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.

Hello Anita

Wish you well.

Earlier last week I texted her and asked her to take her things back.  She left something in one of the cabinets in my apartment, which she must have missed. I told her I would leave it in the yoga studio where we usually go together. After a week, my teacher was asking if I would take it back next time, meaning she hasn’t taken the stuff away.

So I texted her early this week, seeing if she would take things back. If not I don’t want to occupy the yoga studio’s space. I also follow up with asking how she would attend the classes further. There were times I wanted to attend the class that we usually attended, but I also understand those might be the only classes that she could go, so I deliberately skipped them. I think I don’t want to just be the one taking care of this: dismissing what I want( to attend certiain class), while she might not need me to do so as she is not going anyways/ might not care etc.

She suggested some ways and one of which was just to use a google form to write down when we plan to go. I thought it was a bit sad to revert to this, while I thought we could just text each other like normal interaction. So I counter suggested that I would just text her if I want to attend the classes, to which she said ok. Later that night I texted her and said I didn’t even know if she appreicates my initiation, and that I deliberately skipped lessons to give us some space, i said I hoped we could speak like normal eventually. and asked her to let me know what she thinks. At the back of my mind, I think this is familar: She said ‘ok; to smth, and I was to naive to believe that she was ‘ok’ ,  but she wasn’t.

She then said, she apprecaited it. She also said she was too emotional still and was afraid if any of our conversation went sour, she could not handle, and so she wished to limit the interaction. She said I might think it’s easy for her to move on, but she was still in so much pain.

So I told her that may be, using google form is a better balance of what I want(attend classes) and what she needs(have limited/ no interaction), so at least she wouldn’t get a random text from me.

A few days later, my feelings towards this emerged: Why is she in such a pain? did I do something wrong again?(I think that’s my default mode to reflect what i have done and they are usually bad things) I think I knew I didn’t. I think the only thing I did was to protect my boundary: asked her and her stuffs to move away asap, respecting my own needs and right to attend the classes. But seeing her so paralzed , almost unable to talk to me after a month and a half, I feel there is something off, and I really wanted to fix it.

My friend told me she might not know what she has done, how what she did affect me and how badly she treated me throughout, so when I really stood up for myself, she suddenly realized it was not ok, and that I would set my boundaries all of a sudden once she said she wanted to break up, which shocked her so much. It is entirely possible that if I didn’t do that, she would not feel the impact of the breakup, althoug she chose for herself. So she said it was not on me, she should really feel the pain for what she chose and what she did.

I still cry, I still miss her sometime. But I now think this is a necessary process for my healing.

Yesterday I went to the cat adoption centre, There were two cats that I particularly connected with. One is a 2  year old male and the other is a 1 year old girl. The girl has one eye that has problem and not really functioning. I am tryint to find out more medical background(if any), and I am trying to use a week or two , to imagine how it feels like if there is an animal around. Literally picturing an animal walking in my flat. I remember your lesson, and I will try to expect the unexpected, especially these animals came from different backgrounds and they might have various kinds of issues prior.

Have a good day, take care!

Clara

Hello Anita

Thanks for asking. All is well.

It has been slightly more than a month, from the actual break up. But I feel (and objectively think) I am recovering very quickly. There used to be this emotion tsunami , but now they became ripples only. I could identify it in my chest when it came, and as it builds up to a certain point, I sit with it and often times my tears would come out, and I would become better. After repetitive trials, I am quite used to the pattern and I can just let it be.

I do still, from time to time, see if she has updated on IG, that is basically the only connection we have now. I can recall the number of followers(I just do haha, I am very sensitive to numbers and I do still check her IG time to time) that she has and how many she follows , and I realized the number of both went down recently. I was thinking ” hmmm may be someone in her life is unfollowing her due to xxxxx, would it be someone she saw when we were on a break/ dating etc etc ‘ . It’s silly to stalk and think like that, and I know I am still lingering a bit, but it is kind of a habit to check on how she is, I see myself doing it less and less, but it still happens.

There was one night, when I was a bit sleepless, and i was thinking how inconsiderate she was. I had the feeling that I wanted to yell at her, but didn’t do so obviously. I just felt unfair, the way she treated me. The anger is still inside, and I would need to settle it on my own and I don’t expect her to do anything or would understand, coz if she does, she would already have done something.

I am now practicing a bit more yoga now, after the break up, I  have set a goal to do handstand within the year which i had thought about it for a while. There is this yoga teacher whom I quite like, her energy is light and she is fun to be with. I reserved some private lessons with her and after yesterday’s lesson, I realized I could have some fun time, with someone else, completely unaffected by the though of my ex. I can’t help but think with the right scenario, in the right context, I could start to like this teacher, or someone else for that matter.

the other thought that came immediately, was the thing you mentioned: adding logic to the heart. Even If I like this person, do I know this person well enough? is this mutual? what shows that this is mutual and how is this person compatible/ not compatible with me? I probably wouldn’t look via this lens before, but now, I think I am starting to have this lens now, which I think is an improvement as this balances my sentiments, which i had a lot when I began to like a person

Now I realized, it really takes a lot of time, to really start a relationship. I was too rush before , that made me unable to see clearly.

I am still actively thinking to adopt an animal, this, unlike the thought of my ex, is getting stronger rather than weaker. I like dogs but I know the commitment is higher, cats are easier. Anyhow, I will go check the dog/ cat shelter this weekend. Needs to consider so many as this can be a decade long commitment(and we certainly won’t break up so this may be the longest relationship I have, so far. Careful and deliberate considerations are needed!) I am unsure which animal will connect with me, but as my friend said: You would know you are ready when you do.

Have a good evening Anita, welcome to let me know how you have been

Clara

Hello Anita

It’s been another few days. After this is clearer, I think I am another step to not be too affected by her(her being in my mind, not really having any interaction anyways)

I think this is one of the comments that I received often, from my friend. That she thinks too shallow(may be too compartmentalize/ emotional unaware if we use more psychologicacl terms), while they all know how much of a deep thinker I am.  But the funny thing is, I think I knew this, and my mind says ‘if you are committed to someone, then you should not give up on that person because of her “flaw” ‘ I do feel sometime I am not completely accepting, if I were to work on myself, then I should be more empathetic. But I did have some negative reaction when she had moments where she seemed to be completely ignorant of what she was doing, or the effect of her actions.

I think that’s the reason why i didn’t set up an appropriate/ healthy boundary? In my mind, I think I should work with her to see how we can improve, rather than, just walk away. The fine line between being perservance and being stubborn, is hard to manage in a relationship for me. When should a relationship really stops?

She is indeed good at her job, and some superficial interaction . She does have feelings and she does care for others, and I can sense it throughout our relationship, It felt like she couldn’t help it, and a lot of time she really didn’t know what she has done. That made me feeling quite unsure what to do, on one hand, I think sometime objectively, she should be more emotional mature(given she is 40, but honestly there are a lot 40’s who are still not knowing what they are doing in their lives, so I can’t say that i guess…), on the other hand, I think she really doesn’t have the skills or capability yet so I should be more empathetic.

I think being with this person has given me a lot of lessons to learn, given that we are quite different. I think we must have cared for each a lot at some points, that allowed us to sustain 5.5 years of relationship

good morning on your side

Clara

Hello Anita

What you said was very accurate. She could not tolerate and process difficult emotions and naviagte solutions while in them. She just wants to escape from it and refuse to acknowledge that there is even a problem.

that is why i get frustrated when i realized all she thought was where she should break up and how she felt, i did not see her finding ways to solve the problem at all, it makes sense also since she lost interest in me. but on the other hand hearing her say she cares sounds very ambivalent, and i think i constantly and thinking “what?” in my head.

i think her pattern is shown through her work( burn out and quit), her interested in sex but refuse to acknowledge and call it a quit, ultimately our relationship( burn out and quit)

i even shared it during the conversation we had that day, that i felt i was mislead and i thought she didnt like sex, and i said i thought u wanted long term relationship and the falls in passionate is inevitable(that said i didnt mean we cant rebuild or evolve the relationship to another level). now it makes sense, because i really was mislead even she denied( or didnt understand about it)

the break up, yes, the expirary date may be there in the beginning already. as we said earlier, i am breaking my anxious attachment slowly and making it conscious. i think she is still stuck in her world and will inevitably repeat the pattern