Dear joanna:

It was a bad idea to be alone with him at his place. After a few conversations in a café, or elsewhere in public, and getting to know him, you had the opportunity to learn who he is, to figure out that indeed there is something very wrong with his mental well-being, so wrong that it will not allow a healthy relationship with you even if you were “perfect, most beautiful and impeccable”.

It is extremely unlikely for a mentally healthy man to believe and to state to a woman he doesn’t know, based on a Facebook interaction and following an hour or an hour and a half of a date, that he “wanted a relationship with (you) until the end of his life”

Another point, in the short relationship with him you made assumptions and acted on your assumptions without checking the truth or lack of truth of your assumptions: you assumed he was bored with you at the café, assumed he was thinking about that football event, assumed later that he is able and willing to always put you and your feelings first, because he told you so (“He told me many times (and I believed him)- that he would always put me first”). You then reacted to your assumptions by ending the first date, and to the latter assumption you reacted by having sex with him.

Better check your assumptions for truth of or lack of before you react, so that you base your behavior on what is true, not on what is untrue.

Putting this aside for a moment, I was wondering about three things:

1. What about Tom, you didn’t mention a resolution, if there was one to that story, or if he is part of your life still.

2. You wrote that you went out dancing with friends, how is your social life? I … assumed you didn’t have much of a social life, that your overall emotional experience in life was that of misery. I am now checking my assumption: how do you feel much of the time, when not sharing here, while out and about and otherwise, are you having fun, experiencing calm at times..?

3. You shared before that you make very little money and had to borrow money from your mother for groceries. How is it that you are considering buying an apartment for yourself, I wonder. You didn’t mention getting a different job or any source of new money.

anita