* Dear Tommy: when I read the ending of your (excellent!) advice, “I am sorry for my poor advice”, I had to tell you that I am a fan! Your fan, and more accurately, I am a Tommy’s Ego Fan (a TEF). I like your combination of humility and humor.

Dear John:

I went back to re-reading your posts because of Tommy’s reply and with his input in mind:

(I am adding the boldface feature selectively to the quotes): “She’s asked for space, and I’ve really tried to give it to her… we are still in contact minimally“- better that you give her all the space she asked for. Otherwise, it portrays you as either too weak to stay away from her and/ or disrespectful of her need for space.

“Does anyone have any advice on how to practice patience when it comes to a relationship that is paused?”- a relationship that is paused is still ongoing, but it’s .. sort of, not alive anymore, yet it’s not dead either. This may be more difficult to endure long-term than if it was a relationship that was ended.

“Met a girl, we became really close, very fast… Things were said… in the line of moving way too fast and saying way too much too early in a relationship… I felt like I had to over do it so she wouldn’t lose interest.  I felt like I had to move quickly so that I wouldn’t lose her… I pushed too hard”-

– reads like Anxious Attachment Style, on your part, indicating you growing up with an unreliable parent: one that was present with you sometimes (enough for you to form an attachment to), but unpredictably absent too many times, for what felt (or was) long periods of time.  The absence could be a parent spending time outside the home, leaving the child behind with a babysitter, let’s say. It could be a parent staying in her bedroom for long periods of time, leaving the child alone, elsewhere in the house, or otherwise withdrawing affection from the child unpredictably.

Fast forward, the child, now an adult, forms a strong romantic connection to another, and the child-within panics, scared of losing the parent again, by proxy of the romantic partner (the parent gets projected into the romantic partner).

“The reason that this relationship means so much is because of how open and vulnerable I was, without hesitation from me or judgement from her.  I’ve never experienced that before”- before the relationship, you were too afraid to be open and vulnerable, with her you were open and vulnerable. Part of your openness was to express you anxiety about losing her, wasn’t it?

And that anxiety was too much for her to bear, so she needed space. Maybe she felt too much of a responsibility for your emotional well-being, as in having a needy child.

“Ugh.  I mean, it’s frustrating because of the self immolation that I constantly practice in my life”-

– from a website (save tibet. org): “Self immolation is a profound cry for help by those who feel they have no other way to tell the world about their suffering”.

You are welcome here, to tell about your suffering in ways that express- on the screen- the depth of your suffering, if it is something that may help you. (This is what I do in my own thread, and I find it helpful).

anita