Dear Anita,

This morning is the hardest one yet. I have not read your posts yet and will do after. I was able to go to work wednesday but yesterday and today developed a bad cough and so I have been home. Very stressed about my paycheck being too low for rent from missing these days sick but my voice is barely working.

Last night I missed my friend N, (please don’t roll your eyes, I already don’t feel like I can talk to my roommate about it because of what she said last time I missed him, honestly the air has been tense between us since and I feel judged by her). Anita I just want to crawl into a cave. I feel like I don’t know what is right or wrong right now and last night all I could think about was how cold the breakup was. The good memories we had together flooded my mind and I miss them, and I started to feel like I did break up with him coldly and not honoring the good.

Please don’t take this offensively Anita, but I just want to be honest because I need to be. Last night as I was questioning how things ended and wondering if it we could have made it work, if it is what I deserved in a partner, I thought about how the breakup happened. The two main events of the cash and n-word were the final straws, and I do still believe valid reasons, and yes I was mentally stressed trying not to break up with him for a year which is all enough to do so and I don’t regret it. But you have helped me see all these things and I started to wonder what is in this for you? I am just curious about you Anita, right now you are someone on the other line of these messages, who also helps other people on this thread daily, a very time consuming activity. What gives you the grace and wisdom to help all of us?

Anyways back to why it is a hard morning for me, despite the hard times with N, if I was ever sick or really upset he would come over to comfort me. He was good at ignoring problems and just going and having fun. I miss the comfort and fun. I know that the other things in the relationship needed to end but I feel sad this morning and miss the comfort and fun he brought me, he was always someone a phone call away from coming to give me a hug (reminds me of when you said to hug myself, so I just did). I am really trying my best here but I am sad and don’t know what is next for me. My finances are playing into my stress as well, my job has not made what I was told it would, I had a job interview this week the day after I got covid…so I had to reschedule for monday. I am sad because I had a whole plan this week to do my yoga, work extra days to make up for what I will miss for christmas, tonight is a birthday party with the play cast I was apart of, that now I don’t think I can go to coughing this way. I just had this while breakup planned healthy and I got knee injured and sick, I feel stuck. I keep trying to remind myself that things happen for me, not to me, it is just hard to see the light from where I am standing.

Seaturtle

Dear Anita,

In response to the first portion of your reply on December 9, 2023 at 7:22 am. The second half was very helpful to my trip home.

“When we people are confronted with behaviors that embarrass us, behaviors that are negative, we tend to explain why we behaved that way, explanations that shed positive light on us, and that’s fair for as long as the explanations are true and as long as we express regret for those behaviors. What N did was not to explain himself but to TOTALLY DENY what he did, aka GASLIGHTING.”

I need more confidence in my instincts because wow was I manipulated, this is very validating, that there is a difference between explaining and denying. There were many times when he would accuse my intentions behind an action and I would try to explain to him my true thinking, but he would call my explanations excuses. I would then reply, “no I just want you to understand me and why I do things” then he would say I had double standards because he was not allowed to explain (which was really denying) and I was allowed to explain (true explanations of why). I still apologized after though, that my actions affetced him negatively, but wanted him to understand me, a process I wish he did, but really he would excuse his actions and never/can’t currently remember a time of him apologizing.

It is sad. I wish I could fix him, help him to learn to take responsibility and see others pain. See the weight of words, and emotional instincts so that he could one day experience a soulmate, and in that understand my breaking up with him. I know these are just wishes, before I tried to make them come true and now I know I cannot. Every time I made a wish upon a star, candle, or blowing an eyelash away, “I wish that N can be my soulmate” in different words each time.

“- a mask that’s covering his eyes, so he can’t see you. You can’t remove his mask. He has to acknowledge first that he has a mask on, and then intend to remove it.. and then do the hard work that it’d take to remove it.”

This is a feeling I want to express, maybe in a painting…poem or song. The feeling of loving someone with a mask on and trying so desperately to take it off so he would see me. The feeling of feeling frozen when I suddenly see the mask, not knowing how to speak it’s language. Feeling relieved it is gone, confused how I didn’t see it for so long, sad that I am not sad.. I want to be sad, instead I feel ‘nothing with a dose of loneliness’, a good title haha.

In response to a few points I haven’t addressed yet from your reply December 8, 2023 at 10:58 am.

– very well expressed.. wow! (1) Your past gloriously positive expressions about N (“He is supportive… He is truly a stand up man, he is so kind and deeply cares for those around him… my partner is a stand up man, no question“, etc.), were your subconscious efforts to present him in such a way that readers will discourage you from breaking up with him.

-What is interesting about this is that although this must’ve played into efforts to discourage readers from suggesting a breakup, I was also wanting that response from people still. when you mentioned breaking up for the first time, I remember feeling relief. I was looking for validation that it was the correct thing to do. Also I am a firm believer that you cannot get good counseling if you do not express the truth, and the truth as I knew it at the time was him being innocent. He correctly portrayed his innocence, very well and I believed it. I also believed the people around us, friends and family, that saw the side of him that I portrayed to you in the beginning, who would say how perfectly balanced we were.

“…because you were not ready for a breakup, and you didn’t want the readers to suggest a breakup.”

This, I think is the truest reason as to why I presented him so positively only. What is so complex though, is like I said above I did consciously want someone to see the situation and validate my instincts to leave, but I didn’t know how to express it beyond; not having a shared sense of humor or deeply spiritual conversations. I wonder if these were a moment I would meet that inauthentic mask on N, because when I would try to guide our conversation to a more spiritual place, often his responses would be about something I was not necessarily talking about. Whereas when I talk to others they can follow me there, like M or even other acquaintances. I would instead feel sort of frozen with N as he redirected me and I was pulled out of my meditative conversational state.

“- it will help to reevaluate him as he truly is because if you understand that he has no empathy for you, you are not likely to have so much empathy for him. It is harmful for a victim to have empathy for a perpetrator: it’d be like a deer having empathy for a hungry mountain lion (and because of that empathy, presenting itself as food for the mountain lion).”

I have thought alot about hatch in this breakup and definitely do not want to have empathy for her mountain lion (let’s say shark). It is hurtful when someone defends a shark in your life, because it invalidates you and I don’t want to do this to myself. So I am open to evaluating my shark now. This creature has always been an interesting but very frightening creature for me. I once did not participate in a family vacation activity where they swam in the ocean in the dark to see manta-rays, out of my fear of sharks. I was the only one to not go, even my dads girlfriends two children at 7 and 9 years old! They eat Seaturtles, part of my evidence into believing I am a reincarnated seaturtle. I do not believe this so strongly, it is more of a little feeling that could be true, but who knows what really is true when these matters come to the surface. Anyways, is there anything specifically you think I should evaluate about N? I wonder, does evaluate mean to try to look behind his mask? Or evaluate him with the mask on.

“- it was a mistake to leave that poem for him because the love you expressed in that poem, the love for him, can only encourage him to contact you for another manipulative round, as he’d see it as his success in the art of manipulation.”

Do you think he knows he was manipulating?

– a gaslighter does not have love and respect for their victim, the gaslightee.

-when I would sense this lack of love or respect, I would bring it up to him and he would act as though I offended him. “How could you not feel loved after..” listing things like coming to see my family, being there when I cry etc. I would then get confused and think I was just ungrateful. I would mention the respect, and he would say “you think I would stay with someone I didn’t respect?” I would then think I was just projecting my what my father thought of me onto N.

Seaturtle

Good evening Anita,

I think I’m still a bit delicate because reading “blah blah blah” made me feel sad because there were parts of the relationship that were real and honestly it’s too painful to think it was all just blah blah blah. He must of meant some of the things he said. Shortly after reading this I made a comment to M that being sick makes me miss him taking care of me. And she snapped at me and said “girl you have to stop.” It’s not even been a week I just feel depressed and sad tonight and very alone. It’s my first time being tempted to text him to just feel something, I want a hug so badly right now. I also went on a hike on Sunday and fell really bad, I split my knee open and M helped me glue it back together but I am having a hard time walking. That was the first moment I missed N, I wanted to be comforted, instead my friend was laughing that I fell haha. I just feel so alone, the COVID is making my body ache, and because of my knee I haven’t been able to go to hot yoga. I have a fever now and just wish my mom was here, but I also don’t want to be weak I know I can take care of myself and I am doing that. But I just feel so alone. I also haven’t cried since the breakup and it’s not what I was expecting I thought I’d be more sad. I just feel a little lost Anita.

Seaturtle

Dear Anita, I am about to go to bed but am having some last minute thoughts before my trip. Tomorrow morning I am flying home for one day to see my little sisters dance performance. My dad actually asked me if I was going and when I said I wasn’t sure he asked if a ticket would help and I said yes I could make the time! Very excited to see her.

however, I think this N thing is going to, in the end, be something that helps me take another step into validating hatches feelings about F. Coming to the realization of N’s gaslighting and emotional manipulation has made me see him in a totally new light. As I talked about in a previous post. A couple weeks ago I was excited for my dad to pick me up and to hangout until my sisters performance, but now I feel anxious. My dad even just texted me “so excited to hang” with two kissing emojis. He has learned how to talk to me in order to make me feel comfortable, I assume similar to N’s tactics in making me feel loved. It feels false suddenly and I am having a hard time because I don’t want to be inauthentic, but I also don’t want to put hatch in her cage 🙁

I need some tips how to deal with my dad in a kind but way that protects me. We have only a few hours together, then I will see my mom and sister who I feel safer with.

goodnight Anita 🌝

Seaturtle and hatch

Oh and good morning Anita! 🙂 🌞 (suppose to rn a sun emoji let’s see if it works)

Dear Anita,

This morning I woke up with more clarity. I remember the time while I lived with N, I think I told you about here. We were just sitting on the couch, no previous argument, all was fine to me. The previous day he saw over my shoulder when I was looking at my bank account and it was pretty much empty as I waited for my next paycheck. He has recently helped me with a medical bill that had to do with birth control so both our responsibility. Anyways back to the couch, he was irritated, I said what’s wrong? He said “oh I can’t buy this trailer I need and want for work, I don’t have enough.” He looked at me with a serious face, “can you help me buy one?.” His fave was completely serious, like he wasn’t really asking me cause he knew what my bank account looked like and that he had just spent a lot of money on the birth control. I felt so uncomfortable and badly, I just kinda like said “no?” Like in my response obviously? And he just returned to his phone. Next day I told him that that made me very uncomfortable given the circumstances and he said “oh baby no, you thought I meant that? No it was just a joke! Hahaha no baby” and hugged me.

the amount of this gaslighting I have gone through! It is angering. I wish I brought this up in the breakup, wish I could text him this now but I absolutely wouldn’t start that.

seaturtle

Dear Anita,

– reads like he had a revelation, that he found out something he didn’t know before. Looking completely defeated and stunned in regard to the cash story & its connection to gaslighting suggests that something happened (within his crown chakra..) that would lead him to look further into what so completely defeated and stunned him.

-This sounds right, that he had a revelation and basically reevaluated the way he thought of the situation, but still trying to figure out how to reevaluate in a way where he would have to take no responsibility.

From psychology today (in my Dec 1 post), gaslighting involves: “1. Lie … 2. Repetition. Like psychological warfare, the falsehoods are repeated.. 4. Wear Out the Victim.”

-which is what happened at our dinner on Monday night.

“I am not an expert on humor and jokes and yet, I am confident that there was absolutely no humor and no jokes in that situation.”

Me too.

“But if he repeats that the above was a joke.. If you give him more time in your life to repeat the lie.. you are likely to believe it more and more, being worn down by the persistence and repetition of the lie.”

I can see this still happening within myself which is a strange thing. I have attempted to be in communication with my higher self ever since I had my first revelation about this concept in 2021, while I was already with N. Like I mentioned before, he met a different more gullible version of me. Ever since this revelation I have had some extra clarity about things, but almost as if it is sometimes wisdom, that I see but I see it like a quote that I don’t yet relate to. You know how you can give someone all the advice you want, but they need to be ready to hear it. If they aren’t they don’t. My higher self has been giving me messages to leave the relationship since the beginning of this year, since I first posted on here. But I wasn’t ready to hear it. But it is almost as if I could sense it coming and was subconsciously and consciously preparing myself for it. The part of me that wasn’t ready to hear it, tried so hard to mend the “miscommunication.” Saying to myself “if only I could communicate my feelings better, he will surely understand and not repeat those actions that hurt my feelings” and “perhaps my dad is why I have these feelings, I can fix my feelings and THEN our relationship will work.” But as I was doing all this “hyper-meditation” with a dimmed crown chakra, simultaneously my higher self was taking care of me, because I asked her to. I asked for guidance in this relationship so much.

I am attempting to unite the two, my earthly self and higher self. But my earthly self (or sea-bound self cause I am Seaturtle, hahah 😉 ) my earthly self has a door open to “maybe he was really joking, and I completely misunderstood him!, how sad, i have empathy for him because I know what it means to be misunderstood and If I did that and left/abandoned him…enter guilt” I know this door is open and I want to work hard to not let this actually become something that I even give attention, although I already have, I want to shut that door.

My higher self has prepared me for this breakup, and I hope that my current state of calm, is not temporary and just a delay in intense pain.

Dec 7 (I will be reading and replying to one sentence before reading the next): “I want to stop worrying about how he is feeling but I am not quite sure how”- first, understand that how he appears to be feeling is not how he feels. For example, in the above- he nodded, appearing to understand or try to understand, but he didn’t; he appeared defeated and stunned but he was not.

-We had each others location, on an app, for safety and other helpful reasons. He removed me on his location last night. I have done nothing online yet, such as do all the social media picture deleting and unfollowing etc.. Just because I don’t want to rub salt in the wound for him and I also am perhaps not ready to hit delete on the happy memories I posted. Anyways, after I saw he stopped allowing me to see his location I was wondering how he was feeling. Because I did check it to make sure he drove home safely, I was worried. And when I looked he was at a marijuana dispensary, proof he will avoid the thought of me as much as he can? But after that the location was off. He is not one to go out to clubs or anything, he is an introvert. Anyways, not sure how healthy it is I think of his feelings this much as he is clearly not doing it for me and I should be focusing my energy on me now, I used enough energy on him.

“I just find myself wanting to know if he’s ok and how he feels when he sees things that remind him of me like the engravings on his wallet I made or the screensaver on his phone”- you are projecting what you feel into him. If the two of you were similar, such a projection would likely be quite accurate, but the two of you are too different for your projection to be accurate.

-I see. Is it projecting though if I think I know him well enough to know he probably changed the screensaver in the parking lot before he drove away from my apartment, as he looks at his phone every 10 minutes for work things. Also I bet he through that wallet out the window, because he probably thinks what I engraved is a lie now. Again though, not sure these thoughts are healthy and if I should allow them to take my energy.

You kept explaining to him how his words made you feel, assuming that he cared about how you feel, but “He said ‘words don’t mean sh*t, get that through your head” (Nov 24)- your words too are included in “words”. Your words about how you feel. don’t mean sh*t to him.

-Yea this hurts to read, actually I laughed after reading “assuming that he cared about how you feel.” Just crazy this could be true.

“– hatchling needs to be held and hugged and made to feel safe. It is Seaturtle’s job to see to it that hatchling is not being held and hugged by just anyone, so that she doesn’t get hurt. Seaturtle needs to evaluate: who is this person.. what is he about?”

– Seaturtle needs to evaluate about who? about n? I feel exhausted of the evaluation I have already done about him, I am curious to know why this would help?

“the two of you are too different to be soulmates. His dishonesty makes it impossible for him to be anyone’s soulmate.”

This makes me sad for him.

“You’ve been in love with him for too long, and so, you’ve been motivated to see him positively, in a way that would comfort you.. (not the way he truly is).”

This makes sense. Crazy feeling is I feel more at peace and calm today than I have in a long time. I hope it is not temporary and just my mind making me numb to the emotions. As when a child experiences something traumatic they feel nothing because their psyche cannot handle it, then the emotions appear later in life.

“We met on Tinder, he was late for the first date, but I didn’t mind.. since it’s not like he knew who he was being late for, lol, my logic anyways” (4th sentence, July 29)-

– Do you know who you’ve been on time for in the last couple of years?

-Yea this could have been my first sign, even him literally missing our third date. But he really made me feel like he felt so bad for that and apologized so much and sincerely asked for another chance. I don’t know if I want to re-live the whole relationship though, because I already went through it.

I would like to go through this breakup as healthy as possible, and the way I can get the most growth out of it. I want to do the bare minimum I need to as far as thinking about why he does things. I thought about this SO much while we were together that now I just am tired of it, but I will do what I need to properly grieve this relationship. A part of me just wants to move on and just focus on me now and not hear his name again, but I don’t know if this temporary either, maybe it is just because I do not miss him yet.

” I think that he knows how attached you have been to him for so long, so he’s playing it cool, waiting for you to break and get back to him.. or he contacts you with more appearances of feeling defeated, stunned and whatnot, knowing that a big part of you is very motivated to believe what ever he says because (that big part of you) does not want to break up with him. I think that he feels that he invested in you too much (money, time, whatnot), and he is not willing to give up on his investment.”

I agree. He was playing it cool, and also tried to have the last word too but it didn’t work because I did not care.

A couple more details on the actual breakup, if you would like to read. I started by saying that I re-evaluated our dinner date and how he took no responsibility by the end. Then he said the part where he was still joking about the cash, I shut that down. He tried to defend himself and I stopped him to say I would no longer put up with him hurting my feelings “accidentally” or not. New detail, he then said “wow you are really breaking up with me right now” then he said “you are really breaking up with me about hurting your feelings?” at this point I just said “if that is what you are taking from this I don’t really know what else to say” then he was very quiet, pouting like a little kid just looked annoyed and wanted to leave. I then said “I had more to say, I have been thinking about this for a while, but thoughts aren’t all coming to my head right now” and he then said “I am just over this conversation.” Anita you know what is wild to me, he went from “baby no I was just joking” to completely emotionless and irritated within one minute. He then said “well are you gonna walk me back or stay here” I said “I will walk back with you.” His wallet and keys were in my apartment, and I already had his clothes in a bag. He said “wow clothes already packed up.” then I said “do you want the bread maker your mom bought you?” he said “yes” in an annoyed tone. I got it out for him. He then said “yea give me the game cube too” we bought that together but at this moment I wasn’t thinking of that and just wanted his energy away from me. He dropped the bag off clothes by me, I put the gamecube in. As i was packing he said “So like what am I suppose to do in a future relationship” surprised by the question my reaction was “i don’t know, be more aware of her feelings and treat her more gently” he said “so you really think I wasn’t gentle enough with you?” still in an annoyed tone. I did not respond. Just kept my head down, packing. I went to hand him the bag and he did this weird twist with his hand to avoid touching mine. He looked at me, emotionless, defeated and annoyed “well I guess.. goodluck” I just nodded and quietly said “same,” then he turned and left with is things.

When I packed his things a few days ago I put the poem I wrote in the bottom of the bag. My roommate suggested taking it out said he wouldn’t understand it, but I thought about it a few times and just decided to leave it, nothing to lose for me and perhaps some closure for him. It did not feel wrong to me. But I doubt he will even unpack that bag for a while he is not one to unpack quickly at all.

I do worry about him reaching out to convince me to come back. I also worry about him impulsively sending me a rude message about me owing him. Not sure. I hope has enough love and respect for me to not do these things but I am honestly not sure.

Seaturtle