Dear Lisa,

I love him but should I have to stay paying for that mistake I made or just let things be what they are and go our separate ways

no, you don’t have to be paying back the karma and enduring his mistreatment for the fact that once, in an extremely difficult period for you, you told him you didn’t love him. You told him numerous times since that you do love him, and not only that, but you’ve also worked on yourself:

i wanted him back and i told him i was going to change. and i did. i developed my self love and self worth. but then he almost started treating me the way i treated him.

What did you do to develop more self-love and self-worth?

If you really have changed, and weren’t pushing him away any more, like you were in the beginning of your relationship – then there’s no reason he’d treat you like that. It seems he started pushing you away when you sincerely wanted to get closer. He is still blaming you for something you said once, when you were in a really rough spot. He seems unable to forgive you. This would suggest he has issues of his own, perhaps dealing with a sense of betrayal that he experienced in his own family.

Anyway, what’s happening is that his blaming you falls on fertile ground, because you have a strong sense of guilt, and so you easily go into self-doubt, like I shouldn’t complain and shouldn’t even be saying anything when I am actually the one to blame for all this etc etc. Your self-love and self-worth evaporate in those moments…

Usually such a strong guilt is related to our childhood, e.g. we may be feeling guilty for disappointing our parents or something like that. Can you remember when you felt guilty for the first time, what were you blaming yourself as a child?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Tee.