Dear Tobi:

I re-read all your posts. Here is my today’s analysis:

1) Very soon after you met your now ex-girlfriend, you expressed to her how you felt about her. She asserted herself, saying that “she needed time and space to heal” and asked you “to wait for her to recover and heal from her past toxic relationships” before considering a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. You agreed, but shortly after, feeling overwhelmed with “a strong love for her” you ignored her assertion and request, and your own agreement to it and asked her to be your girlfriend. Her response: she said Yes.

Why did she say Yes, ignoring her previous assertion? Perhaps because “She likes helping people in need and sometimes, I think she puts their needs above her… the type of shy person, and she sometimes doesn’t fight back for her own benefit. Since she was once dominated by her toxic exes, she tended to do things for them against her will” – perhaps her Yes was about helping you to feel good, putting your need above hers, going against her will. You didn’t force her to go against her will, but you ignored her assertion, and she is the type of shy person who doesn’t fight back when her assertion is ignored. Your expressed, strong need that she will be your girlfriend… dominated her.

“Her sister told me that she has been ok ever since our break… I don’t know if I can send her gifts as her sister somehow won’t talk to me. I think my GF may have told her sister to stop responding to me” – this is congruent with her being shy and unassertive, too timid to talk to you personally, she preferred (at least for a while) that her sister talks to you instead.

“She told me SHE HAD NO LOVE FEELINGS FOR ME… I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t wanna talk. I tried to buy her food and her favorite apple juice, but she was not happy to receive them… The last time we met in person, she just kept silence” – all this suggests to me that she was not and is not interested in a relationship with you.

“she told me SHE STILL LOVED ME BUT HAD NO FEELINGS OF LOVE ANYMORE” – being shy and timid, she was perhaps afraid to hurt you, and that you will hurt her back, so she tried to soften the blow: saying that she still loved you softens the blow of having no feelings of love for you.

“She asked me if I COULD WAIT FOR HER” – context is important: if she asked this at a time when you were expressing significant emotional pain over ending the relationship (figuratively, she could see your heart bleeding), asking you if you could wait for her could have been a first- aid measure (figuratively, placing a bandage over your bleeding heart, so to stop the bleeding as quickly as possible; whatever it took to stop the bleeding was the right thing to do at that moment).

On April 23, you asked me: “Should I once a week get her gifts to remind her I’m still around for her? I won’t contact her directly. I’ll just ask her sister to help me deliver“. Three days later, on April 26, I suggested that maybe you should, and you wrote: “I don’t know if I can send her gifts as her sister somehow won’t talk to me. I think my GF may have told her sister to stop responding to me“. This means, in my mind, that there has been a recent development, one that indicates that indeed, she is not interested in a relationship with you.

“I remember telling her that if she somehow wants nothing to do with me (regardless of the cause), just tell me straight and I won’t bother her anymore. She has never replied to that“ – perhaps she is too timid, too unassertive… too uncomfortable to tell you straight that she wants nothing to do with you. For some people it is too scary to do straight talking in the face of conflict.

“She said ‘I don’t know how long it will take me to be Ok again‘ and ‘You don’t have to wait for me. I don’t want you to be stuck here with me” – when a timid, unassertive person who wants to break up with a boyfriend says this, it is a way to convince the boyfriend to break up with her, so that she doesn’t have to break up with him: please don’t wait for me, please don’t be with me, it will take too long for me to be okay, you shouldn’t wait, etc.

2) “My dad used to be abusive towards my mom… The only thing I remember about my parents’ breakup is that I would defend my mom when my dad tried to abuse her, which includes times that I had to fight him for physically abusing my mom“. Your empathy, your compassion was for your mother, that’s why you defended her.

This young woman, your now ex-girlfriend, has shown motherly characteristics and had motherly interactions with you: “She is a family person. She worried about everyone’s well-being… The best GF I have ever had… I had a minor motorbike accident and I tried to hide it from her. But when she found out, she insisted on taking care of me by taking a look at my wound and making sure I didn’t have any infection…A lot of times, she wanted to order food to my home after I came back from work. She was worried that I may have been hungry“.

In addition, this young woman had a history of two toxic relationships, one last year, and the second was ongoing when you met her. it is not far-fetched to imagine that she personally reminded you of your mother, unlike any girlfriend before her, and that your great empathy for your mother transferred to this young woman:

“She was in a bad and mentally abusive relationship when we met” – your mother was in a bad mentally abusive relationship when you grew up, “I was worried for her safety (I didn’t know why)“, just like you were worried about your mother’s safety when she was physically abused by your father,  “I started to spend time comforting her and making her smile“, you comforted your mother too, trying to make her smile, didn’t you? “I would do anything to make her feel like a queen, make it up for her losses in the past toxic relationships. She was my priority… I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make her feel whole“- growing up, you were willing to do whatever it took to make your mother feel like a queen, to make it up for her losses in her toxic marriage to your father… your mother was your priority, wasn’t she? “I am again thinking too much about my girlfriend’s well-being” – just like you thought too much about your mother’s well-being? “I have never actually fought for love before” – not for the love of a previous girlfriend, but you did fight mightily because of your love for your mother. You fought your father physically because you loved your mother so much.

“I am now devastated and cannot think clearly. My life has turned upside down… My mind is a mess… I don’t know why it hurts so bad… I have been lately experiencing trembling hands… insomnia… sad and then feel empty inside my heart a second later… at times, I feel like my heart automatically stops beating…  IDK how long it’ll take for me to feel okay again. I need to be okay as quickly as possible… I know it has been less than 3 months of relationship. However, Idk why I invested too much this time” – It is my understanding that you invested so much because she reminded you of your mother and just as you invested so much in your relationship with your mother, you invested so much in your relationship with this young woman. Your strong emotional and physical reactions in regard to this young woman indicate, to me, that as a child, you experienced  a lot of hurt and angst, which were awakened in the context of this very short-term romantic relationship.

“idk if trying to care for her makes me a stalker or causes her discomfort” – I think that it is very important that you don’t behave in any way that could be viewed as that of a stalker. Do not initiate any contact with her whatsoever, not directly and not indirectly.

You asked me yesterday: “Do I need professional medical help?“- yes, the help of a medical doctor and/ or of a competent, empathetic psychotherapist who will help you lessen the hurt and calm the angst you experienced growing up, and since then.

anita

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