Should I let her go?

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February 11, 2020 at 2:51 pm #337670
Gustavo
Participant
Dear Anita:

All your words and recommendations are actually as I think and I’m thankful. Definitely, going day at a time because I don’t understand her intentions in this moment and I hope not to get to that point were my expectations grow again and will be a problem. If I’ve been transparent, I would expect the same about her, but maybe she isn’t ready yet or has doubts. Maybe she didn’t expect me to accept her decision and allow her the space she needed, taking a step back. Difficult to know.

For now, trying to practice patience (easier said than done) and see what exactly she wants, respecting more the distance and allowing each other to have space. She already knows how I feel and if something would happen I expect that it would come from her showing that she also wants to give us a chance.

Gustavo
- This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Gustavo.
February 11, 2020 at 5:16 pm #337688

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Gustavo:

You are welcome.

“I don’t understand her intentions in this moment”- good point, the “in the moment” part. A person’s intentions are not the same at all times. She may have a moment when she intends to consider a relationship with you, another moment when she intends to not have a relationship with you, going back and forth; wanting distance from you, then finding herself missing you and being surprised by it; wanting to spend time with you, then wondering if it is because she is lonely, in a new town… I am just guessing here. But my point is, often a person has different intentions and sentiments at different times of the day and night and week, especially when a person is in a new city, and following significant changes in life, such as an ending of a long term relationship.

If I was you, I would form the intention to take her off any pedestal you had her on (what we do when falling I love.. falling down, looking up at the person we are in love with), and get to know her as she really is. This way, if you end up in a romantic relationship with her, you will know who this person really is. It is an opportunity to get to know her with some objectivity.

I hope you post again with updates and your thoughts at any time you want to, and I will be glad to read from you and reply.

anita

February 16, 2020 at 4:42 am #338508
Gustavo
Participant
Dear Anita,

Yesterday was the worst night I’ve had in a long time and today I just feel that nothing can be done with this girl. She kept showing interest and Friday night we went for dinner, spoke a lot and she even mentioned that she had closed Facebook and Instagram to allow her to have closure with her ex. Speaking about relationships and us, she showed me a poem and said that it represented her. Link (Spanish with English subtitles) is https://youtu.be/ZJO8COvlkzM

The poem was beautiful and describe her, but I didn’t understand why she is showing me this if she knows my feelings for her. So I decided to speak with her yesterday and said that I don’t understand the signals she is sending me, that the same way she asks me to respect she isn’t ready for a relationship, she should also respect that this actions affect me emotional because they send me the signal she actually wants something with me. Even told her that she writing to me because she felt that I didn’t say hello friendly enough was another signal I didn’t understand.

I asked her that we should find a midpoint between me respecting her process and she not making actions right now that make me feel she actually wants something with me. She got uncomfortable and said that none of this things meant anything and that she was not sending me any signals. She didn’t accept for us to find this midpoint, so I said that of that is the case, then for my own good I would have to take some distance until she is clear of what she wants.

Hours later came the worst part and what today has me with no energy to do anything with her anymore. She started to write in the chat that said she believe I made this argument because she believes I have another girl, said that people have said that I go out with other girl and that I’m a liar and that she wants nothing with me. That she felt that me saying this of the distance was me trying to have closure so I could have a chance with this other girl. Same time she wrote that she loved going out with me and felt that we were going on a nice path to build something (what? I don’t know, she never said).

All night trying to show her that it’s been four months me wanting to have a chance, supporting her and accepting that she needs space. Giving her company and showing her my kindness. Even told her that the poem made me think many things, the same way my letter made her think, and that all I wanted was to speak it out and find a way for us to make things work without she sending me this signals that I don’t don’t do any good to me. According to her, she hasn’t sent me any signals at all of wanting something with me.

I’m so sad now, she not wanting to see all my transparency and all I did this month to show her that I was serious with this. I haven’t gone out with another girl because I did wanted to see were this could go, but I still don’t believe it would be something bad if I did because right now we are nothing. But it hurts me that she believes that I’m actually hiding this and lying to her, that she believes I really haven’t been transparent with her.

I just told her their is nothing I can do if she doesn’t trust me and that I’m sorry that she takes what supposedly other people said of seeing me with another girl, instead of seeing my actions this last four months. That she needs to decide what she believes because their is no way I can show her that this is not true.

End of the day, what hurts me more is that I believe a relationship with someone most begin with trust and now I don’t see us having any chance if she wants to believe that I’m a liar when all we are friends that have some feelings for each other. I have never seeing her like this, but her words and our chat felt so toxic yesterday, something that hadn’t happened before, that I don’t see that we can do anything now. It isn’t just me being patience now, it’s me having to proof to her that she can trust me, and I believe I haven’t done really anything to break that trust and that it’s impossible to make her believe what she wants to believe from the intangible reality she has in her head (I repeat, she has never seen me with anyone and all I do is hang out with is friends and colleagues, their was never a lie from my side).

I don’t understand why me asking her to respect my feelings and to avoid sending me signals if she isn’t sure of what she wants, had to end in all this. Why she reacted so hard, blaming me of all this and saying that now we shouldn’t even be friends (but at the same time allowing me to know that she felt we were going on the right path to build something). Me asking for distance was only protecting my feelings when she didn’t accept that she is making actions that show her wanting something when verbally she continues to say she doesn’t want a relationship.

Now I feel so empty and sad, confused. Never bought this would happen, but I feel their is nothing I can do. I don’t understand her and this incident. I don’t understand what happened.

Gustavo
- This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Gustavo.
- This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Gustavo.
- This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Gustavo.
February 16, 2020 at 8:15 am #338528

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Gustavo:

In your original post, Jan 31, you wrote about this woman: “she has a beautiful heart”- I will be looking for that beautiful heart as I read your recent post:

“I decided to speak with her yesterday and said that I don’t understand the signals she is sending me”- courageous, honest and assertive on your part, good move. You asked her to reciprocate the respect you have for her by not sending you “the signal she actually wants something with me”- fair, sensible, on your part. “I asked her that we should find a midpoint”- a win-win effort, suggesting a compromise, so that none of you feels used or.. a loser.

Her response: “said that none of this things meant anything and that she was not sending me any signals”- she lied and suggested that what means so much to you.. means nothing to her. She is not logical, not sensible, not respectful of you, not fair (at this point, I say: not a beautiful heart on her part).

“She didn’t accept for us to find this midpoint, so I said .. for my own good I would have to take some distance”- good move on your part, assertive, courageous.

After that, she expressed in a chat that “she believes I made this argument because.. I have another girl, said that people have said that I go out with other girl and that I’m a liar and that she wants nothing with me”- so after she lied to you about sending you a (mixed)signal that she is interested in a relationship with you, in the chat she is sending you the same signal, only by passing a relationship with you altogether and jumping ahead to breaking up with you because you.. cheated on her with other girls.

And she calls you a liar while it is she who lied to you. And then, more mixed signals, stating that :we were going on a nice path to build something”. The word something is suggesting a relationship. I suppose she said it so to punish you for.. allegedly lying to her and cheating on her.

In the beginning of your thread I thought she was an honest person. Then I thought maybe she is confused (having changing sentiments because she just moved to a new city etc.). Today my understanding of her evolves further: she is not an honest person, she has anger issues that caused her to accuse you of lying to her (while she is the one lying), ignoring your truth, your sensibility, your honest efforts to create a mutually respectful relationship (of any kind) with her, feeling anger at you as if you were her boyfriend and as if you cheated on her, and then proceeding to punish you, intending to make you feel bad by saying something like: if you didn’t lie to me and didn’t cheat on me, I would have been your girlfriend, so there! Enjoy your pain!

“it hurts me that she believes that I’m actually hiding.. lying.. haven’t been transparent with her”- no, it is she who did the hiding and lying and it is she who wasn’t transparent with you: she projected her thoughts/ feelings/ behavior to you. And then, she attacked you for who she is.

“I have never seeing her like this”- neither did I. But now I do. It takes time to know a person. I suggested to you earlier to take her off the your pedestal. Good advice on my part. On the pedestal she had a beautiful heart, off the pedestal- not so.

“it’s me having to prove to her that she can trust me”- but like you wrote, “I haven’t done really anything to break that trust”.

“Why she reacted so hard, blaming me.. “- because she is dishonest, disrespectful, manipulative- she wants you to feel bad, guilty so that you will chase her and make up to her for crimes you didn’t commit. This is the MO of some women, to hold a man captive by unjustified guilt.

You did the right things with this woman, just as I outlined in this post (responding to part by part of your recent post, commenting on one sentence or paragraph before reading what is next). But she is not into doing right by you. She wants to punish you for wrong doings that.. other people did to her, not you.

anita

February 16, 2020 at 9:42 am #338538

Brandy
Participant

Hi Gustavo,

You are getting great advice from Anita. I hope you don’t mind my sharing my thoughts because after reading your latest post I would like to.

I haven’t gone out with another girl because I did wanted to see were this could go, but I still don’t believe it would be something bad if I did because right now we are nothing.

Gustavo, after your honest and transparent letter to her about your feelings, she made it clear to you that she wasn’t interested in a relationship with you. This means you are free to date other girls. So if you’ve been dating other girls, you would have been doing nothing wrong. But you haven’t been dating other girls and she doesn’t believe you and is calling you a liar. Gustavo, this isn’t rational behavior from her. I hope you can see this objectively. This girl is emotionally unstable.

But it hurts me that she believes that I’m actually hiding this and lying to her, that she believes I really haven’t been transparent with her.

Gustavo, she actually does not believe that you are hiding this or lying to her. This is a story she has fabricated. She knows you are an honest, sincere and transparent person. What’s happening is this: She knows you have caught on to the manipulative game that she’s been playing with you, and so to “save face” and protect her ego she is turning it around to make you the one at fault. It’s easier for people to place blame on others than it is to admit their own mistakes. Anger is an easier emotion than guilt and shame. With your calling her out, she felt backed into a corner, so she’s lashing out at you. You’ve done nothing wrong, Gustavo. In fact, you’ve done everything right! If you were my own son I would be so proud of the way you’ve handled yourself with this unstable, irrational, manipulative girl.

Gustavo, you’ve dodged a bullet here. I’m relieved for you that this girl showed you her true colors before you invested any more time into this friendship. Don’t engage one second longer in this fabricated story of hers. Hold your head up high and walk away from this. There’s a girl out there who is just as honest, sincere and transparent as you. You will find her.

B

February 17, 2020 at 12:24 pm #338724

Gustavo
Participant

Dear Anita and Brandy,

Thanks for your comments and views. During this days I’ve been thinking about what happened and I do believe I made the right decision. As I mentioned before, after doing a personal search on myself three years ago I found out that I have characteristics of being Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and also and Empath. Which definitely explains things of the past, and I have been working to not make the same mistakes in the past. Me being so open with this girl was something new for me, expressing my feelings was not something so common in me. Also putting my emotions first is something that hadn’t happened before, especially because I tend to believe in the goodness of people and that they can change. It’s what moves me in life (I’m a humaniarian worker, so my motor is the believe that change can happen).

I will not lie, their are moments I see all that I did as good and see what you wrote and believe I made the right action. Other moments, I ask myself if really all this is related to her not being ready after breaking up with her ex, thinking that I should be more patience and support her. But emotionally all this was exhausting because I don’t understand all those mix signals that she sends and thought that she would support the idea of not doing it so we could continue to be friends and see that this could work out.

Actually, one thing that also had me thinking, was that she had closed her Facebook and Instagram accounts, and said to me she did it as a stage of letting go her ex and disconnect from the social media that was a temptation to write to him (I thought this was a good sign). One day after this, I saw she opened her FB account again and had actually put a web history with a nice picture of her. This got me thinking “why would she do this? who does she want to see the picture?”). In which case I believe that she is fishing in the ocean all the options she has (which she can do, its her life), not only her ex but other guys here, and decided that I don’t want to be in this situation.

More important, she knew about me being HSP, I spoke with her about this in the first month, but I guess she didn’t care much what it means, because everytime something bothered her, she would claim to me the problem was me being too sensitive. Lucky for me, this happened now and not years ago, when I have done my own inner search and understand that this isn’t a problem, and whoever loves me will do it with my sensitive side. So I didn’t allow those comments to get into my head, I would just let them go through. But it also means that I feel more deeply my emotions, so you can imagine all this hits me emotionally hard because it felt really nice and happy when we shared moments, and now I’m trying that it doesn’t blind me of the other bad things that happened.

I will take this a day at a time and will see what happens next time we cross, because as I mentioned before, we have many friends in common. But yes, I’m proud of how I manage this and will try to keep my head up. Thanks again for all your support.

Gustavo

February 17, 2020 at 2:14 pm #338736

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Gustavo:

You are welcome. The more you share about her, the worse she looks: “she knew about me being HSP, I spoke with her about this.. every time something bothered her, she would claim to me the problem was me being too sensitive”- so she is into using information given to her in good faith against the person who gave her the particular information in good faith (not expecting her to use it against you, that is).

“Other moments, I ask myself if really all this is related t her not being ready after breaking up with her ex, thinking that I should be more patient and support her”- seems to me that all this is related to her being an dishonest person. Maybe her ex boyfriend was a nice person, a decent person, like you, and he too suffered from her dishonesty and aggression.

anita

February 17, 2020 at 8:09 pm #338766

Brandy
Participant

Hi Gustavo,

You are welcome.

Budding romances usually aren’t this difficult. I predict that the less interest you show in her, the more attention she’ll try to get from you. It’s like Anita said earlier: Many women enjoy a man’s special attention even if they are not interested in the man that way: they enjoy being wanted.

B

February 18, 2020 at 7:58 am #338830

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Gustavo:

I wanted to respond today to the first paragraph of your yesterday’s post: “after doing a personal search on myself three years ago I found out that I have characteristics of being Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and also an Empath”.

From hsperson. com and Wikipedia: The term Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) was coined by Dr. Aron and Dr. Aron (husband and wife) in he mid 1990s. They coined two terms: Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS): a personality trait involving “an increased sensitivity of the central nervous system.. greater sensitivity to subtle stimuli.. heightened emotional reactivity, both positive and negative”. People who have a particularly high measure of SPS are, according to the two psychologists, are HSPs.

An HSP is more easily overwhelmed when in a highly stimulating environment (ex: getting “easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabric, or sirens nearby”) and overthinks the stimuli . She wrote that “in a culture that prefers confident, ‘bold’ extraverts, it is harmful as well as mistaken to stigmatize all HSPs as shy when many are not”, and states that being an HSP is “quite normal.. not a flaw or a syndrome’, but “an asset”, “something to celebrate”, and that HSPs (15-20% of the population) should assert their unique personality traits”.

“People with high SPS report having a heightened responses to stimuli such as pain, caffeine, hunger, and loud noises… easily overstimulated by external stimuli because they have a lower perceptual threshold (the weakest stimulus that an organism can detect), and process stimuli cognitively deeper than most people”.

Wikipedia on Empath: “A person with extra- sensory (also called sixth sense) empathy, in science fiction or parapsychology (psychic phenomena, telepathy and such)” Dictionary. com about Empaths: “In science fiction, empaths have a supernatural ability to feel, and sometimes manipulate, other people’s emotions”, and elsewhere it reads about an “a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual”-

-I don’t believe in the supernatural, paranormal, in telepathy (mind reading) that is often associated with the term. I take the following meaning of the term as valid: empaths are HSPs, who feel intense empathy for others, and otherwise being overly sensitive/ emotionally over-reactive (feeling intense distress, or intense joy) to stimuli such as other people’s facial expressions, tone of voice, body language during interactions with them. (I don’t believe that it is possible to feel exactly what another person feels).

Back to what you wrote: you wrote that the terms HSP and Empath “definitely explains things of the past, and I have been working to not make the same mistakes.. Me being so open with this girl was something new for me, expressing my feelings was not something so common in me. Also putting my emotions first is something that hadn’t happened before, especially because I tend to believe in the goodness of people and that they can change.. I’m a humanitarian worker”-

-My input today: congratulations for putting your emotions first and for being so open with this woman, for expressin your feelings and your thoughts to her, like you did, asserting yourself and holding her accountable to her words to you!

Also, thank you for your humanitarian work!!!

Expressing your feelings to her made it possible for you to learn about her, learn from her reactions to what you shared with her. For example, when you shared with her that you are very sensitive, she used it against you. If you didn’t share that with her, you wouldn’t have learned that she is not above using information given to her in confidence and in good faith against the person, when it is convenient for her.

Be careful with your assumption that people are good and that they will change to the better. There are quite a few people who hurt others, as you know, aggression in all kinds of form is very common.

Also, be careful regarding your tendency to feel too much of positive feelings for a woman, for example, feeling so intensely positive about this woman and your time with her (“passing time with her is amazing, that she has a beautiful heart”), so to avoid intense, premature infatuation with a woman.

Emotional Regulation Skills is a term you can read about as it applies to feeling-in-moderation, not too much, not too little, the perfect skill for an HSP to learn and practice.

anita
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