Hi Adam,

I was always myself around her at first but the more she became unstable and voice concerns the more I would feel like I wasn’t enough.

Yes, you started out as being yourself, but she couldn’t tolerate it and would get offended for small things (e.g. you telling her she’s not good at finding directions). So you started watching what you say and not being yourself around her.

Last time before she broke up with you, she accused you of cheating, which wasn’t true and was completely irrational:

She started saying she had a feeling that I was cheating on her even though I wasn’t. She said she knew I wasn’t but it was a feeling and she didn’t know why her head was telling her that.

She was also getting “thoughts of leaving”, and she said she couldn’t fight those thoughts. She could have done something about those thoughts – by seeking therapy for example. But she didn’t want to. She had an excuse why she doesn’t want therapy. So she acted like a victim of her irrational thoughts and feelings – as if she couldn’t do anything about it. Well, she could have done. But she chose not to.

What I am trying to say is that you cannot expect to have a meaningful relationship with a mentally unstable person, who just gets weird thoughts and feelings, and doesn’t want to seek professional help. And basically tortures you with those feelings: accuses you of cheating on her, of not being her priority, of not being there for her 24/7, etc etc.

You became the victim of her moods, and chose to expose yourself to those moods. Hoping she would change – although she didn’t show any intention to change. She might have said she wanted to change, but those were just empty words. In reality, she hasn’t done anything in the past 11 months since you’ve known her to seek help.

I am sorry you cannot see this, Adam. That this is a hopeless situation. She isn’t interested in healing at this point. And you are a collateral victim of her mental illness. You are still hoping for something that won’t happen any time soon. And in the meanwhile, you are losing yourself, you are becoming a shell of a person. You are exposing yourself to emotional abuse.

I couldn’t leave because I had so much faith and trust that she would stick it out and push through those hard times, I can’t understand why she didn’t. Why she had to leave makes no sense to me still.

How can she push through if she doesn’t want to seek therapy? She is stuck in trauma and it doesn’t just go away from itself. Why doesn’t she want therapy? Probably because she doesn’t want to truly take responsibility for her life. She wants to stay the victim. You are a nice addition, because you take off the pressure and soothe her when she is feeling down. Which is most of the time. So you are there as her releasing valve and a punching bag, as you said. You are a function for her, not an individual with your own needs and wants.

Why she had to leave makes no sense to me still.

Because that’s her go-to reaction: she leaves whenever she is triggered. Whenever she feels you’re not perfectly caring and understanding. Whenever you raise a concern about her. And by now she’s learned that you always want her back, and you always become even less demanding and more careful not to upset her. So maybe she is using breakups as a tactics to control you. I don’t know. But even if she doesn’t, that’s the net effect: after each breakup you become more careful how you behave around her, what you say, you walk on egg shells…

So you think that we only reconciled in the past because I reached out?

Possibly. But maybe she knew you would reach out because you always do. But what’s important is that after you reconcile, nothing changes. Her moodiness continues, and you are there as a punching bag. And you always believe that this time, things would change. But that’s wishful thinking, that’s deluding yourself. Because she doesn’t take any steps to help herself. So it cannot be different than the last time.

it makes me think we will still rekindle and she will want to, so I’m not sure what to do or think.

Yes, unfortunately you still can’t see how destructive this relationship is for you. She might reach out, tell you some promising words, and then continue business-as-usual.

In an ideal situation I wouldn’t be loosing myself your right.

Yes, in a healthy relationship you don’t lose yourself. In a toxic one you do.

It hurts a lot loosing her because I really feel like she was the one and that it was a shared vision.

Well, she may have told you that she’d want to spend her life with you. But again, those were just empty words, because in  reality, she didn’t do anything to work towards that “shared vision.” Theory and nice promises are one thing, but reality, which is repeating itself again and again, is another.

In her eyes I think she was bringing me down and that’s why she left. But that sounds like an excuse if that’s the reason.

You see it well. She didn’t leave because she wanted to protect you. She left because she was upset with you, you weren’t “good enough” for her. As I said, she might be even using breakups to manipulate you and make you even more “meek”. I am not sure about that, but nevertheless, that’s the end result of each of your breakup.

Yeh there is definitely a deep longing and it’s difficult to let go of it. I still think about reaching out and the what’s ifs.

I understand… because the pain of being without her is too big. And even if this relationship is destructive and makes you lose yourself, and suffer, you’d still rather be with her than alone. Even if the price is so high…

I just wanted to find myself with her and I thought I really could’ve. Maybe she didn’t feel the same.

We can’t find ourselves while being focused exclusively on the other person. In order to find ourselves, we need to look within, find things that we love and do them… Just as an example, you said you feel bored on the weekends, and I think it’s because you don’t have anything to do when you’re not with her. It could be that you don’t have hobbies, things that you enjoy doing – separately of her?

If you want to have a fulfilled life, you’d need to find yourself as an independent and separate person from her. Because that’s who you are at your core. Only when we find ourselves, and are happy with who we are, can we form healthy relationships with others.

I notice two parts in you, Adam: one is your rational self, who sees things clearly and sees that you were abused. And the other part is emotional and clingy, who deludes himself that it will be better next time and wants to try again. This clingy part overwrites your reason, forgets about the bad things that happened and latches onto false hope.

I think this other part is your inner child, who desperately needs to be loved and more importantly, seeks love from emotionally unavailable people. I think you’d need to work on your inner child, so you can be free from this kind of dependence.