Dear Ssleeping:

I didn’t read your recent post attentively enough. You wrote: “I don’t know if I could cut off contact, I promised to him I wouldn’t when he had a breakdown at the thought of it“-  I didn’t suggest that you cut contact with him. I suggested “to end all intimate talk with him, as well as physical intimacy”.  I realize that this would be very, very difficult for you to do, but it’d be best for your well-being to be his friend, from a distance (not living with him). As a true friend, you can keep your promise to maintain contact with him and help him through this time.

“Do you think we just need time and his feelings will return?… I don’t want to push him further away“- it reads like he is holding you hostage.. or you are holding yourself hostage until such time that his feeling return, if they will, afraid to make mistakes that will block his feelings from coming back (walking on eggshells perhaps?), anxiously waiting for the return of his feelings. Is this how it is for you..?

I am wondering: is he aware of what this situation is doing to you… Does he think about your suffering?

anita

How are you, Ssleeping?

anita

Dear  Ada:

I am thrilled to read from you and thank you for your appreciation and kind words, it made my evening reading from you! I want to re-read our communication and reply to you further in the morning.

anita

Hi, thank you

I’m doing okay, I think, not really.

I’ve come back and we are living together until we move out separately.

Everything hurts but I’m trying to be positive.

I miss him, seeing him again was amazing and I’m still so in love.

He’s doing okay and doing his best to be positive and I’m really so proud of him, he’s taking care of himself more and is doing well and thinking positively in regards to work.

Much of things feel the same as before all of this happened, but at the same time everything feels different, I don’t know what the future holds.

He still says he needs me in his life and that he’s known me all his life, (we used to always say this because that’s how it feels, like we’ve known each other forever even before we met).

He doesn’t wear his bracelet and has changed his Lock Screen photos on his phone.

I can feel how much he loves me when he looks at me, I can feel the affection and the want but I think he stops himself.

He feels the same as before but has said he keeps thinking about what if I find someone else and he’s ruined everything and that maybe we will get back together.

I honestly think we will, I feel like I know we will. I’m just scared.

Hi everyone,

My boyfriend and I got together in august 2023, the past 7 months together have been amazing, I can see this man being in my life for ever, being the father of my children, building a home together and travelling the world together. But the past couple of months – or really this year as a whole – has been really hard for us as a couple, he has upset me quite a few times, and we have had more arguments than usual, which for a while didn’t bother me, I could never hold onto anger for him because of how much I loved him. And then I started to realise I had no interest in sex anymore, I was still sexually attracted to him but when it came down to it I just wasn’t feeling it, which I guess it is normal to just sometimes not be in the mood but this lasted for about two weeks. And then there it was, I was suddenly not sure about him and I anymore, I felt uncomfortable in his presence which I never had felt before, and overall just didn’t feel in love like I used to. This feeling has been the worst guttural type of feeling I have ever felt before. I told him straight away and It just broke his heart. for a couple days I kept going from I want to be with him, I don’t want to be with him, ill be better without him, I will die without him, driving myself insane really. We were supposed to go away together for this easter long weekend but I decided that it felt right that we breakup and take a break for a while, so I went away with my mum. We tried no contact for two days but I messaged him today a link to this website so he maybe could understand how I am feeling.

I really need someone to tell me what to do, I know in my heart that I want him, I can’t see myself with anyone else and he is everything good in this world for me. We chose baby names together!!! I just keep getting angry at myself for feeling like this, I am breaking his heart and breaking my own, Ive lost my appetite since we’ve broken up, and I’ve felt like I am in a constant dream.

Reading Bens response from several years ago has made me feel a bit better and I feel like this is something that I can work through and I can eventually give him the love that he deserves. But I keep getting stuck with bad thoughts, almost intrusive thoughts of everything bad that was happening in our relationship, I feel like my brain is trying to get rid of him and I don’t want it to!!

We have decided to take the next four weeks apart (with occasional messaging) leading up to my birthday. We are both going to the same party the night of my birthday and i’m really hoping that over these four weeks I will realise that I do love him and we will get back together, although my biggest fear is seeing him again and feeling the same uncomfortable, lost feeling that I have been stuck with.

I do believe that I have both avoidant and anxious attachment styles from having an absent father in many ways, I hope that someone will see this and be able to give me some clarity and show me the right pathway, and I really really do hope that I can find my way out of this deep dark hole and be happy with him again.

I really hope the right person finds this, I need advice! please be honest!

Hi Anita,

ive seen a psychologist once since we “broke up” it did help me feel a whole lot better about the way I was feeling, my psychologist told me that she thinks because I’m used to all the men being in and out of my life and not completely there that I am trying to run away from my relationship because of a fear of being left alone. My boyfriend and I broke up for about a week and a half, I have been trying my best to push the overthinking and anxiety to the side and focus on how happy he makes me, but the anxiety and o bad thoughts are still constant. I have been refraining from bringing these up with him and only mentioning it here and there because I do not want to worry him and upset him anymore. For the past couple of days I have just been bottling it up and letting these bad thoughts spiral, I’ve spent every waking hour questioning if the relationship is right and if I truly do love him, I’m finding it really hard to look at him and feel in love like I used to and it’s breaking my heart. I don’t want to give up on him and I again, he is a beautiful man and he wants me to be the best version of myself as I do him. I found during the time we were apart that I had this constant fear that I was no bodied first choice anymore and I felt so alone and absolutely devastated, which now makes me worry that am I with him because I love not being alone? Because I love the attention and being someone’s first choice? Do I not actually love him? It’s been debilitating and I am in this constant anxious state. I have another psychologist appointment coming up and many more to come after that one, but the time between appointments feels so long and I feel very alone with my thoughts all the time. It’s like this horrible feeling that the world is closing in around me and I won’t ever feel happy again like I used to. I don’t want to break up with him again even though there are thoughts in my head telling me to, and to just run away and figure it all out on my own but the thought of that makes me feel sick. The pushing him away and pulling him in has been really hard for him and I hate that I’m doing this to him, I just want to feel the way I used to and love him the way that he deserves.

Bell

Hi Anita and all, I also found this site via web search trying to get something that I could try to help my situation.  Here is my story and I would appreciate any input.

First about me, I’m a 50 yo male with two daughters (29 and 17) one each from prior marriages.  I had a pretty good childhood and have had only long term relationship in my adult life.  Most relationships have lasted 3-5 years and I have initiated the break-ups normally after meeting someone else.  I’ve had insecurity issues in most of my relationships and most women I have had relationships with have been “broken” and in need of “fixing”.  It took a long time for me to understand that I’ve always seem to be looking for this in my relationships and in my current relationship I’ve created a co-dependancy issue.   I’ve always ignormed obvious red flags early on in relationships and settled quickly because of my insecurities.

About my current situation, I’m in a relationship that is coming up now on 9 years!  She’s been living with me along with her full time daughter (17) for most of this time.  She is a about 7 years younger @ 42 yo.   When I met her I was immediately attracted to her, the most beautiful girl I had ever met.  I fell hard and fast even though I had heard a couple things from other people that had known her to RUN, stay away, “she’s got issues”, etc.   We had a great “honeymoon” phase, all the normal passion and lust, wanted to spend all of our free time together.  She was also living with ex in-laws which was a bit strange or different, but I didn’t give it much thought.

Our first “breakup” – A couple months into the bliss of the relationship she pretty much ghosted me.  Out of the blue just stopped communiticating.  Even thought it was just a couple months in, it really hurt.   I rec’d some messages / calls from her ex-MIL who told me to give her time.  Told me that she has some issues and she does this, give her a few days.  She had been calling into work and laying around/sleeping.   Days later, she reached out and said she missed me and that she was sorry, she didn’t know why she fell into this feeling.  Quickly we were back together and our relationship continued on.

Fast forward a year or so, she and her daugther are now living with me.  I don’t ask for any rent/money and begin this co-dependancy and she begins being dependent on me.

Our second “breakup” – one day out of the blue she tells me she’s not “feeling it” and wants to move out.  I tried to talk to her but get very little out of her and immediately she leaves and goes back to her ex in-laws.   A couple days later again she calls and apologizes and says she didn’t know what she was thinking and comes back.

Now i’ll pause the story here to talk a little about her and what I learned about her probably around this time.   I learned about his past and it was a mess.  She was born into a chatic situation and either has no memories prior to say 8 yo or never talked about that time but she was moving around house to house, state to state with a mother and grandmother who were criminals and drug attics.  She did not know who her father was nor did her mother know for sure.   Around this age her mother went to prison for murder and she was then in the care of the grandmother who again was a criminal and drug attic along with a half-sister around 8 years younger.  She was pushed into performing small thefts for the grandmother and at one point from the grandmother and grandfather both OD on drugs (they survived).  At some point a couple years or so into this a distance male well-off relative inquired about adopting her to get her out of the situation.   Her memory of this was that the grandmother “sold” her for a price and she was then adopted into the new family.  Another distant family member tried to adopt her sister but she rememebers that they did not have the money to pay the price the grandmother was asking.

So now into this new family she has her first father figure and builds a close connection with him.  (She has very fond memories of him and is the only familiy member she has positive memories of).  So now with the new family she has a new mother as well as 3 brothers.   When she describes this time it seems to be filled with both very positive and negative memories.   The family was on the surface very well-off.  Living in large homes and with fancy cars.  However she describes being treated somewhat like Cinderella where the adopted mother has her doing all the house chores and not really shown much love from the mother.   At some point this family breaks down.   The father is found to be stealing money from his businesses and everything falls apart.  The family loses everything and the adopted parents divorce.  I believe this to be around when she is 16ish.   She stays with the adopted mother and brothers (i believe the father went to jail for short amount of time).  At some point shortly around the time she graduates from high school she is out on her own.  I don’t have much detail about this time as far as where she is living, but I believe she’s bouncing around from various men and staying with their families.  She loses touch with her adopted family for a few years and I believe in her very early 20’s reconnects with her adopted father (who remarried and I believe new wife does not want her in their new life) but soon she finds her adopted father dead from a drug overdose in a hotel room.   She’s blamed by the adopted mother as being involved in the situation but she denies this to this day and I believe her.

Next she gets involved with a guy her age, gets pregnant and married.  I believe this to be around 24-25 yo.   He is abusive, both mentally and physically.   He is a drug attic and this time in her live again is filled with trauma.   She leaves him and for the next decade bounces from home to home, man to man.   Getting married again for a very short # of months to someone who supposedly she found while being in a short religious period of her life thru church.   Her first abusive husband gets clean and moves states away.  Gets remarried and has a new family.  At one point as she struggles to make ends meet and raise her daughter she moves in with his parents (her ex-in laws).

So now we are back to where I meet her and our relationship starts.  This story I just told you I learn from her and others she is close to.  Just and overwhelming amount of childhood trauma as well as early adulthood trauma.  However you would never know from talking to her she had this past.  She NEVER talks about it, never says how it shaped her nor does she bring up in an attempt to have people “feel sorry” for her.  However as time goes on in our relationship and her actions or traits create issues I learn how they must be an effect of this trauma.

So what are those actions/traits, i call them issues but she points out now that i’m saying they are flaws that she has.   This will probably come off as i’m picking out her flaws but these are things that she would also agree that are a problem for her that she can’t control.  In just about every case I am the opposite of each.   First early on in our relationship she tells me about all of her intimate relationships.  Multiple different men that she’s had sexual relationships with.  Many she’d describe in details and even talk about the men in ways that made me jealous.   She tells me about how in her relationships she always gets to a point where even if things are great somthing just clicks and she is done with them and leaves.   It sounds as if there are a couple relationships that lasted more than a year that were with great men in great situations and for reasons she’s never understood she just stops having any feelings for them and just up and leaves, breaking their hearts.  Next other issues that come to surface.  She has little to no relationship with any of the small amount of family she does have.  She describes reconnecting with her adopted mother, or brothers, or her half-sister but then just ghosting them and going years at times without communication.   I find this very odd.  She puts off everything, I say all the time she lives by the saying of “why do today what you can put off until tomorrow”.  She never does anything before or after it’s due, which is something that is quite opposite of myself.  She always lives pay check to pay check, never saving and having bad credit with accounts she stops paying on.  Tied to that is a compulsion she has for buying uneeded things.  She has says it’s an issue that she can’t control.  No big ticket items, but constant small things.   She is spontaneous and will say and do things without much thought.   She rarely plans anything.  She sleeps all the time, it is not unsual for her to get 12 hours of sleep everynight.  Typically going to sleep around 7pm at the latest and taking multiple naps on the weekends.   Along with that however is an addication to Adderall which is prescribed for her ADHD.  When she runs out of it or tries to get off of it, she becomes a Zombie and can not function.  She is very lax in her parenting.   Her daughter is amazing and i’m very close to her but they do not do things you would normally see a mother and daughter do.

Over the years as the above items have gotten worse our relationship has struggled.  Intimacy has been gone for years.  Rarely is there any and over time I would bug her for it and sometimes get but I’ve given up on it.  There have been times over the years where I was very close to ending things as I’ve felt like there is so much more that I deserve in a partner.  At one time years back I cheated.  I confessed and begun the process of splitting but she begged to work it out, forgave me and we moved on.  For years even though with all the issues she did do the little things that made me feel loved.  Until recently I missed these and I guess took for granted.  Those things being holding my hand, sitting or laying next to me.  Righting me little love notes and sending multiple texts daily with love type things.  Always saying “i love you” and kissing me goodbye.  A couple years ago all of those little things stopped.  I didn’t really notice at first but we started our current cycles of “breaking up” and then staying together.

This is where we are now, these cycles continue to come with less and less time inbetween.  They are always initiated by her and each time she’s able to verbalize more that she is “not in love” with me.  That she had NO feelings for me.   She’s made me feel like just being in my presense disgust her.  Each time I try to get her to see that what she is feeling is probably due to all of the trauma she has had.  Each time she agrees to stay and that she will get the help that is needed.   Each time day over day she pulls away more and more and rarely seeks any of the help that she says she’ll get.  I do all the research and send her things that I think will help her.  She rarely reads any of it.  A month ago when we were again at that point she was determined to end things and was beginning to put things in place.  I get so upset and it tears me apart, however each time she shows less and less emotion and rarely cries about.  This past time I begin to gather her things up, her daughter gets upset because she doesn’t want to leave and then she tells me to stop and let’s figure it out.  We have probably our best, most emotional talk ever (remember she rarely can open up and talk about her feelings).  I do tell her this time that this is the LAST time i’m going thru this. I can’t handle the pain it brings to my heart.  She tells me that she is going to put the work in, to “watch my actions”.  However just like each other time, each day she pulls back more and more.  This brings up to about a week ago where again it starts with her not wanting to be around me, not touching me, just disgusted.  I know we are at that point again and we both just know it has to end.   We both put things into motion to end things, this time getting further along the process.   I’ve boxed up just about all of her things.   This house that has been my house for many years prior to knowing her had become our HOME over the years.  She put her touch on just about every inch of the place and now it’s empty I just feel so empty inside.  I know it has to end, but i’m so emotional and can’t help but to think of all we’ve been thru and that I don’t want to live without her (and daughter) in my life.   One day i’m crying all day and the next day i’m OK boxing up more things.  One big issue right now is that she has little to no money, she has nowhere to go.  Noone that will take her in.   She says i’m still her best friend and that she wants me in her life just not as love partners.  I can’t do that, i need her OUT of my life completely to move on.   I still can’t help but researching and looking at things that can help, thinking this is a big mistake that she’s making which has brought me to finding this site!

I don’t understand how someone can just stop having feelings for someone.  At our age and the length of time we’ve been together I just don’t want to let it go.  I want to think that her past issues are the reasons shes feeling like this.  I tell her that if she doesn’t get the help she needs she’s going to be right back in this situation again (her past has shown this).   She just doesn’t think her past trauma has anything to do with this.  She said she’s following her heart and not letting her brain control her decision to stay.  She’s leaving so much behind, so much we’ve built together.  She’s leaving her pets that she love probably more than most people!  I just feel like she’s in this flight or fight mode and just feels like she has to leave and is going to regret this.

HELP – Do you think that I should just let her go? Or do you think that she really can get help and that it’s something out of her control that has her feeling like this?

Dear Meatball:

I read your post earlier than I intended (not focused tonight, following a hard-working day, etc.), and will re-read and reply attentively and thoroughly tomorrow morning (in about  12 hours from now), but for now: reads to me that she can’t trust anyone, understandably, given her childhood- adolescence experience. She can’t trust anyone or anything. You, and maybe her ex in-laws are the.. least untrustworthy people in her life, so she keeps coming back to you and to them.

If you read this before I return to you, does what I expressed above make sense to you?

anita