Dear Lillian:

You are welcome. March 12-13, you wrote: “I have been feeling so lost lately because I am not sure whether or not we have hit a dead end… Is there a point when you know it’s  over?.. a true and honest conversation can help us determine where we are as a couple.. I wouldn’t want to leave him hanging“.

March 28, you shared: “I did ask my boyfriend to speak.. but he said he didn’t want to have anymore ‘philosophical conversations’… I suggested we just talk to clarify things between us are over. He replied saying I was too dramatic and he didn’t want to talk anymore and that we should just leave it… Based on this comment, it is same to assume we are no longer together”.

My input: reads to me that he is doing to you what you wrote that you don’t want to do to him (“I wouldn’t want to leave him hanging”). I think that what is likely to happen is that he will be distant a lot of the time and from time to time he will get closer to you, as in resuming a romantic/ physical relationship, then get distant again and repeat.

This being-left-hanging dynmaic is unhealthy for you, a recipe for increased anxiety.

If you don’t want to be left hanging, tell him clearly and in no uncertain terms: our romantic and sexual relationship is over. From now on we are professional associates and friends. You may date other women and I am free to date other men.

If you don’t offer clarity, you will have none. You will be like .. the young girl that I was, picking a flower and removing a petal after petal saying “he loves me-he loves me not”, you know that practice? If you say last “he loves me not”, you then pick up another flower and do the same thing again.

anita