Dear SereneWolf,

sorry for a later reply, I am not doing that great health-wise, which bogs me down quite a bit.

Yes, you’re right and I’m working towards putting good silence on that drill sergeant.

Good to hear that! I like how you approached the mishap with the missed online meeting. Although it was your fault, this person’s reaction was quite unforgiving. First, they logged out within less than 5 minutes of the agreed time. And then they refused to reschedule – showing no understanding and a strong judgmental attitude. So you’re right, it’s probably for the best that you don’t have them as your client.

I think the thing is that I know I’m sensitive. This could be my strength and my weakness. Both. But unconsciously I maybe still thinking more as a weakness and less as a strength. Means still there is some kind of fear.

Yes, sensitivity is the same as vulnerability. You may think it’s your weakness, but at the end of the day, it’s your strength, specially in a romantic relationship. (Just as a side note, we’re not meant to be vulnerable in every relationship, of course, e.g. we don’t want to be sensitive/vulnerable with ill-meaning, toxic people!). However, in a romantic relationship, the goal is to be open and honest with each other, to be able to talk about our fears and weaknesses, and yet be understood and supported by the other – rather than blamed and judged.

You did say a while ago that you feared sharing too much of your “imperfections” or problems, even if your girlfriend showed compassion, because you thought it would make you “weaker” than her. As if she would use the knowledge of your weaknesses to hurt you, rather than to help you and encourage you…

So you might have a false belief, saying something like “if I show my weakness, I will be attacked”. Perhaps you’ve picked it up in your family of origin – because your father did indeed attack you and chastise you for showing even the slightest weakness? So you’ve learned to hide your weaknesses – not to be attacked?

Yet still there was times I wasn’t able to say things on their face like you’re doing this and it’s hurting me. I was just making sarcastic comment or neglecting on that and be like they should understand these “signals” and they will work on it.

Alright, so you didn’t dare to say that something was bothering you openly, but you used passive aggressive means, such as sarcasm. You were afraid to openly admit that something is hurting you. In other words, you were afraid to openly admit that you are vulnerable and that the person has the power to hurt you. And so instead, you put a shield around your heart… and the language of a shielded heart is sarcasm.

For example, instead of saying “it hurts me when you don’t reply to my texts for an entire day”, you say “I guess you’re so extremely busy that you don’t have time to reply to my texts”. It’s like sending a little poisonous arrow instead of being honest (and vulnerable) and saying “this hurts me”…

And when they haven’t changed their behavior patterns and did the same things over and over. I took it like they’re the ones not putting efforts (even though that they were somewhat aware of this) in this relationship only me who’s working for making it better. So I don’t want it and I’d just breakup.

Right… you felt that they didn’t care, even though you’ve never openly expressed what was bothering you. Instead of being honest and vulnerable, you rather blamed it on them and called it quits…. So perhaps your shield started to go up as soon as the person was doing something that was hurting you, but you didn’t have the courage to admit it, and so you switched to sarcasm and started feeling resentment?