Dear lpkR09,

I told him then itself, its time we split. I cannot take this stress anymore. I can’t convince someone that they love me especially when they just say but don’t reflect in their actions.

You did well, it’s obvious that he’s very troubled and doesn’t really want to deal with his addictions. You say he’d refuse to talk about it every time you’ve tried, and he went to one therapy session but immediately dismissed it as not working. He probably doesn’t want to face his deeper issues, and he doesn’t want to give up addiction because it makes him feel good, as you say. Such a person isn’t capable of engaging in a healthy relationship because he’s a slave to his addictions. I understand he might be a good man otherwise, but to no avail – his addictions are stronger.

I forgot to say in my first post, that it’s great that you’ve moved out from your parents’ flat and are now living on your own, and also that you’ve reduced contact with your sister to a minimum. She unfortunately doesn’t wish you well, and you shouldn’t expect any kind of support or “blessing” from her. And I’d encourage you to work on your own issues, so that you can meet a solid, emotionally healthy man who’ll be able to love and cherish you as you deserve.

There were never issues between us- we understood one another well but these addictions were always the bone of contention.

Based on what you’ve written before, I believe there were issues between you, but you chose not to look at them. You said your long-distance relationship got cold after a while, e.g. when you’d send him love emojis, he’d send back nervous emojis, because he wasn’t comfortable to reciprocate. It might be because he was in the grip of his addiction and would have felt dishonest to send you love and kisses and pretend that everything is fine – but in any case, he wasn’t really showing the enthusiasm that you were showing. He was withdrawing already then. It was you who chose to believe that things will get better, because you couldn’t imagine losing him.

That’s why I said in my previous post that you were looking at your relationship through rose-colored glassed. You decided to ignore or minimize the signs of trouble, you believed addictions “could be fixed”, you chose to ignore his lack of affection and his refusal to talk about his problems. You believed that he was “the One”, the fulfillment of your dream to marry out of love and have that perfect relationship that you craved for.

You told him in your goodbye letter last April:

I think it was my obsession to have a guy in my life who truly loved me. One who loved my weirdness, my craziness,
my dramatic self, one who wasn’t ashamed to hold my hand and show me to the world that I am his.

You needed him to love you and accept you as you are, the whole of you, and not to be ashamed of you, but be proud to show to the world that you are his. I believe this is because you felt/feel rejected by your family, you felt they were ashamed of you, they don’t accept you for who you are, they don’t value you. And you needed him to give you that what you’ve never received from them.

The background of your feeling of rejection could very well be the fact that your family gave you away because you weren’t a boy, and you spent the first 5-6 years of your life away from your parents.

This is what you said about it earlier:

“I am am Indian girl…and although I belong to a well educated family but still…my late paternal grandfather was not very receptive to a second girl child in my family….he wanted my parents to give me up for adoption….there was a lot of stress so my mother requested my maternal grandmother to keep me… I stayed there till I was 5-6 years old…. My maternal uncle and aunt hadn’t been blessed by a child then so they decided to adopt me…but then for some reason they changed their my mind later… A year later… My parents were able to convince my paternal grandfather to bring me back home and he agreed…

All through my childhood, I worked hard just to prove that I am worthy. Now I realise how weak it made me from within…”

Yes, and a part of you is still feeling unworthy and seeking that love and validation – from a romantic partner. You’d need to process and heal that wound, to get in touch with your inner child and give her that love and validation that she needs. You need to embrace her and tell her she is wanted and she’s special and you’re proud of her. All that you wanted your boyfriend to tell you, you should tell to the little girl inside of you.

And you have all the reasons to be proud of yourself because you’re an intelligent, accomplished, compassionate, talented, courageous young woman, who isn’t willing to compromise her ideals and dreams. You’re true to yourself, and that’s wonderful. Now what you’d need to learn is to love and cherish your inner child too, so that you can truly heal, in the relationship aspect as well.

Dear lpkR09,

I was so focused on him that I never saw what damage I had further done to myself…on top of what was already there.

Perhaps you were trying to “save” him, believing that once he’s free from his addictions, he’ll be the perfect man for you. People who suffer from lack of self-worth are often attracted to problematic romantic partners, who suffer from depression or addictions. They hope that their love will be enough to turn their partner around, to heal them. But it never happens, and they are left feeling unappreciated and rejected. The partner’s refusal to appreciate them confirms their original wound – that they are not good enough and unworthy.

I need time to myself. I don’t want to open myself to the world for now…maybe in time, it shall happen as well.

Yes, you need time to focus on yourself and heal that childhood wound. You’re hurt and exhausted of trying to make others love you. Take plenty of rest, be gentle with yourself and have compassion for yourself. Love that little girl inside of you. You deserve love, you’re worthy and precious, you just need to integrate that into your being by tending to your inner child.

Dear IpkRO9:

You wrote in your post to me yesterday: “There were never issues between us- we understood one another well, but these addictions were always the bone of contention”. By “these addictions” you were referring to his addictions: “drinking.. smoking.. porn.. masturbation”.

In your original post on this thread, April 23, 2020, you posted a goodbye letter to the boyfriend who you met 1 year and 5 months earlier (Dec 2018), and who broke up with you most recently, on April 7, 2021.

In that goodbye letter to him, you wrote: “it was my obsession to have a guy in  my life who truly loved me, one who loved my weirdness, my craziness, my dramatic self”.

When you met him, you felt that you knew him from before, thinking of him as your soul mate and a twin flame. But there were issues in the relationships: “all the things that went wrong between us… (his) indulgence with other women”. There were so many issues in the relationship that your friends told you that you were a masochist for being in the relationship.

You apologized to him back in April last year, “for all the discomfort I have caused you from my love for drama”.

You wrote about a breakup you had in December2019- January 2020: “I was sick the whole of December and rarely went out of my bed… in January I did start going to college, I made sure that I was drunk in the evenings so I don’t think of you. I have attended many quizzes and classes drunk”. He then contacted you, then stopped stopped talking again, and you spent most of your evenings “sitting on top of an underground subway passage on top of the highway, drunk”.

You wrote in that same post that according to your family, “I am planning day and night another dramatic stint to disturb other people’s lives and how I enjoy the mental trauma others go through by fighting”. You gave two examples of what your family referred to as “dramatic stints” performed by you:

(1) “A few days  back, I was constantly being shouted at… I remember the actions of my body but I don’t remember what was going in my mind and what I was thinking regarding the action. I screamed and screamed, as if I was being killed, kept hitting my head with my hands.. Nobody was speaking but I kept hitting myself till my mum came and held both my hands. I pushed her away..”.

(2) One day again, same thing happened… I was crying and on the floor begging them to shut up… I ran towards the terrace.. I started hitting the back of my head on the wooden swing. Papa generally stays away but he got angry and hit me few times, kicked me few times till I stopped.. I remember feeling no pain at all at that time… I kept crying till I stopped being able to breathe and heavy breathing started, they got scared and brought me water and forced fed me water and then took me to bed and asked me to sleep”. Later, you gained “all thoughts back” and felt “so scared of hurting myself nearly busted my head open by hitting it. I realised this will only become worse, never going to be okay. I am damned for life now”

You added: “I am never going to destroy anyone’s life now and I will stay on my own always. I will be honest about my mental state with whoever approaches”-

– you meant, I believe, that if a man approaches you for a relationship in the future, you will tell him honestly, right away about your mental state.

I would like to ask you five questions so to understand you and your situation better:

1) you wrote that you will tell whoever approaches you about your mental state. Can you tell me about your mental state?

2) What is your understand about those two episodes you described (#1 and 2 above)? Did you see a doctor/ a psychiatrist regarding those episodes?

3) Did you have such episodes outside your family home, with a boyfriend/ others?

4) Do you still drink to access at times, sitting on top of an underground subway, drunk?

5) You wrote regarding the second episode: “I realised this will only become worse, never going to be okay. I am damned for life now”- what did you mean by becoming worse, and by you being damned for life?

anita

Dear lpkR09,

I feel so sad for him. For us. I wish he had someone to help him as well.

He started going to therapy but then stopped, right? Does he want to deal with addictions and face his problems, or he’s rejecting it? In any case, it’s not your task to heal him, he would need a professional because his problems are quite deep. You stayed for a long time trying to save him, but it didn’t work out, because we can’t heal anybody unless they choose to heal themselves first.

Right now, it’d be better to focus on yourself and your own healing. What I see happened in your relationship, is that you were trying to make him love you, and were tolerating his lack of love and lack of commitment to you, explaining it away in various ways. You craved to be loved by someone who was unable to give you love. You might have even been attracted to him because he was a little insecure, a little timid perhaps.

Your previous boyfriend wasn’t accessible either: he had a possessive, controlling mother whom he felt obliged to, and he too sabotaged your relationship, or rather he walked away. Do you see the pattern? Both of those guys were unwilling or unable to be with you, but you were longing for their  love. You persisted 3 years with your previous boyfriend, and 2.5 years with this one. Both felt like a soul mate to you, you felt a deep connection with them. And I believe it’s because the relationship with them reminded you of the relationship with your parents – craving for love of someone who is inaccessible, for whose love you have to fight, to struggle, to endure hardship. Both of those guys activated an early childhood wound in you, that’s why you were so attracted to them.

You should know, dear lpkR09, you had a very difficult childhood. I guess the first 5-6 years weren’t even the worst, but when you returned to your family. Your sister is a bully and probably she’s been bullying you ever since you came to the family. You seem to be the black sheep in the family too, because they immediately accuse you if something’s not right. Even at the adult age, you suffered your sister’s physical attacks in the middle of the night, not just her emotional abuse and scheming and plotting against you.

As you established with Anita in previous threads, your sister has a dominant role in your family, which she inherited from your domineering grandfather (the one because of whom you were sent away). She’s a horrible bully and has anger control issues, but everyone listens to her opinion. She’s treated like god.

Many things are upside down and unfair in your family. You suffered immensely at their hands. You were treated unfairly. It’s great that you don’t live with them any more, and that when your sister physically attacked you one year ago, you moved to another room and didn’t allow her to cross that boundary any more.

You’d need to protect yourself from your family and realize that they seem to be incapable of giving you love. I don’t know how you stand with your maternal grandparents (or just grandmother?), who took you in when you were born. Is she still alive? What memories do you have of her?

What I want to say is that you’ve suffered severe abuse, both emotional and physical. You’ve been through a trauma. And you’ve done great, considering how much you’ve suffered. You’re a survivor, lpkR09! I admire you for your strength and resilience, your perseverance, your compassion… But there’s a part of you that’s hurting – the part that craves the love of those unable to give it. Please deal with that part, heal that childhood wound, so you can have a truly fulfilling life, which you completely deserve.

Dear IpkRO9:

It is just as clear to me now as it was before, that you need to live far away from your sister, and far away from the people who support your sister (your parents and whomever else). If you have to attend her wedding, attend it, but don’t give her access to abuse you. (I imagine she will not hit you during her wedding or during her wedding night..?!)

Regarding the only thing you feel is wrong with you, “a very strong fear of being left alone”, loneliness haunting you on weekends-

– when you are alone, listen to the noises around you. If you don’t hear “loud arguments and physical fights which often happen(ed) at home”- that’s a good thing, isn’t it, you don’t miss or long for that kind of togetherness, do you?

When you experienced those arguments and fights, you “just wanted to left alone”- alone is a good thing when the alternative is aggression.

When alone, try to appreciate being alone, relax into the relative quietness, into the peace of being safe from aggression and blame. Relax best you can.

When you meet a new man next, don’t commit to him too soon, and then stay with him no matter what, and no matter who he is. Choose a man thoughtfully: evaluate his words and behaviors over time and choose again and again, whether you want to stay with him, or not. Choose a man with whom togetherness is a good thing, quiet, peaceful, safe.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by .

Dear lpkR09,

thanks for writing and  illuminating the issues some more. Interesting that your previous ex was a dominant party in your relationship, and that you felt weak. He did have a clingy, needy mother, and now I remember he told you you remind him of his mother, is that right? So you were a little bit weak and needy in that relationship, and when he left you, you decided to stand in your power and become less dependent of a man. You didn’t want to be weak any more. That’s good, that’s how we learn from our mistakes and grow over time. It’s good that you saw your own weaknesses and decided to work on yourself. That’s why you got stronger. Nevertheless, the core wound – of craving for love that you’ve never properly received – was still there. And it got re-activated with your current ex.

To this day I feel he is my kryptonite but he did make me feel like a superwoman. He made mistakes in our personal life but he always uplifted me and advised me with my career and studies.

I can imagine that – he himself felt weak and insecure, but he saw you as strong and capable. You were superwoman in his eyes, but at the same time he felt bad about himself. He was encouraging you, lifting you up, motivating you to succeed in your studies and career, but at the same time, he couldn’t do that for himself, he felt weak and not good enough. You were trying to help him, or sometimes, when he wasn’t responsive, you would leave him alone and try to focus on your studies, but in general, he felt bad about himself and you couldn’t help him.

His obsession with your sister’s approval is still somewhat of a mystery to me:

“He used to say that in his mind he always told himself why did he associate himself with someone connected to my sister. He said he wanted no relations to her whatsoever so it kept hurting him that why he kept coming back to me when I am related to her. It used to mentally bother him that he kept a connection to his bully when he wanted to snap it off”

She had such a power over him that he didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone related to her, including you? How exactly did she hurt him? By spreading rumors about him (about his drinking, or other addictions)? And then, why would he need approval from someone who bullied him and hurt him so much? I guess a part of him felt that what she was saying about him – her accusations – were true, so he felt the need to “prove himself” to her. It’s like a child who needs approval from a criticizing parent. Somehow he saw her as an authoritative figure whom he needed to please, I guess…

Especially after the September issue when he texted her after 2 years expecting she would have cooled down about all this and would perhaps understand his feelings for me if he made her understand. You obviously know what happened, it backfired. She abused not only him but his family and his parents.

Actually I don’t know what exactly happened. So he texted her in Sept 2020 to again seek her approval, and then what exactly did she do?