“Dear Jen:

You asked: “Should I keep fighting?”- I wonder what you mean by “fighting”. Does fighting mean staying and waiting, staying and asking him once in a while if he is ready to commit? Does it mean fighting your impatience or growing despair at his indecisiveness…?

If you mean fighting as in staying and waiting, I would say: no, don’t just stay and wait but get to know him better. Get to know his motivations: the love and the fear. Learn more about his fear. It is better to increase and deepen the communication with him, your learning of who he is and how he operates, than it is to wait for him to solve by himself, whatever problem you think he has, or whatever problem he has which he vaguely expressed.

Get to know the details, the specifics of his fear.

anita”

Hi Anita,

Thanks for answering. What I meant was to keep fighting for our relationship. I think I struggle a lot with the idea of asking for commitment and following social standards. What I want the most is the commitment of both of us working together on our relationship. I communicated this to him. I told him recently that all I want us for both of us to support each other in becoming the best version of ourselves. He said he wanted the same. But sometimes I feel that he agrees with me more than he takes his own decisions. His decisions are usually very rational or very irrational, but nothing in between. Last time we talked, I tried to figure out more about his fears and also mentioned my own. I feel that I can work on that and that I can be patient and learn slowly how we can help each other. But I feel that if I did not have this idea, of “let’s communicate and work together to help with our fears” he wouldn’t make any decision or give an idea. His idea is that I need to let him go. Which is why I feel like I need to fight for this. I am going to keep trying to slowly figure out his problems and his fears, but am I becoming his fixer by doing this? am I becoming his therapist?

Thanks, I appreciate it

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Jen.