When the memory comes back, my boyfriend reassures me again. He says he never really liked her. He regrets how he behaved, and he would take it back if he could. I want to believe him. Then, after bringing up the same hurt, I feel guilty for needing the same answer.
I'm 23, he's 22, and we've been together for years. Before we became a couple, he was pursuing me while telling our mutual friends that he liked another girl. He joked about it and encouraged people to picture the two of them together. While I was trying to understand what was happening between us, he was giving our friends a different romance to root for.
His explanation is that he was shy. We were friends, and he thought our friendship looked strictly platonic. Letting everyone see that he liked me would have felt awkward. According to him, the interest in her wasn't real. It was easier to seem interested in someone else than to be open about wanting me.
I understand the explanation. What stays with me is the comparison it set off. I thought she was prettier and slimmer than I was. That was how I saw her, and it made being the girl he wasn't publicly choosing feel worse. His embarrassment about showing interest in me landed as something much more personal: was there something about me he didn't want other people to see him wanting?
Since we became official, he has been a wonderful boyfriend. He treats me well and tells me he loves me. When I bring up the beginning, he is patient. There is real kindness in the relationship we have now, which makes it harder to explain why I can still feel so hurt about how it started.
Roughly once a month, the memory returns and I get upset. I raise it again, he reassures me, and afterward I feel ashamed. I can see what this asks of him: another conversation about something he has already apologized for and cannot change. But knowing that doesn't make the hurt disappear. It adds another feeling to the argument, because now I'm upset about the past and guilty about bringing it into the present.
The hardest part to admit is that sometimes I wish I hadn't said yes to him. I still love him. I also worry that nobody will ever love me as much as he does. That thought makes even my doubts feel risky. I can't tell how much of wanting to stay comes from loving him and how much comes from being afraid that this is the most love I'll ever get.
I don't want to keep making him answer for the same beginning. I don't want to keep quiet just because he's been good to me since. For now, he is still telling me that he wanted me all along, and I am still trying to feel it when I remember what he told everyone else.
