Hi Anita,

Those are very valid and I think important points. I was counting up the days, and it was actually 13 rather than 7 over the span of a month, but still, not very long at all. I think because we talked so frequently (the only time we weren’t in contact was when we were sleeping or when I was with clients at work), it felt like so much longer. I think also that we were constantly sending pictures back and forth (on Snapchat), that it created a sense of closeness and intimacy, like I knew him more than I really did.

I spoke with him on the phone today. I simply could not resist myself, and since it has now been 1 month after this all ended, I figured I might as well get some closure. I’m not sure really what I got from it. He was at the gym, with the newest girl. I asked him if it was the same one as last time we spoke, but no, she was new. That means this is his fourth girl since me. He told me he matched with her on a dating app while he was up north for work, and now that he has time off, she is staying with him for the week. I laughed at this point, not maliciously, just more at the absurdity of his pattern of behaviour. I stayed with him for 5 days the last time we met, too. He told me she lives up north (4 hours away), but that he really likes her, that they have so much in common, that it’s possible she’s “the one”.

The more I think about, the more ridiculous I see his behaviours. Yet I still seem to be at best interested in what he’s up to, and at worst, obsessed with it. The strangest part of the phone call was how I felt about it. I was a bit jealous I suppose in that he was spending time with a new person and that he seems to be so into her and has now rejected me, but I don’t think I felt sad/devastated/depressed about it. I’m starting to feel like this really has nothing to do with him at all, but something to do with myself and my patterns of behaviour. That somehow focusing on him and how I can’t be with him, my “dream guy”, is some sort of distraction from myself, and deeper issues I have.

Specifically, I’m starting to worry that I actually like these doomed relationships, that a healthy, committed relationship seems “boring” to me. I’m not sure when this started to happen, but I think it’s been a long time. I was in a healthy relationship between the ages of 18-25, we had a house together and 2 dogs, yet I didn’t seem happy. At the end of our relationship, I began pursuing an online/LDR with an older man whom I had known since I was 17. Somehow that seemed more attractive/exciting that my current “boring” life, even though it was also doomed to fail. I wonder how I can go about changing this internal dialogue, that I can start to see healthy relationships with healthy boundaries and true love and respect as wonderful and exciting in themselves, rather than these toxic, hot/cold relationships I’m accustomed to.