Hi all
Thanks for all your reply

@jana, yes I did go through a difficult break up around 6 months ago, but I feel good right now, emotionally I think i am available and ready to enter a relationship(or not, both are fine actually)
So I actually am not actively looking for someone, I do go on dating app, but most of the time i just chat with people but honestly am not very active, i’d like things to go more naturally instead.

Anyways, a few weeks have passed so quickly.
In short, I didn’t really cut my colleague off. I did try, after I knew she and the ‘woman’ are in good terms now(whatever that means), just immediately after New year i think. There was also one time when I felt she was not fulfilling what she said(she said she would help me trim my cats’ nail but it never happened), and I felt she was mostly just seeing me in between her other commitments , but not really making plan(which i said earlier), so i asked her no need to say she would help unless she could really find a confirmed time(she has all the ‘may be tmr’ ‘unsure if sun works’ things going on). I basically said if her priority is not with this, and insinuated that if her priority is not with us/ our interaction, I don’t want to continue with this.

We stopped talking to each for just one day after i said so, and the day after(which is a Monday, 2 weeks ago), i hurt my knee and when she knew about this, she kept asking how i was and eventually we started talking again, like how we used to be.
We talk everyday still, i was a bit angry with her at something the other day, i told her about it and said i feel that she has taken me for granted, she was very eager to reach out to me and tried to comfort me. But when i told my friend about this, she reminded me that these interactions, are very couple like, to which i also agree. The interactions are far from pure friendship. There are times when she said she wants a hug, and i do want hugs too and we would hug each other. We just didn’t kiss or go further. So we are kind of in this grey zone.

Last week she had hre birthday, we went out for dinner the next day.
I asked her about her ‘woman’ that night, she told me then she knew she wouldn’t be with the ‘woman’ in the long run, she was also very tired of taking care of her. She mentioned her ‘friend’ also asked her to explore other options and don’t be stuck with her. She did tell me her vision of her future partners. So in a way she mentioned they were not together But I know they still interact(probably closely), and I really have a hard time gauging this. It feels like I am navigating a world that I previously had no idea exist. The way she handles relationship is not something that I can comprehend.
That night when we left, we held hands, i walked her back home and we hugged.

I mean, I have a part in it. I didn’t set firmer boundaries with her. I would have reiterate my boundary and expectations. But because she was my colleague so I didn’t really wana cut her off. Secondly, I am indeed attracted to her and this makes me hard to leave.

I know i need to keep more distance with her, which I was thinking to do so after our planned birthday dinner celebration.
It was last friday night, and throughout the weekend I did talk less to her. She usually talks less to me during her day off though, I think she was busy celebrating still(she got so many friends celebrating with her that she had to arrange breakfast celebration)

There are other things, that I think may be considered as red flat
– her boundary setting, with her ‘friends’ , and obviously with me
– she said she was spoiled and like to feel she was spoiled by her partner( i kinda agree, she probably like grand gesture which are not my forte)
– she said she could get really obsessive/ possessive if she really like someone.

I think i need I need to set firmer boundaries, with or without stating it clearly with her. I could have just stopped the interaction with her so that things could die down.
I don’t see her as a very good long term partner, so in any case, I should just stop this.
It’s just that I have some attachment lingering on, and honestly, I have been deprived with care/ simply some deep hugs, to which i mentioned she was very good at. I think that’s why

Thanks for listening all!
Clara

Hello Helcat

Good to hear from you.
Yes there was a similar situation before as well. I guess it triggered me in a sense that I know I need to apply my lesson learnt. my current ex had some complications(not as complicated as this one i feel) before we were together. I did the same, to distance myself from her for a while to transform my feelings, before I talk to her again.
For this time, the colleague’s attachment to her ex is still very strong, and she even verbally said she wanted to be with her if at all possible. So obviously this is not something that I would consider engaging in. I don’t feel very bothered(I am, but not to an extend that it is affecting my mental health), and I am quicker in realizing how the dynamics are in this current situation. I guess i have learned from the past.

The work thing is complicated, but it does seem to me she still want to chat with me, as friends? as potential partner ? i really don’t know. and I can’t just cut her off, it would be weird when we meet in the office.

She used to say a lot more flirty stuffs before i showed my distance. I think she either is not in the mood(quite engulfed with her current break up) and also, may be she knows I am setting a firmer boundary.

Thanks for your wishes.
Happy new year to you!
Chau

Hi Anita

Thank you

This gave me another perspective. Whatever this is describing, fits what I am experiencing indeed.

It did create a lot of confusion, and unnecessary pain, for me on the receiving end of the break up. I am aware of my overreacting and insecurity/ attachment style. will continue to practice ways to make myself more stable and regulated.

I often treasures honesty and directness, I do not like to guess or beat around the bush. I often think this causes more harm. It is often because the person delivering the message does not have enough mental strength/ courage to deliver the message, at the cost of the peace of the recipient. I guess this is also how she draws further, as I often challenge her to talk/ face directly with the situations.

Thanks, I feel this is clearer again.

Clara

Hi Anita

I just reposted this, the previous one has a lot of <P> and random alphabets, you can ignore he previous one, the following is the same, thanks.

Dear Anita
Good to know you are well. Have more sleep if possible. and exercise and eat well. so you have more physical and mental energy for yourself snd those who need you.

yes i think she represents those inagines. but rather than making it so negatively, i think she represents a life that i aspire to have. having someone who is supportive, willing to stand by you, accepting and caring. realistically, i think she fails in reaching the standard i look for. nonetheless, i still miss the imagination/ image.

I was re reading some of our conversations recently. i didnt get it very well when you mentioned “breaking up with you is the solution”

when i sat on it again, i started to understand breaking up is the way out for her to escape her emotions. by breaking up with me and have a convenient reason/ more commonly agreed upon reason that she has lost feelings for me, this allows her to escape from me and thus no need to dig out the way she relates to me and others. thus no need to reflect. 

it makes sense now that she was in such pain: she might not even want the break up to some extend. say i want to run a marathon and got cold feet and just say “ i am not interested its not for me” . this is a lie to myself and the negative feelings associated with me lying to myself, will unconsciously affect me. because what i said and did, was not genuine.

but of couse, the break up can also be something that she really wanted( then i also cannot fully explain why she is in such a pain after u get something that u realy want, anyways)

to answer your question: no i do no need for someone to save me. i think i would practice loving myself or my little self more so i feel the warmth and love from inside

Have a lovely day 
Clara

Hi Anita,

Thanks again, for digging out the things that I shared some years ago, so I can look at the similarity.

i wrote something to my little self. telling her I love her the other day.

I think, we normalize some bad behaviors that do do to people. There are times when I look at my brother interacting with his children, and I thought: may be this is how my own wound at childhood was created. He was not physically abusive or being very rude or rough, but it was the insinuation of the fault that the children made, the causal comments which may be insulting, these are the things that we have normalized. I guess not everyone has a psychology background(which I think we all should have some degree of knowledge) so I understand why. But when I try to pamper or comfort my little self, I realized there are things that I wished someone else could tell me/ did to me, when I was younger, but nobody did.

I think I am reliving the childhood for a very long period of time, the loneliness, the scare, the threatening environment. I was easily brought back there.

Honestly, as weird as it sounds, I still want to get in touch with her(may be it’s the ‘miss her’ that i said above). But once I think of the next step, say if she wants to be with me, I actually don’t think I want that, not the person that she still is(I guess one can’t change so much in a month and a half, especially with her avoidance/ distancing behaviors). But that urge, somehow, is still there. I never am able to say : No this person is not good to me so i just shut the door. Somehow, I just can’t do that.

to think deeper, I actually don’t miss the actual ‘her’. I miss the image of her, the future that ‘her’ may have with me,  the relationship that a ‘her’ could provide. Her, being relatively non-connected emotional, is not something that I miss.

Hope you are well.