Hi Tee,

I combined the both parts of relationships…

Yes, I can imagine. If you believe that others will hurt you and that you can actually do pretty well alone, then sure, I see why you didn’t want to build relationships, not only romantic but friendships either, if I understood you well? Btw, did you have close friends as a child?

Yes only one but even with him there was different kind of communication mostly we would just play with each other and just talk about crazy ideas and we were both brilliant students.

Yeah, your lack of trust has developed gradually, with your parents (and I guess other adults too, like your grandfather?), in your childhood. And it remained a blueprint for how you view all other relationships. Even if you meet kind and loving people, your core belief (“I cannot trust people”) will be still working in your subconscious and will make you guarded and cautious.

I thought about it and I think it’s that feeling like unconditional love doesn’t exist so they must be need me for something that’s why they’re being nice.etc

Right. That means your intention is pure, and you have no expectations from the person to “pay you back”. Perhaps what you’ve experienced in your childhood is some kind of manipulation/transactionality, either on your own skin or in your family? That people would only help each other if they saw personal gain in it?

I guess I did hear things like that in my teenage like “people are just there for their means” and even I saw things like that in adult life too.

I guess that in that relationship too, you didn’t dare to show your own vulnerability, your own weaknesses, but you (actually both of you) were focusing mostly on her weaknesses, right? Like, she was the “project” that you were working on, and it wasn’t coming along well. And so you were getting frustrated, and she was feeling guilty etc etc.

Yes you put it in the right words. We did take it like a “project”

Even if you’d like to trust her, I think you still don’t trust her. Because the false core belief (“I cannot trust others”, or “Other people will hurt me”) is still active…

At friendship level I do trust lately I found that it’s really easy for me to make friends. I made two friends and much younger than me and both are quite understanding and mature and I’m trying to be more vulnerable with them since they don’t shy away to be vulnerable with me. But when it comes to romantic relationships that’s where trust is no more

Would to “let loose” mean to get “madly” in love, which means you’d become too distracted and not able to function properly?

It seems you believe that if you fall in love, you’ll be too vulnerable, too distressed, not focused enough, and they’ll be able to prevent you from even reaching your goals, your career goals etc. Like, that the person you love will prevent you from reaching your goals and dreams. Could it be it?

 

Kind of yes because I noticed that I always loved hard. I haven’t been taught to love in a soft way. And that’s why it hurts more too. That’s why just another day we were talking and I told my friend it’s better to be in serious relationship after I reach a certain life and career goals that I have.

I am just thinking… betrayal of trust can happen if we open up and show vulnerability, and the other person ridicules us, shames us or uses it against us. Or it can happen if they promise us something and never deliver. And I guess it can also happen if they shame us and criticize us all the time (like your father and my mother did), and we can never trust that they wouldn’t hurt us. I wonder if any of these reasons resonate with you?

Hmm I think “they promise us something and never deliver” this have happened many times in my previous relationship. But later on I told myself some people just don’t change why I’m giving too many chances.

What prompted you to do that?

Because I did started to like her and I got scared that what if I attached to her?

Are you still FWB, if I may ask?

Not really. We just had a meal together, went to the museum and a just cheek kisses.

As in: nothing is wrong with the girl, but you still don’t want it. At least this is what I’m hearing…

And that’s how fear works: it is irrational, it’s not based on our current reality, but on our old wounding. And it overpowers us…

I think yeah we can say that.

I hear what you’re saying, but it actually carries in itself a false belief: that if you focus on your career, you can’t be in a committed relationship. That those two are mutually exclusive. That love and career don’t mix, i.e. that they are in competition with each other. If that were true, then married people, or people in committed relationships, wouldn’t be able to have successful careers at all.

You do have a good point but where I come from it’s like a mindset like mostly on guys have the pressure to do something for women they don’t have high hopes or put pressure to be something like yeah she can always find a rich husband but a for a guy, he got to be something good. I do believe in equality but it’s the environment around me.

Actually, it might be a good exercise to journal about this: “If I fall in love, then….” Write down everything that comes to mind. What would you lose, or what kind of setbacks you believe you would experience if you fell in love. Maybe it will help you to get to the bottom of your fear…

Ohh that’s very good idea, Thanks! I’ll take time for this and write down and see what comes in my mind.