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Relationship Health Board Index

don't know whether I'm looking for advice or just looking for a way to vent. My mind is driving me's wearing me thinner and thinner and I'm at my wit's end.

I am 21 years old. My fiancee (23) and I have been together now for over a year and a half. I love him deeply, and he feels the same. I lost my virginity to him not even a month after we got together. We both have the same goals and expectations of ourselves and each other. We are both very motivated and responsible and hope to build a great life for ourselves.

We just recently moved down to Florida together to start a new life. He proposed to me in Vegas on our way down here. It has been trying on both of us as we both have had to find jobs and get settled. We are currently living with his parents until we can save up enough to get a place of our own. His family constantly dotes on me and talk to us about being the next to get married. I couldn't imagine anything more wonderful.

However, my demons are out to destroy this bliss... I've struggled with low self-esteem my entire existence. Bulimia took over my life for about five years. Day-in and day-out I lost myself in this horrendous cycle of binging and purging. My entire day would be built around one binge cycle. It threw me into a depression and caused me pain every single day. It was only once I began living with my current partner that I was able to leave it behind.

When my fiancee and I began dating, I heard over and over about his ex. I heard nothing good, however. All of his friends and his family said all the same negative things. But her name would come up at the most random of times, and I would oftentimes be compared to her. He would say things like, "You are so sweet, SHE would never do things like this for me." Or, "I can't believe you didn't get mad about that, SHE would have thrown such a fit." We would be watching a movie with a scene where a couple would be fighting, and he would say, "I've definitely dealt with that." Random stories would be told about how she cheated on him or how she would ruin special occasions because she was so dramatic and immature. We once got into a fight and then made love and he said, "That's the first time I've had make-up sex. Every time I would fight with HER I would never want to be around her." Granted, all of these little details were negative, but I still just couldn't understand why her name was brought up so much.

I eventually told him how much it bothered me that she was brought up, and he said he would stop. However, when we went to Warped Tour back right before he moved in with me, we both got a little intoxicated. We were walking around talking about a girl that his ex had made out with when they were together. He was talking a lot of crap about her and wouldn't let up. I told him that he needed to let it go and forgive her. All he did was yell at me, "I don't have to forgive her! She made out with MY girlfriend!" I froze, and just stared at him. Then I went to the restroom and threw up all the alcohol I had just consumed. It's been over a year since that incident, and I still haven't let it go.

After that, I held on to the insecurity and let it affect me constantly. We got into a couple fights about it, and he finally told me that it had to stop, or it would ruin us. I let it go. But then not even a month after that, we got into a fight. We were admitting to one another that we had been taking each other for granted, and that there were certain things that we had been doing that were getting under each others' skin. He mentioned something very specific that I did, and that he couldn't stand it. He said, "There's something very HER about the way you do that...". I was shocked, and unbelievably hurt. He's apologized for it over and over, but I still can't let it go, and I still think about it often.

My fiancee has stopped talking about her, and the only time that she ever gets brought up anymore is due to my own words or actions. Every word that he says to me relates to her through my own misconstrued insecurities and thoughts. I don't know what to think anymore.

The thing that always bothered me was the fact that this girl is the exact opposite of the type of girl I am. Her and my fiancee dated on-and-off for two years. He was a senior and she was a freshman when they met. She was heavy into drugs and drinking and claims that she "lost her virginity" to him, which I doubt. She manipulated him, belittled him, lied to him, and made him give up the things that he loved most: soccer, music, friends. She would pretend to get clean off of drugs and drinking, and then turn around and go behind his back to do them. They broke up constantly, and the longest they were ever together was probably two or three months. Every time he would try to end it for good, she would threaten suicide or self-harm. Towards the end of their relationship, he refused to sleep with her because she would refuse to use condoms because they "irritated her skin", and she lied to him about being on birth control. In other words, he couldn't trust her. She also went behind his back to text and made-out with one of his best friends when they went to the movies on a double-date. I know the title of the movie and when it came out because he's told me the story multiple times. He took her back even after that.

Towards the final end of the relationship, she slit her wrist open with a knife. He found her and got her help, but finally ended things for good. Not even two weeks after that, she began sleeping with another guy. Within three months, she was pregnant. Her baby's daddy has broken up with her twice. Once at Christmas of last year (when she contacted my fiancee via MySpace to say "I hate you.") and once this year, right after their two-year anniversary. They are still broken up, and she's had a couple more meaningless "relationships" that haven't lasted more than two weeks each.

I've asked him over and over, "Why did you keep going back to her when you know that she was no good for you?" He's given me a plethora of reasons. He's said that: 1) It was all he knew: his parents fought all the time and it was the familiarity that he clung to; 2) He was insecure: she belittled him constantly and made him think that she was the best he was going to get; 3) He was afraid: every time he tried to leave her she threatened self-harm and suicide, and he didn't want the blood of another on his conscience; 4) She was easy: he knew that no matter when it was or what had happened, she would drop everything and go back to him if he asked. She was also consensual to sex, and needless to say, that was what he wanted being so young; 5) He felt responsible: he felt that it was his job to save her from any pain she was going through and that anything negative that happened in their relationship he could probably fix. But I don't know what it was that I wanted to hear. Nothing has helped...

I can literally play their entire relationship from beginning to end with all of the information I know. I know her birthday, where she works, what her current address is, her phone number... I've found a way into her MySpace account where I can view all of her photos and status updates. I can also view her Facebook photos and read all of the current information on her. I found a Yelp account that was made by her only a week or so before my boyfriend broke up with her in May, 2008. Under her stats, she still has my boyfriend's name listed as her Current Crush. Granted, she hasn't logged into that account in over two years, but it made my heart stop to read that. She made a Kaboodle account that listed gifts for her nineteenth birthday, and listed were albums of artists that my boyfriend has been obsessed with since he was fifteen. He had obviously introduced them to her, and it made my skin crawl to know that she still listened to them. My mind is hypnotized, and it's killing me.

I've told my boyfriend about how it's hurting me, and it hurts him too. He's told me that she's absolutely nothing to him, and that she was such an insignificant part of his past that he doesn't even think about it anymore. He can't understand why it stays with me, and I think that's what hurts him the most. He's told me again that he doesn't want to be with me if this continues. I don't blame him. I've been to counseling and it's helped somewhat, but it hasn't gotten me anywhere. I've tried to talk to every single person I know who I think might help, but no one knows how. I've made an entire binder of her photos, so that somehow I can have a tangible existence of this visage I've created in my own twisted mind.

I'm attractive. So is she. We look somewhat alike: dark hair, blue eyes, similar smiles. It's almost nauseating. I hate the thought of him being with her. I hate the fact that he kept going back to her even though she constantly did him wrong. I've asked him: If I ever cheated on you, would you forgive me and take me back? He said no. When I asked him why, he said that it's because he knows I'm better than that. It just doesn't make sense to me. I feel like if I do anything wrong to show my flaws, he might leave me and never come back. And I hate the fact that he brought his past into our present. I know he thought he was doing good by letting me know how much better I am than she ever was, but all it did was make me compare myself to her in every way possible. It kills me to think about them fighting and screaming and then turning around and being okay for a minute and having sex. It kills me to know that, even a relationship with so much hatred still contained so much passion, which is something that love itself just doesn't seem to capture. Sometimes, when I picture myself, I don't picture my face, I picture hers. I try to look like her sometimes, thinking that that is how it should be. I don't know how I got here. I'm so lost, and I don't know which way to go...


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