Dear Maya:

You shared that this time in your life, following the breakup with your boyfriend,  is “a weird, confusing time”, and the loss of the relationship has been “such a confusing, insurmountable loss”, “I just feel very confused”, you wrote.

And indeed, your confusion shows:

1. “It’s both our faults and not at the same time”- this is a confusing sentence, the first part says that both of you were at fault for the failure of the relationship, and the second part says the first part is untrue.

2. He told you that he “didn’t have any (needs). That he was completely self-sufficient and reliant upon himself”, and he told you that “he feels broken”. Unless he broke after he told you that he is as complete as he said he was, then this is a contradiction.

3. On one hand, he invited you to talk to him but you couldn’t: “he always told me if I needed to talk, to just talk to him, but I never did that while we were in the relationship due to fear of being too needy or too much”; on the other hand, you wanted to talk to him but he didn’t want you to talk to him: “couldn’t get in contact with him for days or hours”, “He would seldom respond to my texts.. I often felt discouraged to reach out though.. since he would never respond”.

4. On one hand he was “emotionally unavailable” and would never respond to your messages for days;  on the other hand, he “was trying his best”, and when you lost him, you “lost such a huge support system”.

You wrote: “These past few weeks, I’ve barely eaten, I stayed inside, I drank a lil too much, I was in and out of sleep”-  your confusion is partly a product of a poor sleep, diet and alcohol.

Seems to me that you fell very much in love with this man, and you were very afraid to lose him, very anxious, not wanting to say the wrong thing in fear of losing him. Finally, the anxiety overwhelmed you and you blew up at him: “But the way I finally communicated to him my feelings and vulnerabilities was a huge anxious blow up.. and of course that overwhelmed and pushed him away”.

Following the blow up and break up, you called and messaging him so often that he couldn’t and/ or wouldn’t answer so many messages and calls: “now, when I feel I need to talk, I talk. I reach out at the most inopportune time. I am entitled to him”, “I need to give him space and time. I feel manipulative”.

You wrote that he had “a lot of fantasies” about marrying you, buying a house with you and retiring with you. I am guessing he was in love with you too.

Am I understanding your situation correctly?

anita