Dear Sadsack:

You shared that a few weeks ago, your very first relationship came to an end after eight months. Your friends told you at the beginning that “she was a bit unstable”, but you didn’t care, being overjoyed at the possibility of  having a relationship for the first time: “I was overjoyed. Cannot overstate how happy I was to finally be with someone I was so in love with”.

The relationship was a roller coaster, she was indeed unstable and you “spent a lot of time managing her moods and anchoring her”, while experiencing “a lot of anxiety and stress” yourself, and “coming to terms with probably being lesbian”.

You wanted intimacy so badly, you wrote, that most of the time, you “just wanted to copulate like bunny rabbits.. addicted to the intimacy, to..  finally having someone” that you were highly attracted to, someone you “met in real life”, someone who liked you as much as you liked her. You wanted this to be a lifelong partnership.

The two of you “wanted to heal and become healers”, but you had therapy for four years, while “she had barely started”. The rollercoaster was exhausting. She increasingly lashed out at you. You did your best “to be a Buddha and remain grounded and not get sucked into toxic fighting”.

Your therapist suggested to you that you trying to be her anchor in order “to get connection” was a mirror to our childhood with your “dysregulated mom”.

One day, following you expressing a different ideological opinion from hers, she “was hitting herself and trying to cut herself with scissors.. screamed so loudly and kicked” you. She said she was “gonna kill herself” because you harmed her by having an ideological opinion that was different from hers.

After that incident, you told her that you should probably separate, and you did. But after a short while, you got lonely and reached out to her. At one point, you felt “so guilty about this ideological opinion”, thinking that maybe you were wrong, and maybe you really did harm her for having that different opinion. A couple of days later, you texted her, offering to have “a calm, deeper discussion about this issue.. for mutual exploration and understanding”.

Next, at one point,  she yelled at you. “It honestly reminded me of when I would get yelled at as a kid and I would just dissociate”. Next you “got really depressed and got high.. and fell asleep”.

You miss her “really bad”, worried that it will be forever before you find else that you like that much, feeling like you will never be able to have a healthy relationship because f your “attachment insecurities and a savior complex”, feeling cheated from experiencing “the intimacy and stability that .

You wrote; “She has so much potential to be an amazing partner”-

My input: it would be impossible for a competent, experienced, hard working quality therapist to actualize your former partner’s potential without her (the client’s) commitment and hard work over a long period of time. It is therefore impossible for you (not a therapist, not in an objective position, and without her commitment and hard work) to actualize her great potential.

You have a strong need to have a close, intimate relationship with another woman- choose a woman who is able to form that which you need so desperately. Don’t choose “a project” to change into that which you need.

Choose a person who is what you need, instead of choosing a person who could be whom you need.. if only you were Buddha enough to anchor her.

“any reaffirmation that this is the right thing will be appreciated”- I do believe that separating from your first partner was the right thing for you (and for her). You can get what you need/ you can satisfy your “strong attachment needs” and experience the love and joy that you long for- elsewhere, with a bit more work, more understanding and more patience.

anita