Reader’s Question

I’m 29 years old. Six months ago I got out of a relationship I had for 2 years, but I’m still processing some of the issues that relationship raised.

At the very beginning, my former boyfriend appeared to be the most
romantic and nicest guy I had ever met. He knew what to say to make me feel good, how to calm me down when I was upset, and sometimes I felt as if I had known him forever. Even though he always talked about his exes as if they were once great girls who suddenly turned crazy, while he sincerely loved them, I always believed his account.

In time, I started noticing things about his behavior. He started being jealous of any of my male friends or co-workers. He’d tell me it wasn’t normal for a girl to have male friends, that they were all jerks, etc., and wouldn’t even want to meet them. After some time, I stopped seeing my friends, and started spending most of my time with him.

He also seemed very nervous, especially if things didn’t always go the way he had planned. He would burst out yelling at me, but afterward he would apologize. I did all the house work. But if I asked for help he would claim that he had to work and that I was abusing him for asking.

He set a double-standard and did things he asked me not to, such as having female friends at work. He would make bitter remarks about my clothing, how I didn’t dress nicely enough for him, even though he tried so hard to look handsome for me. One time, while walking down the street, he didn’t want to hold my hand because I wasn’t dressed nicely enough for him to want to be seen with me. He said he wanted me to look perfect in case we ran into one of his female workmates.

Soon after that we finally broke up. After that, we met a couple of
times and most of the time he wanted to talk about my mistakes (like not giving him his freedom and not dressing well enough). This guy acted so sure that we would get married. He even said we would get married next year in front of his whole family without asking me first. Yet only 6 months after we broke up, he’s already moved in with a new girlfriend. As much as I think I know there’s something not right with him, I still wonder at times if it’s possible that I caused his behavior on some level rather than its simply being his personality which would not change no matter what girlfriend he has. I’m not able to be objective on this, so I’d like another opinion.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Trust your gut and count your blessings. And pity the next girl to hook up with this guy. Men who have attitudes of “ownership” or engage in possessive thinking have significant disturbances of character. (See Possessive Thinking and the Disturbed Character Actually, your ex-boyfriend displayed many of the thinking errors and manipulation tactics that you can read about in two of my article series. Such individuals tend to see others only in terms of reflections on themselves. This level of narcissism is generally toxic to any relationship. But the degree of self-assuredness that such individuals project often invites others to question themselves, despite the fact that their gut is telling them that there’s something wrong with the person’s character.

Stop questioning yourself. You’re still recovering from a significant trauma. Keep your distance from such a potentially toxic situation — no emails or casual contact — and in time your sense of balance will be restored. And, if you find that there’s anything about yourself that seems drawn to such individuals, seek some counseling.