Communication issues and the urge to cheat...please, advice

[Emms]

Hello, all. I'm a lurker who's popping in for a bit of advice. I'm sorry for the length, this is going to be long...I have a lot to get off my chest.

My boyfriend (T) and I have been together for almost ten months. He is my longest relationship thus far, my first serious relationship, and I love him, and he loves me. We're no where near as far apart as many of you are from your boyfriends/girlfriends--a few hundred miles apart as opposed to a few thousand--so fortunately we are able to see each other every few weeks or so.

Starting in the beginning of July, we'll be living about twenty miles apart from each other for the next two months. Yay! However, in the lead up to those two months, we're still four hundred miles apart and I've been working as an intern for an art/theatre program that's held on a farm. One of the farm workers (A) has really, really caught my fancy. At first it just started as me being physically attracted to him in a big way--not a problem, obviously, as I believe physical attraction is okay as long as you don't do anything about it--but as I've gotten to know him a bit more and realized how much we have in common and how much we enjoy each other's companies, I'm ashamed to say that I've begun to really like him. Like...it's bad. I haven't wanted someone other than T so much since we got together. What makes it worse is a well-meaning girl I know on the farm, who had forgotten I have a boyfriend, wanted to set me and A up because she thinks we would go well together. And like, no matter how much I try not to think about it, I know that if I was single not only would I have gone for him a long time ago, there would be definite romantic potential there. The only thing that's kept me from making any sort of move is my loyalty to T and how much I care about him. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to me and A...there's definitely a spark.

Now, I'm not asking for advice about how not to cheat on T with A. That's not an option because even though (and I cringe to say it) I may really want to, I will not do it. There's no question regarding that. My question is more in regards to how I address this with T. I understand that the urge to cheat means that there's something missing in my relationship with T that my subconscious wants to seek elsewhere, and seems to be finding in A, and I spent a little time thinking about what I might feel like I'm missing.

Generally, me and T have a very loving and affectionate relationship. We care about each other deeply and connect in ways that I haven't really found with anyone else, and in many ways he's very much what I've always wanted from a guy. Often, he's sweet and wonderful and we just seem to "get" each other. We do seem to have one major problem, however, and that seems to center around our communication in a very broad sense. T is a very insecure person. He's also very troubled in a lot of ways, and stressed and confused and unhappy with the direction his life seems to be taking. He's told me several times that I'm one of the only good things he's got going right now. However, his stress and the things he finds annoying often lead to him saying things to me that I find very upsetting. Two examples of what I mean:

Example 1: This is on the very mild end of the spectrum. I tend to put a lot of hot sauce on my food. This "offends" him and he is "disturbed" by the amount of hot sauce I put on almost everything I eat. When he said this to me, I got upset and annoyed. He's free to not LIKE how much hot sauce I use, but there's no reason for him to be noticeably disturbed by it. It could be a funny thing--I like lots of hot sauce, he doesn't. Why's it such a big deal? Geez, it's just hot sauce!

Example 2: This is on the other end of the spectrum. One day, he and I had been having a discussion about his invitation to a family party of mine and how he didn't want to attend, how he's not keen on the idea of traveling to spend time with a bunch of people he doesn't know...whatever. Later that evening, along a dark country road, he and I found ourselves locked out of his car. Understandably, he was very stressed and upset, and we called my mother who was nearby who could come and help us out of the situation. So she's driving down dark winding country roads (something she's not used to) and asked T to call her every few minutes so she could see that she was still on track to our location. What she wanted was annoying and a bit much, yes, but it in no way warranted what T said in the height of his stress: "And you wonder why I want nothing to do with your family." I flipped. After I spent an hour calming him down and trying to stay positive cause he locked us out of his car, he repays me with THAT comment? I almost didn't come back with him to spend the night (our last night of the visit) because I was so furious and upset. He took it back, saying that he didn't mean it and had only said it because he was so stressed, apologized and made it up to me, etc. I told him that under no circumstances is that okay, no matter how stressed he was. He agreed.

And that's the problem, guys...sometimes he just...says things. Says things he doesn't really believe, things that don't seem very nice or true, and then when I react to them/become upset, he apologizes and takes it back and doesn't seem to know why he said it. A lot of this happens on the phone, during which he sometimes gets distant and says strange things because he's not a good phone communicator. A lot of it happens in person, though. I get upset, sometimes I cry, and he apologizes and feels awful and knows that he needs to work on all these things. We've talked about it a few times now. When he does this, I feel upset, depressed, lost, confused...I feel like I'm going crazy and I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I love him and we often have a wonderful time together, but these random outbursts of unkindness and apathy are not doing any good for my peace of mind. It's also gotten worse the last few months because he's been more depressed. We've been arguing more...I don't know what to do.

So now, ladies and gentlemen of LFAD, we get to the crux of my problem. Farm guy, A, is here on the premises with me. He's very kind to me. We have a spark. I will make no move because I love T, but T is being at turns apathetic, upsetting, and distressing to me at times. (When he's not being wonderful.) It's hugely distressing to me that I'm even feeling this way about T at all. I don't WANT to be! I miss, I guess, T's happiness...and I'm not about to just jump off the boat because he's depressed and going through a hard time, but the way he deals with it has been messing with my mind. It's led me to think that if this can't be fixed, if T can't work on how he deals with these things and what he says to me and have improved on it, it pains me to say that it might be a dealbreaker because there's no way I can live with getting upset like that every few days for the rest of my life. And it's sad, because we love each other and I see a lot of long term potential, but it's just this depressed, stressed side of him that makes me want to cry.

I tried to talk to T about this earlier but it didn't really work. I don't want to tell him that I have feelings for another guy because I feel that that would do more harm than good, but I DO want to communicate the important thing to him which is that meeting a whole bunch of new people recently has caused me to think about things very seriously. This was hard to get across and I think I just freaked him out. It doesn't help that he doesn't currently have good phone service and no Internet so we can't really communicate all that much.

I didn't mean to make this a long rant. Maybe someone can help me make some sense out of all this? Please...help.

[Zephii]

You seem to really have your head screwed on about this, so I'm not sure anything I can say would be helpful, but here goes.

Generally, in a situation like this, I say draw up a list of pros and cons for each guy. I know that's very methodical/cold or whatever. But lists make shit clearer!
The thing is, you can't change a guy. Maybe this is just what T is like. Regardless of anything else, all couples and all people go through a lot of stress as part of living. What if he treats you badly/says horrible things to you for the rest of the relationship? Can you accept him as is and remain happy without changing him?

I personally could not stay with a guy who wants little to nothing to do with my family, that really raised alarm bells for me. Yea, he might have said he didn't mean it... but has he done anything since to back up the fact this isn't true?

All I can suggest is keep doing what you are doing, working on this relationship with T, because you seem like you're on the right track, and hopefully he will meet you half way.
Also, A might not be half as nice as he appears, so keep getting to know him. Having male friends isn't cheating, and you sound like you have plenty of self control, so there's no real danger of any cheating happening.

Good luck.

[Zapookie]

I know you said you've spoken to him about the A issue, but have you addressed with him the way he talks to you? (you could also talk to him about him being a little more understanding..) He might not even be aware that he sometimes comes off as rude or harsh. It might take you to point it out, for him to be able to realise that the way he speaks to you can often be wrong, and it will help him to think about his words before saying them.

I know this was the case for me when I was younger. It took someone saying something to me about the way I spoke to them, for me to be able to understand that my words were hurting them. Once this happened, I made a conscious effort to stop.

[Captivated]

I miss, I guess, T's happiness...and I'm not about to just jump off the boat because he's depressed and going through a hard time, but the way he deals with it has been messing with my mind. It's led me to think that if this can't be fixed, if T can't work on how he deals with these things and what he says to me and have improved on it, it pains me to say that it might be a dealbreaker because there's no way I can live with getting upset like that every few days for the rest of my life. And it's sad, because we love each other and I see a lot of long term potential, but it's just this depressed, stressed side of him that makes me want to cry.

Tell T this. Word for word. This is the core of your problem. Don't tell him about the other guy, just tell him how he makes you feel. Hopefully this will wake him up. I'm assuming he wasn't always like this? Maybe there's something that's making him change? He needs to get to the root of his problem I suppose.

And yeah, there's no harm and keeping A as a friend for now. Who knows...if your conversation with T just doesn't work out, A might be something worth exploring.

Hope you can get it all sorted. Good luck!

[Haley53]

For a while, my SO treated me horribly after his mother passed away. Some of the things that he said were downright cruel. For a while, it mattered that he apologised, made me feel like he really didn't mean them and he'd try harder not to lash out at me when I couldn't control the situation anymore than he could, but eventually, it became incredibly wearing. It didn't help that he was too depressed and in his own head to properly discuss what had happened or been said, so I was essentially being asked not only to absorb his words and process them without feeling, but to be able to let go and move on as if they'd never bothered me to begin with. It didn't help that I was torn between my own feelings as well. The things he was saying were cruel, but he was the one going through a hard time, he was the one who had lost his mother and was struggling with grief and depression and to hold his head above water, he was the one being smothered by the overwhelming sense of... well, everything, at the most critical and upside down time in anyone's life, not me, so why should I confront him about things I knew he didn't mean? But I had to realise that I mattered too. However hurt he was, it didn't excuse his hurting me. However much I wanted to be able to see which words were driven by grief and which were driven by love/the man I knew, it was too hard to distinguish one from the other. Regardless of what he was going through, regardless of whether or not he wanted to talk about it, it was doing damage to me, and that was a red flag that something needed to change.

The thing is that you can still be supportive to your SO without being their punching bag. Depending on how tough of a time he's going through, struggling with insecurity and depression, there may be times he says stupid shit he doesn't mean. For example, I had to confront my SO about something and he hadn't even really recognised what it was doing to me or the way it was making me feel, or even that he was doing it as frequently as he was! Depression can do that. That doesn't, however, mean you can't set boundaries. The fact that he doesn't listen can be a tough one to get over, but sometimes it's a matter of changing your approach. Even if you're coming at him with "I"-terms (I feel, I think, I feel this way when you say this, etc.), it could be that he's simply not receptive to that method of communication. Some people aren't, and some people tend to take "I feel" more personally than "you are/did/etc.", strange as it seems. My suggestion would be to gently confront him about it. I would be straight with him, but gentle. Something like, "I know you've been going through a hard time, and I really want to be able to be here for you, but it's hard for me to be supportive sometimes when I feel like you're criticising someone/something I love. It ends up making me feel defensive and then I think we both miss out on the support we could both use. I know that you apologise for it and feel sorry for it, but I would really appreciate it if we could talk this one out and come to a compromise so that we're both happy. Can you think of any way we can fix this?" Now I'll admit it, sometimes this has the potential to backfire, but a lot of the time, if you give them the control, while approaching it from a very neutral, open perspective, it's more likely to turn out in your favour than if you meet them with a complaint and demand.

I do agree with Zephii, though. Something like not wanting to spend a lot of time around your family...? If the insecurity runs that deep and if this issue is something that's been going on for a while, well, then it may be a reoccurring battle. You'll have arguments that can be resolved and you'll have arguments that will likely be reoccurring. Sometimes it happens in relationships. It doesn't mean that the relationship can't go on to be successful and filled with happiness, but sometimes it involves compromise more from one side of the party than the other, or sometimes it simply involves agreeing to disagree. Is he willing to accept help for his insecurities? Seek therapy for what seems to be limiting his social options and opportunities? Or even therapy for the difficult time that he's currently going through? If not, then it's something you have to think about. How long has this been going on? What exactly is the difficult time? Is it something he can work through quickly or will it extend for months? etc. Questions like these will help you think more deeply into your relationship. You also have to think about what he said about the issue of family. It can be bloody hard when the man you're so deeply in love with has fundamental opinions that don't mesh with yours, but they're honestly something you have to think about and see if you can live with them as opposed to shoving them aside. His opinion of family might not be a product of depression, and it may be something fundamental that you have to decide if you can live with. Personally, I don't think I could deal with my SO if he didn't think family was important or if he couldn't become close to mine, but that's me. It may not be the same for you. However, I do think that it's important to separate what's a product of his mood and what could be a fundamental system of belief you might not necessarily want to think about dealing with for the rest of your life, because if it's a fundamental system of belief, to make the relationship work, you're likely to have to. :/

[Emms]

Thanks for all the advice. I wrote him a really long email the other day and we talked after he read it. All your advice really helped, and I ended up stealing a couple of phrases from some of your posts that I thought explained what I was feeling pretty well, I hope you don't mind. :-D I did my best to phrase it as something for BOTH of us to work on, not me placing all the fault on him and expecting him to struggle on his own, but as something for us to work on together as a team effort. He seemed to take it pretty well...and when I talked to him on the phone, I did actually end up telling him a little about A, because he was confused and had some suspicions and I could tell that they were tormenting him more than it would if I actually told him what had spurred this all to come to a head now. So, I told him.

He was understandably upset and sad, but not angry. He asked me some questions about it and I answered as honestly as I could; he actually wished I had told him sooner! He understood that his absence and general negativity in our phone conversations had in part led to this. I totally take the blame for developing these feelings, but at the same time we both talked about and understood that a lot of it was the result of me not really getting any happy, non stressful lovingness from T when apart, and instead I was seeing this happy, non stressful, good looking guy around all the time (A), and that the combination of the two just built up.

T seems really committed to wanting to work this out and make it better, and if it does, awesome! He keeps on reiterating how much he loves me and wants to make it better, and I almost feel like I don't deserve of this treatment and love. He's too good for me in some ways; if our positions were reversed, I would have been angry and devastated. And I think telling T about my feelings for A actually helped loosen them up a bit...I actually ran into A last night and was chatting with him for a bit, and while I'm still attracted to him, finally coming clean to T kind of helped me not to be crushing on him so much, and it was a lot easier to see him as a platonic friend. Which is good!

I'm gonna see T in a few days, so...we'll see how the summer goes. Thanks for all your help!

[Cheddarx89]

Never leave the one you love for the one you like, because the one you like will leave you for the one s/he loves.