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Two friends who can’t be together

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  • July 22, 2022 at 1:21 pm #404375
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear aphroitte:

    Previously (2021): “Yesterday we had a big fight… In those rare times we would go out, he would be mocking me… I’ve never attended holidays with him or properly celebrated without a fight… To sum up, we had fights about every date we were planning…he would say that I am always dramatic, we would fight for hours and hours and none of our fights are solved actually”,

    Today, July 22, 2022: “With the friend with whom I can’t be together, we were still hooking up… he says is better to be just friends because I am fighting a lot, and later he says is because of my ex, we would never be together. In the meantime we would hang out… Today, as soon as I arrived they started making jokes about me, mocking me.. HE DOESN’T RESPECT Me… I don’t know if I am the ass**** that I am always complaining… What to do now? With my friend-lover, I am afraid of how to solve this relationship… I want to solve this in the most rational way and be cold, distant, and okay with him, but with setting boundaries and being respectful towards myself”-

    – my thoughts today: you know how,  let’s say a piece of clothing is so dirty that it makes more sense to throw it away than to try to clean it? I think that it is the case here. It makes more sense that you throw away these two relationships than  try to fix any of them. The two men are not honorable, they indeed disrespect you and your behavior is not respect-worthy. The solution: (1) End any and all contact with both men, (2) Start anew, showing self-respect in all your behaviors, in all your interactions with people, every single day.

    anita

     

    July 22, 2022 at 1:34 pm #404376
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I needed to know because he gaslights me. Everything I say that I feel is disrespected and passed like nothing said.

    July 22, 2022 at 1:36 pm #404377
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear aphroitte:

    Did you read/ pay any attention to my post of 15 minutes ago?

    anita

    July 22, 2022 at 6:12 pm #404476
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear aphroitte:

    I understand that you are hurt and upset and that you’ve been upset (on and off) for a long, long time.  I am sorry that you are. I know that when we are upset, we overthink and it is difficult to listen to anyone else (or read from, in this case) because we are too occupied with our own thoughts. When you are calm, please read my recent posts and post back, will you?

    anita

    July 26, 2022 at 12:51 pm #404595
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear aphroitte:

    On January 7, 2018, you shared: “I am in love with my boyfriend since I met him 3 years ago. When we met him, everything was beyond perfect… in this 3 years he was always hot and cold..  I never felt appreciated, and loved and cared. I was always begging for attention, wanting him to prove me that he loves me.. (he is 21, I’m 19)”-

    – this means that you started this 3 years relationship (at the time) when you were 16, and that before this relationship, there was at least one other relationship.

    3 years and 10 months later, on November 1, 2021, you shared that the on-again-off-again relationship with the 3-year boyfriend lasted 2 more years, to a total of 5 years, and ended in 2020 (later to be resumed). When it ended you entered another relationship, a secret one, with one of your ex-boyfriend’s friends.

    In Nov 9-10, 2021, you shared: “My ex came back… I have very serious codependency/emotional attachment issues. I believe so, because when my other ex (boyfriend) texted me, I didn’t feel bad or hurt by the conversation with ‘my friend’. I was able to be rude and not to care, because I now have attention of someone else…  I have this psychosomatic problem with my stomach and I have stomach acid… I am scared and I don’t like to be like this. Attached to people. I want to be okay to accept and let people go and not to feel this level of anxiety. I really want to be independent… I certainly have either abandonment anxiety or something similar to that” –

    – it looks like you’ve afraid of being alone and that is why (seems like) you are always in a relationship, no matter how bad the relationship. You want to be emotionally independent, that is, to be okay alone, but you are too attached.. too scared to be on your own.

    Exploring your mind. com: “When you hear the term ‘separation anxiety,’ you probably think about children. However, separation anxiety disorder can also affect adults. Separation anxiety is when an individual is afraid of separating from a person… Possible symptoms range from nausea and headaches to even a sore throat… The number one characteristic of separation anxiety disorder in adults is excessive worrying about being alone”.

    calm clinic. com: “Separation anxiety, when extreme, is usually pretty easy to identify. Adults who have serious separation anxiety tend to have an unhealthy attachment to a person with whom they are close to, and experience intense anxiety and panic when having to separate from that person…  Some less apparent signs of ASA (Adult Separation Anxiety) are: * Extreme Jealousy – ..A fear of abandonment is often what drives those with ASA to experience jealousy…. * Over Strict Parenting -… Sometimes referred to as reverse-separation anxiety, the parents may be so concerned that their child will leave them someday that they try to control the child’s life as much as possible. * Stuck in Relationships -… many with ASA work to maintain the relationship even when extremely unhealthy (emotionally, physically), out of fear of being alone……. Many people with ASA display obsessive thoughts very similar to OCD, and some experience anxiety attacks when left alone”.

    On Nov 10, 2021, you shared in regard to your childhood: “I had a lot of fighting with  my dad… He would be so mad that I was having a boyfriend … He always expected of me to be perfect, well behaved and have perfect grades…. I would be punished often and I was not able to go on picnics and friends hangouts when I was 12-13 because I was still young. And while everyone was hanging out I was staying at home….. I’ve never had close relationship with my parents” -reads like your father was indeed “overly strict”  and maybe he expressed that “reverse-separation anxiety” (terms mentioned in the website I quoted from): being anxious about you leaving him by having a boyfriend, and punishing you by keeping you inside the home, with him…?

    Continued, from the same post, regarding your father/ parents: “their over protective attitude almost.. meaning overprotective even dangerous for the kid… Because of that overprotectiveness I think I had that self-esteem issues…  I developed OCD and that actually reflected in my relationships. And because of every fight my parents have and the threats that my dad will leave that leaves me to believe that is the biggest problem of having abandonment issues“- I wonder if by over-protecting you, your father was trying to keep you from leaving him (I am referring again to that “reverse separation anxiety” mentioned above).

    There is more from what you shared that fits the quotes above, in regard to separation anxiety in adults. I will skip forward to the first sentence in your post before last, the one from July 22, 2022: “With the friend with who I can’t be together, we were still hooking up sadly, it felt like an addiction“- maybe it is an addiction fueled by separation anxiety, causing you to be “stuck in relationships” (from the website above), no matter how bad, no matter how satisfying, all because of the fear of being alone. What do you think???

    anita

    July 31, 2022 at 12:00 am #404784
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear aphroitte1,

    I am sorry you are feeling upset again, now because of the friend-lover who decided to break up the secret relationship with you. It seems you are both angry and anxious about it – angry because of his hurtful behavior, where he disrespects you (keeping your relationship secret, mocking you in front of others, making comments on other girls in front of you, telling you that you are a crybaby when you demand to be respected…). You say “I want to be angry, JUST ANGRY, so I can move on from him and build my self-respect and deserve because he and my ex turned out to behave the same way.”

    You would like to be just angry (and nothing else) so that you can move away and CUT TIES with him once and for all. So you can be emotionally free and independent, free from the moods of these selfish men who disrespect you, blame you and mock you.

    But you cannot be just angry and you cannot cut ties with them because of several reasons. One is your abandonment anxiety: you are afraid to be left alone, that’s why you’d rather stay in a lousy, abusive relationship than be alone. You talked about it before (and anita mentioned it above):

    [November 2021] I have very serious codependency/emotional attachment issues. I believe so, because when my other ex texted me I didn’t feel bad or hurt by the conversation with “my friend”. I was able to be rude and not to care, because I now have attention of someone else. I’ve noticed this problem when my ex stopped texting today. … I don’t know what is the reason but I’ve started feeling anxious, stressed again. I am scared and I don’t like to be like this. Attached to people. I want to be okay to accept and let people go and not to feel this level of anxiety. I really want to be independent.

    Another reason is the guilt that you feel for having legitimate needs. These men blame you for wanting to be loved, cared for and treated with respect. They tell you you are a crybaby and too demanding. They want you to accept their lousy behavior without complaining or demanding anything. And you end up questioning yourself and taking on the blame: “I want to know why I feel guilty. Why I feel like I am always the one to blame. Like I am always the bad one. … I don’t know if I am the asshole that I am always complaining and being a cry-baby. … I am afraid that something is wrong with me.”

    You end up believing them and blaming yourself, just like you believed your father when he blamed you for his unhappiness. You are trying to understand these men’s lousy behavior and how you might have caused it, how you are guilty for it. Right now, you are overthinking about the reasons your friend-lover decided to break up with you, and you aren’t sure if it’s because you did something wrong: I know to be an overreactive and overthinker, currently, I am thinking of million scenarios in my head about why he is like this, and it’s killing me. … I just can’t stop obsessing with him and his bad behavior. At this point I feel like it’s not because of the friend’s code to not go with the friend’s exes, but because he doesn’t want to even though he is saying that I am the woman he loved the most.

    My thoughts at this point: There are two parts in you – one is angry and furious, and demands respect. Another part (your inner child, the little girl in you) is scared and panicking that the man will leave (abandonment anxiety), and is trying to figure out what she did wrong and how she can improve, so the man in your life wouldn’t leave. This part (the little girl in you) also feels guilty for driving the man away. So there is a mix of strong emotions in you: 1) ANGER AND FURY for being disrespected, 2) FEAR of being abandoned, and 3) GUILT for being too demanding and the false belief that “something is wrong with me”.

    What to do? First, stop blaming yourself. Your needs for love, care and respect in a relationship are legitimate. But you are expecting those needs to be met by men unable to give you what you need – by selfish and egocentric men. You are attracted to this type of men because they remind you of your father.

    The dynamic is your relationships is that you are trying to extract love and respect from these men, who refuse to give it to you, and then you get into endless fights. You blame them for not giving you what you want (and your claims are mostly justified because these men behave selfishly and even despicably). And then they blame you (which is mostly unjustified, telling you you are a crybaby if you demand a minimum level of respect and decency). This fighting goes on forever, or until the man decides to break it off, like your friend-lover recently did.

    The problem is that you aren’t able to break it off because of your abandonment anxiety. You’d rather stay in a bad relationship, engage in endless fights and suffer humiliation than say “enough is enough, I am out of here.” Even if you break it off for a while, you go back to the man who humiliates you, because you hope that he will finally give you the love and appreciation that you desperately need.

    My advice is to stop blaming yourself for having legitimate needs for love, care and appreciation/respect. But also realize that you will never have those needs met by men you are currently attracted to. In order to get out of the vicious cycle, you would need to have those needs met elsewhere – and a very good way is therapy. With the help of a good therapist, you, the adult aphroitte, can give the love and appreciation to your inner child – the little aphroitte. You shouldn’t rely on men to feed your hungry inner child. You, with the help of a therapist, should feed and nurture that child yourself. That’s how you will heal your abandonment anxiety and will be able to leave bad, humiliating relationships once and for all.

    Let me know what you think of this strategy – to stop demanding the impossible from these selfish men and start nurturing your own inner child?

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