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I am divorced, happily split from my XWH and have started a new relationship BUT I cycle round the same cruel set of emotions and fears. I push my new partner away, feel nothing, then feel fear. I love him but I am.scared, scared of being hurt. I do not deal with my emotions, I tend to push them down, ignore them, dont even realise why I do the things I do but I have forced my partner to leave today. He has taken his things and gone. There was no major bust up or row and if I'm honest this must all feel incredibly unfair to him. He hasn't cheated or done anything to ruin our relationship but I ruin it all by myself. I'm a master of rejection and masking my feelings and emotions. I have become cold and heartless and damaged.

I cause problems through fear and guilt associated with my relationship with XWH who was unfaithful as well as physically and emotionally abusive. I wrote down the words I associate with relationships now:

Fear, guilt, low self worth, unattractive, unloveable, unwanted and rejection.

This clouds my new relationship. Mainly fear and guilt. I'm scared but I ignore it. I feel guilty about things I was made to feel guilty about before in my previous marriage. But how do I stop? How do i prevent myself sabotaging a good thing? I'm scared i will lose my new partner because i push him away and i cant even see reason when I'm doing it. I cant talk and be rational, it's like my brain shuts down and leaves the building.

Am i forever destined for loneliness? Has my ex truly ruined my past and also my future???

(((Hugs))) the traumas inflicted on you are real and take time to heal. As hard as this is, now you can clearly see the issues. Perhaps working with an IC will help you release those fears and give you tools to work through the ghosts of relationships past.

I am sorry you are hurting but i don’t believe you are doomed. But it will take some work to undo the damage.

You are worth so much - please seek help and banish those fears.

[This message edited by BearlyBreathing at 7:27 PM, November 16th, 2019 (Saturday)]

Thank you Bearlybreathing - i have registered to go back to IC. I went up to kicking out XWH on DD3 and then naively stopped going thinking all was fine now i was rid of him.

It's not though, the damage he inflicted runs deep and continues right in to my present and future.

The one saving grace was that he no longer controls my life and cant rule me with fear. I've now lost a good man who wants to be there for me. He wants to work on us and come back but he left and took his things. That to me is a rejection and one I dont think I can get past. Certainly not by myself, maybe with professional help but I'm.not sure even then.

Pinky, very gently, you said you forced him to leave. That’s not rejection, it’s doing what you told him to do...

Violated, you are right, I think it just hurts that he just left so quickly. I'm not emotionally rational now, I reckon my emotional response age is that of a 5 year old right now. Even knowing this doesnt help me deal with it better

These things that you've said to us? The Right Thing to do would be to say them to him. Whether or not the two of you stay together.

IC is a brilliant idea! Do follow through.

I fully understand, by the way. The teachings of my abusive mother are Still strong and she's been gone these twenty years.

Pinkypeach, it must be difficult to sort out what fears you brought with you versus what fears this new relationship aroused in you. Of course, you have been tramatized, and your "survival brain" isn't going to allow you anywhere near something that could result in the same painful outcome as the XWH caused.

Many would say it's all because the new relationship developed too soon after your marital trauma, a trauma that you will need to work on healing. However, I have a different thought for you. Think of the spectrum of colors as being like the spectrum of personalities of men you know. Do they sometimes seem to all fall in the same range?

To be more specific, if you describe your fear feelings in this relationship as uncomfortably familiar, could it be that something this new BF is like, trips that trigger? Just an unconscious "recognition" thing?

I ask this because, after my divorce from my first husband, I moved on and never met another man who reminded me of him for years and years...until I met my current husband. Right away with him, I remember that "familiar feeling" I got about his ways, even though he looked nothing like my XH. It wasn't conscious, but it wasn't a "positive" feeling, either! It was like "This man might be another version of my XH, maybe?" Since I had zero reason to identify that similarity in him, we dated 4 years, married, and then just a year or so after, darned if he didn't start doing the same kind of sneaky porn stuff the way my first husband had! He is a sex addict and was too ashamed to ever admit to what he was like, so how could I have known? Well, my gut picked up the signals, but I brushed them off as me being a little paranoid. Yet looking back, that "familiar feeling" stuff was my survival brain trying to spare me a lot of new pain!

You also probably wanted to see him hang in there not just give up that easily. But don't discount the reasons you weren't feeling safe, either. Best of luck.