I look forward to receiving more advice from you whenever you have the time. Thank you so much

I guess now what I am really looking for is how to start finding a way to work on these issues and stop repeating these patterns. They feel so deep-rooted I just don’t know how to go about it

<p class=”p2″>Thank you Anita.</p>
<p class=”p2″>Helcat, I know my post may sound that way, but I have definitely not just been using him to fund my travels. It is in no way just for financial reasons that I have stayed with him or that I am missing our relationship. I work remotely so I continue to work while I am travelling and this is what funds my travels. I paid half of all the living costs and rent when I lived with him, even if I was away travelling for months I continued to pay that. </p>
<p class=”p2″>Although we have not been intimate for a while we have had a close relationship in other ways, and I have supported him through difficulties in his own life for the past 15 years. We have also done a lot of travelling together. </p>
<p class=”p2″>I didn’t want the intimacy to stop. I think it is an issue I have about feeling trapped when I live with someone because it’s at the point when we moved in together that these feelings changed for me. The words Anita has said have made me realise maybe this is why. I didn’t want my feelings to change I wish I could still feel that way about him. </p>
<p class=”p2″>I am just trying to explain it has not been a black-and-white situation. I care about him and this is also why I have not left before. Neither of us has tried to fix the problem in our relationship.</p>

Thank you again, Anita. And for your kind words. I have not felt like I am such a good person because of the situation with the other man behind the back of my boyfriend.
I’m giving some thought to whether I stay out here a bit longer and head to where my other friends are. They are not really close friends, but at least I would have them. Then I guess if I still feel bad, I could ask my boyfriend if I can come back. I guess I feel bad on the one hand to go back and stay there because I know he didn’t really want us to split up and I feel like I am messing him around but on the other hand I know he would let me stay because he knows I am in a bad way.

Then the dilemma of if I meet up with the other man, I don’t know how I would feel about that As communication has been a bit strained with us over the past couple of months and I don’t know if I would feel safe and supported with him while I am feeling like this. I believe he is a good person, but just a situation is complicated and we don’t know each other that well I suppose. And I know I have formed quite an attachment to him for some reason, real or not, and I may be anxious in meeting up with him in case it is not reciprocated.

But the main issue, I suppose, How do I process and work through all of this stuff so that one day I will be able to feel happy and secure. As I guess, like he say if I move back to my ex-boyfriend’s house, it is probably not a permanent thing. In some way, I would like to be able to work things out with him because he is a lovely person and I do enjoy his company, he makes me feel safe, but I don’t know if that shit has sailed or it has been so long since we have been intimate or I have wanted to be, or really had much of an emotional connection beyond being just friends.

Thank you for your reply, Anita, Especially under the circumstances where you are so tired and have had poor sleep, I really appreciate you getting back to me. It means a lot to me that someone on the Internet would make the effort to do this.

I have actually called my ex-boyfriend over the past days and told him how I’m feeling and I’m pretty sure he would let me come back and stay. He has said this. I have also been calling friends back home to talk to.  So yes, maybe I should go back. Is this what you were suggesting? I have vaguely planned to meet this other man out here but Maybe that is not a good idea. Though I feel I have messed him around so much already though Changing plans. But to be honest, our communication is pretty poor at the moment anyway. I don’t hear from him very much.

Thank you again for your reply when you are so tired and no worry to reply to this now.

Thank you all for your replies.

Anita – I think you have really hit the nail on the head. I felt quite emotional reading your reply. Because yes, I think everything you say is true

My childhood home was very difficult. My parents argued and fought constantly.. We lived in the middle of nowhere, so I had no ability to get myself away from the home. I was dependent on my parents to drive me to visit a friend. So I felt very trapped in this place where my parents were constantly shouting and screaming at each other. My father had mental health issues . But also as a young child, I would get very homesick if I went away from home even for a night.
As a teenager, I had a lot of conflict with my parents and I did run away from home a few times.

It kind of feels to me now like now I am not running away from anything, ie I have nothing to return to, I’m not enjoying my travels which I usually enjoy very much. It all feels a bit aimless. I have thought before about the running away  thing But I had no idea was that as you say, I would not be able to feel any relief once I had given up my home.

The fact is now it feels really unbearable. It is 3 am where I am. I cannot sleep. My mind is constantly full of these thoughts and just wanting to go back home. It really feels like a crisis and in the moment I don’t know what to do.

I understand you are right. I need to work through these issues, but I have no idea how, they feel so deep rooted. You may imagine I am younger but I am in my late 40s. I guess I have been like this my whole life and I have no idea where to start. All I know is, I feel this desperate urge that I have to go back home.

Thanks again I really appreciate your insight. Any advice on what I can do would be welcome because I feel in such a terrible place at the moment.

Hi Jana

Thank you for your kind message. You are right I need to stop beating myself up about it because mostly what I do at the moment is go over all the things I could have done differently and how my life might feel better now if I had. But I know by doing this I am making myself more unhappy, I don’t really know how to stop though.

I am considering my feelings for wanting to return to my ex boyfriend, just as you suggest, which is why I am not doing anything about this at the moment. I don’t really know how I feel, if it is mainly the security and my home I miss more than him and the relationship. I guess I have lost my mother and him in the last 6 months, probably the people I felt closest to and who brought me the most security in my life. But prior to this I had for some time thought about leaving every now and again.

Before we lived together I lived on my own for ten years, and I grew to really like it. For most of those years I was in the relationship with him and I liked that, living separately but seeing each other regularly. As soon as we moved in together I felt what I would say is probably a similar panic to what I feel now, that I had left my old home and my previous life and moved away and didn’t have my own space anymore.  Maybe I just find change very difficult, although I love travelling and the idea of not being tied down, it is a conflict inside me. The longing for freedom but then for security too. Most my adult life I have been in relationships – I think they call it a serial monogamist. But at the same time people always think I am very independent as I go away travelling a lot on my own in an adventurous way. I also wonder if it is a case of the grass is always greener – I tend to crave excitement, especially in a relationship, and with travelling, and am easily bored. But maybe this is indicative of another problem and I need to learn to accept a relationship as it develops and becomes less ‘exciting’ rather than looking for something new, which I think is what I tend to do.

So yes, to rent or buy a place on my own, though financially difficult would be good, also I don’t know where or where I could afford. If I had enough money to easily do so I would definitely get my own place and probably prefer this to moving back in with my ex boyfriend. I just realise I had a good life living with him that possibly I would struggle to afford on my own but I know finances are not a good reason to get back together with someone.

The other man is still on the periphery. When I left to go travelling and then was hit by the distraught feelings of being lost and missing my home I found myself craving security from him and feeling irrationally annoyed with him as I felt partly I had left my home because of him and yet he still had his nice home. I didn’t tell him these feelings as I felt they were my issue and not his, it was my decision to leave, though I did feel he encouraged me but probably only because it appeared to him that it was what I wanted to do. I had planned to go somewhere where we would meet up, but due to my feelings, and also practical reasons as I had to go back home to clear out my mother’s house, I cancelled this trip and didn’t see him.  I felt in such an insecure mess that I didn’t think it would be a good time to see him, when I felt that I might put all my insecurities onto him and things might all go wrong,

Since then we have kept in touch but not as much, I think he was confused and felt like he was just waiting around to see me. Especially as I subsequently travelled to the other side of the world without seeing him first. He later told me he was hoping I would suggest going to visit him before I left but as his communication had dropped off prior to me leaving I had no idea that he wanted me to visit, I thought he had lost his feelings. Bearing in mind that though we have been messaging and talking almost daily for 10 months we have only spent a few days together in all this time on 3 occasions so we don’t really know each other that well.

A few days ago he suggested he could travel to the country I am in and we could meet up. Part of me would love to see him and spend some more time together, see what we really do or don’t have between us, but part of me feels a bit scared as I know I am still not in a good place mentally, and again I don’t want my current insecurities about what I am doing with my life and feeling lost to come out into our relationship.

Thank you again for taking the time and replying and sorry my message is so long.

I guess I just don’t know how to accept my current (self created) situation or if I can accept it. I feel if I hadn’t met the other man I would not have left my boyfriend, but probably carried on as things were at least for some time. Or at least not left at this time while dealing with the grief from my mother’s death. So I feel like I rushed into a decision not for the right reasons, but influenced by someone else. But I am very confused by my own feelings as I thought I wanted to do this, travel long term, and now I don’t want to be doing it, I just want to be back home.