Hi Anita,

Sorry for the late reply. Your response was spot on, the only thing he’s ever done is raise his voice, which was called for because he was upset. At the time it caught me off guard because he is not someone who argues, if he has an issue he would rather sit down and discuss it.

I think I took that too personally.

I have reached out to him and we are meeting next weekend.

I have realised that I fled from the relationship out of fear, I was scared of commitment because I am scared of knowing someone so well and then them turning on me. Aside from experiences with family members I have had a lot of experiences growing up of friends who have broken my trust. I think I need to fix my trust issues, I have been finding that by identifying who I cannot trust that I have felt a lot better and not wasting my time around people who don’t care about me (aka following your previous advice).

I hope you are okay yourself (:

Hi anita,

I apologise for my silence, it’s only Wednesday yet I am feeling rather overwhelmed. I have fallen behind my uni course because I felt rather depressed and instead of fighting against it I just let it consume me because I felt emotionally drained, as it happens its my time-of-the-month so I now know why I have felt rather low, finding it harder to wake up and focus.

I am nervous about seeing him this weekend, and don’t worry that drug experience was a mistake and I’ve learnt my lesson from it. I haven’t and have no intention of telling my mum or any of my family members about this meetup because 1. its not of their business 2. my mum has actively tried to ruin our relationship 3. I was never open about my relationships to my family in the first place, in my opinion my romantic or even friendships are separate to my family, of course if it got serious I may introduce them to my parents, I never wanted or sought their approval because its me in the relationship not them. Ultimately my mum and fa,o;y have got too involved in my last relationship so even if it doesn’t work out they will not be meeting anyone I’m romantically involved with.

Yes the open relationship definitely was a mistake, I have talked to my ex (as it were) and he has said if we ever try anything like that again it would be years down the line. My only issue with it is that it does make me feel second best, I know that a man can go and do something sexual with another woman and its just desire, but I want to be someones only one. He has dated alot of his female-friends and therefore they are still present in his life, I am finding this difficult to deal with.

It’s strange because a lot of people complain about their partners going to the pub or on a lads night out, in which they may be aware they could be cheating on them or whatever, but to some degree in society this is accepted and as long as the guy comes back to you the next day its ok. Yet I go out with a man who has many female friends and isn’t into the lad-culture therefore it is unlikely he is chatting up women etc yet I am left feeling insecure?

The reason I bring this up is because I’m trying to look and see if this relationship will work long-term. Personally, I want to move to different cities and he has stayed in the same city for the majority of his life, so if I say “hey I want to do x,y,z…it just means you need to give up your life that you’ve made in x, is that ok” I think I would feel awful, I dont want to pull someone along on my journey I want to have the same vision so its a joint journey.

Now that we have been talking we are getting on fine, we say I love you, goodnight etc and my only issue is he’s not putting in the effort to say hi, its always me, however, I think that it’s because a. hes busy b. hes still got his guard up. He’s coming down just for an afternoon but I don’t feel like that’s good enough, which I know is unfair and selfish, but I’ve missed him and thought that if he came down the night before we could have a night out and have a “serious” chat then spend the next day hanging out.

Hm, am I asking too much? There’s still worries in the back of my mind about it all, I have also just watched When Harry met Sally, which may not have helped haha

– V

Morning Anita,

The present version of me cannot trust her. I also frequently forget all the things she has done to hurt me and cause me issues. However, at times I do find that I go back to trusting her briefly, its almost like a nostalgic type of trust. For example, this weekend I need to stay over and in that moment I am going to need this nostalgic trust to get through the night without feeling too anxious.

With my current situation with my ex I have come to the realisation that me breaking up, moving out etc has been a survival technique so I’m in the best position for myself. The problem is to get there I had to hurt someone I deeply care about. I’m not saying this was conscious though, kind of a drive in the background that was driving my feelings at the time. How do I know if I have gained his trust completely? I feel like if I can gain his trust I will slowly trust him in return. I should add tho these trust issues with him only exist at 1am and therefore, they are rather irrational.

– V