Dear Chau/ Clara:

I was wrong: we first communicated on May 31, 2016. Here is an amazing fact: you posted on June 26, 2016, exactly 8 years ago, and on June 26, 2017, exactly 7 years ago.

On June 26, 2016, you wrote (I am adding the boldface feature to quotes selectively): “what I am missing is someone who cares for me when I am distressed, and someone who shares my life when I want to share“- having read much of our past communication this morning, I boldfaced the part above because, seems to me, your pattern has been wanting a close relationship on one hand, and wanting to be alone, on the other hand. Anxious-Avoidant Attachment Style, or something of the sort: wanting closeness and being scared of it, moving toward a girlfriend and pushing her away.

You wrote early on about the first ex you shared about: “Occasionally, I treated her with tantrum…  I did have quite intense temper tantrums, and we did take a few breaks“- could have been the scared, panicking part of you throwing tantrums, pushing her away.

“I am disappointed at the fact that I wasn’t able to treat her well when I was dating her, I had always been very reluctant to connect with her emotionally“- this is the Avoidant part of your attachment style.

You’ve done a lot of traveling alone, for long periods of time, like the time you backpacked through South America. I think that predominantly, you find comfort in being alone. When in a relationship, there is a conflict: needing closeness and being afraid of closeness. The solution of the scared-part of you is to push the girlfriend away (is what I am thinking this morning).

Exactly 7 years ago, June 26, 2017, you wrote: “Recently I have become quite close to someone… I have told her I developed my liking and attachment on her… but recently I feel the urge to cut the tie, primarily to cut off the attachment (to) her… I am afraid of losing it all, well, while I haven’t even got it“- I boldfaced the solution of the scared-part of you, and the nature of your fear: closeness. To the scared part of you, closeness means losing: losing relative safety.

I think that this conflict was born in your childhood which you shared about: you were very much a child alone and timid, afraid of people. People represented danger to you, back then, and relative safety was about Avoiding people.

On Oct 7, 2018, you shared (in regard to your current on-a-break-girlfriend): “I recently got quite close with a person, we have been talking mainly on texts for a few months… she had never disclosed that she had a girlfriend… when she met me she was on a break/broke up with her partner, and later on, her partner came back to her and they got together”.

Your last post before yesterday’s was on Oct 18, 2018: “I have decided to take a break from her… it’s been a few days since I stopped contacting her, its a bit uneasy at times. but I think this is the right move…”-

– that was 5 years, 8 months and 8 days  ago. I suppose you and her started dating a couple of months after your last post.

June 25-26, 2024: “my 5.5 years partner is now taking a break (from) me, she can’t figure out whether she still loves me or are we just ‘good friends’ who live together…about a month or two ago, I raised the million dollar question ‘do you still like me’, to which she responded with silence… I proposed this (the break)…  eventually we feel we had a bit too much negativity, and we decided to take a break”-

– did you propose breaks before? Has there been negativity between the two of you throughout the relationship, perhaps you repeatedly bringing up the fact that she didn’t tell you back in Sept/Oct 2018 (while you were texting, not yet dating) that she had an on-again off-again girlfriend?

anita

Dear Chau:

I just clicked on that link and could see that my first reply to you was on June 13, 2016, EIGHT years ago, 4 years longer than  I thought it was. It’s Wed night here. I will be back to you Thurs morning. Try to find some peace in your mind and heart, while in this difficult situation. It’d be way less difficult once you accept what it is that you cannot change, and have the courage to change the little that’s in your power to change.

Be back to you in about 11-12 hours.

anita

Dear Mr. A:

Excellent summary of suggestions. To be a good spouse is indeed to cultivate/ show/ express the following: genuine compassion, empathy, encouragement, self-control (to remain silent instead of complaining), patience, peace of mind, and focusing your time and energy on what is in you control (not on what is not in your control).

anita

Dear Kshitij:

You are welcome. Good thing you saw your therapist again.

“Regarding the question I asked you, is there a medium (email or anything else) through which I share that thing with you“- do you feel comfortable to post an email address here for me, on this public forum?

Keep in my mind that sharing these thoughts with me does not mean that the thoughts will go away.

anita

Dear Teni:

I’d like to elaborate on my short reply of yesterday:

About your partner, you shared: “My partner is a person who deals with problems by getting mad… they get annoyed/ mad/ sad when I sleep earlier than them… if I oversleep or during sleep in like midnight… they have said this a lot, like ‘I think I would kill myself if you broke up with me“.

About yourself: “I don’t like getting mad at all… I am usually sensitive to anger, whether its light or heavy… I don’t feel comfortable sleeping earlier than them… I get anxious when I sleep… I get scared showing my feelings as I get anger back…  I want to end but, but I am afraid they might hurt themselves“.

As I see it, within the relationship, your partner is often, or predominantly angry and you are predominantly anxious, and your partner’s anger fuels your anxiety (everyone is scared of being the target of someone’s anger)

About compatibility: “I am unsure if we probably are not compatible because of the differences in anger“- unfortunately, the combination of a predominantly angry person and a predominantly anxious person is a combination that is “compatible” in the context of abusive relationships: the Angry person being the Abuser, and the Anxious one- the Abused.

Most often, both parties are suffering, but one person’s (inadequate, distorted) solution to their pain is to Attack. The Attacking party gets to feel empowered by witnessing the Anxious party surrendering. For the otherwise powerless-feeling individual (the Attacker), the feeling of power over the other individual is pleasurable and addictive, so they want more and more of it.

Your partner asserts power-over you when threatening suicide. An abusive relationship is about power-over, not love, but with a twist: there are times when the abuser is authentically vulnerable, honest and lovable. But those are only moments within an abusive relationship, confusing moments. Confusing because unlike in cartoons and some fictional movies, where the bad-guy is always bad, in real-life, no one is always bad, and everyone has moments when the good, loving child-within expresses itself through the abuser.

And when it happens, the Abused may want to help the loving, lovable child within the Abuser, but alas, the adult abuser won’t let you because they are already helping themselves to you.

anita

Dear Teni:

“Should I stay or end the relationship?“- if you stay in the relationship, he will be miserable, and you will be miserable. If you end the relationship, maybe you will find contentment elsewhere, alone and with someone else.

anita

Re-submitted:

Dear Kshitij:

“my intrusive thoughts add on to my difficulties… It is like a quagmire, all you need to put one foot over it and it will just swallow you in.“-

* Simplified, cognition = thinking, metacognition = thinking about thinking.

Today, I found out today (after reading a reply on the forums by Rosie) of a term called Cognitive Attentional Syndrome (CAS), and Metacognitive Therapy that goes along with it.

I read on the topic that CAS is an unhelpful style of thinking, a vicious cycle where one’s only focus is on one’s problems and the person feels worse as a consequence (the quagmire you mentioned yesterday). It’s about placing all of one’s attention on problems, overthinking pessimistically, and getting stuck. It’s a pattern of negative, pessimistic thoughts and painful emotions that the person can’t seem to let go of, a pattern that include rumination, worry and fixed attention.

The purpose  of Metacognitive Therapy is 1) to discover what the suffering person believes about his/ her thoughts (it’s called Metacognitive Beliefs), 2) to show the person how his / her beliefs lead to unhelpful responses that unintentionally prolong and worsen the suffering, and 3) to provide alternative ways of responding that allow a reduction of the suffering.

What do you think/ feel about the above, Kshitij?

anita