@anita:

Long time no see!

I realize this is a pretty long-gone topic, but I am back to let you know how things turned out since you gave me advice several months ago.

Despite having another conversation with him and finally managing to stop caring so much on my end, he started to dislike the changes I was making. He wouldn’t encourage me to pursue my dreams or to keep growing as a person. He even warned me to not become arrogant when I started to have more faith in myself and my abilities. Slowly and slowly I began to see just how pessimistic he was, always dreading the darkest future and talking poorly of his own best friends! I now realize why I became so drained around him. I was the ‘only thing’ that brought him joy, and it was just too much. He was set on some idealized future where I would marry him and compromise my dreams for him, and I wasn’t going to have it, no matter how much I cared about him. I gave him advice on being positive and it went in one ear and out the other so many times.

So long story short, after intensive thinking, we are no longer together and I am quite happy with my choice. I don’t think I’ve felt this free for a while, if that says anything. I wish the best for him, but I can’t be in his life the way he wants me to with the way he currently is. And after we had one last conversation, he told me to ‘trust’ the next person I end up in a relationship with and left me outside in the dark when it was freezing. I understand he was upset but I can’t help but feel like that only sealed my decision when he did that… my parents weren’t too happy either, and my dad practically flew down in his car to come get me. It was a strange day.

Thank you so much for the help you gave me. I tried changing the rules and he wouldn’t listen, refused to believe there was anything wrong, and that I was overreacting. He was looking at me through rose-tinted glasses while I was observing all of his actions and words, and I finally realized he is not the man I would want for a husband years from now. I won’t forget the good times, but there will be better times to come.

(: Also, Happy Holidays!

@j.coleman07 – Thank you for your reply (= Don’t worry about the length of your response, I found it to be very helpful, and I appreciate any time someone takes to help me out with my thoughts (they can be quite chaotic!) I do agree that I feel like my individuality has been drowned out, but it is my fault for letting that become the case, so I’m going to work on resolving my internal issues and being able to express myself and maintain a sense of where I want to go without letting this relationship become a part of that picture.
I’m okay with staying with him right now logically, and my emotions will cooperate given I can just be myself again and enjoy my life outside of the relationship. I think I accidentally started to place him and the whole thing in the center of my world, and it’s caused me to forget who I am and where I’m heading in my life.

~*~

@anita – (Sorry for the message length! >_< )

I suppose it is an interesting note that I put it as an Either/Or statement… that was not my intention, but it has made me think that maybe I feel like having a relationship means I automatically have to sacrifice some parts of myself.

I can definitely imagine having a relationship that would do those things instead of me constantly worrying, though it is my fault for being an over-thinker. Of course I feel like any successful relationship would require me to work on or change certain parts of myself, because without compromise, the chances of me finding someone who would go along with my boundaries are extremely unlikely.
(i.e. The whole child-free mindset, along with being asexual, so my physical boundaries are very tight and I don’t see those changing no matter how ‘comfortable’ I get with someone, contrary to what everyone likes to tell me… it’s frustrating being the only one who doesn’t want those things, because I don’t see the point.)

I can’t remember much from my childhood, but what I can say is that starting in middle school and for five years afterwards, I gave up my free-spirited nature completely. After some degree of emotional abuse and depression, I stopped doing what I wanted to do and spent my time dwelling on the negatives and driving myself into the dark. All of the things I enjoyed and the things I felt led people to make me an outsider. I stopped caring, and I stopped having dreams at all. I even stopped having friends.

After my therapy, I did a full circle and found hope for my future, creating an image that I hold dear to my heart. I feel like I am not willing to compromise any of that for a relationship, as I am determined to live a life that makes me nothing but happy and able to do the things I’ve always wanted, and if someone does not fit in with that picture and accept who I am (boundaries and all), then I can’t see myself ever ending up with someone.

But I’ve been calling myself extremely selfish lately for this. I can’t make an entire relationship revolve around me and my wishes, which is why I always think he would be better off with someone else in the long run. Though I feel guilty for not wanting to change the way I am, another part of me tries to reason that I shouldn’t have to change… I don’t know whether to be glad that I don’t want to change myself or frustrated because unless I change, I can’t possibly be right for anyone, now or in the future.

I can say with some degree of certainty that if I never changed, and he decided he wasn’t okay with where things were, he could leave, and I wouldn’t be upset. And I would be fine staying the way I was until the day I died. I would wait for the kind of love I’ve imagined, and if it’s a hopeless love that can’t be found, then I feel like I will be just fine never having it at all.
(By staying the way I am, I mean hoping for the kind of love that lets me be myself completely, without feeling the pressure to change who I am or do things I’m not comfortable with. High standards… probably.)

In the end I’m not even sure what to think of myself, let alone where to go from here. It’s so confusing to be torn between feeling happy because I have a good idea of who I am and what I want to do in my life, or upset and guilty because I’m so stubborn and don’t want to sacrifice any of it for someone else… sometimes I feel like I should not expect myself to ever end up with someone, even though a small part of me constantly hopes that somewhere out there is a guy who feels the same way I do about the important things.

I like to pretend that somewhere out there is a guy who cares and would love me unconditionally. But I find that so hard to believe.

-Isra

PS: Sorry that I write so much, but writing like this is the best way for me to express my thoughts. I’m better with written words than spoken words. I get carried away.

@anita:

So we had the conversation. (=
At first it was hard because I was about to cry and wasn’t too sure of how to word things, but he gave me a hug which calmed me down enough so that we could talk about it more. With time I managed to tell him that the trouble I was having was that my mind was using logic while my heart was having a hard time grasping the idea that it was a good idea to just date for fun when I had no hope of a future for us, what with our long-term goals being different.

He ended up telling me that he knew he cared for me a lot now, and he knew he would still care for me just as much- or even more- in the coming months. He basically said that the way he sees it, there’s still a pretty good chance that his mind could be easily changed, which would mean that he thinks there’s plenty of hope. In the end he said it was my decision to make but I needed to listen to what my first thoughts were telling me, so I ended up with this:
I am not ready to call it quits with the relationship. He still means a lot to me, and while my heart might fear that there’s no hope, letting go of him would feel like an even bigger mistake than trying to stay. He’s not going to message me tomorrow until right before bed, where he has requested that I give him my ultimate decision about the whole thing.

I think my emotions are acting out of a place of fear rather than joy, and that’s not something I want to do in my life… if I decide to leave him just on the fear that there’s no hope left for us, then we ruin what could potentially be hundreds of good memories just around the corner. I think maybe with how little we’ve seen each other this month, maybe not seeing him gave me too much time to stretch my emotion. Not spending time with him let me feel even more distant than I normally would, because the moment I saw him today, I was happy being with him just as much as I am whenever we hang out.

Basically I’m trying to reach a compromise between my head and my heart, because if I go strictly with my head, my emotions will keep bothering me, but if I listen solely to my heart, I might drown out some obvious things around me because of how emotional I can become. Instead of picking either one, I’m hoping to find a logical but reasonable solution that will satisfy both sides. I just hope that my feelings can start to turn around from here. But I’m very glad with how the conversation turned out… he wasn’t mad at all, if only a bit scared I was breaking up with him, but he felt relieved I think when he finally knew what was bothering me. He’s willing to work on it with me for the better and he’s not trying to force me to stay, either.

In the end I think things will get better from here… I think I’ll be able to find a solution, and if we agree on it, then that’s that.
Thank you so much for your help in all of this, I really appreciate it!

-Isra

Thank you, everyone c: I forgot to come back and check on this story, haha.

Anyway, I hadn’t thought about writing a novel on this before, but I may actually consider it now. A sort of inspirational story for people who may not be able to see themselves getting better, as I couldn’t before.

Hope all of you are doing well!

-Dreamer