I’m having a hard time trusting my boyfriend after we got through a rough patch.

(sorry, super long.)

I, 26F, have been dating my boyfriend(let’s call him Albert), 26M, for a year now. We met on tinder while he was on vacation in my home state – we did not expect to hit it off at all. We both have a child from previous relationships, and since he didn’t live near me, the last thing we expected was to feel the way that we did, but we did. We’ve been doing long distance, but we see each other every 2-3 weeks so it hasn’t be too hard. He comes to my state and will bring his son 70% of the time, and I’ll go to his state and take my son with me as well.

My son has autism so it’s very important for me to be with somebody who can provide a safe space for him to have his emotions. He is fully verbal, attends general education schooling, but of course there will be certain behaviors and things we need to work on. Of course I never allow my son to be hurtful or destructive, but there will be times where he has an outburst, in which I remove us from the situation until we can be calm and practice healthy coping strategies. The problem started when he started saying that he didn’t know if he could handle having a special needs child, or that he was worried that my son’s (he’s 6) behaviors would “rub off” on his son(who is 4).

I tried to be understanding, but I was starting to feel stressed and uncomfortable because my son and I deserve a space to work through big feelings without being judged. We went back and forth for a while, and I started to realize that he was overly protective of his son because he carries a tremendous amount of guilt. He felt guilty that his son had to deal with the pain of having a split household, and in turn, never wanted his son to feel any sort of discomfort or pain. It wasn’t something that only I felt, I saw it in every aspect of the way he parented his child. He bought him everything he wanted, let him do whatever, and would shield him from everything. Albert’s son was extremely spoiled, and I just couldn’t stand by because I don’t want my son to eventually notice that he is treated differently.

Let me explain what I mean by “differently”. when the boys are together, my boyfriend treats them equally. He gives them both hugs, gives them both attention, and is fair when little squabbles come up – I do the same. But I noticed that when my boyfriend would come visit on his own WITHOUT his son, he wouldn’t try as hard to connect with my son. Mind you, I do my best to show his son affection when I am visiting HIM alone. when I confronted him about this, he admitted that he felt guilty showing another child affection when his son was two states away. That’s valid – I do feel guilt too when I am away for a few days, but my son should not have to feel that distance from him.

So, I told him we needed a break. I told him that I couldn’t live without the doubt or the uncertainty anymore, that he needed to decide whether or not he was all in. I said that he needed to figure out how to deal with this guilt, and that we needed a space where my son can be himself. Where he can learn how to cope with no judgment, and that I refused to be in a space where I have to apologize for my child. I also told him that if he didn’t change how he was parenting his son, that it was going to be much harder to parent him LATER as an entitled teenager. I really wasn’t expecting him to try, but after a couple weeks, he reached out and said he was starting therapy. He said that he couldn’t live without me and that he wanted to make this work. He began to talk to a therapist, and worked on processing his past traumas and losses, and i really did see the change. He started to ask if he could take my son out to the park so they could have one on one time to connect without his son there, and started to have more of an interest in my son’s interests or how his day went. Truly, we have never been better. We love each other, we love our boys, and he did the work. He no longer uses “my son and your son” language, he says “my boys” or “our boys” when speaking about them together.

I just am so scared. I have always been hesitant about everything in life, and i am very guarded, especially after my relationship with my son’s father, who was very abusive. I don’t want to undermine the work that my boyfriend has done, and I don’t want to lose the best relationship I’ve ever had because I’m so paranoid. Everything is so good, and he makes me and my son happy. My son is always asking when they’ll be visiting or when we will visit them, his son asks about my son and i, and obviously my boyfriend and I miss each other dearly when we’re apart. So, with everything being so good and everybody being so happy, how can I learn to trust my boyfriend and let go of what happened during our rough patch?

TL;DR : my boyfriend and I went through a rough patch because of his past trauma, and now that he is better, I find it hard to let it go.