Dreaming715:

Your pain is evident in this post, clearly evident. Your frustration with yourself is also evident.

The cycle of him being interested in you and withdrawing started 8 months ago and continued until very recently. There was a break, you returned his things and it is back on again.

I think that you felt good when you returned his things with a nice goodbye letter because that was you exercising some control over a situation that was out of your control. Returning his things was a symbolic way on your part to exercise some control over a relationship in which you had a sense of no control.

There was a relief then, but a dinner and physical intimacy and you are back to the sense of no control over your own behavior in the relationship.

And this is the point, i believe: control. It is necessary for our mental health to exercise reasonable control over our lives. I say Reasonable because a lot is out of our control. In your relationship with this man, HIS behavior was out of your control. It would be unreasonable for you to expect to control his behavior. On the other hand it would have been reasonable for you to exercise control over your participation in the relationship.

Sure, you were there, making the choices, like you did when choosing to have dinner and be physically intimate with him last time, but it was not a choice you made with much awareness and so, it was sort of an automatic behavior on your part, one lacking thoughtfulness, awareness.

You were “desperate” as you wrote, not thoughtful, not “centered”- not in control.

And that is not a good place to operate from. In your last sentence you wrote that he will get what he wants, a life without you in it. I suppose so. But you, your life should have YOU in it, you in the center of your life, you thinking and exercising reasonable control over your participation in your life.

What do you think?

anita

Dreaming:

This is my first post here. While I have not been in exactly the same situation, I have been through something which I will call similar. If you are looking and OK with something physical only with that person, you should not feel guilty about being intimate with them. However, as your post indicates this is not the case, something purely physical is not honoring your true self. You should tell them this if they attempt to contact you again. If you feel the two of you have/had more of a connection than that, tell the person what you think the connection is, without sounding desperate or angry. You can trust your intuition here. If they are not ready to honor that connection, they should definitely not be in your life. You do not need to feel badly about yourself even for a second for trusting in something you felt at any point. However, you should be true and honest with yourself about who that person is, and with that person about what you are about. You do not have to allow this person to contact you at will as some sort of booty call if you don’t want that. Trust yourself that you have the strength to take care of you 🙂

Dear dreaming715:

And please practice patience and great gentleness with yourself as you go through this learning. Best learning happens when you are calm and gentle with your self. Please do post anytime!

anita

Dear dreaming715:

I would express to him your anger this one time, clearly, honestly and directly.

You were angry at him before but ignored your anger, didn’t you? You thought it will hurt your chances to having a relationship with him… maybe things will work out, you thought to yourself (?), so you pushed down the anger. A mistake. Your anger had a valid message to deliver to you when you felt it then and it still does.

I believe that the message is that you are a worthy person and you were hurt and you need to do something about it. This is why anger exists: to motivate us to correct the hurt we are feeling. It is natural.

As part of my learning process here, I would now honor my anger. Not too late. As I express my anger to him (talking, writing, your choice), I would do it this way:

1. Legally.
2. No apologies before, during or after (!)
3. No sugar coating it, no mentioning your responsibility for your participation in the interactions (this is about his behavior and he is responsible for his behavior!)
4. I would list to myself the exact behaviors on his part that were hurtful, that weren’t right and make sure that indeed he owns these behaviors, his responsibility, not yours and let him know these specific behaviors were wrong, hurt you and he is responsible for those behaviors.
5. This is not about how he would react to your expression of your anger, your assertion. It is not about what he will say. If part of you still wishes he would esteem you and a relationship will take place, do not let this interfere with this assertion. If there is a chance for a relationship, IF, an authentic expression of your anger can only help. The old ways did not help.

This may very well be personal, if you take on my suggestion, too personal to share, but if you feel comfortable with sharing part of it, part of the preparation of this communication to him, looking for my feedback, please do.

anita

Dear dreaming715:

Excellent assertion: clear, direct, honest, excellent! What you wrote above is still not a final draft, correct? If I was to write him a note, I would edit the above to suit the purpose of expressing my anger. I would not list my standards for a healthy relationship because in this exercise you are not seeking a relationship with him (and therefore letting him know what your standards for a relationship with him are).

I offered to edit your writing to him in my previous post. This is my initial effort of editing. If you see value in it, please do edit the following. The whole exercise, to express your anger authentically, requires your editing, again and again, so to see to it that it is indeed authentic and true:

1) You told me multiple times: “We should meet-up this weekend,” or “I’ll text you tomorrow,” and then you did not follow through what you told me. It was wrong of you to not walk your talk, to not follow through with what you told me.

2) You (how often?) texted me multiple times a day, asking to see me, and then suddenly you withdrew to the point of going at least two weeks without any effort to text me, answer my texts or see me. It was wrong of you to withdraw/ disappear from my life with no warning and no explanation.

3) You were not forthright, not honest and self serving with me about your feelings. You used vague statements like, “Let’s just see where this goes.” “I don’t know where our future will lead… only time will tell.” You mislead me by being vague. It was wrong of you to choose vague language so to confuse me.

I hope you find this valuable. If you do, would you like to edit (your writing, my editing) next?

anita