Dear Dee:

You don’t want to be in a romantic relationship: “I’ve seen it best to stay single since I was younger”, “My ideal future does not include marriage or kids”, “I was also very happy and content being single”, “Previous to dating my current boyfriend, I was constantly bubbly, had no bad days, always a smile on face, I felt great all the time”, “I like being able to do my own thing and not have to worry about anyone else’s feelings or owe anything to them”, “I just need it to be completely on my own terms and I don’t want to have to ask anyone to change for me”, “I have a major fear of commitment. I am incredibly independent”, ” I did not wish to be in a relationship with that person… having not wanted another relationship after the last one”.

But on the other hand, “male attention can be fun”, and you found yourself so far in three relationships, spending much of your time in the first two relationships trying to end them. You finally sent the first boyfriend a message ending it (“I waited until I completely broke and.. sent him a message ending it”). At 22, you wanted to end your second relationship (“I just want out… I want to get it over with”), but you didn’t tell him anything, and acted as if nothing was wrong for you (“the way I act as if nothing is wrong for me, that my boyfriend thinks there really isn’t anything/ we’ll be together forever”), heavily entrenched in the habit of acting like there is nothing wrong when there is something wrong (“I don’t know how to act as if anything IS wrong”).

You tried to figure out whether you should send him a letter ending it, or cause him to end it, so that you don’t have to do it directly (“Do I just distance myself and hope he catches the vibe?… Start being awful and undesirable?”)

You were afraid that if you tell him directly that you want to end the relationship, something  bad will happen (“I am more so actually in fear of the immediate response he will have… I am terrified of the confrontation”). You hoped that he will see that something is wrong for you, and ask you a yes-or-no question- then you’ll tell him your No (“I so badly wish he could see it and come to me asking if I really want a future with him”).

Too fearful to be honest and direct, you proceeded to give him vibes that something is wrong for you, and he noticed those vibes (“he was in fact catching onto my vibes of being unhappy and not really being into it”). Next, he asked you what is wrong, but you were too fearful to tell him that you wanted to end the relationship, so you tried to negotiate with him, suggesting not to end the relationship but to downgrade it to a casual relationship (” I did tell him.. I am only interested in a way more casual relationship… this basically translated to I am going to do pretty much whatever I want but still give him attention”). Your plan was to proceed with a casual relationship until he ends the relationship (“until he decides that this is not enough for him because I know it isn’t”).

Next, you proceeded with the casual relationship but found yourself giving him more attention than you planned to give him (“I spend more time with him and give him more attention than I had originally planned when we made this agreement so it has been semi-successful”).

Two months into the casual relationship, you were waiting for him to end it (“I can tell when he’s sort of unhappy. In a way I don’t care how he feels anymore, I want him to end this”), but he didn’t end it, and you were thinking how to make it happen (“I’ve come up with so many different ways to go about this”). Eventually, you sent him a “short and sweet message” ending the relationship, feeling better (“the heavy weight has lifted from my chest and I feel much better. I could have gone about it a little bit better… I feel as though I truly hurt and damaged his heart”).

About your parents, you shared that you love them very much and that you have “a good relationship with them personally”. You shared about your parents’ relationship with each other: “their relationship was not what I would ever want for myself.. My dad was always out with friends throughout the week and weekend. He would come home late, after we’d all be asleep….  my father had been seeing his girlfriend since.. I was 5. My parents didn’t separate until I was 10… “I resent my father because I just don’t know why he would do that considering my mother is an amazing woman”.