Hey Dear Confused:

I like it that there’s a smiley face in your message. To me, the smiley face feels like the strength within you.

“Idk what clarity feels like” – it may feel like serenity, as in the serenity prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..

You can’t change her mind, her heart, her history before she met you- which has a big part in her unpropotionate recent reaction.

I understand you wanting to ask her if there’s a chance for the 2 of U, or should U kill any hope for getting back together.

Problem is (besides the fact that it’ll disrespect the space she needs) is that even if she says: ‘No chance!’, you may think: ‘No chance now, but maybe next week.. or the week after’

It’s not that you f***** it up, it’s that the relationship has become fragile for a variety of reasons- from both sides. Which is most often the case in most relationship.

Are the 🔥 in Greece still ongoing? Any close to you? The current Spokane 🔥 are close enough to me that the air I’m breathing right now is filled with smoke.

How are you now (when reading this message)?

🙂 Anita

Hey Dear Confused:

I can hear how much this is hurting you, and how overwhelmed you felt today. What you’re feeling — the longing, the fear, the thoughts running in circles — is part of the shock of separation. It means you’re in the first wave of grief.

Your care for her was real — I don’t doubt that. But when a person says they need space, the most respectful thing you can do is to continue to give it to them. Reaching out in the middle of this emotional storm would come from your pain, not from clarity, and she would feel that pressure immediately. It wouldn’t help the situation, even though the urge to contact her feels so strong. Longing always makes people want to act — that’s human.

Right now, it’s important to slow down. You don’t have to act on every feeling. You just have to get through this moment without doing something that comes from panic rather than clarity and calm. Space is not rejection — it’s her way of trying to regulate herself.

I know you miss her. I know her absence feels like a physical ache. But give her the space she asked for and give yourself a chance to breathe before you decide what comes next.

🌿 Anita

Dear Girija:

One thing I want to say right away is how much I respect your emotional honesty. You look directly at what scares you, you name it clearly, and you don’t turn away from the parts of yourself that feel fragile. That willingness to look inside — even when it hurts — is not a small thing. It’s the foundation of healing. Nothing changes until a person can face their inner world the way you are doing now.

I relate to that very much. My own healing began in the same way: by being honest with myself about what I felt, by noticing the fear instead of hiding it, and by admitting how deeply my childhood shaped me. That emotional honesty was the prerequisite for any safety I’ve built inside.

And I want to be clear with you: my healing is not “complete.” I still carry anxiety in my body. Some of it is somatic — tics, Tourette’s — old fear that settled into my nervous system long before I had any control over my life. That part didn’t magically disappear. But I am safer within myself now, and I feel so much better than I used to.

The biggest shift came from peeling off self‑blame and replacing it with empathy for myself. I stopped treating my fear as a flaw and started seeing it as a child’s response to an unsafe world.

I also stopped seeing myself as “abnormal,” or as some kind of freak of nature — which reminds me of the title of your 2022 thread, “I want to be normal.” I began to understand that I was a normal child who had no choice but to adapt to abnormal circumstances. That change in perspective softened something deep inside me.

Another thing that helped — and I still repeat it every single day — is the serenity prayer we talked about in your other thread: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Whenever I feel anxious about a real‑life situation, I ask myself: Is this something I can change? If the answer is no, I let it go. And if the worry comes back, I repeat the question again.

None of this erased the past, but it made the present livable. And it’s something you can build too — slowly, gently, and with the same honesty you’re already showing.

🌿 Anita

Dear Girija:

Reading your latest post, I can see how heavy it feels to treat every situation as a test of your worth. When you say you feel like a building that might collapse if one thing goes wrong — that’s exactly what happens when a person grows up without enough emotional safety. You end up carrying the belief that you are the problem, and that every outcome reflects something broken in you.

But it doesn’t. Sometimes things simply don’t click, and it’s not a verdict on who you are.

You mentioned worrying you’re not smart enough, or that something will “catch up” to you. That fear didn’t start in adulthood — it started when you were called a nerd in a way that made you feel small instead of proud. You internalized the idea that you must constantly prove yourself.

What you’re considering now — deciding you’re not the problem and leaving situations that don’t feel right — is a healthy shift. It’s not giving up. It’s giving yourself permission to stop treating every moment as a test you must pass. You deserve to feel steady inside, not like you’re always one mistake away from collapse.

Please let me know if this post and the one before this one resonate 🙂

🌿 Anita

Dear Confused:

I hear how confusing it is for you that she can only see the moment you panicked and lied, and not all the care and love you showed her. The intensity of her reaction tells me she wasn’t just responding to what happened between you two — she was responding to something older, something that already lived inside her. When someone has been hurt before, even a small mistake can feel like a repeat of a much bigger wound. In that moment she couldn’t separate the past from the present, and she couldn’t see the version of you who was kind, supportive, and steady with her.

That doesn’t mean your care wasn’t real. You didn’t erase the good memories — she just couldn’t reach them while she was triggered. And that’s why this feels so sudden and so absolute to you.

I also remember how anxious she was about the trip. Sometimes when someone is already overwhelmed, even a small mistake becomes the thing they hold onto so they can step away from something that feels too big or too scary. It doesn’t mean the lie itself was huge — it means her fear was already strong, and this gave her a reason to cancel what she didn’t feel ready for.

You’re grieving something that mattered deeply, and you’re trying to make sense of a reaction that came from her own history, not from your worth. You can keep talking here. (I will be away from the computer for a while)

🌿 Anita

Hey Dear Confused 🙂

I hear how much tenderness you still feel for her, even after the anger and the hurt. You’re able to see both sides — the moments when she reacted from fear, and the moments when she showed care, softness, and generosity. It makes sense that your heart goes back to her, because you’re remembering the parts of her that felt warm and meaningful to you.

You’re describing someone who is deeply insecure and easily triggered, especially around the September incident. When a person already feels “not enough,” even small things can feel like threats, and they protect themselves by pulling away first. That doesn’t excuse the hurtful moments, but it does explain them. You’re also honest about your own turmoil — how you tried to stay gentle but were struggling inside too. It sounds like both of you were carrying wounds that made the relationship feel unstable.

I can see why you valued her kindness, her thoughtfulness, the way she cared about your well‑being and your family. Those things mattered to you. And I can also see why it was hard: her fear, your demons, the triggers on both sides. You’re holding a lot of complexity, and you’re trying to make sense of it without blaming her or yourself. That shows your sincerity.

If you want to keep talking about this, I’m here.

🌿 Anita

Dear Eva:

Thank you for sharing all of this. I can hear how much you’ve been carrying, and how exhausting and confusing this cycle has been for you. What you described — the sudden warmth, the hope it awakens, and then the abrupt shift back into coldness and blame — would shake anyone. It makes sense that you felt something open in you when he was attentive, and that it hurt so deeply when it disappeared the next day.

What stands out to me most is your clarity. You’re seeing the pattern as it is happening, not months later. You’re noticing the contrast between how you feel when he’s present and how you feel when he withdraws. You’re noticing how quickly your needs become “complaints” in his eyes, and how easily your affection becomes something he minimizes or criticizes. That awareness is yours. It comes from living this relationship day by day, and from knowing what it feels like in your own body.

You’re not “the problem.” You’re someone who wants consistency, care, and basic emotional presence — and you’re noticing that the moments of warmth are brief, while the moments of dismissal and blame are long. You’re noticing how hope keeps pulling you back in, and how quickly that hope turns into hurt again. None of this means you’re asking for too much. It means you’re asking for the minimum, and you’re seeing clearly when it isn’t there.

I trust your ability to understand your own experience. You don’t need to rush into any decision or conclusion. You can keep noticing what feels true for you, at your own pace, in your own words. I’m here whenever you want to talk again. No pressure to respond until you feel ready.

🙂🌿 Anita