My Boyfriend & I: Want To Do?

[applepieohmy]

I am a gay male. I grew up being mentally abused during both my HS and college years. I did not have friends for 12-14 years. Lost lots of self confidence. Then in October of 2008, my brother asked me if I'd like to come to Los Angeles. I said yes. He did not know I wanted to go not only to change my life but I met a guy in LA online and was chatting with him by phone.

I told this guy I met online about all my past problems. Anyway, I arrived to Los Angeles in Feb. of 2009. I met this guy for the first time in person. He told me I was better looking in person. He took me out to different places and built up my confidence. Then in March of 2009 he asked me to move in with him and help him run a 48 unit apartment complex. I agreed.

For the first 3 months of living with my boyfriend everything was going well. He took me to places I have never seen before. He even told a friend that he liked me a lot and how nice of a person I am.

However, since July everything has changed. He no longer takes me out and no longer teaches me how to drive. He promised to take me out once a week for romantic time as we both met a friend who is a shrink. Well he did spend romantic time last weekend. However, this weekend he said he'd take me dancing knowing I love it and we never went. We spent all this weekend cleaning cause his parents are coming for a month from Peru.

His sister moved in with us and she has been hard to deal with. he bosses me around and puts me down. Yesterday, he gave me attitude about not placing her bread in the Ref. I asked what bread and she said, "I said just don't put bread in ref." I told her brother and then the sister came in my room and told me to go to hell, how her brother is cheating on me and I am too stupid to see it. She then said I am mental and should kill myself." I told her she has a drinking problem and needs to seek help.

My boyfriend has a temper and if he don't get his way he raises voice and yells at me. He has never sworn at me or hit me.

I left my boyfriend the other day and now with my brother in North Hollywood. I love my boyfriend and he says he misses me.

However, he told me last night that he needs me cause who will do all the property management work? I felt hurt. I don't mind doing the work cause I get free rent and he pays all the bills. That being said, I wanna know he wants to keep me around cause of not doing all that work but rather he cares for me, and loves me. Missing out on date day once a week has me thinking ,"is he just using me"? he says he can't throw his sister out based on me being a boyfriend cause he'd be looked at as a bad family member. However, he can throw her out if she does not help. I can understand this.


I must add to this- if I go away for a long period of time, such as a 4 hour walk, my boyfriend texts me on my cell and asks me to come home and he misses me. He does kiss me before he leaves for work in the morning.

I am so confused on what he wants- does he want a relationship, or just sex or just using me to help around or both that and sex? Also, the sister is a pain in the butt as I have mentioned. That being said, she can be nice.
I've learned that both lack patience and I am not very smart when it comes to mechanic things and they get mad easy.

What should I do? I love him and he does not hit me or call me names. He just is not romantic and gets mad when he does not always get his way.I need advice.

[fredv3b]

First let me say I am sorry to hear things have not worked out so well for you. My thoughts are essentially that things have got very complicated and you need to simplify them. There to be so many issues all at once that that you can't deal with the main one i.e. the relationship between you and your boyfriend.

I think that moving out, and back in with your Brother, was a good move. Clearly there was quite a bit of plain domestic conflict regarding the three of you living together. Also although you and his sister may be able to tolerate each other to a degree, from the sounds of it if you were to live under the same roof for more than a short period, you will almost certainly argue. So even if everything else was sorted I wouldn't advise moving back in unless she was moving out.

Working together, living together and being boyfriends is quite demanding, there is no way that me and my boyfriend could manage all three. Life inevitably throws up difficulties, which lead to conflicts and arguments. If you work with your boyfriend you can't come home and complain about an argument at work and expect sympathy. I would give serious consideration to having him find someone else help him run the apartment complex and you find a job of your own elsewhere.

Once you are not living together and not working together I think it might be easier to see how the land really lies between you. Clearly, he has taken you for granted and treated you badly, if he can't see that then you are better off without him. If he is genuinely sorry then it might be worth giving him a second chance, however think carefully about if you really want him back, he shouts when he gets angry, he isn't particularly romantic, if you knew him as well as you do now, would you have moved in with him in the first place? If you do give him a second chance don't rush back to living together, spend a while (at least several months) going out together but not living together. Its harder work but if he doesn't think that you are worth it, then he is not the guy for you. However be warned that with time it may become clear you and him were not 'meant to be'.

One final thought you need to be clear on whether his sister was stating the truth when she said he was cheating on you, if you can't trust him to be faithful then forget him.

Hope this is helpful

[marshlander]

First of all, congratulations on facing up to what appear to have been some longstanding problems. It can't have been easy to make the decision to move. Much as you and your boyfriend may love each other it reads like he doesn't really know how to show his love and appreciation. If he did you wouldn't be left feeling like the maid. I get the feeling that you consider yourself worth more than your bf is able to acknowledge, but that it seems difficult for you to say that in words? There is nothing wrong in admitting the truth! Again congratulations for being able to begin to put a value on what you think you are worth

Were I in your position I think I too would have moved in with my brother. Everyone has their plans scuppered from time to time, specially when the in-laws are looming on the horizon, but perhaps they had better get all this stuff out of the way before you even consider moving back. Certainly his sister needs to be somewhere else before you do, too. If your confidence is as fragile as it appears you don't need the hassle. Stay with your brother for now and let your bf prove how much he values you by making you a priority.

Good luck.

[peterinmalaga]

You’ve not had an easy time, have you? Maybe it was not wise to move in with someone after just one month but that’s history now. Most relationships work on different levels and it is inevitable that we get involved in our partner’s working life to some extent but here too you have got a lot more involved than is ideal, especially considering that the relationship is not as secure as you would like at the moment. Is it possible for you to backtrack on this a bit? Ideally I would suggest that you find a job where you are not dependent on the BF. It’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket. You could then pay him something towards the housekeeping, if you should decide to live together again in the future, and maybe take him out sometimes? If this is not possible now, it may be something you can work towards. Perhaps you could start a course which would give you a qualification to do a job outside the home.
I am NOT saying that your relationship is not worthwhile. I am just saying that it is under too much pressure and that ideally I think you need to be looking for a way to give yourself a little more independence (economic and perhaps emotional). My feeling is that you need a bit more breathing space.
You need to make it clear that you are not at all happy with being put down. You should do this in a calm and measured way and avoid getting dragged into a slanging match.
There is no such thing as the perfect relationship but the relationship has to work for both of you to some degree. What is really important to you? I have been in a relationship where I was (almost!) monogamous and my BF was very far from monogamous. It was no problem for me. Now I am in a monogamous relationship. There is no blueprint for the perfect relationship. You should try to discuss a few of the most important (to you) things with your BF. Be honest and open with him and encourage him to do the same, even if you do not like what you hear. Obviously you need to choose the right moment for this discussion. Hopefully you will be able to find enough common ground to continue and improve the relationship.
I wish you lots of luck. You deserve it.
Peter xxx
PS This is just my opinion. It’s not gospel!

[closet coffee guy]

First of all you have my sympathies, that sounds like a crappy situation and everybody has been there at some point or another. It sounds to me like you two do care for each other, and you've been through a lot together so that's to be expected. However it also sounds to me like he takes you for granted and has become expectant for the things that used to be considered thoughtful. The way he treats you over the course of time is what shows you how he really feels and not how he acts when you're not there.

Hun you only have one life to live and if he isn't treating you the way you ought to be treated then maybe somebody else can. Lay it on the line with him and let him know if you don't see improvement then you're gone cuz life is too damn short. But you'll have to be the judge and see whether or not he truely changes for you because if he doesn't then he just ain't worth it. good luck and don't be afraid to stand up for what you feel is right.

[applepieohmy]

Thank you all for responding to my post. Also, thank you for your kind hearted advice.

I will add this- I am lost and still not sure what to do. My boyfriend has helped me with a ton of stuff- like building my confidence, taking me places earlier in the relationship. Today, he texted me and said he misses me.

The problem is really the stister and his lack of being romantic for the past 2 months or so. This could be that he is stressed out cause his parents are coming and he has turned the downstairs into an office and worked hard to put in cameras, paint it and new floors. Then he has the sister who is not mature and has caused me pain.

[marshlander]

It does sound pretty stressful. Maybe he needs you to be strong for him for a while?

[peterinmalaga]

Doing nothing is also a choice and a form of action, especially if you have consciously chosen this. If you are undecided, give yourself a little time but try to take some small steps to improve things like making it clear that you do not accept being put down, perhaps by saying that it is immature of him to behave in this way. Be up front with him about how hurtful he sometimes is. You might also say that while you are sympathetic to the sister’s problems, living in the same house as her does nothing to help resolve the issues you have with the BF. At the same time respond positively every time he says or does something nice. If things don’t improve in the end, there is always plan B.

[betrayed]

When you say you love him, do you love the way he behaves towards you now or the person he once was? And if the latter, do you honestly think that person will ever "come back" permanently?

You say he has built up your confidence - which is good, but if he has a temper, puts you down and yells at you at times, that can't do your confidence much good. And it seems he knows all about your confidence issues because you told him about your past problems before you went to LA.

I recently realised that someone I was in a relationship with and loved was manipulating me and cheating on me, and moved out. I believe he is what psychologists call a sociopath, or narcissist (if you're interested, you could try looking those terms up if you haven't come across them before - I hadn't). We haven't officially "ended" the relationship, as we still talk on the phone almost every day, he still tries to control my life and I think he probably wants me to go back and live with him again, but there's no way that's going to happen.

I don't know how similar my situation was to yours, but I can say that I also had self-confidence issues and felt that my bf helped me feel more confident. In the end, after far longer than it should have taken, I realised he didn't care about me (or anyone else) at all - it had all been an act and an ego trip for him. People like him deliberately pick on vulnerable targets and try to make them feel dependent on them because it gives them a sense of power. Then when they fear they are about to lose control over you, they put on a "nice act" and try to reel you back in, only for the cycle to repeat itself later on. The end result is that you become unhappy and trapped in a kind of emotional bondage. Your boyfriend now tells you that he misses you - but it doesn't sound like things were all that great before you left. As to what he wants, it's hard to say, but I realised that what my bf wanted from me was attention and sympathy to boost his ego. He wasn't interested in spending time with me, or doing nice things together, or even sex (that part of the relationship fizzled out long ago). It took me ages to work that out, because I had assumed he was after money. He wasn't violent and never even got mad at me, he was just completely indifferent to me towards the end and ignored me, but when I left he immediately started persuading me to go back to him and promised to do things I had wanted to do for a long time. So it was emotional, rather than physical, abuse.

In any case, what I would suggest is that you keep your distance from him at the moment and try to make him a smaller part of your life by fitting other things and people into it. Then see how you feel. Hopefully you will feel happier and more confident in yourself if you concentrate on other things and build up areas of your life that don't involve him. I'm not saying you should break it off with him completely if you don't want to, but I think you should be careful not to let him dominate your life too much. It sounds like he's trying to guilt-trip you into coming back after having realised that he may lose his grip on you. And I don't think it's healthy to have someone who puts you down taking control of your emotions. Even after I found out about my boyfriend's infidelity, for a while I thought I would put up with it because I felt like I didn't have anyone or anything else to hold onto and I felt that part of me still loved him, but then I realised that it was the person he had once been that I loved and I had to face the painful realisation that that person was just an illusion.

PS Try reading this site - I found it very helpful. Only you can tell for sure whether or not your boyfriend is this kind of person, but there are certain parallels between your situation and mine that make me wonder whether this is what you're dealing with. These people are not as uncommon as you might think - they make up as much as 1-3% of the population.
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