Dear Michelle:

In your very first post, on Jan 6, 2020, you wrote: “I have almost let ‘I love you’ slip twice… As an anxious individual, naturally in the past I’ve required a lot of reciprocation and I would declare ‘I love you’ to get reassurance in a relationship. This is not the case in this relationship. I am sure that there is care although I am not sure that he is aware of his own feelings yet.. I am okay with him not reciprocating and progressing at his own pace… I am really trying to be as mindful and delicate as I can with it, but I am starting to feel like I am holding a grenade”.

What I italicized is your what you felt at times but not most of the time. Most of the time you were anxious, you needed reassurance from him just as you needed it in previous relationships, and you were not okay with him not reciprocating. That grenade you mentioned was your strong desire for him to reassure you, to return your I-love-you once you say it to him.

Today, more than a year later, you are back to the topic you started with: telling him that you love him (“what do you think about me expressing love again”). You asked me what I think: I think that what is currently happening is that you are anxious/ your anxious attachment style is active, and you want his reassurance and you are eager to get it, the desire for his reassurance feeling like a grenade again. You want to tell him that you love him so that he will say it back to you.

If you tell him that you love him and he does not say it back to you, you are likely to experience distress and anger and bring about another breakup, similar to what happened in later January 2020.

Back to Jan 6 2020, you wrote: “he is not vocal about declaring exactly what he wants, nor about how he feels. He is most demonstrative in action and consistency.. I quite surely have an anxious attachment style”- if you want this relationship to last, you have to find a way to be satisfied with his “action and consistency” and stop trying to get him to express his love vocally, saying the words you want him to say, the words that you think will calm your anxiety.

Thing is even if he told you the exact words you want to hear, you may calm d0wn for just a little while, but too soon, the anxiety will be back and that grenade will cause you to want another reassurance.. and another. You need to address the anxiety with a professional psychotherapist. You are welcome to share more about it here with me, if it helps. I have lots of experience with anxiety- felt a whole lot of it in my life- maybe I can help with ideas about addressing it without risking the relationship you worked so hard to get back to where it was a year ago.

anita