Hi Stacy

I’m glad that you’re starting to feel better sickness wise.

I think it depends on how good people are with self-care. There is ultimately, nothing wrong with sharing even difficult emotions. It’s a very healthy thing to do. We are social creatures and all need support especially when we are struggling.

I think the difficulty is that not everyone is capable of providing emotional support to others.

We do have our limits but there is a massive variety in what people are capable of. Some people do it as a job. Some people like Anita choose invest time and effort in supporting others every day. I always admired that she took the time to respond to everyone.

Whilst I would like to respond to everyone. On good days I do my best to. Sometimes I need to focus on practicing self-care. If I am busy, or going through a lot emotionally. I may choose to only communicate a few people and even then there may be days where I need to focus on taking care of my own emotions and take a short break.

I think you have a lot of people in your life who fall on the opposite end of the spectrum. This has created a lot of shame for you in sharing your emotional needs.

Even in your relationship where you felt supported. You were shamed for your emotional needs. He often blamed you for your understandable feelings about concerning behaviours that he was unwilling to change.

Asking a healthy person for reassurance doesn’t turn them against you. I’ve repeatedly asked my husband whilst being pregnant if he’s still attracted to me. He just holds me and and reassures me.

It is honestly disgusting that your partner told you that he was no longer attracted to you and continued to sleep with you. It’s abusive. If you were more confident in your boundaries you would have ended the relationship then and there when he said that to you. I think it’s a good thing that the relationship is over. You don’t need someone in your life who actively shames and humiliates you like that. Good luck to the next person he dates. They are going to need it! I expect that he will have persistent difficulties in relationships for a while.

It’s tempting to reflect on the good parts of the relationship and pretend that it was perfect. But it wasn’t. The signs of avoidant behaviour were present. It’s been discussed at length already. Realistically, he never even tried to match the level of effort you put into the relationship. He never even bothered to call you. That simple action was too much like effort for him and actively refused. What could you do if your boundaries were stronger in this case? Refuse to call him unless he takes his turn to contact you. Realistically, what hope is there in a relationship for someone too lazy and uncaring to bother even calling? This stands out to me because it’s so ridiculous. So small a request and so easy to fix with so little effort. He just didn’t want to.

I think that it’s a good thing that you were persistent in confronting him about issues that you were concerned about. It made things very clear that you were not going to accept the behaviour.

Because of the abuse and difficulties in life you cannot imagine better. But it exists and you deserve it. You deserve to be treat with the same kindness that you show other people.

Because of the previous abuse, you doubted your own boundaries and put up with too much bad behaviour.

Everyone has problems, but the sign of a good partner is someone who is willing to work on issues when you discuss them. Someone who is willing to compromise.

I think you understand what happened in the relationship. But you also experienced gaslighting. Gaslighting can be very confusing and make you doubt your own perspective. It’s natural to want to empathize with a partner’s perspective but it’s harmful and damaging when they deny your own boundaries.

You frequently experienced partial validation, refusal to change and blame. It’s a very confusing mix. It’s basically someone who is pretending to be healthy, but they’re not really.

He hasn’t quite learned from therapy and been able to fully apply those lessons.

Someone who is healthy and confronted with a problem will validate fully, seek a healthy compromise that meets both of your needs and ultimately change their behaviour to what is agreed upon.

Quite different from what you experienced.

Someone who has never had a long term relationship is extremely unlikely to have healed from their past.

You’re a very trusting person, but I think that you can learn from this relationship and learn to protect yourself by paying attention to what people say and how they act. It’s not your fault that you weren’t able to protect yourself from his behaviour. You have a history of abuse and this relationship was a step towards a healthy one in comparison.

It makes me feel angry for you that you were treat in these ways. And I know that you don’t feel it yet, but good riddance!

I’d like to give him a piece of my mind for you. He needs to grow up and stop dismissing women. Stop pretending he’s perfect because he’s not. Everyone has problems, but you know what actually makes things better instead of ignoring problems. Actively working on fixing them! He’s tried nothing and he’s all out of ideas describes his efforts in a relationship.

It’s great that he supported you in your life, when it was about difficulties outside of him. But the second conversation turned to difficulties in the relationship he ceased to be supportive.

Love and best wishes! ❤️ 🙏