Hi Stacy

I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling. It does make sense with the anniversary and the break up that things are very hard at the moment. Please take good care of yourself, you need it the most when you are feeling at your worst. ❤️

You keep blaming yourself for the breakup and various things. But it sounds like part of you is identifying things that he has done wrong. Yet, you suffer with confusion as to whether these things you have identified are valid.

They are.

Therapy can be helpful. But ultimately a therapist can’t do the work for you. I’m referring to your ex here. There are people who can go to therapy for their whole lives and not get anywhere if they refuse to make any changes. What your ex learned in therapy and at home is how to talk about things. But talking doesn’t replace the action. The action is necessary for growth.

He would often use his talking skills developed in therapy when you confronted him with valid issues and turn it around on you.

He “validated” your hurt feelings about liking the sexy photos. Then proceeded to refuse to change his behaviour pretending that he wouldn’t know which things you would take issue with when you provided a very clear description. By trying to blame your anxiety and hurt feelings he effectively manoeuvred himself into the situation that he wanted. He didn’t have to change his behaviour. Whilst it might be true that in some circumstances you could experience anxiety at him liking clothed pretty women. You understood that asking him not to like every woman would be unreasonable and you managed your anxiety around that issue.

He knew and understood that liking sexy photos was wrong of him and hurting you. Yet, he chose to do what suited him, what gave him pleasure.

How a healthy loving partner would have replied to your request to not like sexy pictures. They would have simply agreed and not done it again.

You keep blaming yourself for various things throughout the relationship but you both had incompatible lifestyles. You could never have had a future and lived together because of his addiction to smoking weed. Physically, it would have made you ill because of your health issues. He clearly had no plans of the relationship progressing.

A healthier person would have tried to deal with the addiction to build a future with their partner.

I don’t like how he refused to introduce you to his friends either, using weed and your health issues as an excuse. Do you see a pattern of him subtly blaming you to get what he wants?

A healthy person would have told his friends about your asthma. Decent people are happy enough not to smoke for a couple of hours if it would make someone unwell.

I don’t doubt that he was kind and caring sometimes. No one is mean 100% of the time. And he had this unique trick of subtly blaming you to hide the fact that he was being cruel. With your shame about your own mental health issues and difficulties with negative self-talk I would imagine that you found it difficult to stand up to this.

Because he could communicate well and be charming, he could make you feel cared for at times. You have been through so much in your life that it felt like love. But love is where actions match the words. And there are many things he did often that were unkind.

agree that he was trying to change you by asking you to shame him. This is actually what I was referring to in my reply before about him ignoring your boundaries. Even with the photos that was him ignoring your boundaries.

I’m not suggesting that he is a bad person. But he is unhealthy and not capable of a healthy relationship at this time.

glad to hear that you are seeing a therapist! It sounds like things are going well with your therapist because you are correctly identifying valid issues. You just need to learn to trust your instincts a little more.

I’m so sorry to hear about your family issues past and present. That must have been terrifying as a child when your brother was having an episode. The metal covering the hole in the bathroom is a heartbreaking image. You deserved so much that unfortunately, your parents were unable to provide. Every child deserves to live comfortably, every adult too! It’s sad that this isn’t a reality experienced in the world.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Ben

I’m sorry to hear about the break up. It must be difficult dealing with such a loss.

I think you knew the risks going into the relationship since he was dating someone else throughout.

This relationship might not have had a future. But you chose to enjoy it anyway. It sounds like you had some wonderful times. It hurts to lose the relationship, but it was the inevitable conclusion. All you can really do is cherish the memories and perhaps consider a more stable relationship in the future if that is what you want.

What do you think drew you to a relationship with a person that was unavailable?

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Stacy

I’m sorry to hear about the breakup. How are you feeling? How are you coping with it?

So it seems like there were a lot of issues that were going on. His mental health issues and porn addiction. You both experience financial hardship and live with family. You are 2 hours away from each other and only got to see each other mostly 2-4 days a month, occasionally 6 days a month and he never put in the effort to communicate from a distance. And you experienced anxiety about the relationship. No wonder.

One issue is that you have been treat so poorly in the past that you thought this relationship was healthy. I’ve been there too…

His actions never matched his words. He agreed that he should communicate more but never tried to. He said that you being vanilla was okay and that he was over his previous exploits, but he tried repeatedly to get you involved in things that you were uncomfortable with and he clearly wasn’t over. He agreed not to like sexy pictures on social media and then did it anyway. Lying to you about the attractive trans person he was spending time with. He talked about a future throughout the relationship, then tried to gaslight you at the end saying it was you that didn’t want a future with him while HE was ending things with you.

It honestly doesn’t sound like he’s in a place where he’s capable of having a healthy relationship. It sounds like he was telling you what you wanted to hear, keeping you around until you both got fed up. Because his lying would always result in you being upset and he was unwilling to change his actions.

One mistake you made was the stalking of his social media. But at the same time, I think you were using this to try and understand if your concerns were valid, which they were. But in a healthy relationship you don’t have to get to this point. Because the way someone treats you matches their words, so you don’t suffer from that anxiety. That anxiety you felt throughout the relationship was a warning sign that this relationship is unhealthy.

You honestly deserve better! So much better!

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Buddah

I’m sorry to hear about the abortion and the break up. That’s a lot of change you both went through recently with you moving abroad for studying and an abortion. Did you ever talk about these changes as a couple?

I would imagine that it could be a difficult time for your ex-gf atm. I can see what she’s saying about you not being there for her. You were in a different country. There was no way for you to be there for her unless you flew back to her. She had to deal with a lot essentially alone. It’s not surprising that she wasn’t receptive to you when you chastised her for blowing off steam and partying.

How are you feeling about everything that has been happening with the abortion and the break up? How are you coping?

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Brian

Personally, I do think life is divine.

I was raised in a cult and I went from being an agnostic atheist to actually believing in some kind of higher power because I’ve had a range of unusual experiences.

I think it’s hard to suffer and believe that there’s no reason for it. Overall, my experiences of suffering have made me a kinder person and I do my best to learn from them. The lessons are hard, for sure. But I’ve been very lucky to have good things happen in my life too. Life is a delicate balance.

Learning to cope with depression has taught me that there are many beautiful experiences that emotionally we sometimes close ourselves off to when we’re not coping well, yet they still happen all around us. The trick is learning to pay attention to these experiences and appreciate them even when we don’t feel like it.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts about life and divinity?

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi Everglow

Congratulations on meeting a wonderful partner! I’m sorry to hear that your mother is being racist and that you’re worried about how your grandmother will react too.

My husband is black and I’m white. We’ve experienced racism from both sides of our family.

It might be a good idea to talk to your partner about the possibility of racism and how you would like to deal with it together. My husband and I chose to support each other and shut it down when it occurred.

Older generations can have old fashioned unhealthy ideas. Setting firm boundaries that we weren’t going to accept the behaviours both sides of our family responded to.

If your partner is warned about the possibility of racism he won’t be surprised if it does happen and will be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t.

Do you think there would be any difficulties if you stood up to your family about this?

Hi Andrea

I’m so sorry to hear about your break up. How are you coping with it?

It sounds like she’s been struggling with her depression for the past 6 months. That’s difficult because it’s not something that you can change.

Are you and your gf fairly young? I’m asking because she had a lot of questions about love. That’s something that I had questions about when I was younger. It wasn’t until I was older that I was actually in a healthy relationship and truly experienced love for the first time.

My husband does feel like family to me. After a while of dating feelings do settle down and become calmer.

I think you identified an issue that lead to pushed her over the edge. The stress of her new job, on top of her struggles with depression recently.

I had one experience of falling out of love with my husband briefly after a period of arguing. He was struggling with his depression too. Feeling like he didn’t want to be with me and that shut things down for me. It was a shock because I thought of our love as unconditional. I came to learn that love is a choice and something that we worked together to nurture every day.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on love.

Do you still want to keep in contact with your now ex-gf and check on how she’s doing? All you can really do is wait and see how she reacts.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Hi M

I think it’s understandable that you’re feeling confused by her behaviour. She is treating you differently from a friend.

It might be worth having a conversation with her about boundaries so you can actually stay friends if she doesn’t want to date.

It’s not healthy for her to lead you on. She might not be doing it intentionally, but that is currently what is happening with the special treatment.

How are you feeling about all of this? It can be tough having feelings for someone who isn’t genuinely interested in dating.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏