Dear aphroitte1,

I am sorry you are feeling sad and disappointed that your old boyfriend hasn’t changed. Unfortunately, it was to be expected, considering his behavior over the years. If a person doesn’t go through some serious healing and transformation, there is no reason why they would change.

I am very dissapointed and I’ve just realized that this won’t change like ever. I could wait another 70 years and he still won’t show me love and treat me like I deserve to be treated. It’s not because he can’t, he doesn’t want to.

It’s a good realization. Till now, all this time, you were hoping he would be different whenever you got back together. But it never happened – the end result was always the same: he left, or sent you away, accusing you of destroying him mentally. He was accusing you, even though you said you did everything to make the relationship work, agreed to his conditions, begged him to stay etc. Similarly like you agreed to secrecy with your latest boyfriend too.

I can imagine you didn’t ask much for yourself, just to be treated with basic respect and decency. However, you weren’t given any of that, but as you said, you got lack of respect and white lies.

Unfortunately, a part of you agreed to this kind of treatment, because you yourself said this newest rekindling of your relationship was nothing official or serious:

We were seeing each other for a month and a half, nothing official nor serious.

I imagine you would like your romantic relationships to be official and serious, and to be treated like a proper girlfriend, and be official, so that everyone knows about it. But the guys you are with aren’t able or willing to treat you like that – they reject you and keep you a secret. And you, because of your insecurity, used to accept their disrespect and lesser treatment. You used to agree to being kept a secret and to believing that you are the problem, not them.

You now demanded a better treatment from your old/current boyfriend – to acknowledge your anniversary and show you some love and appreciation, show you that he cares about you, that you are important to him. But instead, he told you this date doesn’t mean anything and explained why you should never celebrate it.

No wonder you felt very hurt and angry. Why would someone who loves you reject to celebrate your first date? And should you be with a person who so vehemently refuses to appreciate that date, and by extension – refuses to appreciate YOU?

The answer is no, of course. And I hope you’ve come to the same conclusion, aphriotte1. It appears you have:

I could wait another 70 years and he still won’t show me love and treat me like I deserve to be treated. It’s not because he can’t, he doesn’t want to.

Yes, you’re seeing that right, I am afraid. He isn’t able to give you the love and appreciation you deserve. And you shouldn’t be hoping any more that things will change.

I feel little quilty because I hanged up like that, but when I remember how many times he hanged up, never actually picked up the phone, ignored me, blocked me etc.. I just justify every anger I have right now.

Don’t feel guilty for hanging up. Your anger is justified, in the sense that you refuse to accept his BS any more. You refuse to be  blamed and disrespected, you refuse to beg for his love and then receive breadcrumbs, if that at all.

Use your anger constructively: to say STOP to this relationship, to say stop to the emotional abuse you’ve been taking for so many years. Enough is enough. Turn your anger into DETERMINATION to respect yourself and not allow anybody to disrespect you, deny you, keep you a secret, or blame you for treating you badly.

I hope you’ll have the strength to put an end on this relationship and turn a new page, entering the New Year!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Tee.