Hi Anita,

It’s funny I think there are many similarities with how I felt growing up, but I was very emotionally numb as a child and have mostly successfully avoided my mother as an adult. I have never experienced this kind of outward emotional instability with crying and everything.

The biggest similarity I see is that my boyfriend, like my mother, has good intentions. He never intends to hurt me but hurts me anyways. Then it’s followed by lots of reassurance – affection, “I love yous,” talks about fun things we’ll do in the future. A very similar pattern to my mother, though of course the arguments were different (my boyfriend has not yelled at me or anything like that).

Hi Roberta and Anita –

Thank you so much for your replies. To clarify, these plans were a text conversation that took place over two days. I do think I have been pressing him a lot, but in many cases I’ve been glad I have. I thought this particular conversation was beneficial because he explained that he didn’t understand why I wanted him to be honest instead of giving an excuse. And I hopefully was able to explain my side to him.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on some other issues that I pushed him to reveal and am seriously reconsidering the relationship. One was that (NSFW) he mentioned that he often felt terrible after having sex in the mornings, like he wasted the entire day. And he began avoiding spending time with me to avoid this problem. In the past, we had many conversations about how I felt he wasn’t spending time with me, and he told me that he was just slightly depressed, bad at planning, etc so I feel blindsided by this. We were both initiating sex, and when I initiate I always explicitly ask for consent.

He has said that it wasn’t that he didn’t want sex, but that it made him feel unproductive and lazy afterwards. And he told me he would tell me if he ever truly didn’t want sex. These types of distinctions seem very important to him – actually a similar communication issue to when we were making plans. (“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to your plans, it was that I was tired and didn’t feel like doing the planned activity. I would tell you if I actually didn’t want to do something.”) I am trying to understand his perspective but really struggling.

I have felt very hurt and guilty in the last few days. I’m second guessing a lot of things he’s told me. I don’t think he has ever had any intent to deceive me, but as you said Anita, has some conflict avoidant habits that are creating problems and triggering my anxieties. I’m not sure how to move forwards.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hi Anita,</p>
Thanks for sharing, the dedication you’ve had to healing is really impressive.

On the topic of CBT – this was one of the things that just didn’t work for me at therapy. I can usually tell when I’m assuming and/or overreacting. But with my boyfriend, he admits that I’ve been right every time I’ve been upset with him. For example I could tell when he was avoiding me despite him saying everything was okay, and it took multiple efforts at talking and expressing that it was hurting me for him to admit what was going on. My problem wasn’t that he might want some space, but more that I wanted him to be upfront with me about it. This pattern has repeated in smaller incidents. Such as, he will give very slow text responses to plans when he feels some hesitation about them, but he has never explicitly communicated that until later.

So I don’t think my problem is that I’m imagining things, but more that I overreact emotionally if that makes sense. He has promised to work on communication and I’ve noticed he’s been more open with me recently so I want to be more patient and give him a chance to change. With some of these issues, they’re so minor and I want to stay calmer despite feeling frustrated.

I definitely want to look more into mindfulness. Meditation skills have helped me a lot in the last few years and from my understanding mindfulness is similar. And I totally understand how increased social interaction can help. I have always felt my anxiety and people pleasing tendencies worsen when feeling isolated and lonely. I’m glad you’ve been able to build a community, these forums have been so helpful to me too even in this short period of time.

I’m happy to hear that going no contact has helped you – I’ve thought a lot about this and will probably also take that path eventually. It’s such a difficult decision to make.

Since we’ve had similar experiences, I would love to hear what has helped for you in healing from your past if you’d be comfortable sharing.

Hi Anita,

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I agree that this relationship is triggering past wounds. Growing up my mother never communicated but expected me to read her mind and anticipate her moods and needs. If I didn’t do this, she would blow up and yell, throw things, etc. As a result I have a tendency to mind read others and try to keep them happy, and I assume a lot from little things.

My boyfriend struggles with communication and is not straightforward with me about his emotions and needs. He is a very different person from my mother and would never become angry like that, but his behavior has similarities that put me on edge.

We have talked about this issue (and many others), and I feel he’s made a genuine effort to understand me and work on changing his behavior. He did promise to text back faster which immediately happened. He has promised to be more intentional about spending time with me, which I feel is slowly improving.

Emotional regulation is what I’m really struggling with – he has some real problems but I shouldn’t be bringing in so much past baggage. I am trying the normal things to calm down – taking walks, exercising, distraction, meditating, spending time with friends – which have helped a little but often just result in me crying in public.