To confess I have been in social gatherings where I have then thought if my then partner was acting stupid towards me, even if I knew he was/is not stupid. This could be about expectations. Background. I had not thought of it before, but I came from a family that had an ease to show emotional and physical tenderness.

So this one time...I remember it well til this day...he was then my boyfriend and we held hands as we were walking to meet up with some people he knew and I too (but he knew them better at the time). Soon as we got there and began to interact he let go of my hand. During the evening - I did not think about it at first, because I was just being me, I was used to sometimes holding his hand -then I felt early on as if he wanted to twirl his hand out of mine. Then, in the corner of a restaurant he told me in his strict kind of way to not hold his hand because that would make it look as if we were "showing off our happiness" and he had noticed, he said, that the other couples did not hold hands and so on.

I was hurt by it because I thought I had given something of myself to him and he had just wanted to throw it in the trash. Rejected. Made a fool of. That he even thought I was an embarrasement.

I promised him later on that he did not need to be so concerned with that because there was no chance (in hell) I would ever reach out to show any type of physical tenderness towards him if we weren't alone. Stubborn as I was I kept my promise. He apologised, still maintaned that it was only because he did not see it fit in that circumstance, that's all.

As a following sad result at any public or family gatherings I would watch him be as if he was in the company of one. He was everywhere and nowhere. He had disconnected himself from me the moment it all began. Just shut down. Because he had began this whole circus, he had been the one to disconnect from me - then I was not one to chase after him or push myself on him in any way - I reacted on it by disconnecting myself from him. I always felt alone.

If it was just the two of us or if we were just in our home he had no trouble showing physical tenderness, no trouble at all. In fact he was insisting on it, it then came very natural to him. I did not think we were different.

If I look at the two of us I always thought he was better looking than I was. When I first began dating him females I would know would make a big deal of his looks. If there were more than one fellow with the same name, even men would go "Oh you mean Mr Gorgeos", that is how they distincted him from the other one. It was not even with a touch of irony, it would be said as a matter of fact but with a touch of humor too in it, but still it being the truth.

I could not undertand why someone with his looks, his benefits with it, was not comfertable getting attention. I took it personal. Very personal. Like it had everything to do with me, his feelings for me, us - as a couple. I was too personally involved. I even once asked him if he was ashamed to be seen with me, was that why he did not hold my hand? It was really starting to get to me. It did not help that certain comments were made from his first family, by a narcissist trying to be "funny", that the message was that I was not good enough, that he was the best at everything, that I should even let him chose the internal decoration of our home. I kept it to myself and tried to march on and not let it get to me, but it was a vulnerable essence in me.

What also became odd was that females who would assume he was single would approach him when they were really too drunk to do so. (How were they to know he was with me?) I know he had mentioned that early before, that I never would have to worry about him because first of all he was not the cheating-kind, next even if someone would look they would not do anything about it and the ones that would do something about it would then be too drunk which was really the worst, he did not appreciate that and would early say he liked it that I was reserved in how much I drank.

He would say he did trust me, but over time I got comments from him that would be "Why do you have to be so nice to everyone? You're never that nice to me" (Eh- what? Not true). What clothes I should wear even if I was about the shyest person out there and did not feel comfertable showing off too much skin anyhow and usually as make up goes I just wore mascara and light shade of lipstick.

It would happen that men would make a move towards me. I use to grow up with always boys around me and was myself comfertable with boys around and saw them more as friends or brothers, and just because I did not really think I was some femme fatale I would be each time a guy made an actual move on my way to look behind me to see if it was another women he was flirting with, not me. Besides it has always been really unusual for me to find someone with the type of energy I have found with the few ones I have fallen in love with. Because I was in love with him - I did not see it from his perspective, and because I knew I would never act on it, anyhow.

As a result of it all he kind of stepped out of his bubble and said he had to do that or else he was loosing me and he did not want that. He said he had thought and he had been so wrong that time when he cornered me in the restaurant. That he still was not relaxed at social gatherings but that he understood he had failed to consider my feelings, that he had merely just "wanted it over with so we can go home", but that I had read it as if I did not matter, but really that everyone else did. They were more important. His assumption of their reaction towards us.

I have looked at pictures from his childhood. They all stand far apart. They have this poker face on some pics. I have been informed they don't treasure physical tenderness. This was his background. I had only read him from my perspective, and according to him I had read him wrong. After that he insisted on holding my hand, but I was always after that kind of numbed about it, I did not care if he held or if he didn't, the innocent feeling I had before the incident at the restaurant did not return. He shaped up about being present, and not being everywhere and nowhere. He has said he knows he sucks at having superficial conversations about nothing, that his very skin is uncomfertable in those big social gatherings, that he never meant to hurt me. That he said he felt ashamed looking back at how he has acted and he could see why I've been hurt by it. That he had thought I had always been better at it, that I didn't need him.