Dreaming715:

Your pain is evident in this post, clearly evident. Your frustration with yourself is also evident.

The cycle of him being interested in you and withdrawing started 8 months ago and continued until very recently. There was a break, you returned his things and it is back on again.

I think that you felt good when you returned his things with a nice goodbye letter because that was you exercising some control over a situation that was out of your control. Returning his things was a symbolic way on your part to exercise some control over a relationship in which you had a sense of no control.

There was a relief then, but a dinner and physical intimacy and you are back to the sense of no control over your own behavior in the relationship.

And this is the point, i believe: control. It is necessary for our mental health to exercise reasonable control over our lives. I say Reasonable because a lot is out of our control. In your relationship with this man, HIS behavior was out of your control. It would be unreasonable for you to expect to control his behavior. On the other hand it would have been reasonable for you to exercise control over your participation in the relationship.

Sure, you were there, making the choices, like you did when choosing to have dinner and be physically intimate with him last time, but it was not a choice you made with much awareness and so, it was sort of an automatic behavior on your part, one lacking thoughtfulness, awareness.

You were “desperate” as you wrote, not thoughtful, not “centered”- not in control.

And that is not a good place to operate from. In your last sentence you wrote that he will get what he wants, a life without you in it. I suppose so. But you, your life should have YOU in it, you in the center of your life, you thinking and exercising reasonable control over your participation in your life.

What do you think?

anita