Mornin’ Shelby.

Tough time eh.  Like you with your brother, whilst I can reassure you that no-one, not even Martha, knows what the future is and that you are valuable, it’ll have little impact as when it’s what you feel, it’s what you feel – only you (and he) can change that.  I guess it’s not too surprising he’s suffering similarly, you both came through the same hurt growing up after all.

Your relationship was not a mistake. It was simply you trying for something you wanted and it failed. That hurts, it sucks. You now know that you are not compatible with a man who can’t commit to anything more than enjoying your company when he wants it. But you know what, just because it didn’t work out and you didn’t get what you wanted – it doesn’t mean giving up on the idea of that’s what you want. It doesn’t mean going back to the days when you didn’t admit you wanted these things, a place of your own to live, a better job, a good relationship, possibly kids.  They are still things you want – and things you can have.  Trying to go back to a time when you just didn’t admit you want them is not the answer here – figuring out how to progress forwards is.

If you re-read Kkasxo’s posts you will see that, similar to me at the time, one of the biggest things she did was to give up on the idea of knowing her future. Nobody can and it’s especially scary if you are the kind of person who doesn’t deal well with change.  Instead, she focused on dealing with the immediate problems before her that she could do something about. Allowing herself to feel scared and out of control without letting it take her over into a minefield of self-doubt.  Taking action is one of the biggest ways to restore positive motion, to restore hope. It’s why the daily exercise and diet feels good – it’s taking action towards a goal you want of looking and feeling better for example. It’s why the decision to travel or not isn’t really about travel at all – it’s just about doing something towards what you want.

Yes, you feel lonely as hell and it doesn’t help when your best friends seems like she’s abandoning you. But she will be there if you let her know how you felt.  I don’t know about your therapist, you can see from posting on these threads some people get some awful ones – not bad people or anything but ones that don’t help them. After three years I can totally get not wanting to change but perhaps you need to talk with them about how it’s not helping you. Not much point paying out good money just for a cosy chat, they are there to push you when it’s needed in a safe way.

Life is all about the little things – they add up to the big things. Now tell Martha to b@gger off and let you get on with putting your life back together.