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Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Wow, just realised it has been almost a month since I last wrote to you and I think it has been mostly a month of peace and focusing on myself which I am thankful for 🙂 Thanks for your last post of affirmations – I found your comments very valuable indeed!
Some updates so far.. It was his birthday a while ago and I did send him a birthday text wishing him well and we did some catching up and I got to know how he is doing. I was a little apprehensive before messaging him as I was worried whether I was able to handle talking to him again and would I be subjected to rollercoaster emotions again when he takes a long time to reply. Cos I reached out to him late last year to see how he is doing and when he took a long time to reply me, I became anxious and checked if he saw my message and things like that.
Good news is I am much better than that time and I am able to handle when he takes a long time to reply. I am not anxious when he does not reply and I just go on my daily life and doing the things I love 🙂
So updates from him is that he is as busy as ever… even more so as 90% of his time is committed to work, part time studies and completing internship for his studies.
And it was a sign to myself that it is not wise to even think about resuming a relationship with him if his schedule is still so hectic, i.e. no capacity to be in a relationship (reminded myself of what you said earlier in our communication) and thus, I told myself not to even entertain that thought. I guess that helped me to stay grounded as I saw our catch ups as purely catching up as friends without any other intentions.
Hearing his updates that he has been so busy made me relieved in a sense too that:
1) It affirmed what he told me when we broke up that he has no capacity for a relationship and it still remains true. I guess a part of me always has this fear as many people have told me that it can be an excuse. But I trust him and believe his words back then. And hearing that he is as busy as ever (or even busier than before) tells me that my trust is not misplaced in him.
2) That he would not have the capacity to be in a relationship with anyone else. I guess another part of me fears that he would find another person to be in a relationship as I would see that as a betrayal. Betrayal because when we broke up, he told me that he would definitely think of me if he has the capacity to be in a relationship again. So I thought that if he had the capacity to be in one and he found someone else, then he did not keep his words. I am not asking that he gets back with me immediately when he has the capacity but just to explore that option I guess. I would feel hurt if he skips the process of exploring that option with me.
Although I know rationally it has been a while since we broke up and things do change. And even if he gets together with someone new, I would feel hurt for a while but it is not as if I would not confront him or ask him why he did not keep his words. I will feel the betrayal but end of the day, I will still wish him well if he finds someone that can give him some relief.
I spoke to my therapist about the second point and she said I was being “naive” for still holding him to something he said so long ago. She said that he does not owe me anything and whatever he said then may not hold true now. I guess to her, it is something he said in passing and it is in the past. I should not be bringing the past into the present.
But to me, it was something of importance and I trust him and he has been a trustworthy man in the time that I have known him.
I wonder if I am being silly here?
Not_so_lost_starParticipant(Thanks Anita for your comment on my post – it made my day hearing that from you 🙂 hope you have been well “on your mountain wise lady”! 😉 )
Hi Mina,
Thanks for taking the time to reply me and letting me know that my reply meant something to you! I felt very touched reading your reply too (I was teary reading your post) and I am so thankful to know someone in this world understands. Even though we are strangers but I feel somewhat connected to you through our shared experiences and I could truly feel your well wishes for me! I also want to send love to you from my side of the world and you are not alone in this either Mina!
I felt so indignant for you reading your mother’s comments that you are “weird” and there is something wrong with you just because you are not as social as she hoped that you are! There is definitely NOTHING wrong with you and I would definitely want to be your friend if I knew you in Korea or in your home country. And we are all built differently and we have different characteristics/personality too. It is a shame that your mother does not accept you for who you are 🙁
I really liked the part that you said “I can also share many things that you loved about him and a lot of things in the relationship that was very good and worth smiling over”. I think that is the beautiful part of relationships and it is something that would not be taken away from us no matter what the ending is. The special memories you share with him, the precious moments that only you both know and the fact that somehow at some point in time your life intersected and you had those moments together. I thought it is something precious as not everyone gets to experience these moments.
I feel the same way as you in that I am thankful for what I shared with my ex boyfriend even though I wished there were more of such moments and that we did not have to end.
I often ponder about the what-ifs too.. like you wonder if “my ex boyfriend wasn’t so much of perfectionist and if I wasn’t so needy…” I wonder what if I had met my ex boyfriend at a different time.. but unfortunately the reality is that your boyfriend is a perfectionist and you had your needs that he could not fulfil (I still do not think you were being needy! You just had your needs that is all). And that is something we cannot change.
And thanks for your concern – I am in a better place now, much better than when we first broke up 🙂 I have now shifted my focus to working on myself and being a better person. I still have some little hope that in the future, that someday maybe if he was in a better place to be in a relationship.. then maybe we could have another try. But I am not banking on this hope and I just focus on what I can do at the moment. And what I can do at the moment is to be a better person and to take the lessons that I have learnt from being in a relationship and move forward in my life. If somehow we can end up at the same place again then it would be a bonus. But at this very moment, all I can control is living my own life and doing the things I want to do.
And I hope that you can do so too! Especially with you starting to honour your own needs and living life the way Mina wants too.
And I can see why you were so anxious when you were with him. There was so much uncertainty as you “truly did not know when we will be able to see each other again.” Anyone in your shoes would feel the same too as you are subjected to the uncertainty.
And it seems that the anxiety did not stem just from him. From what you share, I get the sense that the anxiety stemmed from your need to be accepted (and you said your ex boyfriend was the first important person in your life that accepted you) and thus you were looking to him for acceptance. So when he was not available to you, it triggered your fear of being rejected again.
Worse still, your biggest fear came true when he broke up with you and his rejection confirms the “unworthiness” that your mother has said of you.
But that is not so my dear Mina. His inability to be in a committed relationship at this point in time reflects nothing on your worthiness. He is not rejecting you – he just cannot be in a relationship now.
You are sucha wonderful person and I wish I could give you a hug right now to tell you that you are worthy and you have soooo much goodness in you. I wish that you could see that and I wish that people around you can see that.
And like Anita has said, I hope that you will be living with an “acceptable Mina” and your worth would not be measured by GPA or who you marry or your financial status or how sociable you are. I hope you will be accepted for the most lovely human being that you are.
I thought the gift that your ex boyfriend gave you was the experience of what it is like to be accepted and loved for who you truly are and it pointed to you that there is this deep desire to be accepted. And I am sure he would not be the only person to accept you for who you are. There will be people in your life who will do so (not just romantically but people in general) and most importantly, it starts from you accepting yourself for who you are 🙂
I wish you peace and love Mina!
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Mina,
I hope you do not mind me saying some things here – I thought of saying something as I saw you being very hard on yourself in your recent posts and I just wanted to reach out to you. If you find that what I am saying is not what you need at the moment, then please feel free to ignore my post 🙂 I am also cautious about disrupting the flow you have with Anita so my only aim is to say something to you in the hope to provide some comfort (if it does).
I have been reading your postings as I was in a similar situation as you. My ex bf also had one million and one things going on with his life and like your ex bf did, he dropped me from his life. And it hurts so much to be the one that is removed out of the one million and one things that was going on. So I hope you know you are not alone in feeling the way you do.
Having read your posts, I am in awe of how insightful you are and how open you are to see how you can improve in various ways. I think not many people are open to it and not many people accept their part to play when a relationship ends (although you seem to take on more than your share of the responsibility).
I wanted to reach out to you when you shared on your strong sense of guilt that you felt that you pushed him away as you were an “awful person and a terrible selfish girlfriend”. I do not think you are an awful person or a terrible selfish girlfriend. What I saw from your sharing is that you are a normal person who has needs to be fulfilled in a relationship and what was unfortunate is that your boyfriend was unable to meet your needs due to his other commitments. It is never selfish to have needs and naturally in a relationship, you would want your boyfriend to meet your needs. And you put his needs above your needs as he was a “God” to you and thus his needs seem more important than yours, so much so that you neglect your own needs. You tried your best to be understanding by accommodating to his schedule, not voicing out your needs to him and lowering your expectations.
However, I think it is inevitable that even though you tried to be understanding, your needs are calling out to be met and that is why there were times when you told him how you would hope for your needs to be met. I sense that you try to tolerate the distress of your needs not being met until the point that it may come out in a way that may appear to be “demanding”? It is not wrong to communicate your needs to your partner and sometimes we just need to refine the way we communicate them.
And it seems like your boyfriend’s needs were not met in the relationship too – his needs to be an overachiever , to be a good boyfriend and to meet his girlfriend’s needs. So he is responsible for the relationship not working out in the sense of not being able to meet your needs and he recognises that too. I think even though you did your best to be understanding, he could still feel that your needs are not met.
So what I see is that both of your needs are not being met in the relationship and it was just not a fit given the circumstances. A relationship takes two hands to clap and no one is 100% responsible for it not working out in the end. So dont be so hard on yourself. You are only human and you have your needs. A relationship is not healthy when you both are not having your needs fulfilled. Your needs are important and should be fulfilled.
I do not doubt his love for you as my personal view is that he let you go out of love as he knows that he cannot fulfil your needs and that is why he hopes that you can live your life without him.
I was rooting for you when I saw how you fulfilled your own needs by drawing your own boundaries of not doing things you do not like (e.g drinking to socialize). And I really liked that post when you said you did things by yourself and you enjoyed it! I was so happy for you when I had the glimpse of Mina living for herself.
And I think like what Anita said, “your distress is not about him even though it appears to you that it is about him. Your distress originated and maintained in the nineteen years before you met him” and that would be worthwhile to explore.
Sometimes through relationships, that is when our deeper issues surface and it is a good opportunity to work through them. Try to turn the focus back to yourself and not look to him for answers. I think the answers lie deep within you and I hope you get to see the answers through competent psychotherapy which your university provides.
Wishing you all the best dear Mina!
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Marie,
Thanks for taking time to read what I wrote and writing me a reply! Yes I still love him deeply but I think I have come to the conclusion that it is not in the best interest of him or me to connect with him at this point in time. So I decided to surrender and see what will unfolds next 🙂
Thanks for your well wishes! Wishing your kind soul well too Marie.
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Thanks for letting me know that our communication here is a win-win communication 🙂 I have gained a lot from my interaction with you and now I shall go down the mountain and put into practice the insights from our interactions.
I am glad to know I have a wise woman at the top of the mountain to seek insights from anytime.
Wishing you well and do take care of yourself too!
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Thanks for sharing with me the “Wow” that your brain exhaled! I felt happy to hear that which is an affirmation of my growth after speaking to you 🙂
My brain exhaled “Phew!!” after speaking to you. For a long time, I felt like I was just walking in circles and ruminating over the same point… unable to get a breakthrough.. right until you pointed out a different path to me and many other paths started opening too. And that was really a changing point for me which I am so thankful for. I feel you have this gift for picking out the salient points and then addressing them so gently. I always imagine you to be this wise lady at the top of the mountain (a mountain with very good wifi connection!) and thank you for sharing your gift and attending to the many people on this forum!
Today, I was cycling at the park and I thought I saw a figure that looked like my ex-bf with another person. I considered whether to turn back to see if it is really him. Ordinarily I would have, but I stopped myself and reminded myself it would not matter whether it is him or not. And I cycled on 🙂 Felt quite happy to have that moment there whereby I was able to move ahead and not be affected by the sighting. Thought to share this with you as you are significant in this shift!
And again a big takeaway for me is the key point about their needs OR my needs. I did not realise that I have been thinking of needs in this manner with the OR word being very key. I guess that is where the guilt came from that if I fulfil my needs, means that others are not fulfilling theirs but in reality, like you said it is about creating a win-win situation where everyone’s needs can be fulfilled. I will start being mindful of the OR word being present when I am fulfilling my needs 🙂 And then practise and insert corrected thinking.
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi wildoceanflower,
Like Anita, I am glad to see you posting here again 🙂 Thank you for acknowledging my reply to you and I am grateful for this space too. Thanks for sharing your experiences and giving us the privilege to have a look into your inside world.
I also wanted to affirm your growth with this line: “I kept my reply to the point of returning his things, no other information..and that hurt because i wanted to say more.” While it hurt that you wanted to say more but held yourself back, it seems to me that you grew in the sense that you did not reach out to the person that hurt you and expect him to soothe your hurt. I am not sure what held you back, but I thought maybe on some level, you know that you cannot rely on him to soothe your hurt.
It sounds to me that being in pain is your comfort zone and you are so accustomed to feeling pain that you feel this is where you belong. Pain is so familiar to you that it is so comfortable. And that is why you have made so much room for misery in your life because you know how it feels. Sometimes as much as these feelings do not serve us in our life, we let it remain because it is comfortable. We do not know what is life like without these familiar feelings and we fear it.
And then this line of yours jumped out at me: “And a fear of having it (joy)…in case it goes away.” And this fear of reaching out for joy would keep you further trapped in the pain that you feel. I used to have this fear like yours too. When I lost my mother to cancer, I did not want to get close to anyone again. I thought of how if there were more people I loved, I would have to go through more losses and pain in future when they die.
However, I also realised that impermanence is the way of life. Nothing lasts forever. Joy does not last forever and similarly pain does not last forever. While joy does not last forever, I try to immerse myself with each experience of joy. I know fully that the joy would not last and thus when it leaves, I just acknowledge that it is a part of life and try not cling on to it so tightly. Sometimes accepting that this is a harsh reality of life just makes it less tiring. It feels more like I am going with the flow of life rather than against it. I am not struggling with life but working with life. And rather than focusing on how I may lose them, I stay present and treasure each experience of joy I have.
If you look at the world around you, everything goes through a cycle. Flowers bloom and flowers wilt and when the season comes again, they will bloom once more. The sun rises and the sun sets on its cycle. As much as we wish for flowers to bloom forever, they wont. And that is also when we appreciate the blooms more because we know it will not last forever.
And like what Anita says, it seems like your core beliefs keeps you in pain too. And then you justify why you should be in pain (cosmic punishment, karma etc) and probably these justifications fit in with your narrative of why you should be in pain and keeps you comfortable in pain. I agree with Anita that you deserve to be happy. And the core beliefs/narratives can be changed one step at a time.
And while maybe there are some cosmic forces at work like you believe in, we can also make room for other moments within the situation.
So wildoceanflower, what would life look like if you were not in this familiar pain but in fleeting moments of happiness?
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Thanks for your validation on the rationality and sensibility of my posts! Which I guess also gave me the experience of what you described as the validation by the therapist (although I know you are not my therapist and this is not a psychotherapy relationship). And I can see how it may possibly make him feel better when he knows that he made the right decision and that I am happier now.
And I am thankful that you opened this other way of thinking which I have tried it out and through this practice, it created other pathways of thinking too. I do not feel as fixed on that thinking that if I am happy, it reinforces his misery and suffering. Cos there are other ways of thinking about it.
Other pathways of my thoughts now:
– It would be a load off his mind that he does not need to worry about me or feel like he ruined my life.
– If I love someone, I would be happy to see them happy too. So I also think about how I feel when I see he is out with friends. I also feel happy that at least he has his friends for support even though it is mixed with some wistfulness. So end of the day, he will probably feel happy for me too that I am living life.
– Even if he does really feel miserable, it may not be a bad thing too. It could work in the way that he may feel motivated to do something about his situation.
– Or maybe if he sees that I am happy, it may spur him to want to match up or in some day inspire him to do something different.
etc etc
And I guess end of the day, like you said these are things that are out of my control too. I cannot predict how he feel and even if I know how he feels, we all deal with these feelings differently. It could turn either way and there are too many possibilities of what can be happening when he sees that I am happier now and there is no point in predicting how he feel and then adjust my life accordingly.
I can only be happy for my own sake and just focus on what I can do for myself now. And that would reinforce my feelings of being resourceful, competent and in control 🙂 I will also be mindful of the traps that you have detailed out too.
About the origin of the guilt, I think I do have some inkling myself where it came from. Id just share even though you said perhaps for another time to look into.
1) Childhood
Since young, I think there was the subtle message that my needs are not as important as my siblings. I would often be told to give in to them and make do with what I have. This is to avoid conflict and just make things easier for my parents to manage. Thus I grew up with the thinking that it is wrong to fulfil my own needs and others’ needs are more important. Luckily for me though, as we grew up, my siblings and I matured and we are very loving towards each other now. Thus, that pattern of me having to sacrifice my needs has not been perpetuated till adulthood.
(I guess this is also why I see parallels between me and my ex-bf’s situation just that unfortunately his case is perpetuated till today and he is still stuck in that cycle with more serious repercussions.)
But in any case, the damage was done in that for a long time I lived with the mentality that my needs are not as important and it took me a while through therapy to realise this and to accept that my needs are important too.
I guess in this case, the guilt may originate from me fulfilling my own needs now and it does not feel right. My ex-bf is someone I love dearly and he felt like family. So probably in some way I felt like I am fulfilling my needs and neglecting his which results in the guilt. It feels selfish of me to do so.
2) When my mother had cancer
Another origin could possibly be that my mother had cancer and she passed away a few years back. Through her battle, I experienced this sense of helplessness that I could not alleviate her suffering. I always wish that I could have done more for her when she was suffering. I suppose with my ex-bf, the feeling of helplessness is re-experienced and I also similarly wonder if there is more that I could do now to alleviate his suffering.
But I guess I also realised in this case, not doing anything is probably doing something for him. And his suffering is not for me to alleviate and it is his own journey.
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi wildoceanflower,
Just wanted to add one more thing which is this quote from the book I mentioned about (Pema Chödrön – When things fall apart).
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
And my takeaway is that sometimes things dont really get solved and that is the ebb and flow of life (and the ocean). And it is creating a space for healing in which there is room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. And you have created space for grief, for misery and trying to create space for relief and joy. So maybe rather than looking at changing the ebb and flow of the ocean, would it help to accept that ebbs and flows happen and look at what can you do to create space for other things to happen within that space of healing?
Just some thoughts which you can see if it works for you!
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi wildoceanflower,
Just want to echo Anita’s point that you are visible here – we hear you (I see a couple of people who responded to your thread) and what you say is important to us that we want to reach out to you and respond to your pain. I thought Anita was trying to let you know that you are visible here even if the people in your life may treat you as invisible. I thought the beauty of this forum is that even though we are all strangers but we are connected by basic human compassion and we offer support to each other through difficult times.
And reading your past threads and current thread, I see that you have been through alot. And I suppose as a wildoceanflower, the ocean seems to be throwing you waves after waves of setbacks and challenges that it is hard to catch a breather. However in all the waves of suffering and pain, I also sense there is this spirit in you like a wild flower with that instinct to try to fight against all these so that you can blossom one day too. I admire your bravery in looking at all the challenges that are in your life now instead of running away from the pain. I admire how you tried different things to see if it can improve your situation. I admire how you try to look for positives “i have just chosen to accept the solitude being grateful i am not worse off”. I admire how you got yourself out of financial danger amidst all these issues that are going on.
I see you trying hard to stay afloat when the ocean throws you all these waves and it can be tiring to do so. I wish that this ocean would become calmer for you so that you can take a rest and blossom the way you are supposed to be. I hear a beautiful soul in you – a loving soul that dares to love and a soul that gave your heart. After being hurt, I think it is quite natural for us to want to protect ourselves for fear of being hurt again.
So I hope that you would nurture your own soul and be compassionate to yourself. What your parents do, what your exes do and what your friends do are all beyond your control. Like Anita has mentioned before, it may be helpful to see what is within our control and what is beyond our control. We cannot control how your parents want to treat you, how your ex is doing and how your friends may take you for granted. But what we can control is how we love ourselves and how we treat ourselves right. When we start looking inwards to nourish our soul and give ourselves the love we deserve, I feel it is a small step in the right direction.
I like this book by Pema Chödrön – When things fall apart. She is an American Buddhist nun who writes with some principles of Buddhism. I do not subscribe to any form of religion but I still felt that what she wrote resonated with me. I am still in the process of reading it and I thought you may want to take a look at it and see if it helps in any way.
Wishing you well my dear!
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Thanks for highlighting the potential “trap” for myself there – “overly investing time and energy waiting for people to change and trying to change people and established dynamics” that I may have missed if you did not point it out. Couldnt help but smile when I saw how you have inserted it in so aptly and once again, resonated with me. I am very aware of the overdoing of drugs, eating, drinking, exercising etc and I steer away from those but it did not occur to me the bit about overly investing time and energy waiting.
After speaking to you, I did feel this paradigm shift in my thinking and I have stopped wondering whether to reach out to him. And yes that fear he has is powerful and he is driven to occupy that role and it is something that I cannot change. I agree that “surrender” is the better choice and I feel lighter after deciding to surrender. I felt more in control of my own life and I do not spend as much time ruminating about the relationship.
I suppose on some level I still feel this sense of loyalty to him. When we broke up, he said something along the lines of he knows I will be happier without him in the long run and thus he rather let me go rather than for me to suffer with him. In the beginning stages of the breakup, I felt that I wanted to prove him wrong that hey, I am not happier without him, that I’d rather be with him even if it means to suffer with him. But as time goes by, I also recognised that while he was definitely a huge source of my happiness (and the happiness he gave me was special and different) but my entire happiness is not dependent on him and it should not be. So slowly, bit by bit, I found my own happiness and my footing on my own again. And the thoughts of proving him wrong disappeared and I felt comfortable being happy again.
From time to time, I do feel this guilt whether I am adding on to his suffering in some way when I am happy? I have been trying to figure out where this is coming from. I know it does not make much sense rationally but I think the logic sequence in my head goes this way: when I am happy without him, it affirms his thinking that it is right for me to be without him and that may add on to his regrets and suffering in the way he may feel further that he did not deserve me and that he is not worthy and then beating himself up for letting me go kind of thing. I do not want to be a regret in his life and another source of suffering. So.. still working out this part but I feel it will work out soon with this paradigm shift I just had with regards to surrendering.
But I also feel I am not putting my life on hold for him – I am still doing a lot of self-enrichment, finding activities that I enjoy, excelling at my work, finding my own happiness and making travel plans. And I also told myself if there are opportunities to know other people, I would not pass on the chance. So while on some level, I am holding space for him in the way I have described above but I am also not letting it be so huge that I am not moving forward.
Although I also fear that I am overly investing my time and energy waiting for him and I would ultimately hope to fully surrender.
What are your thoughts on my guilt and this sense of loyalty towards him?
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Thanks for the reminder to have compassion for myself too as I am going through pain as well. Sometimes I forget about my own pain when I am focused on his pain. It is good for me to be mindful of my own pain too and tend to myself too.
Yes, unfortunately there is this pain that we have to endure with all the suffering that is going on. What I do is to sit with this pain and sadness and just cry as much as I want until I feel like the pain has been released through my tears. If the sadness comes, I feel it and let it come. Other than that, I do yoga, exercises, painting and going out with my friends too. I dont try to numb the pain or to look for quick fixes. Is this what you mean by enduring the pain and not looking for solutions?
And I guess the part about “In the desperation to get rid of pain people rush to “solutions” that create more problems and so, people dig greater holes for themselves, getting deeper and deeper into pain and despair.” was what happened to my ex bf when he turned to gaming for solutions which got him into deeper pain and despair. Just thought it also applied to how he handled things.
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Wow. Your last reply to me really hit a spot and it brought tears to my eyes.. and I sat on what you said for a while and let it all sink in. I guess I never saw it that way.. that his problem is so entrenched.. I always thought that it was a problem at the moment that he was facing with the sister’s divorce but it actually goes deeper than that. and yes, i cannot compete with the power parents have on their children.. and it makes so much sense about why he chose to avoid the pain of his parents’rejection rather than to seek pleasure in a relationship with me. I can see what our relationship was up against was something HUGE.
and then there this relief knowing that it was something close to impossible to compete with. for a long time I also struggled with wondering if I could have done more for him.. was there anything I could have done differently that would have changed our outcome.. and you putting his issues into perspective helped me to see the magnitude of his problem and how it goes waaaay back.. and how it is something that is beyond me to change.. and the serenity prayer (that I see you mention a few times on this forum) came to mind..
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.somehow knowing that this is something that is beyond me to change.. is very empowering and it reaffirmed my decision to surrender. cos there is nothing that is within my control to change. as much as I want to be there for him.. wishing that things can be different for him.. but this is his journey. and I can only be there for someone who allows me to. I have to accept that his situation is something I cannot change.
Yet the feeling of relief is mixed with sadness too. I feel this immense sadness too.. that he has to go through such pain and my heart aches for him. why does he have to go through this? It is like he is a good man and he is just trying his best to be a good son. but why do things have to be so difficult for him? I wish and wish that things can be different for him and that he can be in a happier place too. he deserves his own happiness and it is so unfair that he has to bear this burden.. such that he cannot even find his own happiness. why is his happiness compromised?
I feel so so helpless in the face of his sufferings.
And I guess all I can do now is to send light and love to him through the universe and hope that things will turn out better for him somehow. and I will also keep the faith (no matter how small the hope may be), that if it is meant to be, that one day he may be able to resolve all these issues and who knows, we may have a real shot.
(Btw, I really wanna say that Anita, you are such a blessing to have on this forum! your perceptiveness of situations is really amazing and I appreciate your replies! I have also learnt so much from reading your replies to other people on this forum as well. Thank you :))
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Appreciate your wonderful input and it gave me so much clarity! What you said in the last paragraph really resonated with me and it is something I have been thinking about also. That if we were to have that chance to re-start the relationship, I would want to communicate with him about what has changed since the breakup and what has he done to resolve the issues that were there. I would also do my part in sharing my growth process.
I agree with you that “for as long as this situation exists, and until he extricates himself from his current family role, it will not a good idea for you to be in a relationship with him.” I also thought about if the situation were to continue and we had gotten married, it is likely that we would still be embroiled in the financial issues of his family. I thought it is one thing to help one’s family but another to take on responsibility that is not his to take on.
Which was exactly what you mentioned also about “his strong inclination to feel guilty and to take on responsibility that doesn’t belong to him”. The context of his family arguments stem from his sister going through an acrimonious divorce and she wants to settle it in court through legal battles (so as to spite her ex husband). However, she does not have financial means to fight the lawsuit nor to sustain her current lifestyle. His parents were all ready to liquidate their assets to help her in this legal battle and support her spending but he did not want them to do so as he was worried about their retirement. Thus, he has been helping out by lending his sister money so that the sister would not turn to his parents. So the arguments came from when he tried to reason with his parents that it is not worth going to court and they should put a stop to helping the sister. His parents would then turn on him and say that he should help his sister as they are family etc. Other arguments arise from when he tried to reason with his sister to spare a thought for their parents instead of being so selfish. Grateful.. I am not too sure if they expressed it. But it is definitely expected of him to help. And I know given his family-oriented nature, he would still choose to help them even at the expense of himself.
Which made me feel the pain for him that he takes on more than he should and he gave the relationship up (which he said was what gave him the happiness in his life). I do feel so so much for him and I wish that he could be happier. It felt so counter-intuitive to me that he chose to gave up something that gave him happiness over the responsibilities that gives him so much pain. But of cos, I understand from his point of view that family is something he would never give up and I do respect him and his decision. Thus, I let go and gave him the space to work out his issues instead of fighting for him to keep trying.
Regarding therapy, I did suggest to him to seek therapy himself and it was something that he was considering. I am not sure if he went ahead with therapy but it does remain a possibility that he is still struggling and has not managed to extricate himself from this role that he took on. All I can hope for is that the loss of the relationship was something that shook him and pushed him towards seeking help to get out of this situation.
At this point in time, he has not reached out to me and I have zero clue how he is doing in terms of working out his issues. I guess what prompted me to write this was when my therapist asked me why I never reached out to him if I still love him so much now. She said this to me “What if you both are just waiting for the other to reach out?” And I read this tinybuddha article about surrendering which said:
Surrender = Complete acceptance of what is + Faith that all is well, even without my input.
And I thought it made alot of sense and I made it my new philosophy in life to surrender since the breakup and just see how things unfold.. but what my therapist said made me feel uneasy.
That would there be missed opportunities due to inaction?
Not_so_lost_starParticipantHi Anita,
Thanks so much for your reply! 🙂
Actually he never said to me exactly how he probably felt stressed by me so this is my own guess after some pondering. When we broke up, he took on all the responsibility and he told me I was the best girlfriend he cld ask for. He only said that he is not sure where the pressure in our relationship is coming from but he does not have the bandwidth to figure it out.
He probably felt the pressure as he thought he was not giving as much to the relationship as I was. I probably smothered him which made him feel pressurized. I would constantly make him cards and bought little gifts when he was having exams, going through a hard time at work or just to let him know that I love him and I will be there for him no matter what. I felt I also made him the source of alot of my happiness – so much so that I wanted to give up activities that I enjoyed so that I can spend more time with him. An example would be I love travelling but I told him that now that I have him, I do not want to travel as much as I would miss him.
I was also ready to start saving up to buy a house together (which we talked about). So when he overspent and got into the credit card debts, he felt guilty that he was not as committed as I was to the relationship.
In summary, I think the pressure came from me being too dependent on him for happiness and then he feeling like he cannot give back to the relationship as I did.
Having gone through therapy, I feel that I have gained a lot of insights into myself and I have worked (and still working) on this. A part of me feel like sharing all these insights with my ex bf to let him know how I have grown. And I just feel if we have a second chance, it is quite likely to work better (provided he also sorted out his issues).
But I do not know if he has sorted out his issues or if he is even ready to be in touch. That is why I fear I will end up pressurizing him again.
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