I broke up with a partner (32M) of 5 years a couple of months ago. I'm now looking back at the past 13 years that I spent in 3 relationships, with only 2 years in total where I was single. I noticed that I keep dating manipulative and jealous people, without even realizing.
I didn't even think of my first boyfriend (17-18 at the time) as jealous until my mother recently pointed out to me that he would blow up my phone with text messages every time I left it somewhere for half an hour. That he constantly needed to know where I was. I just thought it was normal. We stayed together for 2 years.
The second partner (19-23 at the time) seemed like he didn't care where I went. He had occasional bouts of depression where he'd just stay in bed and not talk to me for days. I tried to find out why, but he never wanted to talk about it afterwards. Later in the relationship, he started refusing to join me for events and made fun of my hobbies. We lasted for 4 years. After we broke up, he admitted to me that he was super jealous the whole time and wasn't really depressed, he just thought I was cheating on him and so he sulked. Turns out he didn't go to events with me because he imagined that he'd meet the guy I'm sleeping with there. I had absolutely no idea. I did not notice any correlation with me going out and the silent treatment - hell, he did it when were were hiking all by ourselves.
My last partner (currently 32) was the most jealous of them, but this time I knew it early on (not the extent of it). His previous girlfriend cheated on him, and we openly talked about how me going out with certain people made him uncomfortable. I thought it was something we could work on and he could get over. He admitted he was being stupid but he can't control it, and will try to improve. Well, I'm an idiot and moved together with him to a new country where we knew no one. I had no friends in the new place, so I didn't go out with anyone, so he didn't get much reason to be jealous. I did notice it on occasions when I tried writing to some of my old friends. I wanted to be open with him and so I always told him about this. We'd always end up arguing. I stopped writing to anyone. Fast forward a few years, and I still didn't know anyone there except him and a couple colleagues. I lost contact to my old friends. I finally realized what situation I'm in when he didn't want me to go visit my parents ("allowed" me to go for a week, but no more, and didn't want to go with me).
The scary part is, I thought everything was fine until that point when he didn't want me to go visit family. I honest to god thought we were doing great. I ignored all the red flags. Looking back at it, he completely isolated me from everybody. I read the book "Why does he do that?" and recognized a couple of signs. I recognized a couple signs from previous relationships. And a LOT of signs in my parents' and other family relationships. Turns out this is pretty normalized in my culture (eastern European). I always thought of myself as a very independent woman and realizing that I allowed this is a strong hit into my self-image.
Now I'm wondering how to mentally prepare myself so I don't let it happen in future relationships. It's very easy for me to ignore red flags in the early months, so I want to rationally think about it now while my mind is clear. I want to decide on some boundaries and rules for myself, to make sure I don't fall for this again. I'm hoping I will be better at spotting the signs this time, but I want to make sure I don't ignore them. I never cheated on anyone and I don't deserve being mistrusted like this. One thing I want to do is to stay single for a minimum of 2 years to get into the habit of not having to answer to anyone, and to build some friendships. But I had that goal after my last breakup too and I couldn't keep it...I hope it will work out this time.
These are the current boundaries I came up with:
* Do not move in together earlier than 3-5 years into the relationship, and only if you don't see any signs of controlling behaviour or jealousy. Maybe don't move in together ever (I don't want to marry nor have children and I like having my own space).
* NEVER move with a guy to a new country where you know no one.
* Do not accept unreasonable limits for spending time with my family.
* Spend at least two evenings per week without him, whether it be alone or with some friends.
* Leave if he refuses to communicate.
* Date people with more self-esteem, who have their own life and friends.
* Don't report where I am all the time. He can ocassionally ask, and I'm obviously not going to dissapear for days, but it should be ok to have some hours of radio silence.
* If I don't respong to a message immediately and his first idea is that I'm obviously fucking someone, run.
* If I find myself being cut off from friends, for example if he keeps criticising them until I stop talking to them, re-evaluate.
TL;DR: I keep dating jealous and controlling people and want to break away from the pattern. Tips for future relationship?
Submitted February 01, 2019 at 08:15AM by user123321123321 http://bit.ly/2MJMu1A
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