Hi Michelle,

First of all, I want to say that I completely understand that all of us have a limited view and understanding of your situation given that we are not in it and given that we don’t know you beyond what you’ve stated in this virtual platform.  So I agree that you should take everything others tell you with a grain of salt and question everything.  Even what society tells you about what relationships should look like.  What your favorite YouTube spiritual guru tells you, or what your friends or family tell you.  That’s part of the spiritual path—realizing that no one has the answers for us, we have to reach in and uncover them ourselves. Towards the end of my so-called “twin flame” journey, I stopped asking for others’ input, not because it wasn’t valuable or valid but because my feelings towards my twin couldn’t be rationalized and it felt frustrating talking about those feelings just to be met with analysis from well-meaning friends who wanted to get to the root of my fixation with this guy. Weirdly enough, it’s only when I stopped analyzing and just accepting feelings for him—and stopped caring about whether he felt them too, because I would never be able to truly know that and wondering would just trigger another episode of futile analysis—that my feelings of anxiety lessened considerably and I was able to enjoy the love I felt for him without any expectations about the future or regrets about the past.  And eventually, I met someone else that I now have a healthy, fulfilling relationship with, and my TF became someone who still evokes positive feelings in me, but is not someone I could ever see myself pining for again.

That being said, some level of analysis may be useful, and to an outsider like me, it seems like you’re attributing your anxiousness and need for certainty as the source of the problem in the relationship (rather than anything your partner has done).  So your response to your anxiousness has been to fiercely cling to something that many people (particularly those with more secure attachment styles) would have left by now, because on some level you’re clinging to the perception that you can gain control if you just learn to reign in your anxiousness. It’s okay to accept that you’re not giving up—you’re not letting your anxious attachment style dominate your love life—by letting this person go. You’ve already spent plenty of time in this relationship, given it time and energy and opportunity to grow, and at this point you’ve received clear-as-day signals that he’s not going to be able to reciprocate the way you’d like him to.

You’re not making a premature decision to bow out of this; in fact, it’s your anxious attachment style that’s likely been keeping you in this for so long.  His ambivalence and mixed signals is fueling your anxiety, fueling your hope one day, before crushing it the next, so that you’re left in a perpetual state of disequilibrium and confusion where you no longer know what’s real and what’s not.  You react by staying and hoping that things sort of figure themselves out on their own, that he gets clarity as to what he feels, when all signs indicate that’s likely not going to happen.

I agree with Anita that he seems quite selfish, in that he’s clearly aware of his own ambivalence and yet doesn’t seem to be considering, or caring about, the negative consequences that ambivalence may be having on you.  Has he expressed concern for your well-being, for the impact the relationship is having on your psyche and emotional state?  Does he know or care about the impact of his words—words that are immensely hurtful, yet give you just enough hope to stick around?  One of the qualities I realized I needed in a partner was being impeccable to one’s word, being cognizant of the impact words can have on others before carelessly throwing them around.  I also need a partner that is considerate and truly cares about my well/being, and wants to help ameliorate my

Anxiety rather than contribute to it.

I suggest trying out an exercise that I’ve found helpful in restoring a sense of equilibrium and balance in my romantic interactions with men.  Take a piece of paper and fold it in half.  On one side, make a list of all the qualities you absolutely DON’T want in a person.  Think back to your failed relationships and the reasons why you  or your partner ultimately ended things, and qualities you saw in past partners that made you realize you weren’t compatible.  Then, on the other half of the piece of paper, use the negative statements to create positive statements about what you do want—so, if one of the things you didn’t want was “I do not want a person who is flaky and inconsistent,” on the right, write, “I need a partner who demonstrates consistency and sticks to plans.”  Or “I do not want someone who does drugs or binge drinks all the time” becomes “I want someone who is moderate in their consumption of alcohol and avoids drugs.”  Then transfer the “positive” list on the right to a new piece of paper and take your time re-writing it and making it pretty lol—something that you’ll want to re-reference in the future.

At the end, if you’ve done this exercise thoughtfully and are honest about what you need in someone else and what has led to the demise of relationships in the past, you’ll be left with a list of qualities that can help guide you in determining how close someone is to meeting your needs and desires.  In my case, by referring to this list every time I started to date someone, it felt like I was using a concrete tool that I had created for myself that was based on years of introspection and growing to know myself. I started fully comprehending my pattern of letting intense chemistry drive my relationships, while ignoring all the ways those relationships were detrimental to me.

I also allowed myself to dream big and imagine that a person with all those qualities really did exist—in some ways, I felt encouraged to embody those qualities myself, since it felt hypocritical to want things in others that I myself did not have.  It might be worth trying out and assessing how many qualities your current partner embodies, since it’s not clear to me based on your posts what about him it is that is drawing you to him so deeply.