Thank you so much for all of the replies. I agree that this is an excellent learning opportunity for me. What’s troubling is that I find it to be a cycle and am noticing similar feelings between relationships. While my ex and I are not in contact, he will reach out to me every few months and is still adamant that we are going to get married. When I am in a good headspace, I am able to brush this off and wish him well. However, when I am not I find myself questioning my decision and why I could have just stuck it out.

With my boyfriend, things are much different. We are friends, he is very affectionate, family-oriented, thoughtful and considerate. Anita, you are correct in saying that my ex-boyfriends logic was very calming to me. I believe it is because I can be so emotional, so having someone who did not look at life in that way was soothing. My boyfriend is a lot more emotional, which is perhaps where the challenge comes in for me.

Anita, you have asked a loaded question lol. My relationship with my parents growing up was not the best. While they loved me to the best of their abilities, they both struggled in relation to one another (ultimately ending in divorce when I was 21), and I often felt like I took on a lot of my mother’s emotions, and also felt like I was constantly worried about my dad and felt like I looked for his attention as he was not very emotional. Today, the relationship is better, I try not to get upset with them because I know they were doing the best they can. I still worry about my Dad financially, and know that if an emotional relationship were to ever happen, it would be because of me. For example, I had to forcefully start a habit of saying “love you”, because it was never done before. With my mom, there is still a sense of hostility there, which I cannot fully understand. She often is upset with me because of a “tone”, or because I’m not agreeing with everything she says, but I’ve been practicing implementing boundaries around that. That is the short, condensed version of our relationship.

Hi Valora,

I really resonate with what you are saying. My family almost has a history of divorce: my parents, aunts/uncles, grandparents – all divorced. I am afraid of making the wrong choice and being stuck with the wrong person. So I think I try and identify all of the things that may cause me distress in the future.

In regards to my ex, we had really great communication, and there were a lot of things we did for one another that were positive. With him, he refused to talk about the future (moving in/getting married) after two years, wouldn’t bring me around his family, and lacked physical affection. I know he would have taken great care of me, but we didn’t feel like friends. Instead, I felt like a check list. After we broke up, this all changed on his end.

Hi Anita,

I resonate with what you’re saying. I sense that the hostility comes from the emotional dumping when I was younger, and now the need to still be there for every feeling she has (whether I agree with it or not).

What causes me distress is, if the problem is because of my previous experience or child-hood experience, then it’s possible that I’ve made a mistake and should have made it work with my ex, although there were problems, and that causes me a lot of guilty feelings. Although, I recognize that same feeling now with my boyfriend.

Anita,

Thank you for all of your responses. The time you take to respond to posts is really amazing. I am very grateful.

To answer your question, yes. I feel like because I often would carry the weight of other peoples emotions (I do this with friends as well), I don’t have a place to “dump” my own. I do go to therapy, and this is where I often will do that. With my ex, I feel like his logical mind allowed me to have a place to share all of my feelings in a safe way, without having to worry too much about someone else. With my current boyfriend, if I do bring something us that is concerning to me or something that I’m feeling, I often have to explain to him that the feeling is about me and not him (which is why I brought up the low-self-esteem), and I am not fully given that space for my emotions.

V