Dear Changeagent:

You are welcome and thank you for your empathy: at rock bottom, you are still empathetic, still attentive to another person’s feelings.

Because your role as a child was to attend to others’ needs and forget about yours- this must not happen here. This thread is about you: your needs, your feelings, your life experience.

“I have no energy to try repair a relationship that fell apart”- it is a relationship where you fell apart, a relationship that pushed you down to a “rock bottom”.

When we remain in relationships that broke us, trying to repair them- we break more.

You sent her a text last night, expressing how you felt and why you slept alone, and “as per usual”, she did not acknowledge your text. You were “not important enough to be acknowledged”.

“How can a person that has told me I matter and they love me, do that?”- it is easy to tell a person anything, it is easy to say words, it takes seconds.

“Is it me that is emotionally immature and missing something?”- from reading your original post and on (and I have read thousands of accounts in these forums over the years), I noticed quickly that you are unusually mature and insightful, unusually aware of reality, seeing the big picture.

“Over the last year I had so many different messages, messages of love, messages driven by hate and everything in between that I don’t even know who I am anymore”- as the social feeling/ thinking animals that we are, we are each other’s mirror: we see ourselves in the other person’s facial expressions, tone of voice, words and actions. When she expressed love, you saw yourself as worthy of love, if only for a moment; when she expressed hate, you saw yourself as worthy of hate, worthy of being ignored.

Last night she told you that when she is in a relationship, she doesn’t talk much so “to avoid an argument, a confrontation, to keep the peace”- seems like her past experience in relationships is that of arguments and confrontations; war, not peace.

She said that when in relationship, she says what she thinks and feels, but when the relationship ends, she “can say whatever (she) likes because the relationship is over”- seems like her past relationship experience was that in which she said things that led to the ending of the relationships, so she learned to be quiet, to not say anything for as long as she can, stonewalling a person when angry.

“I know factually, I’m the healthiest partner she has ever had. No control, no power, no abuse, strong love”- in her past relationships, I doubt that every guy, or perhaps any guy, was in power and control while she was powerless.

Look what happened to the “healthiest partner she has ever had”- he broke: “my head is a mess. I don’t know the lies from the truth anymore.. bordering on causing really bad mental health issues”. She broke you, she has had the power over you and she abused that power.

What I wrote right above- I wrote before I read the following (I responded to your post part by part, each part before I read the next): “she sometimes holds the power when it comes to communication”-

Communication is the heart of relationships, so when she holds the power when it comes to communication- she holds the power over the relationship.

Communication is also who you are: “I’m the communicator, expressive, like to talk, healthy communication”. When she holds the power over the (lack of) communication, she holds the power over you (I am the communicator, you wrote).

Earlier you wrote about her behaviors: “Stonewalling for extremely long periods.. being asked to leave time and time again.. packing my begs”- she is often angry. She may very well fit the Bipolar diagnosis that she received. Another professional could perhaps diagnose her with Borderline Personality Disorder. Regardless of the diagnosis, there is lots of anger in her heart, and that anger causes your heart to be in pain: “I’m really in a lot of pain in my heart”.

I understand that you feel weak and powerless to solve your living arrangement at the moment. But as a written exercise, can you list the practical steps needed to get her out of your house (1, 2, 3..)?

anita