Dear aphroitte1,

I am sorry you are feeling upset again, now because of the friend-lover who decided to break up the secret relationship with you. It seems you are both angry and anxious about it – angry because of his hurtful behavior, where he disrespects you (keeping your relationship secret, mocking you in front of others, making comments on other girls in front of you, telling you that you are a crybaby when you demand to be respected…). You say “I want to be angry, JUST ANGRY, so I can move on from him and build my self-respect and deserve because he and my ex turned out to behave the same way.”

You would like to be just angry (and nothing else) so that you can move away and CUT TIES with him once and for all. So you can be emotionally free and independent, free from the moods of these selfish men who disrespect you, blame you and mock you.

But you cannot be just angry and you cannot cut ties with them because of several reasons. One is your abandonment anxiety: you are afraid to be left alone, that’s why you’d rather stay in a lousy, abusive relationship than be alone. You talked about it before (and anita mentioned it above):

[November 2021] I have very serious codependency/emotional attachment issues. I believe so, because when my other ex texted me I didn’t feel bad or hurt by the conversation with “my friend”. I was able to be rude and not to care, because I now have attention of someone else. I’ve noticed this problem when my ex stopped texting today. … I don’t know what is the reason but I’ve started feeling anxious, stressed again. I am scared and I don’t like to be like this. Attached to people. I want to be okay to accept and let people go and not to feel this level of anxiety. I really want to be independent.

Another reason is the guilt that you feel for having legitimate needs. These men blame you for wanting to be loved, cared for and treated with respect. They tell you you are a crybaby and too demanding. They want you to accept their lousy behavior without complaining or demanding anything. And you end up questioning yourself and taking on the blame: “I want to know why I feel guilty. Why I feel like I am always the one to blame. Like I am always the bad one. … I don’t know if I am the asshole that I am always complaining and being a cry-baby. … I am afraid that something is wrong with me.”

You end up believing them and blaming yourself, just like you believed your father when he blamed you for his unhappiness. You are trying to understand these men’s lousy behavior and how you might have caused it, how you are guilty for it. Right now, you are overthinking about the reasons your friend-lover decided to break up with you, and you aren’t sure if it’s because you did something wrong: I know to be an overreactive and overthinker, currently, I am thinking of million scenarios in my head about why he is like this, and it’s killing me. … I just can’t stop obsessing with him and his bad behavior. At this point I feel like it’s not because of the friend’s code to not go with the friend’s exes, but because he doesn’t want to even though he is saying that I am the woman he loved the most.

My thoughts at this point: There are two parts in you – one is angry and furious, and demands respect. Another part (your inner child, the little girl in you) is scared and panicking that the man will leave (abandonment anxiety), and is trying to figure out what she did wrong and how she can improve, so the man in your life wouldn’t leave. This part (the little girl in you) also feels guilty for driving the man away. So there is a mix of strong emotions in you: 1) ANGER AND FURY for being disrespected, 2) FEAR of being abandoned, and 3) GUILT for being too demanding and the false belief that “something is wrong with me”.

What to do? First, stop blaming yourself. Your needs for love, care and respect in a relationship are legitimate. But you are expecting those needs to be met by men unable to give you what you need – by selfish and egocentric men. You are attracted to this type of men because they remind you of your father.

The dynamic is your relationships is that you are trying to extract love and respect from these men, who refuse to give it to you, and then you get into endless fights. You blame them for not giving you what you want (and your claims are mostly justified because these men behave selfishly and even despicably). And then they blame you (which is mostly unjustified, telling you you are a crybaby if you demand a minimum level of respect and decency). This fighting goes on forever, or until the man decides to break it off, like your friend-lover recently did.

The problem is that you aren’t able to break it off because of your abandonment anxiety. You’d rather stay in a bad relationship, engage in endless fights and suffer humiliation than say “enough is enough, I am out of here.” Even if you break it off for a while, you go back to the man who humiliates you, because you hope that he will finally give you the love and appreciation that you desperately need.

My advice is to stop blaming yourself for having legitimate needs for love, care and appreciation/respect. But also realize that you will never have those needs met by men you are currently attracted to. In order to get out of the vicious cycle, you would need to have those needs met elsewhere – and a very good way is therapy. With the help of a good therapist, you, the adult aphroitte, can give the love and appreciation to your inner child – the little aphroitte. You shouldn’t rely on men to feed your hungry inner child. You, with the help of a therapist, should feed and nurture that child yourself. That’s how you will heal your abandonment anxiety and will be able to leave bad, humiliating relationships once and for all.

Let me know what you think of this strategy – to stop demanding the impossible from these selfish men and start nurturing your own inner child?