Sorry for all those posts, I just remembered another thing which definitely tickled me a lot: I have some deep feelings that he is not emotionally connected with her. Twice he baited on her. For one event beginning of May, according to some friends of mine who were there, she went to the place, looking and running all over to see him. He wasn’t here anymore, basically he left without noticing her. And end of May, he was supposed to be at an event with a friend, I know because I also went to that event at the very last minute and my friend told me that he told her he was supposed to go as well. He never came, his friend was alone, very mad, he didn’t know I was here, he was offline all day and until the day after.

I know him, I know if he really cares, he will make the effort to be present, mostly when he gives his word. And for the first event, in order to demonstrate my point: when it came to me, he used to wait for me to appear somewhere, to look after me when we had parties, gala or dinners together before being officially together. With her, I feel like he didn’t do these kind of efforts. I realized that during the ball where he grabbed my arm, he went to another party where she was, but we spent the evening together and he only waited the last 30min of her party to join her. And I know for sure he wasn’t even with her the day after because my friend who lives in the same corridor as him, saw him in the morning and they spent something like 2/3 hours talking together.

On top of that, I could pretty much track back his schedule over the last 2 months, it’s not rocket science because his week-ends, he was either with me and our friends partying, or with my friend talking in their shared kitchen for hours and during the week-days, I spent my time seeing stories on social medias about him being with his board or just with his friends all day and all night. And when it was none of that, so many of my friends told me “yeah I saw him alone that day blablabla, he was going to the laundry room blablabla”. To be fair, even when I didn’t want to hear from him, I always find someone talking about him to me and what he did during his day.

Basically for him and I quote unquote himself, being with someone and caring for someone is about communication and spending time together. So far if I look over the last two weeks and half, he spent more time with his friends and his board than with her. When we were dating, we always used to spend at least two days together, if not more, not because we didn’t have other plans but just because we wanted to see each other. So I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m just imagining stuffs for my own sake, but again, so far, is it really only assumptions if it based on what I clearly see and what people tell me?

To be honest, I’m not necessarily looking for a rebound, right now, I wish to have more understandings about his attitude, is it me who is imagining more than I should or is his attitude really suspicious?

Now, it kind of kills me to realize that he may not be honest with me and his feelings towards me.

First of all, during my conversation with his best friend, she finally named his neuro-divergency: autism. Which didn’t come as a chock at all, one of my closest friends is also autistic and they both display a lot of common signs, the first one being very oblivion when it comes to communication. I don’t put the blame here. I know how it feels to be neurodivergent, I have ADHD/OCD, I am HSP and gifted child myself. But he never said out loud the name of it and I can’t stop myself from thinking that he was trying to hide it, I mean, he told me that he brain was slower than average and that socially speaking it takes him a longer time to bound with individuals. (and that’s another important point here)

Secondly, one of my friends who is his neighbor, talked about a situation with a guy who happens to be one of “my” guy’s friend, since beginning of May. My friend and I are really similar, in our characters but mostly in the situations with our two guys as mine was the former pub leader and hers is the current one.

Interestingly enough, the two guys aren’t that closes, they know each other but don’t have a lot in common and don’t necessarily hang out together. My friend’s guy is notoriously known to be a fuckboy who doesn’t want to settle down at all. The two of them were emotionally closes, he confessed a lot to her, and they spent 2/3 nights together without having sex. They said to each other that nothing would happen, and they were just friends. So, the situation was pretty obvious. And on top of that, “my” guy never saw my friend and “her” guy interacting with each other, so let’s keep in mind that everything he will say is completely based on pure assumptions.

Here is what “my” guy said to her: 1) On the 12th of May, the three of us were talking about the situation. My friend said “why people are so complicated?”, which I responded “it’s just fear which makes people acting in such a complicated way”, he said to me and only to me “you can’t say it’s just fear. Fears are based on the past and experiences. And it makes people take decision they regret”. At that point it was obvious we were talking about each other

2) On the 20th of May, “my” guy said to my friend what he thought: for him, my friend’s guy has feelings for her but he’s scared because he doesn’t know how to deal with that. Maybe he realized that he was becoming too vulnerable around you and hurt you before you hurt him. In addition, he also said that the next days would be hard because he may behaves to repair the situation and that would be by pretending nothing changed just to avoid confrontation, reassure himself that he was right and that she was just overthinking.

3)My friend told him by message on the 22th of May: “I think he’s too coward to face me once I say “we need to talk””, which “my” guy responded “He’s putting you in a horrible situation, you’re the one who needs to make hard decisions while he can only stay quit”.

4) After our clash on the 26th of May, the same day, he came to my friend and asked her if she wanted to talk. So, they spent their Sunday talking about her and her guy. And from that moment, I realized that they were both projecting onto each other. Him, me and her, his guy. I also really think that for him, it’s a way to understand what I think, what I feel and maybe to find a way to acknowledge his feelings and emotions under the cover of another situation. I think it is what happens, because everyone who knows my friend’s guy, knows that he really doesn’t want to settle down, if he shows up around with another girl, it doesn’t mean that he was trying to play mind games but simply that he is perfectly ok with the situation, moreover, they both said that nothing would happen and that it was only friendship. So, why would he bother getting hurt by developing more for someone with whom he already set u boundaries?

Now the situation with that girl which I genuinely don’t understand. First of all, knowing him and how his brain works, he can’t develop romantic or friendly feelings for someone he has known for only a couple of days. He promised me that before dating, they barely talked or even didn’t talk to each other. April and May were extremely messy for him. April because of the breakup, some issues with the association’s board and all of this led him to shut down at his place for at least two weeks without going out nor showering (he said that to one of his friends). And during May, well, I know he shuts down at least for 2 weeks because of me. I also know for a fact that he spent a lot of time with his friends, with the board and also with me. Yet, he assured me that he had feelings for her while one week and half before, talking about the 4 points I mentioned above with my friends. I know for sure he was projecting when he talked to my friends because all of his other advices, he gave to her, directly came from me and what I said during the breakup time.

Also, during April, when I knew he was having so much troubles with the board, I sent him a message in order to support him. In a pure friendly way, because he sent me a message to discuss about the situation with the association, we spent 5h talking about it and I gave him advices to deal with it. So it was obvious for me to send him a supportive message when I knew he wasn’t feeling ok and there was going to be a hearing with all the board. Yet he told me that for him, if he didn’t answer to this message it was because he thought nothing good would emerge from it. To what I said, ok yes sure, I got your point, but then, WHY didn’t you keep your distance with me in real life too? How comes it was less dangerous for you to be around me than responding to one simple message? How comes he didn’t keep his distance from me out of respect for her since they are supposed to be dating for a while now? Because as I remembered him, he told me that he kept his distance from her out of respect for me. So why didn’t he apply this to me as well? He said that he tried but I was the one going to him. Yes and no, I refer to what I stated in my other message for this point.

Another detail which tickled me a lot, I could sens that they weren’t physically close to each other. On the 26^th of May, when I saw the two of them saying goodbye, they didn’t even hug, he just pat-pated her. I mean, it was supposed to be one good month they were dating. He is the kind of person very tactile; he needs physical touches. He told me that he didn’t hug everyone but he selected the people; on top of that, I know for him being physically close to someone is deeply linked to being emotionally close.

I have the gut feelings that he dates her and feel more “ok” with her because he knows he is not as emotionally close to her as he used to be with me. His best-friend told me that he didn’t even tell her that we dated, he told her that he felt extremely guilty about me and him, that he felt surer about the other girl. But again, it was obvious he would persuade himself he felt this way, no? I mean, at that stage, when he told his best-friend, we were supposed to have said farewell three weeks ago to each other. She also told me that he was the kind of person who needs to feel that he fits into people’s expectations and if he doesn’t feel that he fits then he will overthink and most likely persuade himself of another truth which will deny his real emotions and feelings. And finally, she thinks that he started dating her because he is trying to forget me, because he knows that he is leaving our town in a couple of weeks and our country at the end of July. My friends also added that he knew he couldn’t allow himself to stay close to me because he knew he wasn’t in a good place and was on the verge to leave.

So I don’t know what to think, I know I’m kind of overthinking but at the same time, so many hard facts keep converging towards all of those assumptions, I keep receiving proofs that all of them are actually true, or maybe it just all comes from my mind because it makes me feel so bad about myself..

Hi guys! I am sorry for replying with that much delay while you always take time to reply quickly.. I am taken in the middle of some exams lately and I had to start preparing a draft for a potential future master thesis, which is very challenging but also at the same time extremely interesting! On a very good note, I am selected as finalist for a scientific writing contest, which means that I will probably get another article officially published soon amongst the prices offered. I have the public presentation next week and if I am correct, some scientists former Oxford students will be there, I am really looking forwards to meeting and talking to them.

I also got time to think about what you both wrote, me seeking for love and approval from one of my parents. I am only child, raised by a single mom. She is extremely perfectionist, never happy with what I did because it was never enough. I am from a wealthy environment. All my current successes, she sees that as a very easy thing, that everybody could do, which she doesn’t understand, yet she allows herself the right to dismiss it. Buuut, like I said, I went for two years in therapy. The relationship with my mother was the key-point. I was extremely lucky to get the therapist I got. If I took the path I am on nowadays, it is mostly thanks to her. I made peace, not with my mother, but with myself. I accepted the fact that, regardless what I do, with whom I choose to be with, where I am, she will always try to find something to criticize, because you know, she is kind of control-freak. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I am successful, feeling good in my skin, she can talk, I am not listening anymore. I don’t have time for it.

I told her a few months ago that her insecurities weren’t mine, that I wasn’t responsible for the way she physically and mentally feel. If she thought she wasn’t good enough, well, it wasn’t my job to make her feel better. So in any way, she didn’t have the right to make me feel like a trash just because she felt like a trash.

There is something else I was thinking. My mother never dated someone until I was 16, or at least, she never introduced nor talked about a potential partner she could have had. Because she didn’t want for me to see her with different partners in order for me, when I was a kid, not to have a biased vision of what relationships and love should be in when I grew up, a “healthy” vision of relationship let’s say. This is something I am really thankful honestly. She started dating my current step-father 10 years ago. She wanted to build the image of the possibility of a constant and strong relationship with someone. Obviously, there are many things which aren’t good in this relation but that’s another long debate, I am too old to be affected by it anymore anyway.

When it comes to me, I really enjoy tending of the people I love, friends, family, lover. I do it naturally, there is no second-thoughts for every small attentions I can have towards someone. It is just what it is. So considering that I actually have a vision of long-term relationship brought by my mother, combined with this aspect of my personality, it may explain why I was like that with him. Because you know, when you truly love someone, you’re supposed to do whatever it takes to fix everything which could be fixed before throwing away, right? We can’t be at our ups all the time and if your feelings for the person are real and as strong as you say they are, then you will stay by your partner’s sides for the better and the worst. Well, at least this is how I consider things.

Now when it comes to my feelings for him, all I stated before was true but it was 6/7 months ago. Everything is changing for those past months, I am more and more exhausted by his behavior. Maybe it’s just the end, I don’t know but for now I think I simply don’t have the time nor the energy to focus on it.

Thank you Anita for your answer. It makes a lot of sens actually. For a very longtime his mother thought he was gay and trans because he had a lot of feminine habits while he was argued with her about the fact that, no, even though he was very “feminine” in his behavior, it didn’t make him gay nor trans. When we started to date, I was the one talking with him for the very first time about the deconstruction of gender role in our modern society. Before, and I guess because of his very traditional family, he kind of hide himself, feeling ashamed because he liked feminine clothings and because he was/is extremely sensitive. If his depression is hitting hard right now, I guess all of what I just stated is a pretty big trigger for him? Is there a way for him to find himself except the use of anti-depressant or therapy? He is extremely down to earth, he isn’t a spiritual mind at all, very scientific. Also, it is becoming very hard for me to see him being under anti-depressant for so long and not seeing that many results on a mid/longterm basis.. I mean, 7 months seems to be a pretty long period, isn’t he supposed to see clear results by now?

Sorry for not being clear, it is currently pretty late where I live, I am getting a bit tired. What I wanted to ask were: 1) Why would he project his anger towards his mother on me? Would that mean that he sees me as a kind of partner/maternal figure rather than a partner/friend?

I considered for a longtime giving up the relationship for my own sake. I am aware that it is not completely healthy for me to stay with someone who is unable to provide love and affection in a way I want to on a regular basis. But I also know how he is during his ups. He is amazing in so many ways, we have the same values, he is very kind and generous. Honestly, I couldn’t wish for a better partner when he is at his ups. The way I want to be loved and seen, he is like this. This is why I struggle so much. I know he loves me, I love him, he is worth the efforts. We once decided to take a break around December and it lasted one month, I felt like a complete wreck. I can’t imagine my life without him. And at the same time it is very hard, I don’t know how to cope with the situation anymore. Which is why I try to get a better understanding. I don’t understand what he wants now. He also told me that if the situation became too hard for me, he would understand that I would decide to leave. I am just so torn.

Hi Anita,

Thank you for your response. He has a kind of complicated relation with his parents. He is the older among the three children at home. His mother is quite strict, in the sens that she kind of pushes him to keep studying while he would have wanted to take a break from school because he knows he does not feel ok and he needs time to rest both mentally and physically. He has a good relation with his father, although it is not him who leads the family. Overall, I would say that his parents are pretty much understanding of his mental health and yet, his mother keeps pressuring him about school.

The first time he withdrew from me was because three members of his family died in a row last year. We talked about what he wanted to do and how I could help him to deal with the situation. And the second time he withdrew from me was 7/8 months ago because he started to feel very down regarding his studies which were not going very well, we also talked about what we should do. Sometimes I feel like it’s more his personality rather than his mental health which makes him withdraw from everything. In the sens that every time things get a bit too intense, that he has to make efforts, it simply becomes too hard for him to deal with and therefore it is easier to stop and start something completely new, you know.

I asked him two or three month ago if he wanted to continue the relationship or if he wanted to either break it up and take a break. He said he wanted to continue so did I. But now I simply don’t understand anymore I think. It makes me feel so unfair that he stops talking for days and sometimes for weeks without any reasons. He just comes back like if nothing happened. At first I tried to be understanding, yeah he is going through a lot, we already talked about the fact that sometimes we need time separately and such.  But the difference is that, we talked about it BEFORE it actually happens. I wanted to talk about that with him but again, I feel like he does not hear or listen to me. I am exhausted of the situation, I do have feelings for him and I don’t know how to reach him, I don’t know if talking about how I feel would change something right now and I simply don’t know if I can take it anymore.

I don’t want to take decision about continuing the relationship with him or not now, we are both going through a lot of things, I just want to figure out, to understand and how to reach him out..