Fanta,

Wow. You and your b/f are in such a bad place. I wish I had some additional words of wisdom to impart beyond what you've already heard, but I don't. I'll just re-interate what the others have said - be his support. I'm lucky in that my b/f's parents, his abusers, are dead. If they weren't, I don't know what I'd do. Even thinking of them brings my blood to a boil so in that respect I know exactly where you're coming from. To have to deal with your b/f's FF, even from a distance, must be so hurtful to you. You want so much to protect your b/f from further hurt, but if you try, it's like stepping in front of a bus; you're the only one who gets squished.

Take care of yourself Fanta and be there for your b/f as much as you can. You can be his sanctuary. Sooner or later, he may say something that shows you a light bulb is coming on. That day will be the hardest for you because you'll want nothing more than to take his words and run with it, saying all of the awful things you think about his FF. DON'T DO IT. That will shut him down so fast you won't know what happened. He has to ween himself away from him, on his own and when he does, he'll desperately need you, a safe place to come to.

ROCK ON........Trish

i am unclear of the reasons, as is my bf, on how he ended up in foster care to begin with. he (and his siblings) were initially entered into foster care when my bf was 4. His FF told me once that my bf's biological parents were addicts and did not care for the children properly so the state intervened. I really don't know what to believe. my bf's siblings (there are 2) both have had their share of problems. They both have moved back to the state that they came from and close to their mother. Their father lives a few hours from us and does contact my bf a few times a year to visit w/ his side of the family, mainly for holidays. The last time it was Thanksgiving. Their father offered several times when they were children to come for them, but never did. Even as they were older teens he would make promises, but never show. my bf said once he ran away to his mother and when she opened the door to the house she told him to get in the car and returned him to foster care. I know from what he told me (my bf) that he so desperately wanted to be with his family and out of the horrors of foster care. He did say there was one family he was with that was honorable, but he was removed from the family and placed in another home (he doesn't know why). my bf has very limited communication w/ his biological family and does not even know their addresses. When one calls he finds the number for another, etc. He did recieve a card for his birthday simply signed "MOM"..no note. As for his feelings for me, I have no doubt. I have never felt more loved or appreciated by anyone. He isn't withdrawn but I knew him years ago when he was. Over the past few years he has really changed and stepped out of a shell he was once under. I am thankful he felt he could tell me about everything. I know that had to be a huge step for him.

My family has known my bf for at least 10+yrs. I remember him when I would come to visit, he lived near by. They have made comments about how much he has changed (in a positive way)since we first became friends and even more so since we became partners. He and my brother have been friends, that's how I first met him years ago. He was kind of someone who would keep to themselves a lot, skipped school almost daily, a recluse, besides a very select small group of people. Lucky for me my brother was one of them. It has been years since he got in any trouble, but still had a difficult time keeping jobs, problems w/ excess spending. The reason I'm here is I don't want to do anything to shut him down. I don't want to say or do the wrong thing and ruin the trust and understanding we share between us. I am so glad you mentioned that. I try not to say things like that, but I did twice and I could see the hurt in his eyes. It wasn't about him, but about his FF. It was a snyde remark and totally un called for on my part. I am slowly getting a grip. I've known about the abuse, but didn't know who until after we were together for 3mos. Now I've come to grips with it, but sometimes it just clicks in my brain and I feel so angry at is FF. I'm doing my best to learn so that I don't act without thinking first. I want nothing more than to do the right thing for my bf.

Fantagirl

"I am slowly getting a grip. I've known about the abuse, but didn't know who until after we were together for 3mos. Now I've come to grips with it, but sometimes it just clicks in my brain and I feel so angry at is FF. I'm doing my best to learn so that I don't act without thinking first. I want nothing more than to do the right thing for my bf. "

Somehow I get the feeling that you're doing the right things, instinctively.
Yeah, mistakes happen, that's how we learn. If he's standing by you when you make 'mistakes' then he's got a lot of trust and love for you. And they're not really 'mistakes' are they? It's feeling your way around in the dark.

It's so good that your family are accepting him, like I said before, that's a new experience for him.

Dave

Fanta,

Just a brief suggestion. I see from some of the examples you give that when you stand up for your own needs and concerns you can sometimes be pretty sarcastic and blunt. I understand how you feel, but I would try to rachet that down a few notches. If a guy is in turmoil anyway, that kind of approach seems dismissive and feels like an attack. The message he needs to hear in word and action is "I expect you to take me seriously and treat me with respect, just as I do to you".

Much love,
Larry

Hi Larry.

WOW! The words "Sarcastic and Blunt" hit me pretty hard last night. They ran through my head a lot. I went and read over my previous posts, I don't want to come off that way. I'm not sure what you're refering to, maybe when I read it over in my head the tone is not the same. Please remember what I say here are thoughts running through my head, and not necessarialy how I would phrase things to my bf. I would appreciate your point of view on this very much. I really wanted to discuss this in a PM, but it seems your box is full.

Thanks.

Thank you for your support. I appreciate it very much. I just don't want to say something in the wrong way, it's a very delicate matter. Like I said, it's not something that we really talk about often. I think mostly he gets upset if I show displeasure w/ his FF. That has become an issue in our relationship. He says he understands and does not ask that I like him, talk to him, etc. But that he is a part of his life and there are times he asks him for advice or he gives advice and tells me, and that I should respect that. That's really hard for me to do. I really don't have respect for this man, and out of respect I don't say much, if anything, when my bf brings him up..but I guess it shows in my expression and body language. I don't know how I should be dealing with it.

Fanta,

Hmmmm. I hope I didn't give you the impression that I was judging you, because that wasn't my intent at all. Quite apart from everything else, emotional exchanges happen so fast it's very easy for things to be taken wrongly or with a wrong emphasis. That happens all the time, of course.

That said, can I give you an example of what I had in mind when I posted that comment?

You told us of the time you called your bf and his FF was disrupting the conversation with intrusive remarks about fixing his PC. You seemed to take the disruption as deliberate, and said if that's how you feel, I would say you are probably right. But anyway, you said this to your bf:



Now, I personally think you have every right to your irritation. FF sees you as a threat - a big one - and you see him as a danger to your bf; you are both right. So you are expressing your legitimate feelings about this.

But the conversation had some other objective;it wasn't about your entitlement to anger. Your comment, or rather, the way you phrased it and probably expressed it, is ambiguous and it clearly suggested all sorts of things to your bf - otherwise he would not have become so defensive. Maybe he read your comment as implying that he's weak and not able to stand up to his father. Or maybe he read it as meaning that when you call him he's responsible to you in various ways. Or maybe he will think you are just fed up with him in general.

Now, some or all of those things may be true! But that's not the point. The problem is that by bitching, FF, who's clearly a master manipulator, manages to hijack the convo. Once you express your irritation to your bf like that, everyone is pissed to some extent or another, and after you hang up FF will say something like this to your bf, "I didn't do anything; see, that bitch is just trying to come between us." FF got to you, and this will just encourage him to try the same or some similar trick again next time.

Here's my suggestion of how this could have gone better, just by way of illustrating what I'm blathering on about



Stand your ground and don't offer to call some other time; your bf does have to recognize your needs and respect your feelings. But this way you are making a clear suggestion without angry or disapproving overtones.

If he hesitates or says "Oh never mind, I can hear you", then you can make a firmer statement:



I think this illustrates what I have said on other occasions about how our partners need to be strong for themselves first. This way you stand up for yourself, state your needs, and make it clear that you expect them to be met. But you do it in a way that you are strong for both of you together. In the less than ten seconds it takes for all this to happen, bf will see your strength and get the idea that you won't be buffaloed by FF, but he will feel that your strength is there for him too.

Much love,
Larry

OK, I get it. I see what you're saying...I didn't even think of that honestly. Durring our phone conversation (well, we he had JUST called) and all I heard in the background was FF going on and on about fixing the PC. I was, I was very irritated. The whole PC thing is an irritant to me, honestly. Actally I guess anyting FF does is an irritant to me. I see how I could have handled that differently. What I said to him I did not say in a mean way, but the words themselves were very strong. I do not mean to take this out on my bf. That is so not my intent. I hadn't realized until you pointed it out how it probably made him feel. When he called me back he was defensive, and rightfully so i suspect. He said "he wasn't b-ing for your information, he was just asking me stuff about the PC and saying he wanted me to fix it" and I said "That wasn't what I heard. what I was hearing was him telling you to fix his PC, and not very nicely at that. He has made the PC your problem and it's not yours, nor do you use it". I guess I need to take a breath when things are bothering me and use that time to really think about a way to put the words i'm about to use, to express what i'm needing instead of focusing on what's going on that's irritating me. I did not take offence to your msg. It just hit home, like "do i do that?" "have i said something wrong". I felt like I had really come across as a b, myself. The example you gave is a very good one...wish I had went about it a different way...but it did allow me to clearly see what you were talking about. THANK YOU :o)

Dear Fantagrl,

My sympathy and admiration go out to you; that's a tough, tough situation to be in.

You are getting so much great support and advice from everyone, well beyond what I could supply myself, that I have very little to suggest. What my own experience moves me to add, though, is that it seems to me that your BF is accustomed to encountering a LOT of emotional manipulation and drama. That leaves relatively little room/time for him to have the chance to know what he thinks and feels. Plus, for a whole complex of reasons that you're not going to be able to do much about for the time being, anyway, he is not able to say "no" with safety very much.
(At least, these are the parallels I identify between your situation and the one I'm in w/my BF.) So, he says no to you, because he can, and he would like to have a relatively calm space for a change--without being pressured to take action himself. Without squelching yourself, can you let that be enough "progress" sometimes?

Having patience, trusting in the process of healing, is an enormously challenging task. It tests my faith in lots of dimensions on a daily basis, believe me. But instead of lamenting his continued enmeshment with his FF (which must be truly painful to witness, I agree), can you celebrate how far he has come? You have acknowledged your respect for his strength. If you can continue to put out that message, that you trust him to take care of himself according to his best judgment at the time, you will be validating him and his ability to control his life much more than it seems most anyone has ever done.

None of this recovery process is a straight-line, always-forward progression. There are a lot of zig-zags, and there's no obvious end to it. Without minimizing the fact of his abuse, or denying it, you can still show a way of being able to live with it--that it is a painful and undeserved fact of life, but still only a part, not necessarily the whole story.

Meanwhile, since it is such a long haul, you have to prepare for it psychologically as though it were a marathon, not a sprint. Take pleasure in as much as you can, every day--with or without him joining you in that. Continue to speak the truth as best as you can, without belittling him or making him feel incompetent. More and more, you will probably find that he will be drawn to the different way that you model, and he will gain increasing confidence in his own capacity for growth.

This is an amazing group of people, for sure, and you will find much sustenance here. Glad you found the space!

As always, I find that "advice" I give to others is at least 50% self-directed. Try it when you have the chance--you'll find that part of the process pretty interesting and educational too!:)


Peace,
HG