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Secrets, Relationships, Repairing Trust, Confiding in Friends, Thinking Twice about What you Share
 
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Secrets, Relationships, Repairing Trust, Confiding in Friends, Thinking Twice about What you Share


I could use some input on trust issues on a couple of levels. It finally happened, something I'd confided to a friend about my relationship w/my boyfriend came back to bite me in the butt last night and has brought up an old, sore subject for me.

Background: He had a long history of chronic pot use, and this was always a problem for me, not being a member of the club myself, and it's prominence in his life and inevitable interference in the relationship. For a few years I thought he was done with it, but found out a few months after living with him that that was not the case at all, and he'd been hiding it. Long story short, on his own terms, he's been relatively clean for agout 2 1/2 years, I say relatively because I know he didn't give it up completely, he still uses it when he does his yearly man-trip to the mountains with a friend of his (which I suspected but for the first time heard him tell someone last night), and I suspect occasionally when he sees certain friends. I'm actually OK with that if he can leave it there, I would have never had a problem with it in the first place if he'd only ever been a casual occasional user, but it's still hard for me to understand how a 30 year daliy habit can shift into casual use, and that's the part I'm worried about - his ability at this point to moderate his use, although maybe that's exactly what he's doing right now, moderating it. I'm afraid to tell him I'm OK with what's left because I"m afraid he might take that as a cue to do it more often, keep it at home, etc. It's become a weird, demonized issue for me that it never was before I met him, and I find myself not trusting him about that, and it's spilled into not trusting him about other things, too. It's mainly the not knowing, and the defensive walls that go up around the subject, nothing ever comes of discussing it other than hard feelings.

He's a great guy, the relationship is wonderful in most every other way, and he appears to be doing what he said he would do, which was make a commitment to letting go of his attachment to it, but I can't stop myself wondering if he's just gotten better at hiding it from me. The sneaking around and hiding stuff - that was actually the worst part for me, more so than the habit, even. It broke something in me that had to do with trusting him and feeling safe with him. I have my own less than healthy habits and addictions, they're just more socially acceptable addictions. (TV and carbs comes to mind.) I feel like a lot of this is my own issues, and I'm not sure how to get past them. I shouldn't need him to be a perfect, unfailing human being who will never disappoint me to feel safe.

Is there any getting around further discussion of it at this point? Should I go with what I'm observing (his having it under control and moving forward in a positive way with his spiritual life & development), or do I need to lay this ugly subject out again for painful re-hashing when he clearly doesn't want that, because I can't resolve it in my own mind? We've been together 10 years, living together for almost 3, and are actually talking about getting married this summer - another trust issue around that because he's asked several times in the past and not been able to follow through, etc., and I still am not getting the feeling from him that this is something he wants to do vs. something he feels obligated to do. I know he loves me, but I think he has issues about marriage stemming from childhood. I'm afraid to move forward until some of these trust issues are resolved, I guess, but I just don't know if it's something I have to really resolve internally, or if we have to resolve them together. It always makes me look bad to him when these difficult subjects come up, he thinks I make mountains out of molehills and I need to lighten up.

Last piece - I had confided a lot of this to a close friend, who has a boyfriend with his own substance abuse issues, alcohol being her main objection. We had something in common, and it was helpful for me to hear how she dealt with it. She must have told her BF about my BF's pot use (her BF uses it regularly, also, though for whatever reason it doesn't bother her as much as his heavy drinking). We were all together at a function last night, her BF was drunk as usual, and I heard him ask my BF, out of the blue, at the end of the conversation, if he still smoked pot. They don't know each other very well, and to the best of my knowledge, have never had a conversation about their mutual affection for it, so the only way he could have known was through my friend. Cat out of the bag. MY BF was relatively cool about it, didn't say anything to me later, but talk about an awkward situation. I'm going to be very careful about what I confide to friends in the future, that couple's thing - telling each other everything, can really turn around on you.

I'd appreciate any thoughts...
 

 
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