Dear @TeaK,

Thank you for your detailed input. I highly appreciate that.

Actually, I think he did find me like his mother but he has a lot of trauma attached to her. She had a brain injury when he was 13 and since then she is totally dependent on his father. She struggles with short term memory and gets annoyed when people don’t entertain her. His family struggles a lot because of that and all the kids are truly traumatised. So that explains his annoyance when I was weak and needy, maybe it triggered him.

He did tell me last year Nov (5 months after the breakup) that he thinks there is no one as kind, forgiving and wonderful as me. He said he thinks I am close to Jesus as a spiritual being and I am the most important person in his life. To be fair, he also had just asked me if I would allow him to have phone sex with a girl he met on Facebook. It was quite confusing. I felt like I am being tested. I said I have no right to say yes or no coz we aren’t together but he did not let go till I replied to him. I know he would not have been able to be calm if I was seeing someone (he accepted that) but he was quite jealous since the beginning. So I didn’t question that behaviour.

I will go through the questions you asked now.

 

“I felt really guilty when I didn’t get the job and he said No too.”

I didn’t understand this: did he say No to you moving with him to his new location once you didn’t get the job you wanted?

He said he did not mind me saying no to moving with him since I was caught in the moment. I was about to get a job I was dreaming of for a long time. He did feel unimportant but he would ask me to shut up every time I will apologise. That is the reason I told him to accept the job in the Middle East coz I was guilty of doing that to him.

 

“I tried to talk to him about it so many times but he said he doesn’t care and it doesn’t matter. He said he had forgiven me”

I don’t think he has forgiven you, and it has shown in his reluctance to talk about marriage and your future together. Also, he reluctantly followed you to Berlin, only to leave 20 days after you’ve arrived.

Berlin was his plan. When he was about to come to visit me in my home country he made me write on a sheet that we will move to Berlin and we will have a wonderful life and pay my gratitude for that. But you are right, maybe he was reluctant and angry with me. I asked him so many times. I even asked him if we should see a couple’s therapist so that he could talk but he refused it. I was worried he might resent me but he didn’t want to talk about it.

“It was the most devastating thing ever but he promised he will take short term opportunities and he will keep berlin his home base. I agreed but then he started keeping away from him since I was angry. I was angry that he left me alone in a place that was supposed to be home.”

Here you sort of “betrayed” him again, because you agreed for him to take short-term jobs abroad, but then you felt angry at him. But I guess you were angry not because he left, but because he wouldn’t make any commitments regarding your future. You felt his hesitancy and it hurt you: ‘For someone who constantly kept talking about wanting to have a family with me, he was very hesitant about getting engaged.’

I am sorry I made a mistake. He started ignoring me since he thought I would spoil his joy and that made me angry. I was mostly annoyed that he did not want to discuss our future. He wouldn’t even talk about how long did he want to work abroad. I would have appreciated it if he said I am going to be there for 2 years but he never had an answer. He would say is this not enough that I say I am committed. Tbh it is but then he made promises for starting a farm in Italy or work on a farm. Now I guess I was supposed to do it alone and he would come there for vacations. That was not what I signed up for. So yes it hurt me. You are spot on.

“He used to come to visit me every 1.5 months for 5 days, in the house I set up for us and he would be enamoured by it saying that he loves that we have a home.

He wanted me to build a home for him.”

It’s like he saw you as the strong, capable mother, who’ll build a nice home for him. He appreciated the house in Berlin, but he still resented you. I think it shows that he saw you primarily as his care-taker and provider, and not as an equal partner. He loved that he has a home base, from where he can go out into the world and explore. You were a safety net for him, not an equal partner. And he didn’t want to get married to you, I suppose, because he resented you all along for being dependent on you so much.

I don’t know if he resented me for being so dependent on me. He resented me when I would not like to do things his way. He always wanted to do everything together. He wanted me to be part of everything he did. Go to places he goes to, listen to songs he listens to, watch what he is watching. I explained to him a lot that it’s not bad that I do not enjoy doing everything with him but he was very stubborn about that. So I am still unsure about why did he resent me but you could be right. When he started pulling away his first statement was ” I don’t need you” to my statement I love you, need you and want you. I didn’t mean the word ‘need’ the same way he did but I was shocked at his response. Two weeks before this happened he was writing to me about how he is very lonely and wants to talk to me, while I was busy with my sister’s wedding.

You are on point with the rest of the points. It brought a smile to my face. I guess it is the truth, I didn’t want to accept that he was expressing everything he resented me for. I am normally attracted to guys who are reserved. My ex was not that, he was different. He approached me when normally I am the one who would approach the guy. He was so sensitive and vulnerable it was refreshing. He would also tell me I am quite beautiful. In my past dating history, the guys would tell me I have a charming personality but they only fell in love with me once I started talking :). I do tend to put them on a pedestal and take the caretaker role. This one is a lesson too. I have only learned more about me after every relationship but I am also exhausted now. I mean will this self-improvement through relationship project ever stop. Anyway, I know it’s silly to say so. We keep growing and evolving as human beings but I tend to always look for my forever person and fail miserably. I need to let go of this idea and start to get out of this scarcity mentality.

Only recently, I came to the conclusion that my ex did not love me. The breakup made me feel rejected. There was also a lot of gaslighting and that makes you question your existence when you are vulnerable. I feel I have better boundaries now and I would be able to make better choices.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my long post. You made my day with this honest breakdown.

Hugs,

Akansha