Its sounds like you’re depressed and or experiencing an existential issue… (Which comes first the chicken or the egg) It also sounds like you have lost touch with your sense of self (boundaries of who you are)

I’ve been there and wish I had a magic answer.

One thing people are going to tell you is that you just have to get up and do something. Don’t overthink it just do it. They are correct, change will require you to get up and do something, however that’s kind of like asking a man with broken legs to just get up and run.

You will need some space to heal

If you can afford it I might recommend professional help. A third party to talk to without worry about judgments so that you have a space where you can hear yourself and perhaps understand what is happening.

There are also a lot of books about creating healthy boundaries that might help you get started.

Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where i end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom. Taking responsibility for my life opens up many different options. Boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out. Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences. And you are the one who may be keeping yourself from making the choices you could be happy with. We must own our own thoughts and clarify distorted thinking.

Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.

I am worried that I am being reactive by asking for space.

To my way of thinking asking for space is neither fight, flight or freeze so not reactive.

Creating some space it probably a wise response as is seeking help in order to work through this.

Nothing is worse than overthink the problem of over thinking

I very much admire those that trust themselves enough or maybe just out of blissful unawareness or innocents are able to step out of comfort and leap into the unknown.

That unfortunately is not who I am. Through nature and nurture I need to plan and know just want I want to do. And like you I fear that even if I do manage such a leap I will bring my own insecurities with me.

Whatever you decide to do you are going to take yourself along and so will eventually have to deal with your stuff.

My advice for what it’s worth is to talk over these feelings you have with a professional you can trust so you might clarify them. A third party who being natural can reflect back to you what you’re really saying and thinking.

What to expect from a life partner

– That they will challenge your relationship to the idea of relationship and love.
– That they will challenge how you think and feel you are.
– That they will disappoint you (you will disappoint them)
– That they will surprise you (you will surprise them)
– That they will attempt to heal past hurts through the relationship as you will attempt to heal the past hurts.
– That they will bring out the best and the worst of you – and you will bring out the best and worst in them
– That they will at times inspire you to be more then you thought you could be and at times hold you back.
– That they will be something to push against so that you might grow.

A healthy relationship learns to cultivate an “unconditional yes” to these realities and in doing so create the potential where each might become. This love is not an unconditional yes is not a unconditional allowing but an awareness that creates space were we may respond to our partners instead of reacting.

The other day I was asked what quality I looked for in a partner. I surprised myself when at the top of the list I stated someone who did not panic when they were not experiencing the ideal of love and connection that they imagined.

“The perfect partner is often the one who triggers off our core emotional wounds so that we can revisit and mend our past injuries. The reopening of our old hurts allows us to name, understand, and tend to original, yet often faulty and self-defeating, beliefs about interpersonal attachment and identity. It is inevitable that our unmet needs from childhood, which influence both our style of intimacy and our self-image/self-worth, will be played out in the crucible of our current intimate connections.”

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.

We hurt so we can learn to do things differently to change to improve. Everything can’t all be good.

Unconditional love says yes to the reality it is all good even the bad. That is not a paradox

It is through the confrontation of the experience of the problem of opposites, such as the concept good and bad, that creates consciousness and so the possibility of awaking. In such a perspective all that we experience is and originates from Love.

When observed from different planes of experience judgments and labels such as good and bad are temporal and illusion. If one accepts/allows that Life is and of itself is Good then all experiences can be a experience of Unconditional Love.

It is unfortunate that for many to live and stand up for there truths they generate the energy to do so from hate, rage, and ugliness. As you say emotions of anger, fear, even hate serve a purpose. I believe that purpose is to awaken us that something is not as our truths indicate they should be and that we must act however that does not mean that such action be ugly, anger, rage… But this failure to part of the whole and so Love

In Quantum physics you have the theory of entanglement which predicts that two or more particles can become “entangled” so that even after they are separated in space, when an action is performed on one particle, the other particle responds immediately.

The hermetic principle of vibration also suggest a link to empathy, how we are influenced and how we influence. For example the experience of being at an event like a concert when everyone feels as if they are in sync… In hermetic principle every effect must have a cause however a cause may exist through change in vibration/plane of experience which we may experience as a moment Synchronicity.

Synchronicity – experiences to which a cause cannot be identified – “meaningful coincidence”, and “acausal parallelism.” Events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of causality.

Synchronicity may be the only way in which we are able to exercise free will the paradox being that doing so requires the art of doing by not doing as any intention of control would invoke filters and filters are always influenced by external wills.

It is also important to remember that we are only able to experience the world consciously through the sense of ‘I and me’ which is greatly influenced by the memory of our experiences. We might call these the filters look through as we experience the present. Thus the present moment is seldom seen clearly and so contains elements of illusion.

In Science they might relate this to this the law of uncertainty and the observer effect. The filters through which we observe something changes what we see and experience.

Likewise the experience of empathy will be influenced and changed though the filters, memories, experiences of the observer.

My opinion is that it is possible to know what someone else is experiencing and feeling however it would take a great deal of discernment and self-awareness to separate the observer from the observed and avoid wishful thinking

A person could spend life time’s dismantling and removing the filters through which consciousness experiences life through.

Relationship is a crucible where we discover who we are. – We are wounded in relationship and we heal through relationship…

We are hurt by those closest to us because they are closest to us. I cannot comment of the hurt you have experienced from your partner and it is no my intention to discount that experience of hurt.

When I read your post, between the lines, I heard a longing for authentic relationship with another and so it is my intention that the following quotes might help you use this experience as a doorway to becoming.

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” ― C.G. Jung

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ― C.G. Jung

“The foundation of adult trust is not “You will never hurt me.” It is “I trust myself with whatever you do.” ― David Richo

“When we feel unsafe with someone and still stay with him, we damage our ability to discern trustworthiness in those we will meet in the future.”
― David Richo

You may find the following article helpful

http://www.elizabethstrazar.com/site/Suggested_Reading_&_Articles_files/StagesofRelationship.pdf

“The perfect partner is often the one who triggers off our core emotional wounds so that we can revisit and mend our past injuries. The reopening of our old hurts allows us to name, understand, and tend to original, yet often faulty and self-defeating, beliefs about interpersonal attachment and identity. It is inevitable that our unmet needs from childhood, which influence both our style of intimacy and our self-image/self-worth, will be played out in the crucible of our current intimate connections.”

Understanding the stages of a relationship helps us to map the territory and gain more insight into how to utilize intimate connections as a pathway toward personal healing. In essence, how to choose the healing salve more often than not – Elizabeth Strazar

Very much recommend David Richo book, How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving

“As long as you hold onto wanting something from the outside, you will be dissatisfied because there is a part of you that you are still not totally owning. . . . How can you be complete and fulfilled if you believe that you cannot own this part [of yourself ] until somebody else does something? . . . If it is conditional, it is not totally yours. —A. H. ALMAAS” David Richo

“Most people think of love as a feeling but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present.” David Richo

“The more invested I am in my own ideas about reality, the more those experiences will feel like victimizations rather than the ups and downs of relating. Actually, I believe that the less I conceptualize things that way, the more likely it is that people will want to stay by me, because they will not feel burdened, consciously or unconsciously, by my projections, judgments, entitlements, or unrealistic expectations.” David Richo

“We can actually reconstruct our past by examining what we think, say, feel, expect, believe, and do in an intimate relationship now.” David Richo

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.

Sorry if the above is confusing. It’s something I’m still trying to work out and the limitation of language tends to get in the way of how I experience love intuitively.

I do have a last question.

What if ‘Loving others as ourselves’ isn’t only a command but the reality of how we love?

That how we love others IS how we love ourselves and that for the most part we don’t really know how to love ourselves very well?

• This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Peter.