The Grass Is Always Greener!?!

Dear Wise Men and Women,

I am interested in your honest feedback on my current situation.

Recently I have come to the honest realization that the "getting and protecting" behaviors in my current relationship have been taken to a toxic dynamic. I willingly lie excessively to please my partner and his insecurities drive him anger and controlling me. I cannot praise, pleasure, or create enough safety with him to satiate his ever-thirsty addiction to imitation love. When I finally "hit rock bottom" and realized that there was no real love in our relationship and tried to explain it to my partner his initial reaction, as it often is, was anger and blame. My intuition and past experience about real love has been verified by Dr. Baer since I have been reading and listening to the tapes and DVDs. In the last week, my partner has taken accountability for his unloving actions, as have I, and has sworn to discontinue them if we chose to continue on in a relationship together. One of my major concerns is that because he has never really loved before (two failed marriages), because we are both extremely addicted to these behaviors, that the road to "change" and really loving each other will be long and hard. I have never been willing to use getting and protecting behaviors to the extent that I have with him.  We have been together for about a year and he considers the relationship to be more of a marriage, he is 15yrs older than me. My only limited experience with "real love" was in my previous relationship of 4 years. When I compare my current relationship to my previous relationship I feel like there was real love. I often find myself thinking and daydreaming about the comfort of the moments of what I remember to be real love experienced by my previous boyfriend. Of course there were getting and protecting behaviors in that relationship too, but they did not seem as habitual and detrimental as my current relationship. I find myself asking why did I ever think the grass was greener?!?! I don't know if I am projecting onto my previous relationship because I am currently unhappy or if I was experiencing real love. I am unclear if I should stay in my current relationship because my partner is willing to do the work find real love, to be single for awhile because I need to learn more about real love, or eventually re-enter my previous relationship because it is the closest experience that I have had to consistent real love and I miss is dearly as I have been "starving" for awhile.

I appreciate the advice and honesty.

Namaste.
Snowrider86

Hello Snowrider. No, what you were experiencing with the previous boyfriend wasn't Real Love. I'd find that very hard to believe, because if it was Real Love, you'd still be there. My suspicion is that if you leave the current relation to go back to the previous boyfriend (if that's even possible), you'll soon remember why you left in the first place. The grass looks greener, not is greener.