Dear Kiora:

You shared about your boyfriend that he is “a good person.. empathetic, kind, great listener, comforts me.. very patient, very tolerant, very supportive.. a great close friend”. From the beginning you were genuine with him, making it very clear that you wanted a genuine and loving relationship.

A few months into the relationship, “he started to be distant, cold, less interested”. You asked him what the change was about, and he told you “he was fine, we were fine and we wanted the same thing (=serious relationship with a future together)”. But he continued to stay “on the edge of the relation the whole time, not investing himself at all, taking but never giving back”.

Later, he “finally admitted” that he didn’t feel in-love with you for quite some time because he believed that the reason you were with him was so that he will sponsor you for a permanent visa after a year of living together (an assumption he made which was not true in reality). He felt pressured, and he felt guilty for not feeling love for you.

“He kept me with him the whole time to allow me to get this visa in the end, without me knowing at all what was going on in his mind and why he was so distant”, “he understood it the wrong way and never talked to me about that or the pressure he felt”.

In the past, he kept a flat mate as a friend for five years, a flat mate who took advantage of him financially (“he had to pay for all the rent and the bills most of the time while the friend was working part time or  not at all and having fun with the little  money he was earning”). For five years, he was “highly irritated by this person”, and yet he kept him in his life and continued to be used by this person.

He now wants a second chance with you and is assertive about it.

“can it even be true? Who keeps on his side somebody he doesn’t love for a whole year just to allow them to get a visa??”-

– yes, it can be true. Reads to me that sometime during his childhood, in the context of his experience with his parents/ older siblings- a core belief was formed in him: that he was a bad boy. And therefore, to be good, he feels that he has to do what the other person wants him to do. When he does what another person wants him to do (ex.: flat mate wanted him to pay the bills), or what he believes another person wants him to do (ex: you wanting him to stay with you so to get a visa)- he gets angry because he does not want to do these things. He gets angry (and loses the loving feeling) because he ends up doing what he doesn’t want to do, in his quest to be a good person.

You wrote that he is “a good person.. empathetic, kind.. very patient”, etc. He has a deep core belief that he is not a good person and he tries very hard to be a good person. In  many ways he is a good person, but he cannot be a mentally/ emotionally healthy person until he corrects this false core belief and the way he adjusted to this false core belief.

“Is he trustworthy now?”- he needs quality psychotherapy so to change his core belief and how he adjusted to that false core belief before you can expect him to behave differently long term.

“will I find somebody that cares so much about me like he does?”- you need someone who is healthier who will care for you.

“It’s so confusing in my head. I’ll gladly take any advice”- he needs quality psychotherapy/ counseling. You wrote: “He is ok to do counseling with me”- he primarily needs individual counseling to start the long process of healing from his childhood experience that gave birth to his false core belief, an experience you had nothing to do with.

anita