Dear Basil:

Key sentence in your recent post is: “The truth is I have lost hope and trust in this relationship”. If I was in your place, as I understand the situation, I would lose hope and trust in this relationship myself, and be glad that I lost hope in a hopeless situation.

“But I want to keep supporting him as a friend”- I don’t think it is possible and trying this is a bad idea. He needs quality psychotherapy- help from a person who was not his girlfriend, a person who he knows will never be his girlfriend.

What he wants from you is not a friend’s help. He wants you to.. make it up to him that he is not having a loving mother in his life (past and present). No way you can do that for  him, so he will keep feeling disappointed and angry at you whenever he perceives that you fail this (impossible) task.

Like I wrote to you earlier, “Your choice is between 1. Staying with him and experience torture.. you suffering and him suffering. 2. Breaking up with him and you having a chance to not be tortured.. doomed to a life of suffering”-

Notice I wrote the italicized chance. I used that word because if you choose #2, you will feel guilt, a lot of guilt, which you already feel. So making the second choice does not bring immediate peace of mind and happiness. But if you break up with him permanently in spite of the guilty feeling, then later, if you persist and move forward to a better place, you will feel peace of mind, and sometimes you will feel happiness as well.

anita