Dear Lara:

You shared that you were in North America on a work visa when you met a man (both in your early 30s), “clicked from the very beginning.. everything was going too fast, too soon”. You abandoned your plan to visit another part of North America and “followed him to the middle of nowhere where he had to work for a while”. Later, you moved into his house with him. When that happened, the once “kindest person, very attentive, very loving and affectionate, always happy, interested in me, excellent listener” man “suddenly changed and..  “became cold, preoccupied with something he wouldn’t talk about, uninterested, would distance himself physically and emotionally.. was almost mean sometimes”.

“Really unhappy and sad”, you were about to leave him when he “had a major awakening.. and promised he would change”. He explained to you that he “was feeling so stressed and overwhelmed”, but the cause of his stress was not you being in his life. He then “became affectionate and loving again, interested.. rediscovering each other and truly falling in love without the infatuation this time”.

The relationship has lasted 10 months so far, starting at about Sept 2019 when you had a job and a work visa. Fast forward, you lost the job at the beginning of the pandemic, your work visa expired, and your tourist visa does not allow you the possibility of paid work, you can’t drive and you are stuck in his house.

Your plan was to go back to your home country in Europe in a few weeks, then return to his country as a tourist and start the year long or longer application process to become a permanent resident, through his sponsorship- a sponsorship you suggested and he agreed to. Because he expects to work in remote locations in the upcoming year, you will barely see him while living in his house for a year. Following that year, there will be another year when he will be studying, and you will not see him at all. He didn’t ask you to follow him to where he will be studying during that one year, and “it’s already been said that we won’t be able to see each other”.

You want to go back to university for 3 or 4 years. If you study in Europe, it would be cheap for you. If you study in his country you’d have to take a huge loan. If you live in Europe, your living expenses long term will be about half of what they would be if you stayed where you are now. Also, you want to buy a Bed and Breakfast- it is possible for you in Europe, but not where you live now.

My input:

1. At best, the situation you are in is working for him, but it is not working for you: you “can’t stand anymore to be stranded here”, “feeling incredibly lonely and as if I’m wasting my time”, “growing uncomfortable and resentful inside me”, “really bored”, and you are experiencing some health issues which leave you “extremely tired and I’m not as patient as before with him”-

– all this means that the situation you are in is working against you. Sometimes it makes sense to endure a bad situation when the future holds promise of a good situation. But in your case, there is no such promise: you see him on the weekend now, but you will not see him for a whole year later. And there is no promise of a good situation for you financially if you stay.

2. If you pursue a life with him, it seems like he will continue to be the (largely absent) center of your life, and you will continue to be in the margins of his life.

“He never plans for anything, never takes me on date, life is very much about work with him”- reads like his studies, his work, and his money are in the center of his life, while you are in the margin. So even though he is all those nice things you say he is, you are able to experience those only in the margin of his life.

In other words, “he is everything (you’ve) dreamed of for a partner: kind, patient, compassionate, beautiful values, strong, good listener” only in the context of the margin of his life. It is similar to this imagery: he is like a wonderful chocolate cake, best imaginable, but here is the deal: you can have a piece of this most magnificent cake if you commit to live in prison, isolated behind metal bars. In prison, you will be served three slices of that cake every Saturday at 10 am.

3. “He is everything I’ve dreamed of for a partner: kind, patient, compassionate, beautiful values, strong, good listener, sweet”- what if he is able to be these things with you because he doesn’t spend much time with you? After all, there was a time when he was “cold, preoccupied.. almost mean” to you. He can be both, and you already know it, that he can be this way or that way.

Sometimes, people appear a certain way, be so superficially,  but it’s not who they are deeply. “He never plans for anything, never takes me on date”- how is that “kind, compassionate, beautiful values.. sweet”? His ability to change from compassionate to cold, from sweet to almost rude, may mean that he is .. superficially those great things you say he is.

In summary: if I was you, based on what you shared and my understanding of it, I would go back to Europe yesterday and not look back. It’s simply not a good situation for you, and there is no evidential reason to believe that it will get better for you.

I would like to read your response to what I wrote here.

anita

Dear Lara:

You are welcome. In your recent post you added information about him that may help me and you move toward a better understanding of him (if you are interested, of course): “he had helped me financially and often offers to do it again, I know I can count on him anytime on the matter… he works super hard to earn enough money to help people he loves (he is really generous)”-

– I wonder if he is generous to his parents/ siblings (?) because he feels indebted to his parents, carrying a heavy dose of responsibility on his shoulders?

Also, do you know why he can’t or won’t see you for a whole year while studying?

anita

Dear Lara:

He doesn’t read to me like a bad man, not at all. Reads to me that he has unresolved issues with guilt, a false sense of responsibility for other people. Maybe (all I am doing is bringing up possibilities based on the little information I have) he feels that he is inadequate, not good enough, maybe even a bad person, and he has to pay others and do for others so to make up for his perceived inadequacy or badness.

His very charming behavior, being so kind and so sweet and generous may be his way of compensating for perceived inadequacy or badness- not with a malicious intent, or an intent to deceive, but in an automatic/ instinctive kind of way.

anita

My advise is, you have to take care of your happiness and purpose in life first. If you don’t do that, you will never be happy with anyone. You don’t need to end things. Go take care of your happiness and life, like he takes care of his. If you two are meant to be, you will be with him again. Good luck!

Dear Lara:

Welcome back to your thread. On July 15 you shared about this man: “when we moved in together, he suddenly changed.. He became cold, preoccupied with something he wouldn’t talk about, uninterested, would distance himself physically and emotionally, stopped telling me how much he liked me.. He used to be the kindest person, very attentive, very loving and affectionate”. You talked to him about it and he told you that he was “feeling so stressed and overwhelmed” regarding matters not related to you, and that he will change, and he changed, “He became affectionate and loving again”.

About three weeks later, you shared today: “I asked him about his feelings for me.. He first joked around the question and then said that he cares deeply about me because I’m amazing”. You figured that he doesn’t love you because he didn’t say that he does (“So I guess I got my answer about whether he loves me or not”).

You also shared that before you left North America back to Europe, you had an amazing last week together with him, “He has been his best self, always supportive, patient, willing to accommodate all my wishes, doing everything he could do to make me happy even when he was exhausted. Why did he do that?”, you asked.

You shared: “he is super sweet and smiling with me but always pretty bad with waiters, salesperson, cashiers.. He never smiles, is barely polite, always cold… I don’t understand why he treats other people like that when he can be so warm and nice with me”.

“He would get a passport done and would come to visit me in 3 months, but I kind of doubt he is going to do it. And we don’t have much to say to each other when we call… I’m really lost”.

These are my thoughts this morning (my time, North America): I think that he is likely to travel and visit you like he said he will, so be prepared that he intends to do that, just like he said he will. I think that he does love you as much as he can love a woman, that he doesn’t feel comfortable saying the words or otherwise, talk about his feelings, but he does feel love for you and is serious about you. The fact that “he was doing everything he could do to  make (you) happy even when he was exhausted” during the last week you were together, is evident of his love for you.

But- there is a big But here: he is not naturally inclined on a regular basis to be attentive, affectionate etc. If he is distressed in life, his inclination is to withdraw. Also, if a person is not important to him (waiters, cashiers, etc.) his inclination is not at all to be attentive and affectionate, his inclination to be these things with people who are not important to him is zero percent.

What all this means is that you can rely on him to be attentive and affectionate toward you only in the limited times that he feels this way for you, or when you bring it to his attention. Again and again, he will go back to being inattentive and cold with you because of life challenges or because he forgets to try hard.

I am guessing that he was as attentive as he was to you, and that he tried really hard to please you during that last week you spent together, because he knew he had to work that hard only for one week. Like I suggested to you in July, I don’t think that he is a bad person. I think that he has trouble with his emotions, with expressing his emotions, that his strong inclination, or tendency is to withdraw- from you and from everyone, and therefore the best you can expect from him is that he will be very affectionate and very attentive toward you for limited periods of time with long stretches of cold withdrawal.

What do you think about my thoughts this morning?

anita

Dear Lara:

You are welcome.

“Things are really bad and stressful at my parents’ place”- this means that you are not doing your best thinking at this time. When he are experiencing a lot of stress, it is as if fog is clouding our vision, we can’t see/ think straight.

What is happening there, at your parents’ place???

anita

Dear Lara:

I will re-write your first paragraph description of your experience in your parents’ home life, as the opposite of what you wrote: my parents, are calm, they pay attention to me, my father does not complain about anything and assures me that this is not the end of the world. They see me and they let me know that they  like what they see; they approve of me and accept me just the way I am. They care and they asked me many questions about my one year experience away from home.

Being trapped in the negative, tense and aggressive place, with nowhere to go, no wonder that in comparison to your parents, your boyfriend seems like a much better option to live with, having treated you “most of the time.. with kindness, gentleness, respect, interest and affection”.

In your original post you wrote that when you moved in with your boyfriend, “he suddenly changed and stopped being the man I  loved. He became cold, preoccupied.. uninterested, would distance himself physically and emotionally”-

– now I wonder: is it possible that you had an unrealistic expectation of him when you moved in with him, expecting him to always be as attentive/affectionate- at all times.. similar to having the same expectation of him now, long distance.. and the moment he is preoccupied with something else and is not attentive, you see it as something terrible (while it is just human nature to not be the same all day, every day, no one is affectionate toward another all the time, everyone gets preoccupied and distracted from time to time)?

anita