Dear Hamza:

As I read your part in your original post, I was very impressed with your organized thinking, with how factually and clearly you presented yourself. I then read her part in your original post (her words), and I was even more impressed with her intelligence, emotional depth, care and tact.

At the end of Nov 2022, you apologized to her remorsefully, and you genuinely broke down in front of her crying, which is what she wanted to see for a long time, one would think: your vulnerability. But she did not fall in love with a vulnerable man, did she? She fell in love with a man who lacked vulnerability.

She broke up with you “due to (your) dismissive avoidance nature / ego / communication problems / lack of vulnerability“, but she also fell in love (and remained in love for a long time) with a man who was dismissive, avoidant and lacked vulnerability.

Following your genuine display of vulnerability, she felt “a great deal of solace“, but not the in-love type of love: “I’m not in love with you anymore.. I  lost the deep love I once felt for you… I do struggle to see a future for us“.

You wrote: “My mental health has suffered a lot and I am wondering what I should do from hereon. I still want her back but I’m starting to realise it may not be possible anymore. Do I try and re-attract her / reignite the ‘love’ at the risk of continuing to damage my mental health?“- my answer is no. Her in-love feelings will withdraw even farther if she becomes aware that you are trying to re-attract/ re-ignite her love.

“Do I stay in NC indefinitely and wait for her to reach out?… Do I send a goodbye message and cut the cord forever and move on?“- yes but after you see her one or two times, times in which you present yourself not the dismissive- avoidant man that you were before, and not as the vulnerable, perhaps desperate man you became, but instead: present yourself as a genuinely strong man, one who is kind and caring but also as emotionally independent of her as can be.

As intelligent as she is, she is not likely to be in control of her in-love feelings. There is a saying, the heart wants what the heart wants: she may not be able to feel attracted to/ in-love with a vulnerable-appearing man, even if she thinks that a vulnerable-appearing man is what she wants.

I am not suggesting that you dishonestly manipulate her by appearing this way or that way. What I am suggesting is that you bring to the surface the genuine strength within you, and present it to her. If she gets her in-love feelings back, it will not follow more displays of vulnerability of the desperate kind, and not following the kind of I-don’t-care/ dismissive-strength (which is not really strength). It will happen- if it will- following witnessing your genuine, decent and caring strength.

“Do I focus on healing myself and working on myself and reach out whenever I am ready?“- I would say yes to the first part, no to the second. If you work on yourself with the thought and intent in mind that you want her back, your work will not succeed.

“I am unsure if her email is a soft way of saying ‘it’s not going to happen’ and I should move on, or if she is genuinely open to getting to know me but the chances of falling in love are extremely small (but not zero)?“- show her that strength, and even if she is currently sure that she doesn’t feel those in-love feelings for you anymore, she may get those feelings back quicker than you can imagine. But real strength, on your part, means that you do not place your  mental and physical health in her hands, subject to her feelings and her choices!

anita