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April 18, 2020 at 1:50 pm #350342
AnonymousGuestDear User34:
I don’t see a reason for you to blame yourself in regard to this ended relationship. Try to contain the hurt that it caused you so it doesn’t infect too much of your mind and heart, doing damage-control (similar to containing the virus so it doesn’t infect more of the population, aiming at damage control.
Do you see a therapist in person or online?
anita
April 18, 2020 at 2:03 pm #350352
User34ParticipantDear Anita,
At the moment I talk to my therapist online, since this problem started. I do miss the face to face talking, but it is more important to stay safe. I am blaming myself for the reactions I had when he was drinking.. But it felt like a huge trigger to me, I was getting anxious, scared, and acted very nervous when he did that.
My therapist is helping me to build some self esteem and be kinder to myself.
April 18, 2020 at 2:32 pm #350364AnonymousGuestDear user34:
“I am blaming myself for the reactions I had when he was drinking.. I was getting anxious, scared, and acted very nervous when he did that” – there was no way for you to not feel the way you felt, and acting very nervously, such as talking more quickly than usual, or in a higher tone, or moving faster, you can’t help those automatic, immediate reactions either. No one can.
People are not robotic mechanisms that can feel calm at all times and act perfectly (whatever that is) at all times. We are human animals who feel all kinds of emotions, many of those emotions are very uncomfortable, some of them are scary.
We are supposed to help each other, not hurt each other. Once you figure you can’t help someone, and that he can’t or doesn’t want to help you- game is over, better abandon ship, turn the wheel and move in a different direction.
Post here anytime, and I will be glad to reply to you.
anita
April 18, 2020 at 2:48 pm #350372User34ParticipantDear Anita,
Thank you again, I very much appreciate your input. It helps me a lot to talk about this situation and to listen and read thoughts about it.
I will definitely have more questions as time passes by and I process what happened.
I hope this weekend finds you, Inky, and all of us safe and well and yes, we should help one another.
April 18, 2020 at 2:50 pm #350374AnonymousGuestYou are welcome, User34, thank you for your good wishes; same wishes back to you! Till your next post, take good care of yourself.
anita
April 22, 2020 at 9:00 am #351070User34ParticipantHello!
I hope this message finds you well and healthy. The discussion here really helped me to put some things in a better perspective. I try to keep the wound sealed inside, but I still find myself really missing him, wondering if he is doing fine, wanting to reach out to him somehow. I do feel like I grief the loss of this relationship and also him, as a friend. I would sometimes think I should tell him I am sorry for the things I done wrong and if I hurt him during our relationship. I do know, however, that I should not contact him, as I am sure he doesn’t feel the same way.
Right now I believe I tend to develop codependent relationships, which was not what either of us needed to be healthy. I might also perceive the reality in a distorted manner, I found myself many times struggling to ignore some red flags, in order not to lose a person, a relationship, or the idea I had about this. If anyone has any advice about how to manage these thoughts and emotions I would be very grateful to hear/read. Thank you!
April 22, 2020 at 9:28 am #351078AnonymousGuestDear User34:
Good to read back from you and thank you for your good wishes to all who are reading your post.
“I still find myself really missing him… I tend to develop codependent relationships”- you form strong emotional attachment to men too quickly perhaps? Key is to take your time getting to know a person before becoming physically intimate with him. That way you get to be more objective when you get to know the man. And then, if you learned that he is the kind of man that is good for you and to you, then you can get physically involved with him.
Once naked with a man, vulnerable that way, interacting in such a private, personal way, a strong emotional attachment is likely to form and objectivity is out the door!
anita
April 22, 2020 at 10:07 am #351088User34ParticipantHello Anita!
It is good to hear from you. Indeed I do agree with you, it is important to know someone before becoming physically intimate. In this case, I did known him for a year before starting our relationship, but I do think I ignored and minimized some problems, as I really did believe that things will (somehow) get better. I think now maybe also actively observing should be on my list from now on. Thinking about it, I think now it is also important to set boundaries.
I do form strong emotional attachment to men quickly, and get back from it very slow. I am going to try stay in contact with reality, and not in my imagination. Thank you for your reply, it is good to put once again these things ”on paper”.
April 22, 2020 at 12:30 pm #351112AnonymousGuestDear User34:
You are welcome. You wrote on the topic of your strong, quick emotional attachment to men: “I am going to try stay in contact with reality, and not in my imagination”-
– an excellent point because the emotional attachment to a man in a romantic relationship context often parallels the emotional attachment of a child to a parent, be it to her mother or father (not gender specific). And it is only in our imagination that the man is like a parent, and that we are still children:
A woman who grows up feeling alone, not connected with her parent, is likely to look up to men later on as rescuers, similar to how a child looks up to her parent, as a powerful entity. Even if a parent doesn’t take good care of the child, the child believes the parent is very capable of taking care of the child, and making the child feel good, if only the parent wanted to, or if only the child deserved the parent’s love.
This looking up to a man as a powerful entity, as someone that can make such a big difference in how we feel, that’s imaginary, a fantasy.
anita
April 23, 2020 at 11:24 am #351300User34ParticipantDear Anita,
I am sorry for my late reply. if only the parent wanted to, or if only the child deserved the parent’s love yes, indeed I did feel like this a lot of times in many types of relationships. Thank you for putting it so well in words.
April 23, 2020 at 11:59 am #351306AnonymousGuestDear User34:
You are welcome. Looking at our earliest and most powerful relationship/s by far, the one with a parent, or parents, can help in being able to form healthy and loving romantic relationships as adults. If you want, you can share and we’ll take it from here.
anita
June 6, 2020 at 3:16 pm #357780User34ParticipantDear Anita,
I am sorry for the late reply, I hope you are well. I got verry stressed as I have to finish my degree this month.
At the moment I am a bit still struggling to understand what happened in the last two years. I had some flashbacks, for example about things that had happened, and was quite surprised about how I reacted at that time.
Indeed, the relationship with my parents is important in all the other relationships. They got a divorce when I was a baby (probablly around 1year old), and I lived withy grandparents until I was around 13 years old. My mother was.. Mostly depressed, I remember she cried, probablly depressed and she started feelimg a bit better about 10 years ago (I am 22). My father..I don’t really have a relationship with him (havent spoken to him in 6 months).
I can see how this affects my perception about relationships. When I was a child, I used to beg them (mostly my mother) to spend time with me, but I don’t remember it “worked”. So I felt abandoned over and over again, felt like it was my fault. In my romantic relationships, I also did this, out of fear. However, in my last relationship he said that he would kill himself if we break up (if I break up with him, if he breaks up with me, he said all the options), and I think this influenced me to pursue this behaviour even further.
I recall now that I used to beg him not to speak poor of me when he was drunk (he was calling me stupid, idiot and others not worth mentioning here), I used to beg him to stay calm, to drink less.. And sometimes none of these seemed out of place to me in the moment. I felt like it was a natural thing for me to do.
I am sorry for the long post. If you or other readers have any insight, thank you in advance!
June 6, 2020 at 5:19 pm #357788AnonymousGuestDear User34:
Your recent post is not long at all. Feel free to add to it. I will read it all and reply when I am back to the computer in about 13 hours from now.
anita
June 7, 2020 at 7:13 am #357828AnonymousGuestDear User34:
Regarding your ex boyfriend, you wrote that when he was drunks he called you “stupid, idiot and other” names, and you “used to beg him not to speak poor of me when he was drunk.. I used to beg him to stay calm, to drink less.. I felt like it was a natural thing for me to do”.
It felt natural to beg him because as a child you begged your parents, mostly your mother: “When I was a child, I used to beg them (mostly my mother) to spend time with me”.
Like I suggested earlier, we often operate in a romantic relationship in the same way we operated in our early life relationships with our parents.
“felt like it was my fault” in the relationships with your parents=> felt like it was your fault in the relationship with your boyfriend (“I am blaming myself for the reactions I had when he was drinking.. I would sometimes think I should tell him I am sorry for the things I done wrong and if I hurt him during our relationship”).
You grew up with your grandparents until you were around 13 because your parents divorced and your mother was depressed, “I remember she cried, probably depressed”. You begged her to spend time with you, but it didn’t work and you “felt abandoned over and over again”. A child automatically feels it’s her fault, whatever bad things happens. The bad thing that happened to you was that your mother was not there, and when you saw her she was so sad that she cried. So you figured it was your fault, you must have done something wrong.
Did your mother ever tell you what happened, that she was depressed and too troubled to raise you, and that she is sorry that she wasn’t there for you, anything like that?
anita
June 7, 2020 at 7:27 am #357829User34ParticipantDear Anita,
Thank you very much for taking the time to read and reply to my post.
Regarding my mother, I don’t think she expressed a genuine apology so far. Indeed, we sometimes spoke about those times but she sometimes gets very defensive and seems hurt, so I don’t pursue the discussion anymore. I somehow understand, she was young, about my age, felt alone with 2 children.
My ex boyfriend used to apologize after some bad fights, seemed sincere. However, he would sometimes add “Well, it’s not like I hit you or something.” which made me feel that he did not care actually about the matter, or that if only I stopped reacting or panicking when he drank things like that would not happen.
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