How are you, hope?

* Dear Tobi:

I read your two posts. You started communicating with a woman on Tinder in January this year, only three months ago, and you quickly fell in love with her.  When you met her on Tinder, she was in the process of ending a toxic relationship. Two weeks ago, she told you that she still loved you, but “HAD NO FEELINGS OF LOVE ANYMORE”, and asked you if you “COULD WAIT FOR HER”.

I read what you shared about her childhood, about her two relationships preceding you, and about the circumstances in her life at the time she told you that she had no loving feelings for you.

“I love this person very much and I have never had this kind of love for anyone before…  I am now devastated and cannot think clearly. My life has turned upside down” – too soon, is what comes to my mind. Three months is too soon to be so emotionally invested in her.

“I wanna take her to visit a therapist or psychologist so that she can actually has her problems/ traumas solved. Even if we may not be together in the future, I still want all the best things for my gf” – what’s best for her at this time is to focus on her studies for her CFA course exam, an exam scheduled for this August, as well as on her job as a data analyzer. Because she already rejected your suggestion that she sees a therapist, and because she is likely to think of it at this time as something that will take away from her focus on her career and the upcoming exam, I think that it’s not a good idea for you to suggest it again, not before August.

“I don’t mind waiting for this girl as I know she’s worth fighting for… I wanna give her time and space but at the same time, I wanna see her… What do I do now?” –

– because she “can spend hours on studying”, working and studying for many hours per day, she needs to take stress-free breaks. She gets her stress-free breaks, seems to me, by going to social media and having easy, superficial or light-hearted interactions there. When she was stressed about her previous toxic relationship, she went to Tinder, where she met you. Currently, “she has been active on social media, too. I saw her commented on her friends’ post on Facebook”.

I don’t think that spending time with you would be stress-free for her because of the existing difficulty, depth and conflict in the relationship (conflict: you have strong loving feelings for her; she has no loving feelings for you).

“Could this (stress/ depression) come back after a period of time or when something that reminds you of your undesirable past pops up?… And could this play a part in my girlfriend’s circumstance?” – yes, it could, but I don’t see what you could possibly do about it: she rejected your psychotherapy suggestion, she is not likely to change her mind about it while being focused on her studies, and she is likely to seek easy, superficial or light interactions with others (social media), so to get stress-free breaks from her studies (and from other stressors).

“If she didn’t want anything to do with me anymore, she wouldn’t have asked me if I could wait for her, would she?” – I hope so. I hope that she did not ask you to wait for her just because she didn’t want the hassle of breaking up with a guy who is emotionally deeply invested in her… sort of postponing the final breakup for later, after the exam, perhaps.

“I feel like this relationship is worth fighting for and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make her feel whole again regardless of the possibility that her future guy isn’t me. I have never actually fought for love before. I don’t know why it hurts so bad” – your love for her is precious. It indicates to me that you are a good, loving person. But you can’t make her feel whole, no one can. Think about this: can you make yourself feel whole today? Can you make yourself not hurt today? I hope you can, but if you can’t, how can you possibly make her feel whole?

anita