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anitaParticipantDear Priyan:
You are very welcome!
“When I met her over the weekend, I casually told her that I am planning on going back to the dating apps to meet new women. She got excited over this and even offered to help me set up my dating profile. If her intent was indeed to get me interested in her romantically to gain control, why would she seem to not care when I said I am going to date other women?”-
“But why bother having me emotionally invest in her if she was going to friendzone me anyway? Then was it all a game to give her ego a boost?“-
– I think it’s a game for her. Going about dating the traditional way didn’t work for her, Going about it the way she is going about it works better for her: it makes her feel better, in control.. not vulnerable like she used to be,
“While my brain wants me to walk away, my heart wants me to continue seeing her even though it know it will end badly deep down“- it will end badly as you further lose control over the situation, getting ( more) hurt by a situation that is in the control of a woman who seeks control (as I see it)?
anita
November 21, 2023 at 3:30 pm in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #425539anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:
I am looking forward to read your two recent posts and reply Wed morning, Have a good evening and night!
anita
November 20, 2023 at 6:10 pm in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #425155anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:
Good to read that you are listening to Hatchling who is fatigued and needs rest, good job, Seaturtle! Thank you for the red heart emoji- red heart back to you (can you believe it.. I am so low tech I don’t know how to insert an emoji here!)
Get back to me when the time is right for you!
anita
anitaParticipantDear Kodi:
You are very welcome. You called your perimenopause experience “a fairly new addition“.
“Then I felt really guilty. I don’t feel like I have a support system to lean on because my husband and parents are sick of hearing me complain”-
– how about another fairly new addition to your life: support and empathy for yourself. No more feeling guilty for being in pain, or for feeling miserable, or for feeling anything at all that you are feeling.
I am sorry, Kodi, that you have suffered for so long. I wish you didn’t suffer at all, but since you do suffer- as we all do, to one extent or another, at any one time- minimize your suffering by peeling off unnecessary pain (guilt, shame, overthinking, etc.) from pain that you have to deal with (ex. perimenopause)?
I will soon be away from the computer, but would like to read more from you anytime you feel like posting. Here you can share all that you feel and it will not be too much for me to read.
anita
November 19, 2023 at 8:36 am in reply to: The phenomenon of “helping someone excessively can make them turn against you” #425124anitaParticipantI hope you are well, Arden, thinking of you.
anita
anitaParticipantHow are you, Kodi?
anita
anitaParticipantHow are you, soma?
anita
November 19, 2023 at 8:23 am in reply to: Confused on How to Deal With This Side of My Boyfriend: Am I overreating? #425121anitaParticipantHow are you, anonymous03? I hope my last very long message to you was not too much…?
anita
November 19, 2023 at 8:13 am in reply to: Seeing a man still living with his ex after 20 yrs. #425120anitaParticipantHow are you and your fur babies, Shookie?
anita
anitaParticipantHow is Everything, Cat?
anita
anitaParticipantHow are you, Peace?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Luna:
I am well, thank you.
“we all begin to build our understanding of emptiness, and it is striking to know that the experience of it never really ends either“- amazingly, the experience of Emptiness, on a personal level, did end for me in the last few years and most significantly, in the last year. It happened some time after I moved from a very big city to an agricultural town where everyone seems to know everyone and people are predominantly kind and have treated me kindly, like an equal.
The change in how I feel as a result is.. seems like depression is gone, the despair is gone. I feel more alive, as in looking forward to life, instead of hiding from it. In real life, I reach out to people I never met (ex., people who visit this town from a big city to the south or north) excitedly, like a child eager to connect, without the previous shame and self consciousness.
“I’ve never watched that movie. I’ll have to try“- the technological side to the movie is not evolved, so it’s not as fancy as later movies.. but maybe you will like it because of that. This movie inspired me so much at the time, that I left the country I grew up in, all by myself, on a journey inspired by the journey of Atreyu, a child warrior, a character in the movie.
Here is a quote from the movie (G’mork is the agent of The Nothing):
“Atreyu: What is the Nothing?
– G’mork: It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
– Atreyu: But why?
– G’mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control… has the power!”Isn’t it true.. what G’mork said… ?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Saje:
You are welcome, and I am well, thank you!
Back on July 15, 2021, you shared the following quote: “Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realise there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” Lao Tzu.
How is the quote working for you these days, 2 years, 4 months and 3 days later?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Hamza:
You are welcome and I am well, thank you!
You expressed (I am paraphrasing) that you accomplished 95% healing in regard to the relationship with her, and you are wondering if you can accomplish the remaining 5% without blocking her on social media, and without apologizing to her for not replying to her email of almost a year ago..
(I am adding the boldface feature to your quotes from here on): You expressed that you “worry about what she thinks about what I post online”, that in regard to what you post online, you are “trying to show her how good my life is”, that you don’t want to “come across petty” to her, if you block her; that you have trouble with the “irreversible decision to permanently cut all chords” with her (once you block her), and that if you don’t block her, she “she continues to live in my head as I feel ‘watched'”.
Before I respond to the above, I want to re-read and summarize what you shared back in January: she initiated the breakup on Aug 1, 2022. At the end of November 2022, the two of you met and you remorsefully apologized for everything you did wrong in the 3.5-year relationship with her. She followed up by sending you a long, gracious online message where she expressed her concern (in regard to your suggestion that the two of you would become friends and see where it goes), that she might not be able to fall back in love with you, and that it will hurt you even more than you were already hurt. In early December 2022, you sent her a message saying “I’ll come back to her as soon as I am able to do so”- and (fast forward to today, almost a year later), you never came back to her. That was the last contact you had with her.
On January 5, 2022, you wrote: “I feel like I’ve already lost all respect in her eyes by first pretending I was mutually ok with the breakup, then trying to get her back, then trying to be friends, then going NC, then saying I’ve accepted the breakup, then… I feel I’ve made every mistake in the book and have gone from someone she respected and loved to someone she doesn’t respect and love, or worse yet, looks down upon. The most important thing for me, above all, above getting her to fall for me again – is to pursue a path forward that restores my dignity and self-respect. How do I do this? Walk away forever now, or re-initiate contact as friends, get her to see the strong me one or two times, and then walk away forever”.
Back to yesterday, November 17, 2023: when you post on social media, you still “worry about what she thinks”, and she “she continues to live in my head as I feel ‘watched'”.
My input today: somehow she has become, in your mind, the one holding your sense of self worth hostage. As in.. it’s up to her to declare you worthy or unworthy, deserving respect or deserving disrespect. This is why you’ve been stuck in analysis-paralysis for so long: the weight you have placed in what she thinks of you is so heavy that.. you haven’t been able to move one way or the other.
She is engaged to another man now.. but still, in your mind, she is holding your sense of self worth and respectability hostage.
And because this is the situation, whatever I suggest to you is not likely to get you to move one way or another, is it? I mean, it’s what you think that she thinks (not what anyone else thinks) that’s holding you down, isn’t it?
You wrote yesterday: “I’ve been seeing a therapist regularly for the last 12 months and will continue doing so. I guess I’m just wondering if there’s a way for me to get to 100% without blocking her..“- didn’t you ask this question ‘in therapy.. again and again? Did you discuss in therapy about what I mentioned here in my input?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Priyan:
You are welcome.
(I will be adding the boldface feature to the following quotes): “In this month I have been totally honest with her about my feelings and intentions. I told her how I felt about her the first night we met and what made me change my mind and develop actual romantic feelings for her”-
– I think that she has not been totally honest with you about her feelings and intentions.
“Every time I reminded her about our FWB agreement when she wanted something too intimate her response would be ‘Don’t worry, I will never expect anything from you other than your physical presence and sex‘. So, I assumed we both were on the same page”-
– Repeatedly (“every time”), she wanted something too intimate (not FWB-congruent), repeatedly you reminded her of the FWB agreement.. and repeatedly, she told you what I think is not true. I think that she did expect something from you other than your physical presence and sex,. I think (at this point) that her expectation/ intent/ goal was that you will develop romantic feelings for her. Not for the purpose of entering a traditional, romantic relationship with you, but for the purpose of her feeling in-control of you and of the relationship.
“I know for a fact that her behavior towards me did not change after I said I only wanted sex from her“- she kept her romantic gestures going for as long as you didn’t express a romantic interest in her.
“What baffles me”- when one is dishonestly manipulated.. one is baffled.
“What baffles me is she seemed to have lost interest in me only after I confessed my feelings“- when you confessed your romantic feelings for her, her goal/ interest (that you will want to be in a romantic relationship with her) was satisfied: she was in control. To maintain her control, she withdrew her romantic gestures (keeping you wanting what you can not get).
“She never outright came and told me she had feelings for me. That is what made me think if I had imagined her feelings for me”- when one is dishonestly manipulative, one does not says things outright (openly and without holding back), but the opposite.
“I told her how I… develop(ed) actual romantic feelings for her. She heard all this and said she had seen me only as a friend since the beginning and never saw me as potential romantic partner. I went to the extent of even asking her if she felt any connection when we had sex and her reply was: ‘No, I just enjoyed the act’“-
– I don’t know if she ever saw you as a potential romantic partner. I think that she wanted you to want to be her romantic partner. It may be that she has been turning around the traditional dynamic of the woman being the one interested in romance vs the man being interested in sex, taking on the.. strong gender role/ the-one-in-control in this dynamic.
“Do you still think that I did not imagine her feelings for me? After hearing her answer about the sex, I can’t possible imagine she had feelings for me once”-
– I think that you didn’t imagine that her expressions “(wanting you to spend the night/ weekend with her, sending you amorous text messages, etc.) were romantic, I think that they were romantic expressions. At this point though, I don’t know if those expressions were sincere or strictly manipulative.
I will now re-read your original post, looking for answers: shortly after you told her in the beginning that you would like to seriously date her, she “came back after a week and said that she was not ready to emotionally invest in a relationship, but, she would be willing to casually hook up as she found me attractive”-
– she made you an offer most men will not refuse: to casually hook up with a woman they are attracted to. At this point of my developing understanding, I think that she set a trap for you when she offered you this irresistible offer, and the trap was for you to end up being- as you are now- emotionally invested in a romantic relationship with her.
When she left the country for 5 weeks, “She made it a point to video call me everyday and ask me about my day. She would also regularly send me amorous text messages that strongly hinted romantic feelings“- she didn’t want her.. work (all she did to cause you to emotionally invest in a romantic relationship with her) to lose momentum because of physical distance, so she kept herself in your mind by frequent contact and she upped her romantic gestures.
“(I) confessed mine to her… We still continue to meet for sex. She does text me everyday but she had stopped sending me those amorous texts and stopped using my pet name. Her calls have gotten less frequent“- you confessing your romantic feelings= her mission accomplished. After that.. her goal is maintenance: to keep you wanting her romantically by keeping you from getting what you want.
The last part of your original post: “The last few weeks have been really difficult for me. I know the right thing to do would be cut ties with her and walk away, but, I am having a hard time accepting what happened”-
– It will be easier to accept what happened when you understand what happened.
“I understand how FWB works“-
– I think that the central theme of the relationship has not how FWB works, but how she works: she uses the FWB factor as a way for her to be in-control of you and of the relationship via dishonest manipulation.
“How did I end up in this situation?“- you didn’t know.. how she works..
Do you think I understand the situation correctly, in part or in whole? (I am checking my understanding with you).
“How do I let this go and deal with the pain?“- let’s talk about it further, shall we?
anita
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 