Dear Felis:

I hope you feel much better soon. First, I will retell your story with quotes, second I will offer you my answers to your three why-questions, and ask you a question.

You shared that you met your ex on an online dating site in March 2020 and dated him from then until December, nine months. You were anxious, needing him to often be close with you, and he needed space from you. He tired to understand your anxiety, and you tried “to understand his needs for space”.

In Dec 2020, he “disappeared again for almost a whole day”. The next day, he “did not say sorry”, but said that the two of you will be having dinner. Later he cancelled the dinner, telling you that he was not feeling well. Your reaction: “l was lashing out my emotions and insecurities onto him”.

The next day you sent him an apology text but he did not respond. Later, you explained to him your “vulnerabilities and insecurity and why I reacted this way. I wanted him to know why I was behaving so badly”, and again, he did not respond.

Later, you made a fake account on the online dating site and found out that he was active there, “looking for a long term partner and someone he could stay in a cabin with him”, “during our relationship, he mentioned that he wants to buy a cabin house and live in a wood.. he kept saying I could live with him and grew plants together etc., etc.”  A few days ago, Feb 2021, you asked him to talk but “he did not read my message- let alone giving a response”.

You asked: 1) “Why it was so hard for me to let go”?- because for you, “it was still a fun, loving, and fulfilling relationship”, and you grew emotionally attached to  him. When we get separated from the object of our attachment (your ex), we feel pain: “crying almost every single day while thinking of him”.

2) “why our seemingly perfect relationship could crumble”?- it wasn’t perfect.

3) “why is it so hard for him not to be a coward”? I don’t know that he is a coward. When you lashed out at him (” lashing out my emotions and insecurities onto him”), maybe he got scared not because he was a coward, but because you were really scary. Were you scary, as in yelling at him, calling him names, threatening him, perhaps you hit him?

* He shared with you his dream of living in a cabin in the woods with a woman, perhaps with you. It is quiet in the woods, other than the sounds of the leaves blowing in the wind, birds chirping, maybe some coyotes howling at night…it is peaceful. The kinds of sounds that a man seeking peace and quiet does not want to hear in his cabin in the woods, are the sounds a woman makes when lashing out. (When the woman explains why she lashed out, it doesn’t mean that she will not lash out again).

anita