And now my boyfriend of the past 1.5 years has decided that we need time apart to focus on ourselves. I think he may be right and rationally I know that he and I are not right for each other, but why is it so hard to break up even if you know it has to happen??? I feel like it must be the feeling of rejection? He knows that all I need is for him to open up to me more and be more supportive but he just isn’t willing to do that so of course I tell myself it must be because I’M JUST NOT WORTH IT. I’m pretty devastated right now and want to crawl out of my skin. It’s like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. I knew early on in our relationship that there was something off. But I just went with it anyway, hoping that it would change as feelings developed. How foolish. At 32 I have a string of failed relationships and I just wonder if I am capable of having a real and lasting connection with anyone ever. What am I doing so wrong.

Anita, you are most welcome; thank YOU!!!

Yes, a role reversal indeed. Funny enough, this is what my mom has also said when I’ve talked to her about my interactions with my dad. It is quite confronting when we get to the age where we realize how flawed our parents are. And find ourselves surpassing them in emotional intelligence…I guess it is a good thing, to want to move forward and past this junk.

lgdelacruz92 – thank you for the support, that means a lot to me. It is a perspective like the one you shared that I possess when I am at the most peace in my life but I know in the last several months I have lost it or found it increasingly difficult to grasp. For whatever reason. I think I just need to practice being mindful and non-judgmental about whatever I am feeling. I like this image of picturing ourselves as the clouds.

Anita – thank you 🙂 To answer your questions, that is basically correct although I never really told him that he needed to man up. This was what he realized that he hadn’t done when we were together the first time and so was trying to when we were together more recently. I do feel that my mom constantly thought he wasn’t good enough for me and it’s possible I slowly adopted that feeling also.
Overall, my relationship with my mom is a pretty big can of worms. She has been diagnosed as bipolar but after taking medications and suffering side effects for years she is untreated. I don’t think it’s severe but it has shown itself in my own life as her presence being very inconsistent. She will be super involved and energetic for a month or two and then emotionally disappear for a month or two. This has happened repeatedly throughout my life. Also a lot of anger and bitterness but I’m not really sure what for. Anyway…she and my dad divorced when I was a baby, she remarried when I was 6 to an emotionally abusive and EXTREMELY controlling and jealous man. She and I couldn’t do anything together because he thought it wasn’t fair to leave his kids out. She went along with it all but there was constant fighting. She was in this relationship till I was 16 and we moved out, but ex-step-dad continued to come over for sex for a couple years. Gross that I know that, but I do. To this day she gets defensive when I try to bring up that shitty part of my childhood but has no problem talking about how rough she had it when she was married to him. She hasn’t displayed any real interest in dating since. As for her role in my own dating life, other than her dislike of J, she’s left it mostly up to me. She loved S big time, but he was a parent’s dream really. I know my mom loves me probably more than anything but I do sometimes struggle with wanting to blame her for a lot of my issues…self loathing, being overly critical, isolating myself, having a hard time connecting with people….

Thanks all for your responses! I’m sorry it’s taken me a couple days to respond – I don’t have internet at home and find it too tedious to type thoughtful responses on my phone, so I had to wait till I was at work to get back to you.

suzb – Thank you. What a powerful reminder of exactly what I need to be reminded of right now. I think I will come back to your message again and again. It is so scary to take some time out and work on myself because I worry about what I might be missing out on in the process. I know this is illogical, but it’s this stupid fear that I just can’t shake. Truthfully, I have realized I’ve been drinking a little dysfunctionally as a way to avoid dealing with these things and that has probably set me back. I’ve been confronting that issue and just for the past week of not drinking I can see how I’m already thinking more clearly and I do believe I will sort through these feelings and come out the other side. It’s so helpful to have this community to help me with that. 🙂

Miniature Bodhisattva – Thank you for the clarification! That is a pretty empowering distinction, and I appreciate your kindness and taking the time to write. I have a hard time wondering when I will be done processing these feelings? It’s been over two years already but I guess I’ve been running from everything by using alcohol, pot, and other relationships to not confront anything. And I don’t know what this processing looks like? Sitting at home alone, reflecting? Just doing things that I enjoy? You can see how I feel quite lost and confused sometimes.

Anita – the relationship with J was fun, spontaneous and easy. We enjoyed being around each other, things were NEVER boring, we laughed a lot and we just generally got each other on a pretty deep level. We were without a doubt best friends. The problem was all the practical stuff – I was always a student and eventually got my master’s degree, while he never finished high school. My mom didn’t like him at all and would make no effort to talk to him when he was around. She was worried I was always paying for things for him, which I did do some but not excessively. J didn’t have any strong parental role models and I feel like he really didn’t learn a lot of life skills that I would have to be making up for and worrying about. I guess that was one thing that sticks with me – the feeling that when we were together I was the one who needed to always be taking care of things, and this created a lot of anxiety in me that manifested as being outwardly very critical of him. I would say this is what eroded our relationship the first time around and caused all the break ups and make ups – the fact that I was so critical and he was unwilling to man up (he did admit this when we got together the last time). He treated me well…we are both emotional so we could have blow ups at times but I don’t feel either of us ever became abusive. If he hadn’t met his current girlfriend (actually they are engaged) when he did I fully believe I would have come to my senses and SOON and we would’ve got back together again. Logically though I know that even if we had I wouldn’t have learned the exact lessons I am meant to be learning now and for the past two years and we probably wouldn’t have succeeded because of that.

Ok, relationship with S – was a complete opposite to J. S was stable and successful and older and I felt completely taken care of by him and like it was an actual adult relationship. He is a Brit who was working in the states when we met, and after being together for about a year and a half he had to go back to the UK so we did long distance for another year and a half and then he got a job in Maryland (I’m from Indiana) so we moved there together where we were for yet another year and a half before I ended it and moved back to Indy. I would say things were great until he had to go back home…I started feeling a lack of connection but decided to take a leap of faith and move to Maryland with him anyway hoping that being together would make everything better. I became isolated and missed my family and home and because of circumstances the only way for us to move back to Indiana together was to finally get married and I just couldn’t take that step. S treated me great and in the beginning I was also great. Towards the end, I became overly critical yet again and I know I hurt him a lot.

The relationship with R is really just a blip on the screen. We both started at a company around the same time and developed a kind of teasing friendship but there was definite chemistry there that most people could see. He had VERY recently lost his mom to cancer and I felt some strange pull to make him feel better (I don’t even know how to explain this). Our relationship became physical pretty much immediately when we started meeting outside of work but I was always the one trying to make plans and driving to his house and I really feel pretty lame about all of it especially because I betrayed J in the process – although I did break it off with J the first time R and I kissed. But still…Anyway, R went back to college (yes, quite a bit younger than me. dumb!) and we had a couple good weekends together before he became distant and broke things off with me. I’m sure I was putting too much pressure on him for a real and serious relationship. I probably wanted him to replace J’s role in my life which was obviously unfair. R has since graduated college and come back to work full time at the company I am still at and there is surprisingly no awkwardness but also NO RESIDUAL FEELINGS. I think this is what kills me – how I could have sacrificed this relationship with J for a fling with someone I now see on a daily basis and neither of us feel anything for one another. I just don’t know what I could have been thinking.

Geeze, thank you for reading all of this Anita, and I am really hopeful to start conversing about it with you.

Kayt…

Wow, I very much appreciate your thoughtful response. You spoke right to my heart and brought me to tears. After reading what you wrote a couple times, I feel even more determined to work with Nugget and learn what I need to do to be a good human for him. I know he is capable of so much….it amazes me how smart he is. I just need tools to help him direct that towards being mentally and emotionally healthy.

As for the boyfriend. It makes me sick but…I know these things you say to be true. In my gut. I KNOW. But I’ve allowed myself to fall in love with him (either that or I am just so desperate to be in a relationship that I will put up with things I know are not right) and I’m finding it really hard to end it. I say end it because I have tried to have these talks with him and there is just no changing his mind on certain things (like how to deal with dogs). I’d say his violence is definitely ignorance based which is probably why I’ve stuck it out in the hopes I could enlighten him but that’s not happening at all. I’ve seen him be so gentle and loving…and very understanding and open at times which is probably what makes me hold on. Thankfully I’ve never been in an abusive romantic relationship before, but I see some patterns with him (never physical, but saying things like “no man will ever want to deal with that dog”). It’s so strange how I can observe these things and for the most part see them for what they are, but make the conscious decision to still want to be with him. When I realized a while ago he was not the best person for me, it was almost like I was playing a game by sticking with him to see how ridiculous the relationship could get. How much stupid shit I would put up with. Doesn’t make any sense to me, and it probably makes even less sense reading it. I’m hoping writing some of this out will be therapeutic for me and help me come to terms with what I need to do and take action.

I hope to hear from you again!! Thanks very much Kayt.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by Katie.