in. You start to worry that she's going off you, that she's got bored. As a result you act differently, whether consciously or not. She senses that you're acting different and it affects how she acts. The whole thing quickly unravels to the point that neither of you is making contact for fear of the other one having lost interest.

My point is that this could all be a self fulfilling prophecy brought on by insecurity and negative expectation (based on some past relationship). When a particular pattern of events repeats several times over then you have to look at the common denominator, which is you. The natural assumption to make, when lacking in confidence and positive experience, is that you're somehow defective or doing something wrong. However, that is usually far from the case. More often than not it is your psychological approach that is the issue rather than anything that you are physically doing or saying or anything about your physical attributes and characteristics. It is a particular way of thinking that perpetuates this pattern of relationship outcomes.

That aside, sometimes relationships simply don't work out and that's quite normal. You should be able to process that without taking undue negativity away from it. When you are carrying negative baggage into the next relationship then it is less of a surprise when the next one doesn't work out either. Once you get past the high of the initial attraction and attention, that is when you find out more about your real compatibility with another person. Sometimes you find out fairly quickly that you're just not that compatible and it's nobody's fault, not yours or hers, it's just life. You should be able to identify when that has been the case and to walk away from it without undue self deprecation.

I am doing a lot of surmising and theorising here, I don't claim to be right. I'm just giving you some things to think about, based on my own experience. The reason that my own relationship circumstances repeated multiple times is because of choices that I made, which in turn were because of my own fears and insecurities.