My Past Is Ruining My Future

This is kind of a long story but I’ll try to make it short, but in order to understand I have to give details.

I started dating my “First Love” when I was 14 years old, and he was 15 at the time. Everything went good for a little while, then once we started saying we loved each other it fell apart major. He was lying to me all the time and he was really crazy, we would get into some bad fights and he had cut himself in front of me. He would throw stuff at me, push me, say really mean hurtful stuff to me. I’m a very forgiving person even thou sometimes I forgive the wrong people.

When I finally turned 15 a few months later, I decided to loose my virginity to him ( I know, I was too young) and the very next day I found out he had cheated on me by having sex with another person. This same girl had been a problem our whole relationship. After that happened I took him back simply because I was young and naive and wasn’t old enough to have a relationship like that. To make it short, he cheated on me like 20 more times after that, still said mean stuff, and still put his hands on me and himself, but I still took him back. I went through the darkest times of my life with him, and I was only 14-15 years old at the time. We were together for a year and a half before I finally had enough, it was a month before my 16th birthday.

All my childhood I saw my parents fighting like that so that’s all I knew.

I’m almost 20 years old now and what he did to me back when still affects me now, I feel like everyone is going to be like that. My boyfriend now is the most amazing man I have ever met, never gave me no reason to think he would cheat on me and I still get this gut feeling that he is going to. I just feel like that old relationship is going to happen to me again.

I recently took it into my own hands to kind of give myself therapy, so I told myself, I’m going to forgive him and forget him by getting him out of my life permanently. I still don’t think I ever forgave him for ruining and destroying my life but that’s so hard to do after everything he did to me. I don’t what to do, I don’t want the past to ruin the perfect relationship I have now.  I can’t help but feel that way towards any guy. Help? Please.

-Melissa

Dear Melissa,

Thanks for sharing your story with me and it’s great that you have taken the first step in solving this mess. That being, you realize what the problem is.

The hard part will be undoing the irrational beliefs that this ex-boyfriend created in you and also the ones created by your parents’ relationship. I think it would be helpful to list everything that comes to your mind when you think of a relationship including all the negative things and positive things. Don’t spend time thinking about what to write, but just write down anything that comes to mind. Once you have your list, maybe share the list with a friend you trust or your current boyfriend and together go through the list and decide which statements are true and which are irrational (false).

This is a good way to begin clarifying this stuff in your head. I think forgiveness and letting go is a good thing and can be very freeing so great idea! However, I think one person that you must forgive in all this is yourself. I’m afraid you are partly to blame for all the stuff you went through because you chose to stay in that type of destructive relationship time after time. So just admit to yourself that you made bad choices, learn from those bad choices, and forgive yourself.

Then forgive this guy for hurting you and realize that he hurt you out of his own brokenness just as you stayed in the relationship because of your brokenness. Maybe even say a prayer for him, that he will get the help he needs to live a productive sane life. I think it’s great that you found a guy that loves you and treats you with the respect you deserve. I also think it’s great that you didn’t choose a guy similar to the ex-boyfriend as many women continue to pick guys that fit a similar pattern. That shows that you have grown and learned from your mistakes.

Just be very open and honest with yourself and with this new boyfriend and I think eventually you will be able to finally put all negativity of the past to rest.

All the best,

Ted