hey

[smq]

hi everyone. i feel really selfish after reading many of the problems that you guys have encountered. my problem seems to small compared to everyone's sufferings... but please bear with me as i really need an outlet.. i've lost my one and only source of my 'life support'.

what's wrong with me is that i just have some problems with myself and it's affecting my relationship with my boyfriend. i have a lot of self-doubts about not being good-looking enough for him. the ironic thing is i never felt bad about myself until after i met him.. somehow, that was the period (when i was 17,18) when i started to receive a lot of negative feedback about how i looked. i was stick thin, everyone said. too skinny. (i know to many of you, that hardly seems like a problem, but to me, being called skinny is a very great insult because what i want is to look womanly, to look fit and healthy.)

my boyfriend, let's just call him D. he, on the other hand, is a natural athlete. canoe, basketball, rugby. he can do all sports. and he was quite popular in school (the 'eyecandy' of a lot of girls)..i started to feel inferior to sport girls after we got together. there were so many threats. my self-esteem (unfortunately) depends on how i feel i look next to him, and how secure i feel. but he hardly understood my security needs and never gave me what i needed...which was deep care and concern.

that was a dark period in my life. after we graduated, he was to join the army and miraculously, my life turned around. he became the most caring and wonderful guy who gave me, to the best of his ability, security. my whole life depended on him. i felt like he was the only one who understood me and my fears.

my social skills are really bad. my family wouldn't understand me, the closest member is my sister but when i tried talking about my insecurities to her before, it seems like she felt i was the bad person. so i don't tell anyone my troubles anymore, the only person i can tell is my boyfriend. i have no best friends, and even around friends, i feel like i'm acting all the time. putting as many smiles on my face as possible to appear 'normal'. because my true normal self is pretty quiet and sombre.. my friends take that to be gloomy and i don't want that to happen.

for those who managed to read until here, you're probably wondering what the hell is wrong with me now. well, i just felt that recently D hasn't been registering my words or showing that he cares for or misses me. and i cannot afford to lose this guy who has been my life support over the past 2 years. D started work 2 weeks ago and his boss is horrible; makes them do overtime for no reason and no extra pay. he asked me to be understanding about how he can message me less during work.. and that i can do, but when he's at home after work, he doesn't seem to register that i'm waiting for his messages as well.

i'm not so spoilt that i get upset over just some lack of messages. i just feel that he doesn't miss me anymore. we used to be very close and our lives depended on each other. but after he started work, he hardly expressed  that he misses me, and even when he does, he only does it after i do. i'm starting to doubt him and when i bring it up to him, he reacts like i'm being insensitive to how busy he is at work ):

i'm sorry. typing things out like this makes me sound like a spoilt possessive brat. but our relationship was a lot deeper than just superficial concern for each other. we were each others' lives, we already planned to get married in future and spent a lot of time talking about our future (i'm 20 now). i need to know that he cares about me and is willing to address my needs. i need to feel that he truly is interested in my life beyond superficial questions like 'what are you doing now?' and 'how is work?' i need him to talk to me about my work in a genuinely interested way. i need him to understand why im upset.

nobody else understands me. i don't tell this to anyone because i'm so ashamed. is there something wrong with me? am i placing too much expectation on him? but he has met them before. i can't really concentrate on my work anymore, i don't want to go back to the past years (when we were in school), when i suffered silently for my insecurities.

[Ezel]

 (*( and I feel awful for missing this post.  Have things improved since you posted this?

It does seem that you suffer with low self esteem but there could be other things that are worrying about.  How you're feeling is very real and you deserve support to help you through these feelings.

Pip

[junior]

Hi, Your post brought back alot of memories, a loved one felt the same as you she thought she was skinny, ugly and not worth loving, I should have showed her more emotion and I didnt because I was working very long days and could only think about paying the debts, the only time we really talked was when I said what was wrong with me, I know it sounds hard but ask about d see how he is try not to mention yourself, show him how much you care. I wish I had done that myself because if I did I wouldnt be in the same situation im in today. I hope things start to get better for you.
Junior

[smq]

hey Ezel and junior,

thanks for replying. things have certainly improved over the recent months... it was mostly after he started to get sick of his work and needed me to be around more when i started to feel that i was important to him as well. we talked about it a lot of times, and he agreed that even though he was busy at work, it doesn't hurt to let me know that he misses me now and then.

i guess it's because he's the type of person who really immerses himself in his commitments and he feels stressed handling so many things at once so he tends to withdraw from me. whereas if i were stressed at work, i'll turn to him as a source of support. it's the different ways we handle our stress.

junior, i'm glad to say that our relationship is currently doing ok, with both of us compromising and trying to understand the needs of the other person. he has just started school in my university and i frequently ask him how is his work/training/family issues etc. vice versa for him as well. i mean there are times when we both flare up at each other because we're both stressed but we always settle it at the end and i'm very thankful that we can do that (instead of harbouring bitter emotions in the past). i'm sorry to hear of your situation. what happened in the end? i find that communication in a relationship is very important. once one party starts to feel scared of or doesn't feel like talking to the other, things will build up and become very bad in the end.

thanks for replying to my post even though it was such a minor issue compared to what everyone else is going through here. i really don't deserve it but thanks for showing support even though you guys are having difficulties yourself. i really appreciate your selflessness and i'm humbled by it.

smq

[junior]

Hi smq, its good to hear your relationship is going well.
I still love louise so I would always listen to her it was just the past year I had my mind fixed on moving somewhere better for our family, so I would take any work that was going to make enough money for us to do that, but in doing that we didnt see each other and when we did I was tired and stressed, I didnt think how she must have been feeling, we still talk not like we used to but we talk, I still love her but she doesnt feel the same.
Junior

[Ezel]

I'm glad your life has improved and it does help to read posts like yours.  Both my husband and I suffer with depression with can lead to our home being tense to say the least at times.  It's very rare for us to both be depressed at the same time but when we are we don't talk or we end up shouting for days on end.  We're getting better for taking deep breathes and listening to each other though.