Hello Iva, Blessings to you.

I’m going to play the heavy here, devil’s advocate, so to speak, so please forgive me for calling you out on a few things. In your last paragraph you say you “have given unconditional love this whole time…” I humbly submit you need to revisit what unconditional love is. At the beginning of your story you said several times that you fought over his not meeting your expectations in terms of things he does for you and returning your affection and how you “want him to reciprocate”. That, dearest one, is NOT unconditional. You are loving him very much WITH conditions. You want him to love you in the fashion you love him. If he did that, he would be you, not him. That is not fair nor is it uncondtional.

Either learn to accept him the way he is, or move on. Better yet, learn how to love yourself first and be your own best friend so that you are not requiring that from him. It will free you up to be relaxed instead of constantly needing validation from him. And it will be easier for him to love you.

There is no doubt that you love and are devoted to him but I think you have made him feel that no matter how much he tries to make you happy, it is never enough. He has given up, feeling picked on and inadequate and is now avoiding what must be very painful. Especially since encounters with you increasingly were about yelling and arguing instead of loving.

Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they won’t.

We all put our best foot forward when we start down the relationship path with someone we think might be THE ONE. After time goes by, we cannot sustain our best foot forward, our real selves start to surface and that’s where it gets ugly. There are things that reveal themselves as issues that cannot stand the test of time.

He is in pain. You are in pain. None of us likes to be in pain, which is how it was becoming for him, so he made the break. You ask where the love went? It went away because it was replaced with a painful beating about the head and heart for him (and you to a certain degree. The difference being that you are still wanting the relationship where he has clearly given up on it).

If we don’t nurture love, if we fight and yell and argue, love will leave. It cannot thrive in an angry, hostile environment.

You may have a lesson to learn here, and it may be at the expense of the relationship, especially since he has cut off communication. How do I know this? Because I did the same thing.

We must learn to love and accept our partner for WHO THEY ARE, not for WHO WE WANT THEM TO BE. You are in love with a vision, with a dream of how YOU want him to be, what YOU want the relationship to be, not with who he is and with what the realities of your relationship are.

The light in the tunnel is ahead of you, not behind you. You are on the right path with meditation and sobriety. Best wishes.

Iva I will follow suit with sojourner and point out some things in your second post that concern me about your situations. You say ” his actions lead me to make such harsh comments” It doesnt seem you are truly taking responsibility for your behavior here. You are saying well if he hadnt done X then I wouldnt have done Y so its his fault I act like this. That’s the relationship you want, one where fire is fought with fire and two wrongs make a right? When that simply is not true. You give away your power by letting someones actions influence yours. Instead of handling a situation in a becoming way that reflects the person you are. Your reactions are your own, you can not blame him. “partnerships are give and take relationships, so as a girl who put so much in the relationship was I all that wrong to expect some reciprocation back” Yes the term partnership implies equality, if someone isnt doing what you feel is their fair share, you will never be able to make them. They may be doing what they are comfortable giving for various reasons, and to them they may think its enough. So the choice is yours, accept what it is you are getting or say to yourself “this relationship is not meeting my needs, this person is not contributing back in a way I would like” and move on from it. You also need to check what your expectations are, often times we set them so high no mere mortal could achieve what it is we ask.

I can tell this experience is very fresh for you. Just reading your second post, I can hear myself asking the same exact question just a month ago on the heels of my bad break up. I have accepted the following. Simply that he is his own person, entitled to his own thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Because I dont/cant/wont understand them or he isnt doing what I want him to or what others/friend say he should do, does not make him bad or wrong, but simply wrong for me. When you think of things from a selfish point of view, i.e. what you want, what you need its hard to let go. When you start loving this man, truly loving him, not for what you can gain, but for his benefit. You’ll realize there was something about the dynamic in your relationship, that made it unhealthy. You certainly can love someone unconditionally, but unconditional love does not imply unconditional relationship.

You say this is the hardest lesson of your life, what are you learning? Its less about what you learn about him, as he’s gone, he doesnt matter anymore. What did you learn about yourself? Not to be harsh but when relationships end its usually because there were issues on both ends…. so what was your part? We’ve established you cant control or change him, so put what he did out of your mind. Focus on the things you can change and control, yourself. Do some serious reflection be humble and honest but also compassionate with yourself about what it is your find. So that way when you find another relationship you wont be doomed to the same mistakes.

You sounds like you’re stuck in the “death by analysis” phase of your break up, where your ruminate and play over all the things they ever said or did or all the things you did or could have done better, to pinpoint the moment it all went to hell. The reality is it was just a bad situation all around. This can be a very painful part of the breakup, you just have to keep centering your mind and focusing on yourself and less on him. It will go away, and hopefully you will be able to take the pain away and look back and smile, for the good times, and also for the bad knowing they were simply a test and an opportunity to grow. Hope you feel better, time helps.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 8 months ago by Chad.