Hi Anita,

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I agree that this relationship is triggering past wounds. Growing up my mother never communicated but expected me to read her mind and anticipate her moods and needs. If I didn’t do this, she would blow up and yell, throw things, etc. As a result I have a tendency to mind read others and try to keep them happy, and I assume a lot from little things.

My boyfriend struggles with communication and is not straightforward with me about his emotions and needs. He is a very different person from my mother and would never become angry like that, but his behavior has similarities that put me on edge.

We have talked about this issue (and many others), and I feel he’s made a genuine effort to understand me and work on changing his behavior. He did promise to text back faster which immediately happened. He has promised to be more intentional about spending time with me, which I feel is slowly improving.

Emotional regulation is what I’m really struggling with – he has some real problems but I shouldn’t be bringing in so much past baggage. I am trying the normal things to calm down – taking walks, exercising, distraction, meditating, spending time with friends – which have helped a little but often just result in me crying in public.

Hi Anita,

Wow, I’m glad I’m not the only one with this experience but sad you had to go through that. It’s a hard way to grow up.

I’ve put a lot of work into building healthy friendships and improving my own communication skills which has helped me a lot. But I know I have a long way to go in healing.

I tried talk therapy in the past and had some bad experiences which make me reluctant to go back. One therapist was, in my opinion, manipulative and abusive. The others I’ve tried have been kind but weren’t able to help me improve my emotional control.

Hi Helcat,

Thank you for the reply. I have tried addressing things in therapy in the past, and I believe therapy could be helpful. It’s just been hard to find a therapist I really click with. I’m not sure that talk therapy has much to offer me and am considering trying a different modality.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>The thing is – I have been engaging in self care pretty effectively aside from some trouble sleeping on especially upset days. I don’t feel like I’m depressed or unhappy overall. Of course there’s stress and normal ups and downs, but my life is full and happy with all the basics covered (health, exercise, social life, interests). I think you’re right about therapy because I feel like I’ve exhausted everything I know how to do.</p>

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hi Anita,</p>
Thanks for sharing, the dedication you’ve had to healing is really impressive.

On the topic of CBT – this was one of the things that just didn’t work for me at therapy. I can usually tell when I’m assuming and/or overreacting. But with my boyfriend, he admits that I’ve been right every time I’ve been upset with him. For example I could tell when he was avoiding me despite him saying everything was okay, and it took multiple efforts at talking and expressing that it was hurting me for him to admit what was going on. My problem wasn’t that he might want some space, but more that I wanted him to be upfront with me about it. This pattern has repeated in smaller incidents. Such as, he will give very slow text responses to plans when he feels some hesitation about them, but he has never explicitly communicated that until later.

So I don’t think my problem is that I’m imagining things, but more that I overreact emotionally if that makes sense. He has promised to work on communication and I’ve noticed he’s been more open with me recently so I want to be more patient and give him a chance to change. With some of these issues, they’re so minor and I want to stay calmer despite feeling frustrated.

I definitely want to look more into mindfulness. Meditation skills have helped me a lot in the last few years and from my understanding mindfulness is similar. And I totally understand how increased social interaction can help. I have always felt my anxiety and people pleasing tendencies worsen when feeling isolated and lonely. I’m glad you’ve been able to build a community, these forums have been so helpful to me too even in this short period of time.

I’m happy to hear that going no contact has helped you – I’ve thought a lot about this and will probably also take that path eventually. It’s such a difficult decision to make.

Hi Anita,

The most recent conflict from my end was: I invited him to plans and he gave a weird, clearly fake semi-excuse, then invited me to the same plans that he just said had a time conflict with my plans. (I feel that this is so vague so in more detail, he said something like “I might be going to dinner with x so I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it, but you guys should definitely come to dinner!”). My plans were for 3pm and never would’ve interfered with dinner and we ended up going to both. The situation was a little more complicated but that’s mainly what happenef.

This annoyed me a lot because I have repeatedly told him just to tell me if he doesn’t want to do something. He will insist that he doesn’t have any doubts and was giving a legitimate excuse, until I push harder and he admits that he had a lot of concerns about my plans. Then we had a conversation about why I want him to be more straightforward with me, and he says he thinks that’s reasonable and will try harder.

He has held really big concerns without bringing anything up, and I also sense that something is happening right now which is upsetting me as well – he is giving little hints but I think is unable/unwilling to explicitly address it.

My overreactions start as just emotional pain and lead to thoughts like: this relationship is not going to work, and I am destroying myself staying. My boyfriend isn’t mature enough to be in a relationship. I know this is bad for me so I should initiate a breakup. To be clear, I don’t have these thoughts when I’m feeling well (obviously), but I also have brought up so much with him and want to give the relationship a chance to settle and grow before ending things. But sadly I’m not sure that any of my thoughts are wrong.