*didn’t reflect under Topics

Dear nextsteps:

Your username, next steps, singular,  next step seems very relevant now, isn’t it?

“those little things” (the quotes above) are not little. They are big. They seem little now because of the big thing you are currently experiencing: “like the carpet has fallen out from underneath me and I am floundering in the sea”. You are experiencing intense distress at the moment. We don’t do our best thinking when very distressed. This is why I suggested you don’t react to your distress by trying to get back with him. Stay with the distress and take more walks. Take one hour at a time, don’t try to find solutions now to life questions. Do that later, when you are calm.

This distress will not last and last as it is now. There will be less of it, maybe as you are reading this there is already less of it. Then there will be more later, then less.

I will be away from the computer for a couple of hours, and will be back to your thread when I return.

anita

Dear nextsteps:

You wrote: “it feels more than I can bear”. You wrote: “I don’t know how to get through this… I don’t have the strength to continue.. How do I go on with life feeling in this much pain.?”

Notice this, nextsteps: it feels like it is more than you can bear, but many millions of people have been bearing the pain of separation, all kinds of pain for years and kept living until old age. Emotional pain feels dangerous but it is not. Having this pain, you are safe. You are in no danger.

It feels dangerous. It is not dangerous.

You are safe. You are okay. Soon enough you will feel okay too.

Of course, I don’t know if following your recent post, if you contacted him out of fear that you will not be able to endure this pain. Let me know if you did, will you?

When under the … influence of such fear as you expressed here, a person doesn’t think effectively. Anything looks preferable to fear of death, basically (believing that you will die or won’t be able to live with such pain). Thinking is not reliable under the perceived threat of death.

You are not ready to (re) evaluate the relationship. It is at times of calm, in the past, that your thinking was reliable. Not now.

I hope to read from you soon, before I get away from the computer in about fifteen minutes. If I don’t read from you by then I hope to read from you when I am back to the computer in about 14 hours.

anita

Hi nextsteps,

I know I’m late to the party and don’t know if you’re coming back, but here are two additional thoughts:

1. Don’t communicate with him for at least a year. This will give you (and him!) time to settle into your new lives without each other. It will also give a perspective.

2. Sometimes we are a lesson for other people. You’ve been together for half, a quarter, or a third of your lives (I don’t know how old you are!) Over the past decade he got more and more comfortable with treating you badly. (He DID! Just reviewing Anita’s post above.) Don’t second guess your decision. Stick with it. It mattered. YOU matter.

Best,

Inky

Dear nextsteps:

Good to read from you again!

You asked: “How do I know/ask myself if it’s the right thing?”

My answer: I believe you did the right thing because it is most important for you, in the context of a relationship with a man, that the man will not be critical of you. Here is what you wrote about your now ex boyfriend (previous thread): “I will make a tea and pudding.. and he will say something like well it’s edible or it’s okay but you should have done x. y and z. Nothing is ever good. It always need improvement… he either criticizes me or doesn’t say anything much”

About your childhood you wrote: “As a child I… was shouted at and called a failure and someone’s who ‘never going to achieve anything and was sometimes hit With a belt as a young child but I never knew why.”

This child that you were, she is still you. And she desperately needs expressed acceptance and  encouragement. A man who expresses to you that nothing you do is ever good enough makes your healing from that unaccepting, discouraging childhood impossible. A critical boyfriend reinforces the message that you are “a failure and someone’s who ‘never going to achieve anything'”

You asked: “… how do I come to accepting that rather than beating myself up?”-

You wrote about the friend you liked so much: “he was so positive and courageous about going for what you want in life..- I admired those things in him”.

What you want in life is to feel content, settled, like you belong, at home. You need to express yourself honestly, share your feelings and have the person listening be okay with you as you feel, as you are. You need to be assertive as well. You tried it to get what you want in life within the context of your relationship with your now ex boyfriend but he didn’t cooperate: “The problem is when I am honest with my boyfriend about how I feel he says that I am ‘not as nice a person than I was before’ … I have been trying to stand up for myself more and what I would like.. he is surprised by this and doesn’t like it”.

So, yes, I believe you did the right thing to end that relationship. Healing is now possible for you, but work needs to be done now.

In your original home you were “the odd one out”. As a child you “always felt lonely and isolated”. This inner feeling persisted through your adulthood: “I just have a sense of restlessness and unease… Like I should be somewhere else. I have had that feeling all my life”. Leaving the relationship with this man does not and cannot change this childhood emotional experience. This is why healing needs to be done.

In summary: healing is now possible for you. It wasn’t possible in the context of the relationship you ended. Right now you have the opportunity to start the work that needs to be done.

I hope you let me know what you think of my post to you and that we communicate further.

anita