Dear Heartbrokengurl:

To no longer be confused, you need information, you need to know how he thinks, why he breaks up with you repeatedly, what is his distress leading to the breakups. You need to know what about his time with you is distressing to him (leading to breaking up with you). You need to know why he… doesn’t break up with you when he breaks up with you (planning to hang out next weekend is not breaking up).

If you want to fight for him, you need to get to know him. Without information you are fighting in the dark. Get information, and there is light: you can see!

anita

As weird as it may sound, I am going through what your boyfriend feels at the moment, at least I think. I can tell you that the problem I’m baving is a lack of self-confidence in my relationship, and I feel as though I simply cannot control it. last week I told my girlfriend that I didn’t know whether our relationship was going to work and explained that I’m going through some shit at the moment. I fucking hate myself for bringing my problems into our relationship because I love her, so I suspect you’re boyfriend feels the same – he doesn’t want to drag you down. Myself, im trying to fake it until I make it because I shouldn’t feel like this. In your situation, I would ask myself whether I’d want to carry on in the relationship and help him get over his lack of self-confidence, or whether you don’t have the strength to do that anymore. I think he still misses you but he’s taking a break so that he doesn’t overload u with his self-confidence issues.

Dear Heartbrokengurl:

On November  9 I  posted  the  following to you on another thread and  you responded to it there that I was 100% correct:

“… you repeat the same thing over and over again: reaching  out to a connection with a man, finding comfort in it, followed by anxiety. Repeat. The reaching out to a man is not different from a person reaching  out to a drug to relieve one’s anxiety. It gives  you a relief, temporarily, and then you need another fix. Over and over again. It is a compulsion… so caught between anxiety and comfort, you are just not available for a  mature, give and take, loving relationship. You are simply too worried most of the time and too exhilarated temporarily, and then too worried again”.

What you described  in your latest post is you getting another  fix, another relief. And so it goes. Thing is there is nothing unusual about this repeat behavior, it is common human behavior to be  caught  in a compulsion, to repeat the same old same old. (This repetition has been with men before him, and with a man who was your reliable boyfriend before- the worries/anxiety resurfaced anyway, relieved, resurfaced and so on).

Imagine a  life outside this compulsion, a life where you are no longer afraid, where you realize that what you were afraid of already happened: you were left alone, you are often alone and you survived  it.

And then, imagine you have a relationship with a man where you and him share honestly about how you feel alone and together, where you help each other, where you feel seen and understood and so does he, where the man is not like a drug but a fellow human being and your partner in  life. No guessing, no mind reading, no vague hoping, but real life living, honest sharing, truth, love.

anita

Dear Heartbrokengurl:

You are welcome.  Being honest is  the best policy if you aim at a loving relationship, yes, I don’t  see how it  can be better not to be  honest, not to  be open, both  ways. Something good can come out of a mutual disclosure. I wrote mutual, meaning, I don’t think it is a good idea that you leave it  all up to  him, but that you tell him about what is  going on with you, how you feel, just as you feel. Then ask how he feels.

Will be away from the computer for  the next sixteen  hours or so, take care.

anita

Dear Heartbrokengurl:

You suggested that  your friends think you are crazy  for feeling  so heart broken after only three months of a relationship. I don’t think you are crazy. I think you feel so heart broken because  you have been heart broken for a long, long time, way before you met this man. This is why your user name is heart broken (girl), isn’t it?

Honestly is the best policy in intimate relationships, or in relationships where you hope for intimacy. There can be no intimacy without honesty. Pretending anything you are not with a man so to get him back is dishonestly manipulative. Sometimes it can work, short term, but the  person pretending has to be able to pretend again and  again, something that is very difficult for you, maybe  impossible, given your anxiety.

So I recommend being  honest with him, nothing that you can lose, really. I mean, you already lost plenty of times, none of your past romantic relationships is ongoing now, and this one is likely to become a thing of the past as well, just like the others.

By not sharing honestly, by pretending anything at all with him, in  Reality, you are protecting another failed relationship. Better try something different, something that might benefit you: honest sharing, as is.

anita

Dear Heartbrokengurl:

You are welcome. Reads like good progress to me, some honest sharing on your part and his.

It also reads to me that you and him are in a relationship, a certain kind  of a relationship.  One where he stated clearly that he is  not ready and willing at this point to call I t a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, one  where  he is expected to  perform as a boyfriend, one with expectations. I think that aiming  to get to know each  other is a  great aim, can’t be a better aim, or goal.

There can’t  be loving intimacy without getting  to  know each other, so keeping that  aim in mind is  the best  you can  do to turn this  into a  loving, intimate  relationship. You already started this and this is becoming a  more  loving, intimate relationship.

It is not in  declaring: This is a  boyfriend-girlfriend, monogamous, committed relationship that makes  it a loving, intimate relationship.  No. It is the getting to know each other, the honest sharing that  makes a relationship such.

Knowing each other takes time, it  can’t be rushed. Building trust takes  time. And so you are in a developing relationship.

Really, there is no security in declarations, as  you well know.  Even  when you had  the title  of  girlfriend and  such in the past, you were still anxious. So get to know each other- more security in that.

anita