Expert: Azure - 6/16/2006

Question
I am in dire need of help.  I am a very strong person but lately I am so down.  I have only been in one serious relationship.  We have been together since we were 17.  We split up after 7 years-when I was 24, because I just knew I was miserable.  He was a very shy, nice person who lived two streets over from me growing up.  He was not in my circle of friends, but I always knew of him.  I was on top of the world in my life but then at 16 depression hit me.  Then, when I was 17, i decided maybe to date.  He kept asking me.  I knew I wasnt healthy enough for a relationship, but I did it anyway because I did like him, and didnt want  to lose him.  Of course, it was not healthy.  I was down alot, not able to show much love.  You know, the characteristics of a person in sever depression.  Then my father died when I was 19.  We were engaged 6 months later.  He started getting posessive.  He hated my friends.  He hated my family especially the guys in it.  Cousins.  He was always jealous of me and didnt like me having any kind of attention.  it always had to be on him.  He always felt like a nerd and he was a little guy.  He had a big heart though.  His father was abusive to his family.  I think it was learned behaviour.  The whole family was pretty abusive to me.  He started doing steroids and breaking things.  Bad temper, and he told me it was because I always made him feel like a piece of crap in the beginning because I never acted like I loved him in school or anything.  He said I acted ashamed of him.  I never held his hand or showed him attention.  Alot of that is true, but I was going thru so much abuse and trauma at home. I was dying.  So, for years I blamed the bad relationship on me.  Saying it wasnt healthy and I made him that way and he was not confident because I never made him feel like he was like because I didnt even like myself.  I fell in love with him of course being th kind of person I am and him being the only person I was ever intamite with.  I love music, and he would get so jealous and never let me do it.  I was isolated from everything and I knew it was wrong, but I blamed myself for the unhealthiness.  For years I was a perfect girlfriend to try to make up for what I couldnt do in the beginning.  It got me 92 pounds and all of my things destroyed.  I left him, started my music, I go to Nashville and sing alot, I am in a band.  I sing in Myrtle Beach and record demos.  I have come very far.  I always questioned should I have left-just at first, because I missed him so much, and also, a year after I left he got engaged.  that hurt me.  He was with her for 4 years, married her for 1 year, she left her and said it was because he still loved me.  He was in counseling for 4 years and his counselor assured him that he drove me away, he was abusive, and that he would nevr be complete unless he found me again.  He has gotten divorced, he admitted to me that he punched his wife in the nose and bloodied it because she came after him crazy and he couldnt stop her.  HWe ran into each other, talked a little, and he sees how much I have changed.  I know now thatit was not me who made him that way.  He tried saying it again and I am very stern now.  He says he loves my attitude now.  I am very on edge and feel like I would kill someone if they tried to tell me what to do or blame me.  He has changed in the conversations I have had with him.  He tells me k=how he learned about his father and what he did to him and how his father made him the way he was.  He goes out alot now instead of hiding away.  Get this, he is good friends with alot of my friends.  He is understanding and when I go off, he and I discuss it and talk about it.  i can see where the counseling has changed him.  My first instinct was, no way.  Never again.  Then, I kind of got used to him.  i wasnt intimate for 5 years, and we were intimate again.  I started getting used to him again.  I got angry at myself.  My family was mad that I had spoken to him again and I was constantly lying about where I was going.  I told him cold turkey one day, I can't see him.  I am not ready.  I didnt want  to get used to a bad situation again.  He started yelling at me for not having enough time for him.  He said I thought you would be done all this music crap by now.  I founf that my life was changing and not mine anymore again.  I did not like that feeling at all.  I miss him terribly, but I am so afraid he is going to be abusive again, and also, I don;t know if he deserves another chance.  I have never thought about marriage or babies with anyone else.  I know we are connected, but I dont want it to be for the wrong reasons.  I just want  to do whats right, and I dont trust my heart.  He said when are you going to give me another chance?  Am I blowing what could be my future or am I doing the right thing.  I am sick over this.  I think i fell in love with him again.  He just has hurt me so bad.  What should I do?

Answer
your decision, but his saying "thought you'd be done with this music crap" isn't a positive sign; i doubt he's sufficently changed to where a healthy relationship is plausible; you've almost rid yourself of this addiction--do you really want to risk all the progress made??..my advice would be to continue with the music, meet/date others--offer him a casual friendship; it would at least give you an opportunity to see if he actually has developed the qualities of support, understanding, objectivity, etc; but don't count on him accepting, nor exhibiting these changes, as i think this leopard is destined to remain spotted..