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Ben

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  • #426611
    Ben
    Participant

    Oh it makes a lot of sense Anita. It really does.

    I’ve found myself agreeing with you, and the more rational side of my mind all the time. The fear overwhelms me somewhat.

    I maybe have a lot of pressures…

    One, I paid for his flight… maybe i’m feeling like “he’s got me wrapped around my finger”. I feel foolish for doing so, yet it wasn’t some big gesture I made to try and make him closer to me. I wanted to see him, he wanted to come see me, and well, we know he doesn’t have any money. I’m living at home with parents so what difference does it make. He’ll be here 6 weeks, if I visited him while working we’d have only 2 weeks together was my thinking. But gosh I feel so embarrassed to admit that, I haven’t told anyone, but in my mind I am conscious of it and it makes me so nervous. Does it need to make me nervous or anxious? I have no idea. I’d wanted to see him again and the time felt right, otherwise it would have been another few months.

    Second… I was thinking today that I’m perhaps nervous about “what if it all goes wrong?” – he gets bored of it here, with me working, the gloomy winter weather… what if he’s just thoroughly bored of it all? Or i’m not able to spend time with him? Or, what if my anxiety takes over, and I start seeing things that aren’t there?! What if he wants to do something alone, and I interpret it as he’s bored of me and can’t wait to get home? What if that intepretation is right? Or wrong?!

    I say this… and then try to deploy the technique “What’s the evidence?” – well… none really. He says he’s really excited about it, and just wants to spend all his time here with me, hugging me. A while ago he said “I don’t want to go and see anywhere over there, I just want to spend my time with you”. I work from home a few days a week, and he said “so while you work, I’ll study for my exam i’ll have when I get back” – so even when i’m working we’ll be together.

    Another pressure: part of me perhaps worries about a repeat of last time – remember… my ex visited the same time of year (gloomy winter), I was nervous, clingy, insecure (in that case, 100% rightly!) and was desperately trying to revive a relationship that had already gone off bloom. He was already distant and aloof by the time of his visit – it was if anything a desperate attempt to give life to the relationship. This time? Well… I don’t really see any behaviour from his side that indicates he is ambivalent.

    Yet… I worry so much! I tell myself all the time, there’s nothing wrong, nothing amiss. As you say, I end up creating something amiss in my head most of the time. He sends a picture of an ice cream he bought. It has two spoons in it. A totally meaningless fact…that to me might mean he’s with someone! I jokingly say “ohh two spoons” – he says he gets two cos one always breaks… Why must I constantly doubt? It’s funny for a while, at the beginning of a relationship, a flirty way of saying “please don’t see anyone else” – but I can sense in him it’s slowly getting old. “When are you gonna stop making jokes like that?” he asks me sometimes.

    It’s horrible because… I know my fears don’t make any sense. Up until about 2 weeks ago, fears of all these colours would arrive, and I would show them on their way. Since he’s been visiting his family though, i’ve been wracked with anxiety. Is it perhaps the age-old problem of being jealous of your partner’s family? I was upset a little that he wasn’t talking as much as usual, but then… he hasn’t seen his family for nearly a year! Why would he spend hours chatting to me? Especially when, of his 9 weeks holiday, he’s spending 6 weeks with me! Yet there I am, stamping my feet demanding (in my head, not to him) that I am informed of everything he’s doing – but for what gain or purpose? None!

    Gosh I read your capital letters ALERT. I remember now… hyper-vigilance. Somehow, i’ve booted my “hyperactive” anxiety – the panic mode.

    This all started two weeks ago- He goes for a drink and forgets to look at his phone for an hour (After i’d not really talked to him for like 5 hours) – I get upset because he then wasn’t ready for our daily call when I was ready (eye roll emoji time!). Then the next day was my work’s christmas party and two women talk about their cheating husbands who walked out on them… just as i’m drunk – so I decide what happened between me and him is of similar calibre and have a long argument with him… for no real gain. Then he’s off to visit his family and we don’t have the normal pattern of communication… whereby usually I settle back into confidence with him.

    What am I really worried about? I suppose my OCD tendencies and anxiety have ganged up on me a bit here. Mixed with the attachment issues it’s a wonderful party going on inside my amygdala ! I’m creating all sorts of negative opinions of myself, of him, of the future, and having to prepare myself for all. And then of course feeling a fool for doing so!

    Instead of just… loving him?!

    A long tirade ahaha. I am having therapy – a few months with a really good one, and slowly many revelations are coming through…

    #426406
    Ben
    Participant

    Thanks Anita, and for you too!

    I was thinking to write here the other day.

    I’m finding doubts are becoming quite pernicious. The other day I argued with him about what happened with his ex, perhaps I got into the range of asking questions I’d never want to know the answer to. At the work Christmas party two female colleagues were talking about their husbands who left them. Maybe this triggered me, and I asked him “Did you have sex with him when he was there?! “. I’m not sure what my plan was there, if he said no I’d still have doubted him and if he said yes I’d have felt betrayed… even though this all happened 4 months ago now. The wound is still healing and I guess it’s normal to flare up every now and then.

     

    Still, I was talking to another friend about him, a friend who had always been a little skeptical about him. My fills me with doubts, saying I am being deceived, led on, that I am being naive. If all the drama with thr ex happened, how could I have been loved? It makes me feel like the guy I’m in love with is just enjoying me.

     

    Maybe some of my own doubts and reservations mingle in the midst of this too. I sometimes wonder if he really does love me or if perhaps he thinks he does. He says the right things, and I feel better. Then, doubt comes along and I start thinking “Oh but did he say this to the other guys?”. He tells me no, that I’m the first person where he feels jealousy and somewhat possessive. He said before his ex would try to provoke jealousy by hanging out with other guys, but he wouldn’t care. With me he says it drives him crazy when I even mention it.

     

    Still, love isn’t jealousy, of course. At the moment, he is coming to visit in January for a while. He’s midway through the winter break, visiting family. I can sense he’s giving me less attention. I drive myself mad with this. “Of course, makes sense, he’s surrounded by family, on his grandparents farm, working and helping around. Obviously he won’t have his phone on all the time nor be available to talk”. Even so, he’s called me more or less twice a day for the last week. He sends videos every now and then showing me around the farm and countryside.

    My mind focuses on the fact the calls are shorter. Then, enter the conspiratorial thoughts… ohhh he’s not talking as much because, now he isn’t alone in his room studying, he doesn’t need me anymore. This proves he doesn’t love me, merely thinks he does.

     

    I don’t know what to trust anymore or what to believe. My friend seems to think its a classic case of someone defending a hopeless relationship, with what to him are incredibly unstable foundations. I find myself believing him and not believing him… my struggle to believe someone loves me working on the former, me being more “rational” working on the latter.

     

    Maybe as its been a long time I feel a need to reconnect with him properly, without the ex lurking in the background. I hope the visit will help ease my mind somewhat.

    #423614
    Ben
    Participant

    I’m struggling a little with where to draw the line on some things with him.

    For example, we usually call at about the same time each day. Today he left the library and said “heading home”. I got prepared and then he said “Oh we’re going to the bar to have a drink” with his classmates.

     

    I think the feelings and thoughts I had in reaction to this tell a lot.

     

    One view of it was “Oh, OK, sure, you have your life there. You aren’t doing this all the time and that’s fine. I’ll probably miss a call once in a while too if I’m visiting friends or family. No biggie between to adults”.

    The other view “Oh he knew we call at that time and yet he decided to go and have a drink? He doesn’t care about me. I am not his priority”

    Another week, he’d been studying with friends (it’s always on a Saturday my anxieties explode). I embarrassed myself with how anxious I got that he was fine with (just for that one day) not having a call. Apparently the 6 other days that week, where he called me and we talked in each one for at least 2 or 3 hours… that left my mind. I got so upset he left early to come home and phone me. As soon as he said he was leaving I felt such a fool and so embarrassed.

    So today this happens, he goes and has a drink, sends pics, says he’s talking about me.

    I naturally felt sad I wouldn’t get to call him today, I’d travelled to France to see my parents and had wanted to talk about it so maybe that added an extra layer of emotion.

    But I think that was then picked up on by my longer running anxieties. Of not really being loved but by it being an illusion.

    I think I link things together and create perhaps plausible but not necessarily helpful situations. He’s impulsive but not completely ridiculous but then I use that in my head to create the idea that he doesn’t really love me he’s just saying it cos it feels good or something. Even though… he calls all the time etc.

    I worry too that I have the potential to almost turn into his ex when my anxieties get the better of me. I see myself sulking and sending big-bottom-lip passive aggressive comments and go “what are you doing you maniac?!”. Yet I also sometimes feel I have to say it? Even though as i see myself type (i only act like this in texts, never video calls) I know its not the right thing to do. But, it’s as if I am taking charge, almost… but really that sort of beahviour sets a course to slowly lose control.

     

    #422856
    Ben
    Participant

    Hi Anita

    It’s been an interesting time, for sure.

    The first week back “together” was very weird for me. It was what I had wanted, but I realised all the trust I had for him before, that was so implicit, was now all in doubt. I didn’t know if I believed him, trusted him, if it was both or neither or just one.

    I realised it would be a journey to trust him again, and that felt natural. It was only a few days after starting up again. He was showing the right signals. He said he would gingerly break up with his now ex, and was calling me everyday.

    But still, it felt a little weird. As I had said to him, for him it was a moment of clarity to realise how he felt about his ex and about me. A “lightening” moment. For me… it was a bit like “oh… I had thought I would be over the moon”. I realised I was now much more protective of myself and guarded. I noticed that while I felt the same deep down, in my heart etc, up at the mind’s eye I was slow to get back into it, perhaps slower than I expected. I worried I wouldnt be able to love him again for a while, but that did pass as we re-connected.

    We’ve been mostly ok since then, he is going to “formally” finish it with his ex with a conversation, though he has some finances wrapped up with him for a while which he told me about. A couple of credit cards etc. I understand that and that that area means they will have to communicate for a while.  He said he felt a bit sad about it because after all, it was someone he was in communication with everyday. But still, he is open about all of it with me.

    I think though that there is now an insecurity in me that I didn’t have before. That implicit trust I had with him before, ironically seeing as he was actually in a relationship, has sort of been toned down. I find myself doubting him with no evidence. I find myself seeing only negatives or doubts or worries rather than a balanced view. Not always, and of course, it doesn’t overwhelm me, but I realise I am fighting these more than before. It doesn’t overwhelm me, it is not my default mode. But they are sneakily there in the background sometimes.

    What also doesn’t help is he seems to get nervous when I mention that, just as it was hard to “leave” him, it was also sort of hard to get back together with him. I try to explain to him that it is just a matter of rebuilding trust (hard to gain, easy to lose) – but I think his insecurities get the better of him and he gets nervous and impatient. A few days ago he took it quite hard and thought I was saying I didn’t love him anymore.  I reminded him that I could quite easily have told him where to shove it if I had indeed not loved him. His insecurities don’t overwhelm him either, I manage to reassure him most of the time. In fact, usually these conversations start off a little defensive or confrontational, but we nearly always gravitate naturally towards making each other laugh again, which I hope is a good sign.

    I think for him it was a “lets just pick up where we left off” and he didn’t quite realise that it was the start of yet another process for me. My anxieties sometimes get the better of me but I do manage to take control before confronting him with them and try to evaluate them and turn them into something constructive.  Still they do get the better of me sometimes and I find myself just sending silly doubts and embarrassing myself. I feel like that is not my default mode with him, it’s a little bit of that anxiety, helplessness and longing from our time apart running out of me and craving his attention, in what is an otherwise fairly healthy communication pattern. I hope it can be resolved as it frustrates me.

    #422488
    Ben
    Participant

    Yeah, it’s a valid point. I don’t see him actively wanting drama.

    But I would say he has fallen for some drama queens, perhaps from some kind of trauma, I’m guessing? The uncertainty of his father, who beat him, but who was then simply normal (if totally unloving towards him)… maybe that chaotic attachment lives oon.his mother was loving, warm, cared for him. So did his grandparents, who is he devoted to.

    Having heard him talk about previous experiencs, he certainly doesn’t like the drama. I think another part of him deeply craves a stable life. I can see he wants to do the best he can, with his gestures and with his love. I think the drama tired him. “I hate drama” he often said. Usually followed by some ridiculous argument with his then boyfriend.

    #422477
    Ben
    Participant

    Yes, sorry! He is the love interest. The boyfriend/ex is the other guy.

    #422475
    Ben
    Participant

    <p style=”text-align: left;”>He didn’t say it directly but I think it was in his mind, he said “I know him, he wasn’t just making drama”. Perhaps not an explicit threat, but a sort of implicit one used by his ex to control him.</p>
    He said before he had had a girlfriend who threatened suicide after they broke up, which perhaps is a fear he now has that is triggered.

    #422444
    Ben
    Participant

    And sorry, to reply more directly to your reply, I agree, yes. It needs a practical idea/aim/goal to really be worth it.

    We had originally planned for me to use this job to save up money to support us. I would support him while I work here and save, then potentially in a year or so I would go to move there. (Thankfully Argentina is very cheap, at least at the moment). He said “of course we will have our own apartment”. He seemed to readily revive this plan.

    #422443
    Ben
    Participant

    Well… what followed was another very long video conversation.

    In summary, he said that despite his best efforts, it was now increasingly clear to him how he really felt about everything, his boyfriend, and about me.

    He said “slowly i’m figuring out what I really feel, and want”. I reassured him, as before, that he deserved a love that was free-flowing, not one that is constantly negotiated and that is always in the future. Him and his boyfriend were constantly “oh but when we do this” – a relationship based on some future that was never going to arrive. I said that the love I offered him was direct and unconditional – I never wanted to control him, demand anything from him in the way his boyfriend wanted. When I was saying this, he covered his eyes and was crying.

    Soon after, he said that it was clear to him that he loved me, and that he had felt bad that, deep down, he loved me and not his boyfriend. “Sorry it took so long”. He said all that he had dreamed and planned to do with me was what he really wanted. He said the feelings he had passed through the previous weeks were simply showing him that he loves me, and that what he feels for his boyfriend really is just guilt and pity.

    He said too he would “start the process” of breaking up – which indeed he did do right after our call. His boyfriend had called him and he had explained all he felt – he was tired of the arguments, and felt that their relationship was over. In that call, the boyfriend simply said “I don’t want to talk about it now”. As he was telling me this (via video call) he received another call from the boyfriend. I left him to answer and went to sleep, and awoke this morning.

    The boyfriend it seems is a little unstable. He said he has to go to a psychiatrist now “because of what you are putting me through”… the boyfriend apparently said “Let me go there for one month, if I don’t change I will accept breaking up”.

    I was terrified when I heard this… oh gosh… is he going to wait this month out?

    “No,” he said “It’s the start of the process. I don’t want him to do something crazy -(I think he was referring perhaps to self harm or even a suicide threat)- and feel guilty about it. It was never going to be simple breaking up with someone like him. But I will just not react and will have to just disconnect from him”.

    With that, I understood that perhaps there was some intensity from the boyfriend that was spooking him – controlling him – at the time. Someone threatening you with their life isn’t exactly an easy situation to deal with. I can see the boyfriend acting like that too, it wouldn’t be out of character, even from the little I know of him.

    I reminded him that he is not responsible for the actions of others, no matter how grave. He agreed, but said too he doesn’t want to feel guilty about something for the rest of his life. He said he had imagined breaking up while the boyfriend was visiting him in Argentina, and imagined all sorts of horrible things. He said at least if he is in his hometown he will have some support there – including being referred to a psychiatrist.

    Throughout the call yesterday he was saying “oh, when I visit, it’ll be like x or y” “When you come here again, x or y” “We’ll do this” – he had seemed to have quite resolutely made his mind up. “When i’m there it will be so funny to have to use google translate to talk to your parents”.  I remain a little hesitant, indeed I still can’t quite believe all of this, but I do believe him. I worry that maybe his will might be broken – his boyfriend really does seem to have some problems – but I trust him to try his best, and will just have to wait out this process. He has started out with saying that he knows it will be tough and he’s going to have many things thrown at him. So it seems he is ready.

    This morning I was so nervous about it I couldn’t think about anything else. But when we called again today, I asked him if he had faith in it all, and still felt the same way – “of course I do” – well, probably my OCD whispering lies in my ear.

    Aside from that, yesterday one sweet thing he said was “Would you let me care for the injury I gave to your heart?” He also made a few gestures – “what’s the size of your ring finger?” – a slightly impulsive gesture but that is a part of his character.

    #422413
    Ben
    Participant

    Another update…

    Your words, and ideas, really have helped, especially this last post, Anita. I read it after you posted it and it helped offer a “goal” or a sort of guiding principle. I was no longer panicking over “what to do” – in a way, just let him take the lead.

    The past few days were more boring chats – small talk. He told me he had a dream about me, in a car, driving somewhere in Italy. Many thoughts came to mind – I interacted with it plainly.

    Yesterday he sent a message, I actually didn’t really want to talk. I was trying to focus on myself as much as possible, resisting the temptation to engage with him. As the days had worn on, I had noticed I was getting angry with him and frustrated. I didn’t express it to him, but the anger was there at how he’s treated me. I was, in my own head “writing a letter that you never send”. It was helpful. He sent a message while I was at lunch, then one soon after with a joke we’d always made about being ignored. I didn’t respond for a while, then he sent a video of an old singer. I felt like I should reply, but then I felt I would be ignoring him if I said nothing. “Beautiful song” I said. He made the joke about being ignored again.

    This morning I was preparing to get on with my day. He messaged “I miss you so much. I woke up this morning with the desire to get on a plane and hug you for hours”.

    A flurry of emotions… once again he’d been quiet for a few days, then this appeared. Various responses circled in my head for a while. Do I say “ok” – too bitchy. Do I say “oh gosh me too” – would just hurt to say it.

    I asked him “Do you still think this was the best decision?”

    His reply “I don’t know what to think anymore”. – Well… he didn’t say yes.

    I was travelling home, I didn’t reply to him straight away, as again, what comes to mind straight away might just be stream-of-consciousness which at that moment wouldn’t have been very good. He sent a picture of himself at the gym, then “fine, I won’t talk to you anymore. I already understood you don’t want to talk to me again” – oh? He’d never been this sort of “stroppy” or reactive before.

    I replied with “you are the one who just says Good Morning and then some small-talk, like you would to your neighbour. Don’t you know how hard it is for me?”

    Him: “I know. I can’t manage to forget you”

    Again… I ponder a response. “Do you want to forget me?”

    Him: “Whenever I try, I don’t manage to. I don’t want to”

    “What does that tell you?”

    “That it’s strong… but you don’t want me anymore and your parents hate me”

    “I still love you. For me it was a true love, and i’m prepared to follow that love. It seems like it either wasn’t for you, or that it was but you can’t accept it was true love, or that you don’t deserve this type of love” “If you follow love, life follows close behind”

    He replied soon after “Help me conquer my fears, my insecurities” and a crying emoji.

    “You have to share them with me for me to help”

    “I’m worried that you think my course is stupid, that you wouldn’t support me and that you wouldn’t want to be together long distance”

    Hmm… the saga continues haha

    #422276
    Ben
    Participant

    Thanks, Anita, as always (I hadn’t said that yet!)

    edit, if I may: if he had told you and followed through with all the action it takes to make it happen. 

    Most certainly!

    – the need of a child for his father’s (or mother’s) love is so intense, so raw, that a romantic love story in adulthood cannot satisfy that early-life, raw longing, not for long.

    Coming to think about it, you (as so many of us) have this longing too, and likely, if he did move to England and was with you, your own early-life, raw longing for a father’s love will not be satisfied for long either.

    The first sentence is true. The second, I’m not entirely sure…

    I did not grow anxious about him, if anything I felt more secure as time went on, I felt closer and could open up to him easily… something apparently he felt too. I also wasn’t dependent on him like my previous relationship. I could send him a message or two in a day etc. It never felt like that sort of relationship that’s all about childhood trauma, if you know what I mean. I was never bargaining with him for his affection or attention, nor bargaining with myself to tell myself he loved me. It doesn’t feel as borderline “delusional” like the previous relationship, it felt like a genuine attraction. I saw such a long happy future ahead, not the one of “oh, if just did this or that differently, or he did this or that differently, if we just resolve these issues first” – the never-ending cycle that my old relationship had and his current one appears to have.

    It felt deep enough that I felt myself growing because of him. I would get sulky, but then realise that’s not the best way to act. He would be open too and help me work through whatever caused the sulkiness, or really whatever problem we had between us. He did this when I was there and right up to to the day we ended… for me, regardless of love, it was the healthiest romantic relationship i’ve ever had… I don’t feel it was (at least 100%) a sort of love-craving on my part, nor his. (My previous thread, having read a few posts, was most certainly so).

    Having said that… I suppose the two threads here are proof of a childhood trauma – a lack of self-soothing!

    as I said before, I think that his emotional expressions (the drawing of a heart with his hand stands out for me) are honest. It’s just that there is often a HUGE distance to bridge between the feeling in one’s heart and.. all that it takes to make practical and real-life changes.

    This makes perfect sense, even my mother said it as such. “Maybe he just thought, at the end of the day, with all the distance between you both, it just didn’t seem possible for him” – (even though we had planned that I move there in a year’s time).

    An object in motion tends to stay in motion (that would be him moving to England), an object at rest tends to stay at rest (that would be staying in Brazil), the undisputable laws of physics.

    True. A useful analogy. I think a part of me hopes that maintaining communication will maintain it. By that, not an intense romantic love… I suppose I just would like that he doesn’t forget me. I’m obviously going to suffer from some wishful thinking… but it would just be such a shame to let it all go.

     you want this too much.

    I think my feelings are intense and pushing this a lot at the moment… because, I read it and agreed,  my feelings run riot. For now at least, especially once you said about OCD, I can see the normal feelings of this situation have been amplified by my OCD. I’ve pushed and sulked for things that really I didn’t necessarily want, need or expect from him.

    I’m aware of course that pushier you become, the more desperate you appear and the less control both parties feel they have in the situation. I worry too that this will toxify things, but for now I think I am grappling with these feelings. I don’t want to exhaust him by doing this, as he seems very much willing to still be friends at this point.

    You can make things happen, sometimes. Less likely, if you want something too much.

    I think here is also my source of conflict, and I don’t know what feeling or thought to trust, and I think it’s what’s making me feel lost. I don’t know if I can “make something happen” – persuade him or whatever – or if doing that is “wanting it too much”. A heartfelt message? Or a desperate delusion?

    The conflict churns and churns. Do I swallow it all, accept what is in front of me, and we stay friends? Or do I fight for love? Or am I saying this with the words “True love wins in the end” in the background of my mind hahaha. A conundrum!

    #422265
    Ben
    Participant

    If he had told me he had left his boyfriend and wanted to be with me… it would have satisfied me forever, ahah.

    Regarding getting answers I may not want to hear: I don’t think i’m afraid of that 100%. I mean, the worst that could happen already has. I could ask for more “clarification” and perhaps receive some negative responses. But I think, to be honest, I’m already anticipating the next steps before I need to ask them. The realisation that this time around he won’t leave his boyfriend, I anticipated before he told me later that same day. I can see he isn’t ready to leave his boyfriend.

    Maybe for him, at this stage in his life, it is easier to think the genuine love between us was something a person only deserves in fleeting moments like we had. The end was “inevitable”, when looked at in retrospect. As you said before, maybe he is trapped in this relationship because of his poor relationship with his own father. A love affair, no matter how genuine, can’t really do the job of resolving that for him, if anything it will have left him more confused, I suppose. I have tried various times to “see it from his shoes” and I suppose it’s a hard choice really.

    I think i’ve realised this is a long run thing, of indeterminate time, and I think too that I realised that… probably last week? There is very little that will change now. I can perhaps influence him, advise him when his relationship with his boyfriend inevitably falters again (if he decides to share that with me). I think I know that it is “over”, for now. I say “for now” as, if he was honest as I think and you have thought from what I have said, there is always a possibility that something may happen in the future. He said even on Saturday “I love you” in a way that wasn’t forced. I suppose that will happen less often.

    But still, we had nearly 3 years with barely any contact yet still drifted towards one another, so I also suppose that anything may happen, maybe we will drift back together. Perhaps, maybe, we are destined for each other, as I thought in the moment I met him. (I am a believer in true love!). Maybe this time circumstances didn’t allow… (I keep remembering that even now, when I lamented that it was all over, he would say “I wish these 5 years left of my course would pass” – always in direct response to me talking about the loss I had)

    But, for now, I suppose any idea or glimpse of me and him being together should simply be a remote hope, not the all-consuming hope I have been feeling the last couple of days. To be honest that is where I thought I would be happy. Keep these feelings remote, a possibility, nothing imminent.

    OCD… I believe we talked about it in my last thread! But since then i’ve been to a therapist who, when i’ve been talking about many aspects of my life, said many times “this sounds like OCD”. Indeed, I had a realisation when you said it, that… well… I can’t really do anything now. It’s “in god’s hands” as he would say, or for the universe to decide, as I would say. As I read that I thought “gosh… in a way, its just a sad thing that’s happened to me, and I have a life to lead” – a brief moment of clarity. Of course, the many feelings that come with a loss and an ending are to be expected. I’m sure i’ll be back here soon, morose and upset. But, I think what was really tormenting me was it’s presence in my mind all the time. I had nothing to counter it with except “oh gosh, RESOLVE!” – which is impossible, as I have done all I can to sustain, maintain or rescue this relationship. Now perhaps I can tell myself “you’re over thinking this!” instead of all the triggering of anxious attachment that it had been doing before.

    #422251
    Ben
    Participant

    When I said I love you too him, he didn’t smile. It was a sort of childish reaction really, he raised his shoulders and titled his head and scrunched his eyes. It didn’t seem uncomfortable.

     

    He did smile! I saw that just now. He smiled like when you say to a child how pretty or big they are.

    #422249
    Ben
    Participant

    I suppose I was wanting him to tell me it was all alright.

    When I said I love you too him, he didn’t smile. It was a sort of childish reaction really, he raised his shoulders and titled his head and scrunched his eyes. It didn’t seem uncomfortable.

    But you make good points. I had come to realise that a bit too. I was telling myself “be honest!” But I wasn’t being clear. I think I was “honestly” expressing anxiety rather than a clear approach. I should have tried to calm down then approach it. I should take a little break and ask direct questions, considered ones.

    I’m still confused. A part of me goes “Oh life is too short, just chat with him as a friend”

    And also “His relationship with his boyfriend is clearly not strong enough if he lived almost 5 months as mine. Who knows how long it will last”

    But then, the hope takes over. Oh gosh! I start trying to convince him (in my head), thinking of how I could persuade him to end it and start with me again. But then I think that’s manipulative or desperate. Then I double think myself and think… but shouldn’t I try to fight for love? Isn’t it a genuine thing? Then back again… wouldn’t it be silly? Wouldn’t it just annoy him?

    Sometimes I feel like I should move on, leave this to rest now. Go and life a life a while, maybe we will drift back together. Sometimes, this thought brings peace. Other times it brings dread and fear. Others, just a deep, unsettling sadness.

    I realise too, I spend 24hrs a day with thus lurking in my mind, and in my heart too.

     

    #422236
    Ben
    Participant

    I am lost and confused today. My anxiety worsened yesterday and maybe got the better of me.

    I just don’t understand anything. How could he have chosen the other guy ?

    On Saturday we had a nice phone call. Brief but a nice energy. I told him a friend of mine had moved to Madrid and that I was planning to visit him. “Oh you have time and money to visit him but not me?” Oh… he was jealous, and expressing it? I could tell from his expression it wasn’t a tease.

    I then said I’d visit Brazil again, in jest, and he got jealous again when I mentioned seeing the guy there that I had been involved with.

    So… apparently he still gets jealous?

    At the end of the call, half out of habit, I said “I love you”. He blushed, scrunched up his eyes and then whispered into the phone “I love you”.

    Oh…

    On Sunday he was a bit quieter, visiting friends of his.

    Then yesterday my anxiety grew, seemingly from nowhere. I’d had a terrible nightmare and was just feeling a bit down (on account of what has happened between me and him).

    I said I was feeling down to him, he said focus on the good things in life. “I don’t have any”.

    His reply “you have your visit here, your nephews”.

    I asked if he meant “the one that’s happened?” – my hope overwhelmed me there and i had thought maybe he was referring to a future visit. I asked twice and he replied “is there a problem?”… um.. no?

    I was confused… my visit there was something good? For me it’s ultimately brought heartbreak and a deep sense of confusion. I didn’t express it as such, I said it creates a sense of loss for what could have been.

    His reply was that everything that’s good brings about that feeling.

    I then perhaps lost myself. I said I don’t know what to say, what to do. I said I still love him, followed by some sad emoji. He replied with 3 sad face emoji.

    I said I would have to forget everything. That i still have hope for us but it’s all an illusion, my love for him misleading me. He replied “I know how you are feeling”.

    I said on Saturday talking about things gave me hope… but… “Oh what’s the point in talking  more”

    “I don’t know”. I was terrified briefly. I said “really? You don’t want to talk to me anymore? You were so open and now so closed again, it doesn’t make sense”

    “I was studying, of course I want to talk to you, haha, I’m going to do yoga”

     

    I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve with him anymore.

    A creeping thought is that he indeed loves his boyfriend more than me. Or he thinks he does. But then, isn’t that me refusing to believe someone could love me genuinely? Being perhaps a bit sulky (a tendency I have).

    Why oh why is this happening

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