Dear Elisa:

A little background: in your first thread on May 2016, you shared about your first boyfriend: “he… stalked me, forced me to have intercourse and so on“, and about your boyfriend at the time:  “he is not as ‘bad’ as my ex-boyfriend“- notice that you added quotation marks around bad, as if stalking you and forcing you to have intercourse with him wasn’t … necessarily bad.

In your second thread on November 2020, you shared about the man you are still in a relationship with, a year after: “I have been in a relationship for 3 years… Throughout the relationship he has given me the silent treatment often…One moment he wanted to marry me and the next he thought I was the source of all his problems. One moment he was in love and then the other he angry… he made plans with me but they never followed through…He came into my room last night after he broke up with me and wanted to share intimacy, I knew that I should have said no, but I don’t want to hurt him”, so you had sex with him.

Fast forward a year to November 2021, still in regard to the same man: “So three weeks back he broke up with me, acting quite mean…But then after a week he comes into my room (we live in a communal living) and just lies down in my bed and from then on we shared intimacy“- same as in the year before.

“I guess intimacy was always a way for me to feel accepted and connected. Or should I rather say, in a relationship that lack emotional intimacy, sexual intimacy becomes more important….  My friend, that knows my partner, wondered why I protect him to all costs“- I figure that you protected him at all costs, so far, because you’ve been waiting for him to change and accept you, connect to you and become emotionally intimate with you, waiting for him to truly love you.

“But I am going to break up with him today… I understand that he is hurt, wounded and in pain“- you are hurt, you are wounded, you are in pain. Focus on your pain so that you can heal from what is causing you pain. Because he is causing you pain, he is part of your problem, not part of the solution. Don’t protect the problem. Promote the solution.

“He wants to just continue to pretend that everything is ok and keep living together. But I can’t see how that would work“- one of you will have to move out as soon as possible.

“he said that I should be the one moving our because I have the money… this is a really beautiful place for me to be at this moment in time, healing“- it is not a healing place when he is part of the place, and when you are unable to keep him from getting into bed with you.

“Slowly but surely, I have woken up to the possibility that it’s ok to have wishes and needs, it’s ok to feel safe, to enjoy life, love does not mean martyrdom, and you don’t have to suffer in a relationship to prove that you are worthy. I am strong, but yet weak…. I look forward to your response“- congratulations for waking up, and I wish you to wake up not only to the possibility that it’s okay for you to feel safe and enjoy life and true love- but to the reality that you deserve these things!

anita

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