T O P I C R E V I E W
bixit91
Member # 38487
posted 08-27-2008 01:36 PM
Well we first met over month ago after speaking for a month and he was fully aware that I was only interested in a relationship. We talk on the phone pretty much everyday and I’d say we have a good relationship. I guess were dating. Today I went over to his and to cut a long story short things got sexual very quickly but I didn’t want to have sex because I don’t have sex outside relationships and didn’t think it would be a good idea, which was fine with him. Then his phone kept ringing and it drives me crazy cos he never turns it off and it was his best friend. He asked me to tell the boy to go and I did but then I said ‘I wanna look at your messages’ and he tried to pull the phone of me, then I got up but he didn’t stop me and I ran into the bathroom. There were three girls on his phone and they some of them were calling him ‘babes’, and saying sexy stuff to him like a lyric from Kitty Box by Lil Kim. When I asked him, he said ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, if I felt that you shouldn’t see them then I would have taken the phone from you before you ran away’. He read them himself and he still stuck to that and said ‘It’s not my fault if some girls like me’. After that, he said nothing while I put my jeans and heels on. It really peed me off that he didn’t say anything so I poured a big glass of Vimto that he got for me over his new bedsheets and he started shouting ‘get out of my house’. And I did. I called him about ½ hr later and said sorry for the spillage. But was I right to react the way that I did.
September
Member # 25425
posted 08-27-2008 02:02 PM
Okay, here's the thing: even if you were in a relationship - which you said you aren't - both you and this guy would have a right to some amount of privacy. And text phone messages, much like letters or e-mails, fall into the category of private correspondence and aren't necessarily fair game for a partner. If you talk about these things beforehand and agree that reading your partner's private correspondence is fine, then it is. But if either of you wants to keep some things private - which is totally valid, we all get to have some privacy - then it's simply rude and disrespectful to go ahead and read those things anyway. So you taking his cell phone and running away with it to read his messages after he's made it quite clear he's not okay with you reading them? Totally not cool. That's an invasion of his privacy. Furthermore, if you aren't in a relationship, then he doesn't necessarily owe you any explanations about other girls who are flirting with him. If you were in a relationship, it might've been a good idea for him to simply bring up that there were other women sending him text messages, but since you two are dating - that is, going on dates or hanging out with different people, as opposed to having agreed on an exclusive arrangement - he doesn't need to discuss that with you. If you want a more exclusive arrangement with him, then you can let him know about that, and you two can figure out how you feel about that and where you want to go with it. And spilling drinks on someone's new bed sheets? Very rarely a spiffy idea. So yeah - I'd say that you over-reacted. I would suggest that you apologize to this guy in earnest about everything that you did - invade his privacy and ruin his sheets -, and I suggest that you make an effort to respect people's privacy from now on.
bixit91
Member # 38487
posted 08-27-2008 02:22 PM
Wow that made me feel really bad omg. It seems like everyone agrees that I'm an idiot. Thanks for being honest, I guess its my own fault for being such a hothead.
September
Member # 25425
posted 08-27-2008 02:39 PM
I really don't think you're an idiot, and I hope my post didn't imply that to you. We all make mistakes and misjudge situations sometimes, that's just how it is. But it's important to recognize when you've made a mistake and to own up to it. You can still go and have a conversation with this guy, explain why you reacted the way you did, and let him know that you are sorry and will try to manage your emotions better next time.
Heather
Member # 3
posted 08-27-2008 03:06 PM
Too, if you want to talk about WHY you think you did those things, we can talk about that, and it might help you avoid that kind of behavior in the future.
bixit91
Member # 38487
posted 08-27-2008 05:30 PM
Well I think that its probably partly cos of insecurities and this idea in my head that all guys will eventually hurt me which makes me become destructive in relationships. I guess I'm just scared of getting hurt so I would rather destroy a good thing than wait for it to go wrong.
Heather
Member # 3
posted 08-27-2008 05:38 PM
So, you're thinking you're self-sabotaging? Certainly, doing stuff like this is likely to be effective in that regard. But it also sounds like you're doing this with someone you're not even in a capital-R relationship with yet. It also sounds like you felt lashing out this was justified, which seems pretty iffy to me. Do you feel like you might need some more time before dating, and before you're able to feel safe enough in yourself again -- and perhaps confident enough in your own judgment and taking the time to slowly get invested to the degree you could get hurt deeply -- so that you can handle things like respecting privacy and feeling upset without this kind of outburst?
bixit91
Member # 38487
posted 08-27-2008 05:51 PM
Well I don't know because the thing is that I don't know how to change because I have felt this way for as long as I can remember and it seems like I always feel the need to create chaos to avoid getting hurt. I don't have a very high self esteem and I know that I'm supposed to love myself before anyone else can but its just so hard when my mum is putting me down all the time.
Heather
Member # 3
posted 08-27-2008 05:59 PM
That sure does make it hard. So, what do you do for YOU in terms of your esteem? In the ways your Mum puts you down: how do you prove her wrong, to yourself? What's the rest of your life looking like right now: friends, jobs, school, your own projects? You may well already know this, but in trying to avoid getting hurts, it seems clear you're still getting hurt: it's just you hurting yourself instead of someone else.
bixit91
Member # 38487
posted 08-27-2008 06:31 PM
Well its so hard because I cannot talk to her without her telling me I'm wrong but everything else like friends, school and stuff is fine. My life is fine well at least I've found a way to push my problems aside and eventually I find temporary solutions to things but I know I'm not happy. And while most people have got used to my behaviour and I do have a lot of friends now I don't appreciate them because I don't really understand why they are friends with me or why people put up with me. I can't help focusing on negative things because I'm scared of them happening and I think about it so much but it doesn't make me deal with it better it just makes me angrier with people/the world but mainly myself because I can't push away these thoughts
Heather
Member # 3
posted 08-27-2008 06:42 PM
have you ever just made a list of what you see your problems AS -- all of them -- so that you can see which ones you have control over to really just tackle head-on (rather than trying to suppress them), and which ones really are someone ELSE'S problem or out of your hands? If you haven't, that can sometimes be helpful and make things a lot more tangible. It can also be a good list to look at when you're feeling frustrated.
bixit91
Member # 38487
posted 08-27-2008 06:47 PM
I've never thought of that but I don't see how a list would make much difference to me thinking about everything will just make me feel worse.
Heather
Member # 3
posted 08-28-2008 11:31 AM
I doubt it. Often, when we feel really overwhelmed by a lot of problems or what we see as our failings, it can be tough to suss out what our problems really ARE, and which of them we have control over. For instance, if your mother is always putting you down, that's certainly a problem, but it's also not really something YOU can fix, and her being emotionally abusive is HER problem, even if you're effected by it. On the other hand, if you have some anger management issues -- and I'd say dumping wine on someone's bed counts -- that's a problem you CAN do some work on and improve your behavior with. When you can start making progress on the things you can change that are problems for you and others, you're bound to start feeling better and more confident about your own life and esteem. Same goes for more clearly seeing what's not really about you at all, and being able to have a better sense of the fact that while others folks' problems put on you hurts, they also have no bearing on who you are and what your worth is.