Dear Ladybug:

We communicated back and forth for a  long time. This relationship is no longer about love, the way I see it. It is about fear, guilt and anger.

May of this year, the beginning of your first thread, you wrote: “I think he  feels like crap because of the pain he  is causing me”. On this thread you wrote that you told  him that “he is  the  one who has wasted 3 years of my life and love”, and following you suggesting a one week separation he “asked how am I going  to cope”. You answered him: “I will have to  suffer and deal with the pain”. Next, “He then said but his  worried about me.. then he  mentioned  that he has been taking care of me for almost 3 years”.

I think he is staying with you because he is afraid that  you  will not  live without him. And I  think you keep letting him know that you cannot live without him. How can a  man feel in-love with a woman he is afraid to leave?

He  is afraid of other things as well, I am sure. But  his fear  that  you will not live without him is great and  he  doesn’t  want to be the reason for your collapse if  he leaves you. He very  well knows how desperately you feel that  you need him.

You are angry at him and he knows that as well.

Sure he has  his own issues from long ago,  but so do you, no less. And  the two of you are together because of fear, not because of love, not anymore.

I don’t think you can rely  on your explanations of what is  going  on, not anymore. Underneath those on-the-surface logical explanations, there is  your illogical and desperate need for him. This need should be  addressed in quality individual psychotherapy for yourself, as soon  as possible, I believe.

anita

Ladybug,

You say you have clingy behavior, that you take up all his time and tend to be annoyed and demanding. You said that you don’t have separate lives.

Now you two are learning to invest more in your own selves. He says that he does not know how to live independently.
You are asking for advice how to maintain a healthy relationship and how you can be healthy for yourself and for him.

I agree with Anita, that if you want to be emotionally healthy and have a healthy relationship then go work with a therapist.

I don’t really see much in your posts on you and your behavior. You have written mainly about him.  What do you think that you need to change, to do in order to be healthier?

Mark

Dear Ladybug/ Reader:

I know, Ladybug, that there is a very little chance that you are following this thread, but just in case, I wanted to let you know that I am still working on a post for you, and it looks like I won’t have it ready before tomorrow, Jan 5 or Jan 6.

anita

Dear Ladybug/ Reader, continued, part 2/2

Having read my post of January 6 above, these are my thoughts: Ladybug’s boyfriend was a victim of an unstable, unreliable, unpredictably angry mother who terribly mistreated him. Fast forward, Ladybug enters his life as a girlfriend, a step up from the abusive, crazy mother but not by a whole lot.

Ladybug entered the relationship as an anxious, restless young woman who looks for the man in her life to calm her anxiety and make her feel good forevermore. It is the and they lived happily ever after expectation of the damsel in distress. She is single mindedly focused on him (aka being codependent), and on what he may be doing wrong. Although she has suffered from anxiety and low self-esteem way before her boyfriend entered her life, she is looking at him as the cause for the anxiety that way preceded him, blaming him for what he had no part in causing. Whenever she is not feeling okay, it must be his fault, something he did wrong. Focusing exclusively on him, on his childhood, on his mother, she is not looking at herself, at her childhood, at her mother, etc. She hardly mentioned anything about her life, it’s all about him. This focus does not at all benefit him, it harms him and her.

Clinging to him, complaining, demanding, arguing, trying to control him, she exhausts her boyfriend, so he repeatedly broke up with her, but the two reunited. The May 2018 long, partial break was a success: Ladybug, afraid that he will break up with her completely and permanently, was on her best behavior for a long time: not complaining, not quick to point to his failures, not arguing, not demanding, not clinging, and the result: he thrived in her supportive behavior, and the partial break ended.

When the partial break ended, he thought that Ladybug will continue to be her much improved, supportive version, but because Ladybug no longer feared a complete breakup, her anger returned, and with it, the clinginess, the complaints, the demands, the controlling behaviors and her accusatory, blaming finger kept pointing in his direction.  Here are quotes from her August 2018- December 2018 posts, and my interpretations:

August 14, 2018: “So far this break practically ended on its own, he calls me his girlfriend… everything going great… But I have so many insecurities… He looks at me with love in his eyes and wants to spend time with me and make plans together, but I have so much anxiety… I don’t know how long I can pretend I’m okay… I’m bothered he doesn’t feel the need to apologize for what he did, I’m angry at his lack of effort to win me back… He wanted to be reckless… an Arrogant, selfish, ruthless, heartless, emotionless, depressed, confused, and broken man. And I was the shattered woman with tears in her eyes banging on the doors of his heart” –

– Everything was going great, she wrote, but she is still anxious and angry, just as she was before she ever met him. He was never the cause of her anxiety and anger. But she assigns him with the responsibility, nonetheless. She figures something like I am still anxious and angry because he did or is doing something wrong! She then attacks his very character, referring to him as arrogant, selfish, etc. She even blames him for being broken, as if having been broken by his mother is a wrongness of his character. She then portrays herself as a shattered woman. She doesn’t present her own shattered-ness (brokenness) as a wrongness of her character because allegedly, it is he who shattered her, an innocent victim of a guilty man.

“His very lazy and his at home during the day as I am at work but every day I come home to a messy house. Its tiring but I try and not feel resentment in his habits” – angry, she keeps complaining, just as she did before the partial break. Her improved behavior during the break is showing cracks, now that she is no longer as afraid of him breaking up with her.

August 15: “He knows I’m an amazing woman and he’ll never find such a selfless, caring, gentle and loyal woman as me” – she presents herself as selfless, caring, and gentle, indeed the innocent victim of a selfish, uncaring, unkind man.

August 16: “He has become so lazy in his effort and if I think about it…. It’s because I allowed him to slack down…. If I kept my standards from the start, he wouldn’t be lazing around… I allowed him to just forget about our anniversary and there were zero repercussions” – back is the demands, controlling Ladybug, I allowed him… zero repercussions, as if she is the authority figure in the relationship and he is the naughty child.

“I need to started making for requests in what I would like. Like ask him to plan a date or plan something romantic even if it’s just at home”.

August 17:  “I requested him to do something, and it was done when I got home. I also asked him to plan a romantic date even if it’s a romantic evening at home and he went to go buy some candles. The issue he is dealing with now is he struggles to get sexually excited… I told him how I’m feeling a little frustrated from the lack of sex and he confessed that he struggles to get sexually excited. I told him it’s caused from lazy habits, and it needs to change in order for our sex life to improve” –

– he accommodated her requests, but she is neither satisfied nor grateful because she is still anxious, so she figures he must be doing something else that is wrong, his fault, his lazy habits!

August 20-23: “Things are slowly progressing… But now that we are doing much better and our relationship is in a good place, I can’t understand why he has such a low sex drive… This worries me” – her anxious mind is not satisfied with what is right (things progressing, relationship being in a good place), it keeps looking for what is wrong.

August 26-28: “Things have been running smooth recently… I’ve done quite a bit of research and some guys can’t make a woman their first priority until they have found themselves or achieved certain goals… I’m here to grow with him and not add weight onto his shoulders…. I have to trust that he is working hard to create successful life for himself and for us and not make him feel guilty for it” –

– she is not satisfied with what is right (things running smoothly). Her anxious mind is worried that he is not making her his first priority, so she researches the topic and is trying to talk sense to herself, she says to herself: stop adding weight onto his shoulders, stop distrusting him, stop making him feel guilty for not making me his first priority, then maybe he will!

September 10: “So although everything’s going good and I’ve seen some great changes in our relationship I am more aware now of how easy he gets it, I usually let him off the hook so easy… so I’ve started asking more of what I want and making it clear when I’m disappointed, I do not pressure him or nag but I am less accepting of his lazy habits and instead of keeping quiet and picking up his slack I make it known what standard I’m willing to accept from him… I do hate how much I’m willing to wait for him to be the man I need…  I need to be patient while his on this journey to success” –

– she is not satisfied with what is right (everything going smoothly). She is looking for what is wrong (his lazy habits), and she gets angry, presenting herself again as the authority figure who is letting a lazy child off the hook too easily. But she is trying to not nag him and to not pressure him like before, she is trying to be patient and understanding instead. Will she make it?

September 21: “He will never own up to a stupid decision driven by stupid emotions… he will try and justify and make it sound like he knows what he’s doing. Trying to get a head strong person to confess their wrong doings is like trying to move a mountain. Although I am still positive… it still infuriates me that he is continuing our relationship innocently and has never apologized for the pain he caused me’ – ANGRY, she is calling his emotions stupid, wanting him to confess his alleged wrongdoings!

September 27: “He has very bad habits, Hes not very tidy, he sleeps late. He procrastinates. His lifestyle is very unreliable and irresponsible… Yesterday we were texting, and I mentioned to him that someday I’d like him to apologize for all the pain he has caused me… he has not yet come to me and admit that he screwed up and that he’s sorry… so my unhappiness is all routed to him changing in selfish ways” – GETTING ANGRIER.

October 9:  “I do have trouble trusting him and his friends, so I think that is why I don’t encourage us spending too much time apart. But I feel that I need to let go of things I can’t control… He has recently told me that we need to have more friends and that we need to get more away from each other, He said that he can’t miss me if he’s always spending time with me” – clingy, distrustful and controlling, she doesn’t give him the space that he needs.

October 29: “he says I need to find a happiness outside the relationship that he can’t give me. He puts himself first and says that I need to do the same. he says we need to be doing what makes us happy and that way we can bring more to the relationship. I completely agree with what he says… being so focused on him, his career and our life together has made me anxious, insecure, stressed and leads to me smothering him and overthinking everything”-

– He is still asking for space. He still wants her to have a life outside of the relationship. On her part, she presented her focus on him as the cause for her anxiety, while reality is that her anxiety is the cause (and the result) of her focus on him: she is anxious, next, she looks for the problem and the solution in his behavior, not in her behavior.

December 23: “He has been feeling very suffocated and says he doesn’t feel like he makes his own decisions. I do have an issue with being over clingy at times and I’m very emotional which means I tend to rely on him to take a lot of my emotional rants when I get overwhelmed…. He tends to tag me along everywhere and hang out with me almost 24/7. Eventually he feels overwhelmed with everything and distances himself. He is afraid of what the relationship does to him, and he even told me he is no longer in love with me… I spent the whole day and evening in tears torn to pieces… crying most of the time and it’s been 3 days now” –

– things are no longer progressing well, things are getting worse and worse. She is fully back to her clingy, controlling, angry ways, back to emotional rants, he is overwhelmed and feeling suffocating him, just as he was when he initiated the partial break back in May.

“I suggested we do a no contact for a week, I suggested he goes to stay at his grandads or cousins house…  He then was shocked that I said a week and asked how I am going to cope. I told him I will have to suffer” – he worries about her; she is trying to guilt trip him.

“He then said that no matter what happens everything will be okay. I then said that he has no place to give me comforting advice because he is the one who has wasted 3 years of my life and love. He then sighed in self disappointment, and we didn’t really speak since” – he tries to comfort her; she tries to make him feel guilty.

December 28, 2018: “Over the last few days we have been giving each other a lot of space… He is a man trying to be the best version of himself and he has led this relationship and me down a very dysfunctional path” – she is not yet accepting responsibility for leading the relationship down a very dysfunctional path. Instead, she is blaming him yet again.

“We tried to have the no contact rule which ended in him asking if we will be spending Christmas together…. He then invited me along to his family outing to the beach yesterday, we still giving each other space… This all has happened only in the space of a week from wanting to end us completely to us… getting along a lot better, having sex twice in one night… We believe that people can change and grow so that’s why it’s difficult for us to just give up on each other… He is 24 and I’m 23” –

– that was Ladybug’s last post. I hope that since then, the two of them either permanently broke up or proceeded to indeed “change and grow”, especially Ladybug. But all through her posts, to the very last, she kept blaming him. She kept superficially agreeing with him regarding giving him space etc., but she did not yet start (at least, not before Dec 2018) the process of healing from her childhood wounds, she did not yet genuinely examine her own defeating behaviors. During the partial break, she focused on appearing confident and independent, but those were only appearances.

Unfortunately for her boyfriend, he is very much attached to Ladybug, unable (at least, not before Dec 2018) to permanently remove himself from a relationship that does him a great disservice.

anita

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