# Problems handling the truth (long post)



## markus (Aug 20, 2007)

First post - hello all! 

Please excuse my long post, but I believe I cannot put my problem into just a few words... 

A little more than 6 months ago I got together with my girlfriend. My situation is a little different "than usual": I'm from a Western European country, my girlfriend from a quite small and unknown country in the area of Russia / Ukraine. Some friends of mine and myself went to this country in order to have some fun for little money. Not get me wrong - we're not sex tourists and we not exploit other people - all we did was to drink el-cheapo beer and enjoy taxi-rides for 1.50 USD    Anyway, we already knew some people from this particular city and they showed us around, met us with other people etc.  One late night I went with some local guys to some bar and they obviously wanted me to pick up some girl (I got told this place is famous for this kind of "activity"). (Today, after living in this country for several months, and after understanding more and more about this particular kind of mentality, I realize those guys wanted me to have a "great time" in order to think good about them, with their personal final goal that I "owe" them something in the future and may be of help to them at some given time in the future.)   So, to my surprise, after some hours I found myself, a friend of mine, 3 local guys and 2 girls that we met in this bar in our hotel room, drinking beer, talking about silly things and simply having fun. Before in the bar I started talking to "my" girl who I immediately liked alot. Within only 5 minutes of speaking I understood she had the same interests that I had (in particular music and book authors), and I was amazed to find such a girl in some dirt-cheap deepest Eastern European bar. In fact, I had maybe spoken with 2 or 3 women with this particular attitude and interests in all my life. Anyway, some time in the morning in that hotel room everybody left, but I wanted very much that my girl stayed with me, but she refused and said if she wouldn't go to work she would get fired. But to my surprise, she came back 10 minutes later, stating that she was too drunk to go to work and would call her boss to tell him that she's sick. At this time I had the idea that I want to have sex with this girl and see her a longer time and I was very happy she came back. Anyway, we both went to sleep, and when I woke up some hours later I started to touch and kiss her. At first she didn't do anything but after some minutes she too showed initiative. We spoke about this situation many times in the following months and she told me: "At first I didn't want anything from you, I was so exhausted from that night out, all I wanted was to sleep. And when you started to touch me every second I was about to tell you: stop it! But it started to feel so good that I just couldn't resist."   That night / day ended with sex and we stayed together for the next 24 hours, speaking about all kinds of themes, important topics and not so important topics, our past and all that. Then my buddies and me had to catch our flight back home. I had a crazy time, I felt like I had finally found the woman of my dreams and she too seemed to like me alot. 

Back home we SMS'ed and spoke on the phone every day, and I returned to her 2 weeks later. I went back to my country and back to hers every weekend in order to stay a couple of days, until my feelings developed more and more and I didn't want to stay away from her anymore, as I didn't see anymore reason in living my "old" life. So, I started to live permanently with her for the next months, only to go home for a couple of days in the beginning of every month to take care of some business things. We started to rent an appartment together and had generally a great time. Now we come a little closer to the core of my problem...  

Everytime we spoke about important (and maybe not so important, too) things I explained her that in a relationship honesty and truth is the most important factor to me, and that I not want to lead a relationship with lies. Today I understand I'm quite extreme about this particular statement - even a little lie, no matter how small or how "obviously" not important it is, causes a big problem to me. She agreed with my opinion and this basically opened the box of Pandora......  

In the following months she told me all and every little detail about her past life, her ideas about life, her personality, her characteristics, and so did I tell her about myself too. I kept inquiring about all this and we spoke probably 5-6 hours a day about themes like past life, crazy things we've done, relationships, reasons of life, sex, good and bad habits and basically everything you can imagine which is worth (and not worth) discussing. The more and more I started to know about her the more and more problems arose. I was the one who started conflicts every now and then and probably a big conflict, on an average, every 7-10 days. The topic was always the same...

I remember a (female) friend of mine telling me: "Markus, be careful, probably you don't want to know ALL about your partner, it can possibly do you pain. Believe me, there are some things which you don't WANT to know!"   Today I understand she wasn't so wrong with this statement, I guess. Although this is non-conform with my opinion and demand about speaking ALWAYS the truth, no matter how painful it may be for the opposite or oneself.

Anyway, to bring it to the point: I now see my girlfriend as a "bitch", a women who has had many sexual partners in a particular time in her life, mostly when she was young (17-19), and as a woman who does what she wants, who has her own head and a big ego. Her ego is strengthened by the "crazy" things she does / has been doing, including having sex with men, demolishing men mentally for her own pleasure and for her own "fight of freedom". She's a person who likes to show off, not so much by her clothes or other superficial things, but more importantly, by the "crazy" things she has done. In particular this mostly comes down to stories about drinking and having sex in all different variants and many more little things related to those topics. "Party time" without stopping. She keeps telling me she wanted to try as many things as possible and she always has a huge interest in everyone and everything. She is an extreme social person who can hardly ever be silent, who has the greatest time when she feels that other people like / love her, when she can socialize with people and tell other people about what she believes is right in life, and tries to convince those people about her personal opinion. She loves to manipulate people, especially men, this is her little "game" but it has a more deep background that just for fun...    Alright, I have written up a small analysis on her character / personality based on the discussions I had with her over the last months, and I'll let you know as well below. Some of those statements are the result of my "fantasy" or rather, my conclusions and experiences, but most are citations of what she told me in past:

- As a child, a very dominant grandmother took control of her, she felt "locked" and like in prison
- As a teenager she starts to experience freedom for the first time in her life, but she doesn't really know how to handle this freedom and what to do with it

"Whores around" with n (50-100) men for the following reasons:
- IMPORTANT: Wants to do a rebellion and be individual
- Wants VERY much that women have the same rights which men have ("Why are men well-respected if they have many sexual encounters / relations and great "heroes" to their male friends, and if women do the same they're called bitches?")
- Wants to destroy / manipulate men morally and teach them her own ideas about everything
- Wants to destroy men morally because her partner in her first important relationship cheated on her, probably take some kind of "revenge" on all future partners
- Typical "as a child no rights, as a teenager done everything that is possible"-situation
- Sex is like drinking and eating to her
- In this particular area (Russia / Ukraine) today and in the 90s probably the same situation which we had in Western Europe in the 70s: decampment time, new era / beginning, new lifestyle, freedom, self-experience and -determination, individualism etc.
- Wants to show off because she has had many men (food for her ego)

- Always searches and finds the same kind of men who are a "slave" to her and do whatever she tells them to do (and who probably not love her real)
- "She ****s men, men never **** her"
- In her theory, all women are like this (whoring around...)
- Cannot regret her past because there is nothing to regret; all what she did in past she did because she wanted to do this and because it was her own decision
- Does many crazy things and continuously keeps telling those stories to other peole (her ego is based on this, she likes to show off)
- Sex is important, if sex is not good she finishes the relationship
- Many relationships start with sex (first night sex results in a relationship)
- IMPORTANT: Wants that people always respect her (more importantly: wants, that her boyfriend always respects her very much)
- IMPORTANT: Wants to have the feeling that she can trust her partner 110%
- Never cheats in a relationship; if she feels like she wants to cheat (because she is not satisfied in this relationship) she tells her partner about this BEFORE she actually cheats him
- Has only very few real friends, all others (90% men) don't carry on to stay in touch with her as soon as her "status" changes (i.e. new partnership)
- Always mega-social and loves speaking, discussing etc., never puts down people and is never unfriendly to (new) people because she wants that everybody likes / loves her (caresses for her ego)

_<admin edit: graphic details deleted>_

That's her. 

You see, I really know all about her, things I wanted to know, things I kept inquiring about for weeks, and she told me all, because truth and knowing all about my partner has top priority. Now, I cannot handle those things.

My personal morale understanding is not compatible with this kind of lifestyle, especially not because this women is my girlfriend, and more than just my girlfriend, she is the love of my life. A while ago I used to discuss with her about "my" problem with all this on a regular basis and it always ended in a big drama with tears and just having a bad time. She more and more has a problem with this - "Markus, you not understand me...", "You not respect me...", "Why this is such a big problem to you?" etc. and some weeks ago, I found a method (I thought) which allowed me to handle this "problem". I compiled the list above and started to realize that my girlfriend is not so great than I thought for the last months, that she's not perfect and that she is "lower" than me in terms of mentality and understanding life and what is important and what is not, and what one can do, and what one shouldn't be doing. This worked for a couple of weeks and I forgot about all bad things, but at the same time my love for her developed from a, maybe, rather crazy and little obsessive love into some more "healthy" form of love, but my "love feeling" was put a little down by this new variant of looking at her. I saw myself as a more great human being than herself and this helped me in some way, I sometimes caught myself thinking: "Ok, in this position that my girlfriend was in and with this mentality in this geographical area, what she did is pretty normal - it's not a big deal, she simply doesn't understand all and she is generally lower than me."   However, this new "perspective" isn't what I really want - I WANT to feel that my girlfriend is the greatest woman in the world and today, she indeed is, if only her past wouldn't exist.

Of course - the past is the past, you can't change it, but when I think about some stories that she told me, and when I imagine her with other (past) men in my head this causes a huge emotional problem, it feels a little bit like she only did this yesterday and like she cheats me today. I simply cannot find a way to cope with this, a way to accept this, not even a way to forget this (and the latter is probably the worst variant with dealing with this problem, because "forgetting" means you are pushing something away which you don't like, and it will probably come back to you sooner or later and only hunt you down...).

And of course - "he who is free of sin shall throw the first stone" - I'm aware that the majority of all people in this world, regardless whether they're men or women, have had similar experiences in their life, probably especially in their youth. You live and learn. However, even though I'm myself not an angel (quite the contrary, I guess) in this particular case it doesn't matter! Even if I did more stupid things than my girlfriend - it doesn't matter - I'm egoistic in this situation and I only want my girlfriend is only MY girlfriend, in the past, present and future. I want a fairy-tale. On one hand I realize a fairy-tale is not possible, probably with no woman in this world, I also understand I found the greatest girl in the world (for me), that she fits me and my character like nobody else, and I'm sure I will never meet another woman like her... on the other hand I ask myself if it is really worth the pain that I sometimes feel, and I ask myself maybe I can indeed find a woman who comes straight from a fairy-tale book, who has been waiting for her "prince" all her life, saved herself and never did something bad to somebody in her past, including herself. But then, I guess, if I should ever really find this woman, she has probably (surely?) a bunch of other / different problems with herself and this will cause me another variant of pain. After all, my girlfriend has become the person she is today because of what she did in her past, it's her experiences, it's her life and this lead to the development of the character and personality that she has today. And I love her today.

It's not easy being with her - and I not understand why her past men never had so many problems with all this (she too told them mostly all about her past and present), probably a difference in "geographical morale understanding", or probably they simply didn't care, probably because they didn't really love her, probably because they were afraid to be alone, probably they loved her too much (?), many possibilities I guess...   It's not easy being with her, as she's too social and communicative "for my taste", she can speak with 3 men she never met before all night in some bar, and then she tells me about this (because I ask her, and because she wants to tell me). And when I hear stories like this, or even when I see her speak with other men and I see she enjoys this time, I become jealous, I become afraid and I immediately remember her stories from the past.

Now, more to the good things: I'm convinced my girlfriend loves me truly. She tells me I'm the first "real" man in her life, and before me she never had a real relationship. In her feeling, our relationship is the first relationship in her life. "I opened her eyes", she looks up to me, she respects me very much, and she wants to start a new life with me, her life in past was "not real". "My life started when I met you!" she tells me. She wants to develop herself further and she tells me I'm the right man for her own personal progress and that she found the man she wants to be with for the rest of her life. She doesn't want to lose me and she tells me she loves me dearly - and I not only listen this from her, but I strongly feel this, too. I can feel it's true. However, with my "somewhat" self-destructive attitude and because I keep on to something which has happened in the past, despite today everything is just great, I have a tendency to destroy this relationship. She tells me she has the feeling that I cannot be happy in life, I always must feel a little bit bad to be happy (?) and to go on. This is probably a masochistic characteristic.   On the other hand - I have the feeling I must "punish" her (in a variant of demolishing her ego / her self-respect) for what she did in past, maybe this is also a reason why I always bring this up again and start an argument, why I'm ice-cold when she sits in front of me after 3 hours of argueing about this particular topic, crying and wanting me to only caress and comfort her. My girlfriend did what she wanted in her life, and I have a crazy morale understanding that she simply cannot do this - that I want my girlfriend to be "clean" of all, that I not want she ever did something like this and that somebody (= me) must exist in this world to punish her for what she did in past. This is probably a sadistic characteristic. Am I sado-maso? ;-)   It's crazy, because she has already punished herself in some way - many times on many encounters men not used to treat her so nice and friendly and taking her excessive speaking and "I'm not afraid of anything"-type probably the wrong way, and even leading to repeated rape and other insane things. But then again my crazy voice / feeling speaks to me and asks me: "Maybe she EVEN liked this (raping) happening?!" - because she likes all that exists in this world and always wants to try new things. This idea is crazy, I know, but I cannot really help thinking sick things like this.

Lastly to be said, I think I understand it is quite hard to fully trust a person if you know all about this particular person, especially if they did something "bad" in past which you cannot forget and not accept easily either. This puts down trust, and even though you feel this woman loves you truly, you sometimes have doubts about all and everything. You become a little paranoid because you know what kind of person she was in past, while at the same time, you should probably appreciate she tells you all and everything and this should logically create more trust, not distrust. But logic and emotions are two different things... 

Also, (excessive   ) socializing is deeply rooted in her character and it's her biggest hobby to analyze people, meet new characters and speak about everything and all until your ears start bleeding. 

So, this mix of distrust which is related to the things in her past and my problem with those things, and her huge demand for socializing and new things to encounter, and big interest for other people and in general big interest for all, everything and everyone brings me to my current situation of not knowing how to go on - or where all this leads. My feeling tells me I not want to lose this woman, but at the same time I'm angry and mad at her - quite constantly - and then again, my logic tells me it would be absolutely stupid to give up this great relationship. 

What do you think about this all? Maybe it's time for me to see a professional psychologist for some time? 

If you really read until this point - thank you very much and respect to you!  

Regards,
Markus

Just for the sake of completeness or maybe because it's important: She's 24 years old, I'm 26. I've never really had a serious relationship / a relationship which lasted long (longest was 3 months), I believe not because I'm so horrible, but rather very shy in past when it comes to speaking with women. She had about 4 serious relationships, each lasting between 1 and 4 years, with the latest and longest (4 years) having ended in the end of last year. She was always the one to finish her relationships.


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## David Baxter PhD (Aug 20, 2007)

First, it seems to me that most if not all of the things you describe that concern you happened before you even met this young woman. What is important in a relationship is what happens during the course of that relationship, not what happened before you knew one another.

Second, you refer to what you see as moral issues. Only you can decide what is acceptable to you in a relationship. If you cannot accept what happened in the past before you met or what you think that implies about this woman, the relationship is probably doomed. Or more simply you may decide you do not want a lifelong relationship with someone who views the world as she does.

Third, you are analyzing her character or personality based on past behavior, more importantly on past behavior that occurred when she was very young. You may be overanalyzing these behaviors and certainly you appear to be judging her rather critically on the basis of those behaviors. You may profit from some assistance in (1) looking at alternative interpretations of her past and (2) placing more emphasis on her behavior now rather than her behavior in the past.

Finally, I do think spending some time talking to a counselor or psychotherapist to get some objective input would be beneficial for you.


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## markus (Aug 20, 2007)

David Baxter said:


> First, it seems to me that most if not all of the things you describe that concern you happened before you even met this young woman. [...]



First of all, thanks for your feedback! 

Regarding what you wrote - I tend to agree with most of your statements. However, is it really completely unreasonable to judge someone on the activities a person has carried out in the past? The young age factor put aside for one moment, if possible. For example, I've read statements like "once a cheater - always a cheater" in this forum and people seemed to agree with this opinion. If I were to say "once a loose / easy girl - always a loose / easy girl", who would agree with this? Sure, trial and error, and if you see you don't like something or you understand you did a mistake you usually stop doing this. However, if you carry out something for a period of several years (more than 2, actually) and live your life like this is it really completely unreasonable to think this person liked what she did - and what keeps her from doing the same or similar in the future again? Probably the answer to my own question is "Well, you will find out in the future and you must make your own judgement..." but this doesn't really help me lose my concerns. Trust can help, but how can I create trust if I see this person has more or less led all her life likes this. Yes - I could try to "feel" her attitude now and truly believe in what she tells and what she shows me me - but the paranoia and remembering doesn't stop so easily I guess... 

Regards,
Markus

PS: Too bad you deleted the "graphic details" ;-)  But I understand of course...


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## David Baxter PhD (Aug 20, 2007)

1. If I didn't believe that people can change, specially young people, I'd have to come to the conclusion that I am definitely in the wrong profession.

2. When she was behaving that way she hadn't yet met you. She has told you that she feels this is the first real relationship she has had. That sounds like a pretty powerful incentive for change to me.

I would strongly recommend that you seek some counseling to talk about these issues in some depth. If this relationship is going to continue, you really need to find a way to address your jealousy and distrust - those are very destructive emotions in any relationship - and to learn to view her as she is today, not as she was 6 or 7 years ago.


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## markus (Aug 20, 2007)

Thanks, that helped some. Time to dig out the yellow pages and look for some assistance, I guess. 

Regards
Markus


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## Daniel (Aug 20, 2007)

Regarding morality: 



> Religion once defined morally acceptable sexual conduct, but in an increasingly secular society, this task fell to medical science...Relatively recently, the imperative was for restraint and moderation in sexual matters; now it is for more and better sexual gratification. We can see this as the replacement of one orthodoxy by another---as an over-medicalisation of sex. Celibacy is the new deviance.
> 
> Sexual behaviour and its medicalisation: in sickness and in health  (_British Medical Journal_, 2002)



Regarding the fear of being cheated on, women tend to cheat only if they feel their husband/boyfriend isn't giving them enough love/attention: 



> Cheating tends to happen well into the relationship — especially in the three- to five-year zone — by a man who is dissatisfied with his sex life or a woman who feels emotionally deprived. The new lover is most often a friend or co-worker, and the typical fling lasts less than a week.
> 
> ...Women's motives range from the need for more emotional attention (40 percent) to being reassured of their desirability (33 percent) or falling in love with someone else (20 percent).
> 
> ...


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