When you said, “I think I have assumed that a boyfriend was gonna make me happy all the time?” recognize that your b/f cannot make you happy. As you have heard it a zillion times I’m sure, that happiness comes from within. I learned that many, many years ago and I will not abandon the fact that my happiness really does come from within me. He may join you in your happiness, conversely you may join him in his happiness and in by doing that, happiness is shared. I used to view the existence of my happiness as coming from past g/f’s. I used to think, “she makes me so happy” but then I realized that my being happy with that one g/f was a result of my inner source of happiness sharing that happiness with her. When my happiness and hers were coupled together, I realized, at some point not sure when it was, that it was the love and happiness within each of us, was multiplied a million times over. I used to think that in a relationship it should be 50%/50%. Then one day I was troubled by that thought, that something didn’t seem right about it. So I pondered it and it was literally about 3 years later that I understood what wasn’t right about the idea that relationships should be 50/50. I realized that a relationship should be 100%/100%. If it is not, let’s just say we cling on to the50/50 idea, then what do we do with our other 50%? Is that 50% spent on holding back? Mistrust? I’m not sure anymore because when I am involved with a woman, happy and in love, then I give 100% of me. When we broke up, I did not doubt the 100%/100% idea. She scaled back her 100% effort to use on someone else. But up to that point, it worked. The hurt was there, no doubt. If I should be so lucky as to get in to another relationship, I would not hold my past experiences against her. After all, she was not a part of my past relationships so it would be so unfair to measure her up to someone she never knew. Those were just random thoughts of mine that I only hope will help. Sometimes a different perspective is what we need.

Take some time to be by yourself and your daughter, perhaps a weekend. Have that talk with yourself about your fears, how it is now affecting both of you, and maybe even your daughter, I don’t know. Hopefully not. You know the self talk…why do I think this way? Is this way of thinking serving you well? Is it something that you can eliminate from your personality? You mentioned the jealousy factor. Be fore my wife and I got divorced, we had The Fight. One thing she said, which was far from being the truth, is she said that I don’t care for her because I am not a jealous person. I told her that I am not jealous because I do care for her. Jealousy is an evil thing, I think. For me, it is one of the most destructive behaviors that can ruin a relationship. I think jealousy has a self esteem issue and insecurity component to it as well…

enough of the babbling. I have this sense that you are going to overcome this feeling. It’s just that a once upon a time in your life is affecting i.

🙂

• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by PearceHawk.