Dear florarose:

I think you should not confront him and you should not leave him. Neither.

You may be misunderstanding his verbal silence regarding his feelings for you. You think it may be that he doesn’t love you but that doesn’t … sound like the reason.

Let’s say that as your boyfriend was growing up, his mother (and I am guessing, for the sake of giving you an example of a possibility) used to beat him up, slapping his face, hitting him on the head and when she was done, she told him: “I love you so much, this is why I hit you, I love you so much. There is fire in my heart for you, fire of love…”

In that example, you can see why he would decide in his heart to never say “I love you” to anyone, and never say firey love words to anyone. Not his fault- the association between abuse and “I love you” was made in his brain without his choosing.

If I was you, i would learn more about him: how was his childhood? is relationship with his parents? Does he express love verbally to other people?? This is the third option (first is confrontingt and second is leaving, the two options you mentioned).

Please post again with your thoughts and feelings.

anita

Dear florarose:

I think I understand your position. It is probably worth a try on your part though: to discuss this very thing with him. It means so much to you so you owe it to yourself to approach him about this before you give up on the relationship.

Tell him in a non accusatory way that you need to hear him express his feelings for you, honestly, the way he really feel, that it is important, very important for you that he expresses his feelings verbally. Present it like that and hear what he says. Take it from there: if he does not respons, that means he is not concerned with your needs, with what is so important to you.

If he is concerned, he will express that concern somehow. You can ask him, simply ask him, if it is difficult for him to express his feelings verbally, and if he says it is, ask him to tell you why he thinks that is.

Also: did you notice if he expresses his feelings verbally, affectionate feelings to other people, family members, maybe?

anita

People are not psychic and he is not going to magically change his ways because you wish he would.

Furthermore wishing he were doing something different but not telling him what it is is just going to create stress for you.

There’s no reason why he “should” be doing anything. You can talk about the kind of relationship you want to create though.

An alternative to discussing what you want to create with him is going first. Verbalizing your feelings and see if he reciprocates. But only by talking to him about this are you actually going to get anywhere, because expecting him to do something without letting him know what it is just does not make sense.

This paragraph may relate to your situation, it may not, but just in case: Do you actually love yourself? Are you ok with or without his love? Here’s the thing: you want him to verbalize how much he loves you. Is this so you feel good about yourself – if so, how about you work on no longer needing his expressions of love to validate your sense of self, and become independently worthy, without needing him to keep reaffirming the way he feels about you. The reason I say this is because any good feelings you get from him telling you how much he loves you are created by your own thinking anyway. You can prove this very easily: every time somebody says they love you, they may well be lying, but if you believe them you’ll still feel good. Equally somebody could say they love you and mean it and you not believe them, in which case you won’t feel good. Therefore, the only thing that is creating these good feelings for you when somebody says they love you, is the THOUGHT in your mind that they love you, which could mean in your mind that you are OK, or they are acting the way they “should”, or whatever. If you think through what you’ve just read, you’ll quickly come to realize only thoughts can create this feeling for you, not what somebody else actually feels, thinks or says, which means believing you need somebody to keep telling you that they love you, so that you can keep building up your sense of self through their validation, is a potentially pointless and dangerous exercise.

Either way, stop expecting him to be doing things and not letting him know what they are, in fact stop expecting things full stop, it is a complete waste of energy and will make you unhappy. Instead, think about what kind of relationship you want to create with him, let him know what that is and whether he’s willing to do that with you, if not then maybe this isn’t the relationship for you, if so then sounds like you’ve got a better deal than you did when you were wanting other people to change and unwilling to change yourself. Instead of trying to change everybody else, have a think about changing the way you see things and do things yourself! 😮

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Rock Banana.

Awesome stuff florarose. What a cool conversation this is – and what a difference 4 hours can make (the way you are speaking about this has totally changed)! You seem like a great person and show a lot of insight here. Thanks for your response – I made a few guesses which I knew might be wrong in this case. Thanks for considering our input here and already starting to process it and try it out.

Back in your original post … “I feel like this is something that should be given and so therefore if I have to ask, it doesn’t even count”

But look at you now! : “I never stated or thought that he ‘should’ do anything in the relationship.”

The way you see this and think about this has already clearly started to change and evolve … you are already leaving the thought trap you had found yourself stuck in. Keep going!

And … instead of expectations … how about agreements?

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Rock Banana.

It is amazing how a few hours can make things seem different. I guess perspective is everything sometimes. I sincerely appreciate your insights.

Absolutely. They are your insights – and the insight that perspective is everything is a huge one.

I hope to have the courage to bring all of this up with him and more importantly the strength to walk away if this relationship does not end up being one that can meet my needs of the open expression we have been discussing.

Do you hope to have the courage and the strength … or are you going to have the courage and the strength? And … what needs to happen in order for you to have the courage and the strength like that?