I have a friend who's always giving me backhanded insults. The only way I've been able to deal with it is to dish it back to him. He doesn't seem to care either way - nothing I say appears to bother him (huuuuge ego) - but it's really bothering me. I find myself fuming afterwards at the hurtful and jerky things he's said. He's even dissed my dog, and my husband's cooking! Jeez. But look what I've done now - you probably think I just hate the guy. You're probably wondering why we're even friends. Well, we hang out a lot, and most of the time it's tolerable. In fact, most of the time he's pretty fun to be with and makes me laugh. Should I just chill? Am I over-reacting? Should I throw my mid-morning oatmeal and raisins at him next time he bothers me?
How many of my answers have opened with the word 'ugh'? I'm not sure, but here's another one: ugh.
That type of behaviour can be hurtful, rage inducing, but also annoying, and, dare I say it? Yes. Embarrassing. My 'ugh' is the ugh uttered when you see a serious misstep committed in earnest cluelessness. Don't waste your breakfast: I suspect your friend snarks just because he doesn't know what else to do. He may even act this way because he's afraid you won't like him if he doesn't.
Some of us don't realize that it actually doesn't take a lot of cleverness to make fun of people; it is, in fact, easier than being kind, especially if you are particularly afraid of rejection. It doesn't require you to go out on a limb, like sincere expressions of admiration can. It's a classic mode of manipulation by the insecure: if you're afraid of being rejected by people, you can try to create a situation where they feel in danger of being rejected by you, and, as a result, they come to believe that they like and admire you. Your comment on his 'huuuuge ego' fits in with this profile nicely.
Whether this is true of him or not, he's let his friendship with you fall into an unimaginative rut. We've all fallen into bad ruts with friends before, right? Maybe every time you get together with someone in particular you tend to gossip, or eat too much, or get drunk and yell things, or have long and deliciously affected discussions on politics or sex, or, hey, insult each other. Kind of bad things, but nice things to be able to indulge in with someone you like and respect every now and then, right? Sooner or later, though, maybe it just feels like what you do with that person, and maybe you don't really know how to feel comfortable enough to start doing anything else with them, especially if you didn't know each other all that well before you got into your routine, and you just keep following the formula you believe your friendship runs on.
Or maybe you're O.K. with changing things up in the friendship, and it's the other party who doesn't really know what to do, and maybe you end up feeling gross after a glut of the same old indulgent behaviour, and you come to associate the feeling with the other person, and you begin to think: 'this person is a problem in my life.'
Anyway, that would explain why it doesn't bother him when you come back at him with another insult -- it could be just what he expects, and even wants?
What do you do? This may sound a little parent-child, but show him the right way to act. Compliment him? Do nice things for him for no reason, if you don't already? And, don't be afraid to get visibly annoyed with him when he's being... visibly annoying. How do you, personally, act when somebody has just embarrassed themselves and doesn't yet realize it, and you are torn between wanting to smack them, and wanting to throw a blanket around them and protect them from humiliation? Act that way. Break the pattern, and show him that your friendship is not a one-trick pony; a sarcastic, dead-pan, potentially self-loathing, one-trick pony.
Anyone else? Thoughts? Comments? I'm wide open.
Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Lies, lies, lies ye-ah.
hi
this is a little unorthodox but I could use your advice. it's difficult to explain this but I've had this close friend for a few years and found out a few months back, through a few unlikely conversations and events, that he would fabricate stories about his love life. and not just stories, but full blown lies, all of them about sex that never happened.
I did eventually bring this up, but he kind of failed to explain why it was necessary to lie to me, because I don't care. also, my friend also rushes to me with any romantic developments in his love life, and naturally I always role my eyes a bit.
I'm not at all sure what to do or say, or even what my own feelings are, exactly.
Sometimes we rationalize the dickly things we do and say with rules we make up for use in the confines of our own brain. Liars (and many gossips) can use this one: “If it is something that is possible or believable, I can say it.” And, if such a lie has the potential to be very successful, because the liar comes to feel more and more that the lie will never be found out, it becomes a part of the reality the liar tends construct for himself or herself.
This is why at least some liars lie: they have misunderstood the concept of reality (think... the whole Law of Attraction thing, then get it hooked on heroin). They come to place a lot of importance on what is believed by others, as opposed to what is actually true. They may not feel attractive unless someone is telling them they look OK. They might not feel like they're having fun until somebody tells them they look like they're having fun. Perception becomes an interesting idea to them, and then they come to be able to feel like they are rich, for example, even though they're poor, if they can feel like they're convincing someone else that they are rich.
You say you don't see why it was necessary for him to lie to you, and that you don't care. The thing is, his lies were likely most for his benefit. If you could believe them, then he could believe them too.
So, your friend is a liar, and that must make it hard for you to respect or trust him. But consider this:
Just because he lies about a certain area of his life doesn't mean he lies about everything. It doesn't sound like he's selling you up the river or ripping you off or anything. It's not OK to lie, but you're likely not in any danger of suffering for your friendship with this person.
As it turns out, there are few people on earth that can shoulder the burden of being perfect for others. Our Dads cease looking superhuman to us sooner or later. All girlfriends have the potential turn into wives or live-in partners who wipe their makeup off and fart and eat all the cereal in one day, and/or mothers who destroy their breasts feeding children and let anger and annoyance mark their faces as the years go on. Just because you've caught your friend looking weird and pathetic is no reason to jettison him from your life, simply because most people will disappoint you.
I am not telling you to disregard this, or that you're a bad friend if you don't want to tolerate this sort of thing. While it's true that most people will disappoint you, it's also true that we're just not meant to be madly in love some people. While I'm reluctant to paint your friend as a dangerous sociopath, the impulse to 'role' your eyes is bang on. And hey, maybe he needs somebody to roll their eyes at him.
And so I say, return any bullshit you feel you're getting from him with honesty. If he gets mad and alienated, just think that you've done him a huge favour by not indulging him, and that you probably won't have to listen to his lying ass as often anymore.
And now this song is in my head.
this is a little unorthodox but I could use your advice. it's difficult to explain this but I've had this close friend for a few years and found out a few months back, through a few unlikely conversations and events, that he would fabricate stories about his love life. and not just stories, but full blown lies, all of them about sex that never happened.
I did eventually bring this up, but he kind of failed to explain why it was necessary to lie to me, because I don't care. also, my friend also rushes to me with any romantic developments in his love life, and naturally I always role my eyes a bit.
I'm not at all sure what to do or say, or even what my own feelings are, exactly.
Sometimes we rationalize the dickly things we do and say with rules we make up for use in the confines of our own brain. Liars (and many gossips) can use this one: “If it is something that is possible or believable, I can say it.” And, if such a lie has the potential to be very successful, because the liar comes to feel more and more that the lie will never be found out, it becomes a part of the reality the liar tends construct for himself or herself.
This is why at least some liars lie: they have misunderstood the concept of reality (think... the whole Law of Attraction thing, then get it hooked on heroin). They come to place a lot of importance on what is believed by others, as opposed to what is actually true. They may not feel attractive unless someone is telling them they look OK. They might not feel like they're having fun until somebody tells them they look like they're having fun. Perception becomes an interesting idea to them, and then they come to be able to feel like they are rich, for example, even though they're poor, if they can feel like they're convincing someone else that they are rich.
You say you don't see why it was necessary for him to lie to you, and that you don't care. The thing is, his lies were likely most for his benefit. If you could believe them, then he could believe them too.
So, your friend is a liar, and that must make it hard for you to respect or trust him. But consider this:
Just because he lies about a certain area of his life doesn't mean he lies about everything. It doesn't sound like he's selling you up the river or ripping you off or anything. It's not OK to lie, but you're likely not in any danger of suffering for your friendship with this person.
As it turns out, there are few people on earth that can shoulder the burden of being perfect for others. Our Dads cease looking superhuman to us sooner or later. All girlfriends have the potential turn into wives or live-in partners who wipe their makeup off and fart and eat all the cereal in one day, and/or mothers who destroy their breasts feeding children and let anger and annoyance mark their faces as the years go on. Just because you've caught your friend looking weird and pathetic is no reason to jettison him from your life, simply because most people will disappoint you.
I am not telling you to disregard this, or that you're a bad friend if you don't want to tolerate this sort of thing. While it's true that most people will disappoint you, it's also true that we're just not meant to be madly in love some people. While I'm reluctant to paint your friend as a dangerous sociopath, the impulse to 'role' your eyes is bang on. And hey, maybe he needs somebody to roll their eyes at him.
And so I say, return any bullshit you feel you're getting from him with honesty. If he gets mad and alienated, just think that you've done him a huge favour by not indulging him, and that you probably won't have to listen to his lying ass as often anymore.
And now this song is in my head.
Friday, March 6, 2009
More sucker punches than butterfly kisses
I’m a 30-year-old woman with a good job and a fiancé. I haven’t lived with my parents since I was 19 years old, and for good reason, because they drove me crazy, especially my father.
My father seemed to lose interest in me when I was around 12. He did not make any effort to spend time with me. He would not come to any of my sports games. My grandmother had to drag him to my high school graduation. At the time I got the impression that he was afraid that I would embarrass him, so you can imagine how I came to feel about myself.
If I ever tried to talk to him about something that interested me, it would turn into an argument for some reason. He couldn’t just talk to me, he had to treat every exchange between us as a time to show me how dumb I was. He is so arrogant and so sure of himself, and this is not a teenage brat talking: he is so ignorant about some things that it makes my head spin.
He has always found my boyfriends more interesting than me. He is friendlier, warmer and more affectionate with me now that I am about to be married. It’s as if I was not worth anything to him until another man endorsed me.
I never see my Dad, and I don’t think we’ll have another unpleasant interaction as long as it stays this way, but 20 years since the last time he said an unkind thing to me, I will still cry myself to sleep at night sometimes. The sheer anger I feel towards my father is overwhelming. I don’t know how to attack the situation after so many years. How do I bring this up to him?
Talking is important. I am all about talking, and a lot of what can be elements of a good talk: Dissecting, analyzing, explaining, listening, learning, excited nodding, high-fives. It’s probably my favourite thing of all time… when it goes well.
I bet (because this platform affords me the luxury of a good crapshoot every now and then) you wish you could just let loose on your Dad and release those two decades of hurt and anger and have him feel good and sorry and for everything to be fine for you after that.
Unfortunately, you may not get very far. He could just walk away from you or refuse to listen. He could say that you’re wrong and honestly believe it himself – you’d be surprised at how good some people are at that sort of thing, especially the ones we tend to call ‘arrogant’.
And then there’s the potential fallout: your Dad failing understand how much he’s hurt you in your life after you’ve made such an effort to express it can make your hurt that much burn-y. Also, twenty years is a long time to think and believe and feel a certain way about a situation. The anger would likely not go away overnight, and you telling your father where to get off would likely not be the end of it, even if you did manage to get through to him. You do not make yourself feel better just by making somebody else feel bad.
(And, as far as getting very emotional, because talks of this nature tend to go that route: Yelling or even just taking an excessively angry tone with anybody is pretty immature, but it looks especially bad and is even more ineffective when exacted on a parent, because it places you in roles that you don’t belong in anymore.)
When dealing with family and friends-like-family, being happy is more important than being ‘right,’ – in this case, insisting on bearing grudges and holding onto hurts. Also in this case, part of being happy can be finding it in yourself to be good to your loved ones over sore spots and points of contention and give them the benefit of the doubt: to believe that at least their intentions, where you were concerned, were good.
When you’re dealing with someone you love – because I am going there, yes, I am assuming that you love your Dad, because if you didn’t love him, you would not hurt so much – and you want to come to an actual solution, sometimes you have to be open to the possibility that the other person is innocent to some degree, because that is part of respecting and thinking highly of them.
I don’t know your situation completely. I’m not prepared to tell you that your father has a point because I don’t know what his would be, and I actually can’t imagine what it could be, because you do a pretty good job of painting him as a big fat jerk. But from what you’ve written here I can tell you are definitely not in a position to be open-minded about this. You can’t make people come around to your way of thinking and believing and feeling in every situation, and in this situation, where you are so very embittered, chances are slim of things going well.
He was a bad father and he should probably be called on it. I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong to believe that, because from here that looks to be about right. Maybe that’s a reason for you to be miserable, but it’s not an excuse. The actions of others can make us feel sad, but we make ourselves unhappy. I think before you even think of trying to bring this to your Dad, you need to turn your sights inwards and determine how much of your misery is created and maintained by you. For the sake of your future relationship and for your own good, wait until you can speak to him with some humility about it. Congratulations on your engagement! Sort this out before you have kids.
My father seemed to lose interest in me when I was around 12. He did not make any effort to spend time with me. He would not come to any of my sports games. My grandmother had to drag him to my high school graduation. At the time I got the impression that he was afraid that I would embarrass him, so you can imagine how I came to feel about myself.
If I ever tried to talk to him about something that interested me, it would turn into an argument for some reason. He couldn’t just talk to me, he had to treat every exchange between us as a time to show me how dumb I was. He is so arrogant and so sure of himself, and this is not a teenage brat talking: he is so ignorant about some things that it makes my head spin.
He has always found my boyfriends more interesting than me. He is friendlier, warmer and more affectionate with me now that I am about to be married. It’s as if I was not worth anything to him until another man endorsed me.
I never see my Dad, and I don’t think we’ll have another unpleasant interaction as long as it stays this way, but 20 years since the last time he said an unkind thing to me, I will still cry myself to sleep at night sometimes. The sheer anger I feel towards my father is overwhelming. I don’t know how to attack the situation after so many years. How do I bring this up to him?
Talking is important. I am all about talking, and a lot of what can be elements of a good talk: Dissecting, analyzing, explaining, listening, learning, excited nodding, high-fives. It’s probably my favourite thing of all time… when it goes well.
I bet (because this platform affords me the luxury of a good crapshoot every now and then) you wish you could just let loose on your Dad and release those two decades of hurt and anger and have him feel good and sorry and for everything to be fine for you after that.
Unfortunately, you may not get very far. He could just walk away from you or refuse to listen. He could say that you’re wrong and honestly believe it himself – you’d be surprised at how good some people are at that sort of thing, especially the ones we tend to call ‘arrogant’.
And then there’s the potential fallout: your Dad failing understand how much he’s hurt you in your life after you’ve made such an effort to express it can make your hurt that much burn-y. Also, twenty years is a long time to think and believe and feel a certain way about a situation. The anger would likely not go away overnight, and you telling your father where to get off would likely not be the end of it, even if you did manage to get through to him. You do not make yourself feel better just by making somebody else feel bad.
(And, as far as getting very emotional, because talks of this nature tend to go that route: Yelling or even just taking an excessively angry tone with anybody is pretty immature, but it looks especially bad and is even more ineffective when exacted on a parent, because it places you in roles that you don’t belong in anymore.)
When dealing with family and friends-like-family, being happy is more important than being ‘right,’ – in this case, insisting on bearing grudges and holding onto hurts. Also in this case, part of being happy can be finding it in yourself to be good to your loved ones over sore spots and points of contention and give them the benefit of the doubt: to believe that at least their intentions, where you were concerned, were good.
When you’re dealing with someone you love – because I am going there, yes, I am assuming that you love your Dad, because if you didn’t love him, you would not hurt so much – and you want to come to an actual solution, sometimes you have to be open to the possibility that the other person is innocent to some degree, because that is part of respecting and thinking highly of them.
I don’t know your situation completely. I’m not prepared to tell you that your father has a point because I don’t know what his would be, and I actually can’t imagine what it could be, because you do a pretty good job of painting him as a big fat jerk. But from what you’ve written here I can tell you are definitely not in a position to be open-minded about this. You can’t make people come around to your way of thinking and believing and feeling in every situation, and in this situation, where you are so very embittered, chances are slim of things going well.
He was a bad father and he should probably be called on it. I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong to believe that, because from here that looks to be about right. Maybe that’s a reason for you to be miserable, but it’s not an excuse. The actions of others can make us feel sad, but we make ourselves unhappy. I think before you even think of trying to bring this to your Dad, you need to turn your sights inwards and determine how much of your misery is created and maintained by you. For the sake of your future relationship and for your own good, wait until you can speak to him with some humility about it. Congratulations on your engagement! Sort this out before you have kids.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Happy, uh, Valentine's Day... I'm sorry
I am dating someone who I really care about. We have our issues as any couple does, but we are really determined to discuss them and to work towards solutions. We both aim to be as honest with each other as possible and are usually successful at that. There is something however that I have not been able to effectively express to him, and it is causing me quite a bit of emotional turmoil.
In the past, my boyfriend has had a bad habit of essentially acting almost ambivilant to my feelings. He would act surprised if I was upset when he broke longstanding plans at the last second. If I dared to complain, he would accuse me of being selfish. Now, I have been upfront with him about how both those actions made me feel, and though some soul-baring conversations, I think we have addressed the underlying issues related to his behaviour in those situations (and mine, as well).
Here is the current issue, though. Basically, I cannot shake the feeling that he is always going to let me down like that, even when he hasn't in quite a long time. If we are meeting up for coffee, and he is a few minutes late, I become convinced that he isn't coming. If he invites me to dinner, until I'm sitting across from him at the table, I am always sure that he will break the date. Valentines Day is coming up, and I'm not at all excited at the prospect of a romantic (cliched, I am aware) night, because I don't think that it will happen. I don't know how to be honest with him about these feelings, because how can you tell someone that you are pretty sure they are going to act like a dick even if they don't deserve it? History does tend to repeat itself, but I want to trust him enough that in this case it won't. I don't know how I can do that though.
It’s really funny how we can come to regard our partner as our worst enemy. We are most vulnerable to them, both because they have a certain access to our lives, and because they are our loved ones and we care so much about what they think and how they feel about us.
When the time comes for him to do something -- or a series of things -- hugely hurtful to you, this emotional power he has over you becomes apparent, and it starts to hang over your relationship like a big awful ugly… hanging… thing… and it can lead you to close yourself off and guard against hurt more and more, effectively reducing your emotional investment in the relationship until it dries up and blows away, completely bloodless.
You know that’s kind of what risks happening here, right? Besides feeling quite miserable yourself, you’re damaging your relationship by expecting the worst, and you stand to hurt it even more if you give him the impression that the strides he’s made don’t matter because you’re still not happy.
You want to know how to express this feeling to him? Here's a very unpopular stance for an advice blogger to take, what with all the honesty and openness rhetoric to be absorbed out there: you should actually button it. I think if you want to continue to see this person romantically, this feeling you have, about how you’re scared he’s going to let you down again, is not worth feeling, and therefore not worth discussing with him.
‘You are such a bitch,' some shocked person is saying out there. 'They are her feelings. How can she help what she feels?'
Well, not easily, but you know what? Anybody can feel a feeling. Just because you feel something doesn’t mean there’s anything very special or inherently right about it. She tells her boyfriend that she’s still waiting for him to let her down. Great. What does he do with that? What does he say to that?
“O.K. lovernut, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing but with this big old useless bad feeling you just gave me to make everything harder! Way to spread the pessimism you’re feeling to me! Hope it made you feel better! See you at dinner! NOT THAT YOU'RE EXPECTING ME TO MAKE IT. THANKS FOR HAVING NO FAITH IN ME.”
Back to you: as you have written here yourself, despite this unpleasant apprehension you feel saddled with, there is currently nothing for you to correct about his behaviour that has not already been corrected. If he's doing alright so far, it doesn’t help him to hear what you’ve already said, it may just hurt him and discourage him, and you don’t have any guarantee that if you tell him what you’re thinking it’ll even help you all that much. Really: Just don’t, O.K.? Not unless a) he actually screws up again and he needs another reminder of how this makes you feel, or b) you're ready to dump him. It sounds like he's doing his best so far, and that you're not planning to dump him, so it's on you now.
How do you shake the feeling? Consider this:
If he does manage to disappoint you someday down the road (and I see that you know that there is a chance he will. Lots of people want to say that life is short but from where I sit, it’s pretty long actually, and there’s no limit to the shit that can go down in this span of time), it actually will not kill you to be disappointed again. That’s life, and that's what forgiveness is for, and if he's worth anything he will not abuse the forgiveness principle.
And that's another thing: Have you forgiven him for what happened before? Do you know what it means to truly forgive? It isn't a matter of just deciding to not exact revenge on him for disservices rendered. It's deciding that his intentions are the best, and trusting that he wants to do what he says he will, and having faith that he will do what he says he will. You should not be with someone you can’t forgive.
I understand that it’s not your fault he hurt you in the first place, and you’re justified in feeling a little bit guarded after the shit time you’ve had with him in the past, but do you want to be justified, or do you want things to work out with him? If you don’t have faith in him, you don’t have much of a relationship. If you cannot let his past behaviour go and trust in his good intentions, if you cannot tolerate any more screw-ups in the future, things may be ruined between you, and you might as well go your separate ways.
Maybe that'll motivate you.
In the past, my boyfriend has had a bad habit of essentially acting almost ambivilant to my feelings. He would act surprised if I was upset when he broke longstanding plans at the last second. If I dared to complain, he would accuse me of being selfish. Now, I have been upfront with him about how both those actions made me feel, and though some soul-baring conversations, I think we have addressed the underlying issues related to his behaviour in those situations (and mine, as well).
Here is the current issue, though. Basically, I cannot shake the feeling that he is always going to let me down like that, even when he hasn't in quite a long time. If we are meeting up for coffee, and he is a few minutes late, I become convinced that he isn't coming. If he invites me to dinner, until I'm sitting across from him at the table, I am always sure that he will break the date. Valentines Day is coming up, and I'm not at all excited at the prospect of a romantic (cliched, I am aware) night, because I don't think that it will happen. I don't know how to be honest with him about these feelings, because how can you tell someone that you are pretty sure they are going to act like a dick even if they don't deserve it? History does tend to repeat itself, but I want to trust him enough that in this case it won't. I don't know how I can do that though.
It’s really funny how we can come to regard our partner as our worst enemy. We are most vulnerable to them, both because they have a certain access to our lives, and because they are our loved ones and we care so much about what they think and how they feel about us.
When the time comes for him to do something -- or a series of things -- hugely hurtful to you, this emotional power he has over you becomes apparent, and it starts to hang over your relationship like a big awful ugly… hanging… thing… and it can lead you to close yourself off and guard against hurt more and more, effectively reducing your emotional investment in the relationship until it dries up and blows away, completely bloodless.
You know that’s kind of what risks happening here, right? Besides feeling quite miserable yourself, you’re damaging your relationship by expecting the worst, and you stand to hurt it even more if you give him the impression that the strides he’s made don’t matter because you’re still not happy.
You want to know how to express this feeling to him? Here's a very unpopular stance for an advice blogger to take, what with all the honesty and openness rhetoric to be absorbed out there: you should actually button it. I think if you want to continue to see this person romantically, this feeling you have, about how you’re scared he’s going to let you down again, is not worth feeling, and therefore not worth discussing with him.
‘You are such a bitch,' some shocked person is saying out there. 'They are her feelings. How can she help what she feels?'
Well, not easily, but you know what? Anybody can feel a feeling. Just because you feel something doesn’t mean there’s anything very special or inherently right about it. She tells her boyfriend that she’s still waiting for him to let her down. Great. What does he do with that? What does he say to that?
“O.K. lovernut, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing but with this big old useless bad feeling you just gave me to make everything harder! Way to spread the pessimism you’re feeling to me! Hope it made you feel better! See you at dinner! NOT THAT YOU'RE EXPECTING ME TO MAKE IT. THANKS FOR HAVING NO FAITH IN ME.”
Back to you: as you have written here yourself, despite this unpleasant apprehension you feel saddled with, there is currently nothing for you to correct about his behaviour that has not already been corrected. If he's doing alright so far, it doesn’t help him to hear what you’ve already said, it may just hurt him and discourage him, and you don’t have any guarantee that if you tell him what you’re thinking it’ll even help you all that much. Really: Just don’t, O.K.? Not unless a) he actually screws up again and he needs another reminder of how this makes you feel, or b) you're ready to dump him. It sounds like he's doing his best so far, and that you're not planning to dump him, so it's on you now.
How do you shake the feeling? Consider this:
If he does manage to disappoint you someday down the road (and I see that you know that there is a chance he will. Lots of people want to say that life is short but from where I sit, it’s pretty long actually, and there’s no limit to the shit that can go down in this span of time), it actually will not kill you to be disappointed again. That’s life, and that's what forgiveness is for, and if he's worth anything he will not abuse the forgiveness principle.
And that's another thing: Have you forgiven him for what happened before? Do you know what it means to truly forgive? It isn't a matter of just deciding to not exact revenge on him for disservices rendered. It's deciding that his intentions are the best, and trusting that he wants to do what he says he will, and having faith that he will do what he says he will. You should not be with someone you can’t forgive.
I understand that it’s not your fault he hurt you in the first place, and you’re justified in feeling a little bit guarded after the shit time you’ve had with him in the past, but do you want to be justified, or do you want things to work out with him? If you don’t have faith in him, you don’t have much of a relationship. If you cannot let his past behaviour go and trust in his good intentions, if you cannot tolerate any more screw-ups in the future, things may be ruined between you, and you might as well go your separate ways.
Maybe that'll motivate you.
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