You write things like “I understand this guy isn’t good for me” and “there were many things wrong with the way he treated me and the way I kept being sucked back in”. I’ve been stuck with the same logical reasoning, and I kept being confused as to how it didn’t correspond with the way I felt. Logical reasoning and emotional reasoning are very different and does not work together very well. Alot of logical reasoning is in fact not ourselves speaking, but things coming from outside of ourselves. It is a very objective and intersubjective way of looking at something that is in fact very subjective and private. Everything we see in things, events and other human beings are, to large extent, a product of our own imagination and . This is not to say that it’s not real, quite the opposite actually. It is what makes up your world. Think about this – When I think of my mother, I project some specific traits upon her. I love her as a son loves his mother, with all the memories that I associate with her. But when one of friends thinks about my mother, it will be in an entirely different way. Another example could be my father – even though I dont associate any form of romatic or sexual feelings with my mother, my dad does. In this way one person, object or event can mean alot of different things to alot of different people. While this is old news its easy to forget the consequence of this – that whatever feelings or thoughts we relate to different things in our life, theyre within ourselves and does not neccesarily reflect any objective truth. I urge you to stop focusing on him, and instead look into yourself. Why do you think you love him so? Why were you drawn to him in the first place. When you answer this, try to avoid anything beggining with “because he..”. Instead really look within and see what it was/is inside of yourself that he seemed to “fill up”. You express your dissapointment that he hasn’t been there for you, didnt congratulate you on your birthday, used your friends against you etc. Maybe he is just not the person you’ve made him into, in your mind? As I said before, rarely does our mental image of things correlate to their objective nature(whatever that is). You could also turn it against yourself and think that you deserve this treatment and that if circumstances had been different he wouldve treated you better. This thought of course, doesnt serve any other purpose than keeping you in an emotionally masochistic state – something that can be quite addicting, especially if you’re already struggling with self esteem and have a habit of negative reaffirmation. Sometimes it’s painful to realize that something or someone that we hold very dear, is in fact just a feat of our imagination, but it can be incredibly liberating too.
It can be hard if you dont have a strong sense of self. Ive been there. I am still there to a certain extent, and I am writing this for myself just as much as Im writing it for you. To my experience, the people that have been the most absent emotionally(These people often had ”a void” inside themselves too), have been the ones that really got my imagination going, and I created an idolized picture of them. When their actions didnt correlate with this picture, it hurt me. But that was all inside myself – all their “super powers” and the incredible feelings they sparked in me. Hope this helps, though I’m sure you’ve covered alot of things in therapy already. Every tiny step is a step nonetheless. Take care