After 10 Bad Relationships, Furry Is Reluctant to Trust in New Love

Dear Papabear:

I don’t exactly know how to say this, but I’m in love... and it scared the crap out of me. Let me explain:

I have a history of bad breakups (10 in all since 2009). There were only a few of them that have hurt me to the point of crying though. This last one, we had gotten together in November 2011, he seemed perfect, but slowly, I started noticing things. He would hide his phone from me when texting, he would ignore me for a week after I stayed with him for a few days. He would get jealous of my friends. Hell, he even said that if I watched porn without him, he called it cheating on him. Well, one day, he was sleeping and I snooped through his phone. I found out that I wasn’t his only boyfriend. but I was weak and kept it inside, only telling a close friend. He and I were together 6 months. then he left me, the day after my birthday (5 days after our 6 month mark) but I didn’t know until he was gone that he had left me to move in with his fiancé (he has 3, all of them in different states.) I had loaned him money that he had promised to pay back, but I know I’ll never see any of it. That leads me to my problem.

The fur that I am in love with is the very close friend that I confided this stuff to, but what scares me is my past... I don’t want what happened with my ex to happen again. Sometimes when I text the guy, I feel like I’m being annoying. I’ve thrown walls up to protect myself, but he has seemed to get past all of them and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be hurt again, so my question is, what do I do? I need an outside opinion and would gratefully appreciate yours.

Ingavar Khaos

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Dear Ingavar,

Here’s a little riddle for you. Say you take a die in your paw and you roll that die 10 times. Each time you roll it, the die bounces across the table and eventually settles down with the number 6 at the top. Ten rolls, ten 6’s. Now, you roll the die one more time. What are the chances that the number 6 will end up on top again?

The answer is 1 out of 6, or 16.7%.  Just because you got the same result 10 times before doesn’t change the odds to mean that landing a number 6 this next roll is a 100% possibility. Likewise, just because you had 10 bad experiences with boyfriends, doesn’t mean boyfriend Number 11 is going to be like the other 10.

My initial response to your query is that you are not giving your current boyfriend credit. He is not your last boyfriend, so why would you assume he is going to behave like your last boyfriend? A possible answer to this is that you always pick boyfriends with the same qualities and, therefore, they tend to act in a similar fashion.

What do you look for in a boyfriend, Ingavar? Some people are rather shallow when they seek out a mate, picking people based on their looks or their income or if they have a cool job. If you are one of those, then I could see why you have a bad record of picking mates.

On the other paw, you are hopefully a person who picks people who seem to have good qualities, such as intelligence, a sense of humor, and compassion. Then the explanation of your bad track record could just be bad luck, or that you are meeting people who are really good at faking sincerity and kindness.

But this person you are with now is someone who was there for you and who you felt good enough about to confide in. He even has navigated around the barriers and walls you set up to shield your emotions, penetrating them and being what sounds to me like a real cool guy. That sounds to Papabear like a very good start.

What do you do? Drop those barriers! You go into this relationship trusting your new mate. Assume that things will go well and that he is a good person. I know that, with your track record, it is hard to trust your instincts, but from what you have told me this new guy sounds like he has potential. This is a new roll of the die, and there is always a chance you’ll come up with that 6 again, but there is an even better chance you won’t.

If you go into this assuming that the relationship will fail and assuming that your new boyfriend is untrustworthy, then you will create what is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. After a while, your boyfriend will sense that you don’t trust him and that you think he will cheat on you (you are already risking this by the effort you made to shield yourself up until now). He will become resentful, wondering what he has done to be treated this way, which will lead to bitterness and, eventually, he will think to himself, “Well, if she doesn’t trust me anyway, I might as well cheat.”

Don’t do that. Like I said, time to start fresh, a blank slate, tabula rasa, as they say in literature class. This man is not your old boyfriend. Love him, trust him, go forth into your new relationship with joy and hope and your new love will feel that strong, positive energy coming off you like warm sunshine breaking through storm clouds, greatly increasing your chances of a happy romance.

Love is a risky thing, but it is worth taking another chance.

Hugs,

Papabear