Sorry! I went out of town for a week, just saw your reply.

Working with him is a very difficult position to be in and I wish I had better answers. My advice would be to manage it like you would manage an illness: figure out when and in what context you’re going to have to interact with him and prepare yourself. Are you going to be giving him performance reviews? Observing his class? Figure out when and where you’ll have to be around him and steel yourself as best you can. My context behind this advice: my ex is still friends with my close friends. Whenever I had to see him at parties, I had to prepare myself. I imagined seeing him and how I would react, figuring out ways to be neutral, limiting our conversation to the extremely superficial. It did not always go according to plan by any means, and it’s totally unfair that your emotional life is bound up in your job in this way, but you can manage it, either by winging it, prepping for it, or finding another job. You got this.

I wouldn’t worry about being unable to share the information. If you can’t, you can’t. I find most people have a breaking point. If it has to come out, it will, in one way or the other. The only reason I suggested telling him yourself is because it feels so much better when you have control over how he finds out. You may find he already knows and uncomfortable events are very rarely as bad as the anticipation of them.

And one more unsolicited thing that you might already be doing: definitely focus on other areas of your life. I don’t know about you, but when I’m in the midst of an emotional hurricane, the good things in my life seems to diminish and I spend less time there and more time wallowing. I don’t know if you’re this type of person, and I really don’t want you to think that this is something I “picked up on” from your writing. I didn’t. It just happens to me and I wanted to mention it, just in case. Spend as much time as you can on things that are not even remotely about him or your job. If you need to and if you can. It helps.

Best wishes, Missyrap. I don’t know much, but I know stuff comes to an end and new stuff starts. Look to the horizon, and when the storm passes, make you sure you go for a nice dip in the water.

It’s hard to comment on this, because every relationship is different, but if you have a bad feeling, my advice is to trust it. You can devote more time to changing your behavior, try to catch yourself before you tell him what to do and offer support instead. He’s dealing with a lot and it’s probably very hard for him. But if he’s not mature enough for you to feel comfortable with the relationship, then maybe now is just not the right time. That was a hard lesson learned for me, to realize that just because you love someone doesn’t mean the relationship will work out. Wanting him to be a different person is going to be very frustrating for you, because you can only help so much and people don’t change overnight. Not that he shouldn’t work on his flaws, because blaming other people and things for his problems is not going to help him. My ex had similar complaints about me, that I wasn’t mature enough and too dependent on him. Even though I’m still working through that loss, I learned a lot of things that I would have continued to be oblivious about if he hadn’t ended it. In fact, now that it’s over, I wish I had had the courage to end it first.

This is just my opinion based on my experience. He is hurting and maybe staying with him is a better choice for you both, a chance to support him while he improves and giving him support while he grows. But you should do whatever feels right to you. Good luck to you, you will figure it out.

I’m glad that helped. That explanation makes perfect sense and I’m sorry your past was so difficult. I think the psychology of eBay also contributes, because you WIN something. But most of the time, I agree, having something is rarely as good as getting it. 🙂

Usually, when something is going on with me, I just try to hang on. My mind will spin out wild ideas, pumping me full of stress chemicals until I’m in full flight mode with nowhere to run. If I have there wherewithal to do so, I talk myself down because I’m big into treating the cause (if I can get to it), not the symptoms. But if I’m just too irrational (to the point of not realizing I’m irrational), I just try to grit my teeth and bear with it. I distract myself by reading or cooking. I repeat to myself “this will pass” and “there are many good things in my life that are more important than this,” even if I don’t particularly believe that at the time, I keep saying it. I cling to my spiritual practice like a life raft. I read articles on Tiny Buddha or Zen Habits. Basically do whatever I can to weather the storm.

I’m in one right now and it isn’t pretty, but I’m doing all of the above and I’m still going.

“I have always been against medication – for personal fears that it will change me and professionally they can affect my work.”

That’s fine, I was against medication for the same reasons and it does take some work to find a balance that suits you. I won’t tell you to get on it if it’s not for you, but I want to add that I would have had a much harder time without meds. My brain was the problem, so trying to get better using my brain was something of an exercise in futility. I really feel more like myself when I’m on them, but that’s just my experience and I have type II bipolar disorder, so I have no idea if they would work for you or not.

“I am still so fearful of being hurt, betrayed, the subject of an unspoken joke.”

This really resonated with me, as one of the reasons I was so guarded is I felt like people really disliked me behind my back, thought I was laughable or pathetic, even good my friends. I’m still coming to grips with the fact that nobody really thinks about another person’s problems enough to form such a strong opinion of them, they’re usually too busy with their own. Like I said, it is a work in progress. I hope yours goes well, and it’s good that you know what it feels like to trust fully, even if you can’t stay in the space all the time.