Dear lk09,

I apologize for the long silence – I’ve only just returned from holidays and finally have more time to sit down and gather my thoughts 🙂

First, I am happy to hear that you’ve been taking care of yourself well, eating healthy, exercising, cooking healthy meals for yourself, and in general feeling better about yourself. Self-care is a form of self-love, and I am very glad that you’ve been practicing self-love… I am also happy to hear that you have more clarity about what you want in a relationship:

I have no expectations from anyone. Now I know what I need to do. I want a family and a extremely loving partner… Someone who would crave for me to hug him after a day of hard work, someone who would want to kiss me subtly good night…  I want him to be grateful that I am a part of his life. Why? Because I know what sort of a woman I am and what I bring to a relationship. And love and care should be responded with love and care.

I agree. The above are in fact your expectations, and it’s okay to have them. So scratch that first sentence “I have no expectations from anyone” 🙂 Because you should have expectations from a person you share your life with.

Now about your relationship with Dandan:

I meant stable for the current situation that was ever since we mended things. All the things that concerned us, we had made a list and had actively worked on those and we were honest with each other in terms of telling exactly how we felt… Even if there was fear or nervousness. We conveyed that.

It’s good that you were honest with each other and made a list of things you wanted to work on. It means a part of him wanted to make the relationship work. However, he didn’t want to work on his addiction and the causes behind his addiction, which have to do with his childhood. Without that, your relationship didn’t really stand a chance, because he didn’t heal the core emotional wounds which prevent him from having a healthy relationship with you (or anyone else, for that matter).

Worst, he wasn’t even interested in healing it – as you say, he continued to reject seeing a professional. This shows he doesn’t really want to change, even though he claims he does. And you need to realize that without his willingness to seek professional help (which is equivalent to admitting the extent of his problem and his willingness to change), there is nothing you can do to help him, and that talking to him and lending him your ear won’t do any good. I am mentioning this because of the following you said to him:

maybe we can talk about it (not getting back together but we can talk…the only thing that kept pulling me back to you was our immense comfort and friendship so I owe you my ears because of that). Or maybe not. Let the time tell.

You can try to “save” him again, going for another cycle, but if he isn’t willing to seek professional help, you’ll end up disappointed again. Even if you start out not wanting to get back together, sooner or later you’ll want more than friendship, and will end up hurt again. Please take that into consideration if he asks you to start talking to him again. My advice is to stop being his therapist and ask him to find a real one, and in this way show that he really wants to change!

Yes, you two were very close, you were super honest with each other and he was comfortable telling you anything. That’s why you feel “immense comfort and friendship”. But the problem is that in his honesty and his comfort telling you everything, he was also hurting you: he told you hurtful things, such as that he was making out with another girl, that he was watching porn and that he didn’t find you attractive. He also told you he didn’t miss you when he was away from you. Yes, you can value his honesty but you need to protect yourself from getting hurt like that.

You said you got used to such behavior (I am so used to his behaviour now that I don’t feel hurt). And that’s where the problem is, because you SHOULD feel hurt by such behavior! He begged you to marry him and told you you were the love of his life – only to leave you stranded 3 months later, telling you he doesn’t feel attracted to you because you’ve slept with him!

You are used to such behavior – used to getting hurt by him – but you shouldn’t be. You don’t need to expose yourself to hurt, even if it’s by someone who themselves is hurt and wounded. You need to protect yourself from people who hurt you, even though they are wounded and you have great empathy for them.

You have allowed yourself to be hurt in this relationship for a long time. You found excuses for him. You made yourself believe that you are not really hurt, whereas the truth is that you are crying at night, because indeed, his behavior is immensely hurtful. You have been fooling yourself that it doesn’t affect you that much, that you are strong… But you don’t need to be strong and KEEP TAKING THE ABUSE. Strength is about PROTECTING YOURSELF FROM ABUSE, setting boundaries so that you don’t get unnecessarily hurt.

So next time he reaches out, wanting to “talk honestly”, or even wanting to renew the relationship, tell him to go see a therapist first, because that’s what he needs. A therapist won’t be hurt by his confessions, whereas you will. You don’t need to expose yourself to that. He has hurt you enough already. Please be strong and protect yourself from another round of being punched in the face!

There is more I want to say, dear lk09, but I want to send this first. Please let me know what you think…