Dear aphroitte1,

After all I gave up yesterday because I saw his true colors and I knew that something was very fishy. I don’t feel that it would be possible to stay friends after this. Maybe if we broke it off months ago yes, but now it seems like I saw all the layers that he had been hiding.

Good decision! I am glad you broke up with him (without agreeing to remain friends) because he is just continuing with his excuses.

he openly told me that his ex is still an option in the future because everything would be easier (they can be together without hurting someone else). But that freaks me out because now he seems very selfish : in order not to hurt two friends he will hurt me

Yes, it shows that he doesn’t truly care about you. As I said earlier, I don’t think he is worried about hurting those two people, but rather, he is worried about his reputation – to be viewed as someone who tends to date people in secret. Because, following his logic, one could say that he didn’t want to hurt his best friend (he felt some loyalty towards him), and that’s why he dated you in secret. So I can understand his discomfort about the situation, although if he truly loved you, it could have been solved, it wouldn’t be the first time that people date their best friends’ exes. BUT, how can he explain the fact that he dated his ex in secret? What was the reason for keeping that a secret? Was she another friend’s ex, so that too was a “taboo”?

As for your previous ex coming into the picture and you started feeling stressed when he stopped texting you  – it could be related to abandonment anxiety. Do you feel bad alone and can’t really stay single for a long time? If you need to be in a relationship to feel safe, or to feel loved, or to feel worthy, those could all be the reasons why you’re reacting like this. The thought of being alone causes you stress and anxiety, which probably causes the stomach acid problem.

Anyways I am scared and I don’t like to be like this. Attached to people. I want to be okay to accept and let people go and not to feel this level od anxiety. I really want to be independent.

I hear you. It’s not pleasant to be so attached to people, I know from experience. But I can tell you right off the bat that your anxiety is most probably related to your childhood and the relationship you had with your parents or care-takers. If you felt unsafe or unappreciated in that relationship, if you craved love but never truly received it – that would have influenced your present-day relationships as well. If you’d like to share some more about your adult relationship patterns, or about your childhood, please do, and I’ll try to help.

Dear aphroitte1,

I also understand that it might not be easy for you to let go, because 1) you like him a lot, he feels like a great match, even soul mate, and 2) you don’t see his behavior as manipulative because you don’t value yourself enough to demand for your relationship to be in the open. He managed to convince you (and his previous girlfriend) to keep your relationship in secret, as if there was something to be embarrassed about. Is there anything embarrassing about you? No! But if you don’t value yourself enough, you’ll agree to such scams and take part in his lie. And even believe that “we can’t be together”, when deep in your heart, you know it’s not right.

Dear aphroitte1,

I am sorry you are still entangled with this young man and cannot seem to move on. The title of your thread is “Two friends who can’t be together”. The truth is that you could be together, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to go public, he prefers to sneak around, because he did the same thing with his ex – she too was a part of your circle and they dated in secret. So when  you say:

Even though we felt like we found our soulmates, we were absolutely compatible we have found factors that are not letting us be together.

The truth is, he has found factors why you two can’t be together. And he is trying to convince you that those are valid reasons. But actually those are excuses, because as you say, if he truly loved you, he’d come out in the open about the two of you:

I think if you are very in love or you enjoy with someone you’ll make sacrifice because that makes you happy and your life.

Then you say:

But he seems to deny that choice and choose to save his friends.

Actually, I believe he is trying to save his face, because he’d need to admit that he’s dated two girls from his friends circle in secret, and that might be awkward. He is not saving his friends, because they have nothing to lose – he is saving his own face. I believe this is behind his sleazy behavior: he cares more about himself and his reputation than he cares about you.

Please try to see his behavior for what it is – it should help you move on. And I wouldn’t stay friends with him either, because having  such a manipulative person for a friend isn’t really fun.

Dear Emma,

I think the greatest problem is your insecurity and lack of faith in yourself. I can relate because I was similar. You say:

I have a lot of technical skills, but I worry I am not good enough. But more than that I worry I don’t have the right sort of personality I need to get a good job.

You also say you worked too hard and stayed in difficult work situations where you were overworked, underpaid, and your hard work wasn’t recognized:

I stayed in many stressful, difficult work situations where I was underpaid, and thought if I tried harder and harder and tried to stay positive I would be recognized.

In your other thread, you say:

I don’t know how to stand up for myself or remove myself [from the situation with your boyfriend].

It’s hard for me to stand up for myself when standing up for myself kindly doesn’t work, or people won’t admit to the things they’ve done.

I believe that your inability to stand up for yourself and demand a higher pay and better work conditions is related to your inability to stand up for yourself in your romantic relationship. If you agree, and would like to share some more about the conditions that led to your lack of self-confidence (perhaps in your childhood?), please do so…

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.

Dear sossi,

So here i am blaming myself for being lonely and lost in what to do. But ive struggled all my life. It would be nice to sit back and say, this is why my life has been so hard when others just cant understand it…ive always disappointed people. I could join the whatever is wrong with you club, and commiserate with other people..would that really help?

Yes, you are blaming yourself, you are very harsh on yourself, and it’s not helping. You believe you’ve always disappointed people and that there is something wrong with you. In my previous posts I’ve tried to highlight that even if you haven’t suffered physical abuse (which you’ve stressed several times in your posts), you did suffer emotional abuse at the hands of your narcissistic mother and your enabling father. And the consequences are visible today in your life.

The idea of “blaming” my state of being on my family doesnt sit well with me at all, since i always believed you could not blame others for your own mistakes or your situation

You don’t need to blame your parents. A therapist once said that healing is a fact finding, not a fault finding mission. In order to heal, you need to know the facts of your childhood and upbringing. And you need to heal the emotional wounds caused by that kind of upbringing. It’s doable. But you need to stop blaming yourself, and start having compassion for yourself as a child, and for yourself now, as a grown woman.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.

Dear Candice88,

how have you been? Last time we spoke you were pretty shattered – how are you holding up now? I would love to hear from you…

Dear Annie,

you are welcome, and please do check out that video, because it’s pertinent to what you are experiencing: a possibility of burnout:

Yes, there is definitely a lot I need to heal from and work on. Recently, it’s been hard to juggle everything since I’ve been doing 3 other internships and helping clients with tasks that I barely have the time and focus on working on myself. I have been feeling slightly burnt out as I feel I’m taking on more than I think I can handle. But this is because I’m trying to gain more skills so I can find work that pays better and I shouldn’t waste time.

You’ve already complained about it – that you tend to overwork yourself, accept more than you can handle, be it dealing with your parents’ requirements, or now, with your 3 internships plus a job. Taking on more than you can handle is a problem of boundaries, because you’re unable to say No. And also, it’s a sign of not taking care of yourself enough, and self-care is crucial for any kind of healing.

So please, consider reducing your workload, perhaps even dropping one of your 3 internships, so you can have a better balance and a better chance for getting on the path of healing. Think about it: if you are more emotionally healthy, you’ll be able to get a better paying job where you’ll be better appreciated and respected. So ensuring enough self-care is crucial even for your professional goals.

I am sorry about your boyfriend not being interested in a committed relationship. Beginning of this year, he said he missed your touch and hugs. A while later, he said “he’s okay with hanging out and having fun, but doesn’t want to date.” And he told you that you should meet other people if possible. So he clearly isn’t interested in being with you… although him saying he misses your hugs might mean he is interested in a “friends with benefits” arrangement? Or this is not what he is aiming at?

Anyhow, it seems that while you were dating, you were in a rather common dynamic of you being the anxious one in the relationship, and he being avoidant. Your relationship was on and off because he wanted to break up but then he’d get back to you and you’d rekindle the relationship. You were anxious and worried that he’d leave you, and you often complained that he’s not as caring to you as his friend was to his girlfriend. You also felt that his friends are more important to him than you are.

You were reacting from your wound of rejection (having felt rejected by your own family), and projecting that on him. I don’t know his character and whether he was indeed negligent and not very caring with you, but he probably didn’t like your accusations, and this made him withdraw from you. But then he’d start missing you after a while, and the cycle repeated several times, until you put an end on it, because you couldn’t bear another rejection of his.

Last December, 1-2 years after your breakup, he initiated a meeting, to possibly rekindle the relationship once again (?). But it never happened due to covid and his father’s illness. When you finally met in person a few weeks ago, after 10 months of not seeing each other, you never got to talk about your relationship and feelings (although you admitted to him earlier that you still have feelings for him). Instead, you talked about everything else, and then he had to leave. You now feel “rejected and so hurt”. You were hoping that he might be feeling something for you after all, but now it seems that he’s moved on and it’s hard for you to accept it.

The way I see it, I think that he indeed has moved on, or if hasn’t moved on entirely, he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you while you are still reacting from your wound of rejection. Maybe it’s hard for him to be without you, because he misses some aspects of your relationship, but also it’s hard for him to stay with you because you tend to accuse him of not giving you enough. If you react from a wound, no amount of his love and attention will ever be enough. And that’s exhausting.

If you want a healthy relationship, either with him or with anybody else, you’d need to heal that wound. Work on your inner child. Get in touch with the little girl inside of you, who felt rejected, and give her love and appreciation. Tell her she is special and unique. Give her that what you expect from your parents, your boyfriend and everybody else. That’s the quickest way I know of healing that wound and being free…

Dear sossi,

I would just like to add that you have been harmed not just by your mother, but by your father as well, because he never supported you:

Meanwhile and unfortunately i have a father who is very weak and will not stand up to my mother. When any conflict arose he would take her side, no matter what. … He wont go against her wishes, its a very twisted relationship and impossible to change.

So I can imagine you felt completely helpless in your childhood – there was no one to protect you from your mother, no one to see your point and validate you, no one to empathize with you. It’s soul-crushing for a child. And you are carrying this helplessness up to this day, and it manifest in your workplace as well. You are being attacked and mistreated, and yet, you can’t seem to do anything to help yourself,  to get out of the toxic environment or assert yourself. When you do try to assert yourself, no one really takes you seriously:

Asserting myself. Yes, i think i have said that ive tried, and yet, people just dont want to take it from me. they will from others. There is respect for them, but somehow ive never found the key to respect. no matter how obviously i worked well, how much praise i got from clients, how many hours i put in of extra time or how much money i made for the company…im still treated badly, talked down to at meetings, left out of decisions etc

No one takes you seriously, because a part of you doesn’t believe you have the right to assert yourself. Or perhaps you fear you would be rejected if you would really stand up for yourself. This all stems from your mother’s dismissive treatment, and then your father taking her side. You were helpless then, and you feel helpless now. Only the truth is that now, as a grown woman, you are not helpless any more. Rather, it’s your inner child telling you that you are.

I believe the first thing in your healing would be to realize that there is a wounded inner child in you, a little girl who suffered so much and were never seen or appreciated, and was bullied and manipulated…. and to have compassion for her. To understand that it wasn’t her fault, but it was her parents who treated her poorly.

Just try to give compassion to that little girl, who didn’t get proper love, appreciation and validation. And who is still struggling to get that from her parents and other people. But she actually needs to get it from you, the adult sossi. You need to give love, appreciation and validation to yourself – that’s the only way out.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.