Dear tranquility_17,

your partner seems happy with his relaxed approach to life, and he seems to be doing it smartly because he earns enough money to live comfortably and without much stress. He’s not just sitting on his ass the whole day, because: “He gets up in the morning, surfs, trades stocks, cooks meals, helps around the house, etc“. So he cooks, does the housework and brings in the money… ideal combination 🙂

But I see your issue – you’re concerned that he doesn’t have a good work ethic and might not set a good example for your future children. Your work ethic is different than his: you work hard for your salary (I have a pretty demanding job), and you’re also continuously working on yourself, both as a person and professionally (I am taking an online course, I am very active in a few workout clubs, I am learning new things, growing in my career).

You’re all about becoming better and growing, while he seems to be content with himself (I get annoyed by his laid back contentment). Well, what if he’s actually pretty developed already, since he’s smart and capable enough to earn money without working his socks off, and also pretty advanced spiritually to be able to enjoy the here and now, and to also trust that the universe has his back because he can always earn money when he needs it? What if he’s already living his personal nirvana and enjoying every minute of it?

What comes to mind is the well-known story of the fisherman and the businessman (when the businessman tries to persuade the fisherman to create a fishing business, buy a ship fleet, etc… so that he could get rich and eventually retire and fish and relax all day long, like he’s doing now). What if your partner is the fisherman, and doesn’t want to become a stressed, overworked, burned out businessman, but to enjoy life and also provide for his family?

Dear Ilyana,

I am sorry it’s tough for you again, but what you’re experiencing is completely normal. As Anita said previously, progress is not linear, we experience ups and downs, and sometimes it feels it’s just so hard and we’re never going to get better. But just the fact that you’ve started walking the path, that you’re aware of yourself, and that you’re attending therapy, is already a huge step.

There were days in the recent times when you felt better, e.g. when you experienced improved cognition, or when you met a woman in the FB group who like you experienced traumatic birth. You were also happy when you connected to your son, and he shared his problems with you:

My son seems depressed to me. He keeps saying that life sucks and that more bad things happen than good things. I am worried about him. But he is talking to me about it, and last night he said I helped him, which made us both feel good.

Your son told you you helped him, which means you’re not a terrible mother. You’re doing what you can, but the childhood wounding is still there, so you aren’t always at the top of your game. But you’re trying. Give yourself some credit for that. There will be better days again…

And also, it’s hard to suddenly let go of the old coping mechanisms. Those “trails” and neural paths are already engraved in our brain, they’re a part of our automatic responses, and it’s so easy to just slip into them when we feel a slightly bigger obstacle, when things don’t go smoothly. Perhaps it’d help to know that there’s another trail, yet uncharted, but it’s there as a possibility for you. You just need to keep putting one foot before the other, sometimes doing one step forward and two steps back, but eventually you’ll get there, you’ll switch to that other trail, you’ll have enough of the positive experience to not slip back into the old coping mechanisms and depression. There will be enough blue skies that you’ll know that the storm is just temporary and will go away…

Well, this may be too much metaphor 🙂  But I hope you can see that you should just give yourself time (and patience and compassion), and things will slowly start changing…

Dear Ishita,

I keep replaying all the previous events in my head, trying to figure out if it was really me the reason for all this to happen, was he just being a good friend, because he cannot relate to a thing where I felt he was overdoing as a friend

You’re doubting yourself that maybe your perception is wrong – exactly as he would want you to…

And I didnt make it clear in the call but I want to now, that forward on , he should not think that its me because of whom this interaction has been on hold. And talk to me for a resolve only when he is ready to stop being clueless and support me through this by taking responsibility for his miscommunication

So you want him to acknowledge that it was his fault that things turned out like this – you want him to accept his responsibility. But he’s already refused to do that, he refused to accept that he’s done anything wrong (except in one occasion, when expected you to come to meet), and he’s saying you also haven’t done anything to wrong him. So he in his eyes is blameless like a baby, and not just that, but he’s good tempered and “gracious” because he isn’t blaming you for anything. In his eyes, he’s a good friend, and I don’t think there’s anything you can say that will change his opinion…

I keep replaying all thr scenes trying to know where did it all go wrong

Well, it went wrong when you wanted clarification about his intentions, and he said he doesn’t want a relationship, at least not now. But when you first wrote here, you actually didn’t believe he had no feelings for you. You said:

I AM PRETTY MUCH HEART BROKEN. BUT SOMEWHERE I FEEL HE DID HAVE FEELINGS FOR ME JUST THAT HE IS NOT CONFESSING IT .

You were hoping he has feelings for you, but doesn’t want to confess. I have to ask, just to make sure, did you confess it to him at that point? Does he know you have feelings for him? If he does, and he rejected the relationship, then there’s no doubt that he really means it. If he doesn’t exactly know what you feel about him, then it’s a different story, because he might be lying he doesn’t have feelings when in fact he does…

So anyway,  I just want to make sure that he knew about your feelings, before we make further conclusions…

Dear Ishita,

you’re very welcome. I was thinking about his personality and realized he might be a covert, not an overt narcissist. Because you said this about him:

He is a real nice guy, an overachiever yet humble, although a bit emotionally inexpressive or reserved kind.

We are in the same club in our college, and that’s how we had met. Now, I am someone who is very involved in the works of the club , and am pretty opinionated, whereas he is, more of an introvert who, didn’t really aim for the leadership position in the club.

An overt narcissist wouldn’t be humble – they would be grandiose, full of themselves and would likely be in a leadership position.

A covert or vulnerable narcissist is more introverted and subdued. They still feel entitled and seek ways to feel important, but they don’t do it so openly. Here are two useful quotes, both from the same article (you can look it up):

A covert narcissist is someone who craves admiration and importance as well as lacks empathy toward others but can act in a different way than an overt narcissist.

The introverted, covert narcissist may have a more gentle approach to explain why something is your fault and they are not to blame. They might even pretend to be a victim of your behavior or engage in emotional abuse to put themselves in a position to receive reassurance and praise from you. At the end of these interactions, the goal of the narcissist is to make the other person feel small.

Your friend X is also blaming you, indirectly, for being “unreasonable”, and for seeing problems where they don’t exist. He also probably wants to keep a relationship with you, so that he can keep receiving reassurance and praise from you, while at the same time not caring about his impact on you.

So, you might want to check covert narcissism and see if he fits the description. If he does, it would explain why it was so hard for you to discern his intentions, because his manipulative behavior would be much more hidden and more difficult to spot.

Dear Ishita,

first, happy birthday to you!!

As for your conversation with X, well, I think it reveals a lot about him. But first, let me say, I notice you didn’t want to tell him explicitly why you feel upset with him:

He asked me to tell him what instances did i exactly feel were the reasons for this misunderstanding.

And I told him, that I am not gonna babysit him, narrating each such incident because I feel, if he really wants to understand he is smart enough to retrospect and figure out on his own, because otherwise everything that I say, he would just try to defend hinself, making me feel like a stupid who is getting manipulated, So I am not gng there. If he doesnt feel he was at fault, then maybe our ideas on friendship are pretty different, and then it doesn’t make sense for us to stay friends.

Then, he asked again to give him specific examples so that he wouldn’t cross boundaries again. Again, you didn’t say in what ways exactly he was crossing your boundaries (by sexting, by calling you his bae, by opening emotionally to you, by spending huge amounts of time talking with you, by speaking highly of you and standing up for you, by expecting you to call him first and inform him about your whereabouts, etc). You just said that you had unnecessary expectations from each other:

Its because we were having a lot of unnecessary expectations from each other, and that was leading to fights that shouldnt happen if we r just friends, (and I have repeatedly told him that even when I thought we were something)

To which he said, I always felt they were resolvable, so I didnt exactly mind.

The discussion from then on focused on those mutual expectations – whether they existed and whether they meant something more. It seems that for him, those expectations (e.g. that you call him first, or that you tell him your whereabouts) weren’t such a big deal. If he’s a narcissist, he might have felt entitled to be put first, not because he has feelings for you, but because it’s in his character to feel entitled.

For you on the other hand, the expectations were so big because behind them was that you’ve fallen for him, and thought that he feels the same. You assumed that he wouldn’t behave like a boyfriend if he doesn’t want to be your boyfriend, so you already started treating him like your boyfriend. You claimed the right to be No1 in his life, that he reports to you, informs you about everything etc.

In short, the motivation for the two of you behaving similarly on the surface – expecting from each other a certain kind of dedication and special treatment – might be different for each of you. For him it might be his narcissism, and for you is that you have feelings for him, you’ve fallen for him.

He also admitted than he has 2 or 3 other friends with whom he regularly fights, one of them being a girl, his childhood friend. He says those are minor issues, but at the same time she asked him not to talk about it with anyone. Which tells me that those might not be minor issues, after all. He might have some flirting going on with her too.

He claims that he had too big expectations from you only once (was it when he got mad that you didn’t come on meet, btw?). And he says he didn’t feel you had too big expectations from him, except in a few occasions when he got annoyed (perhaps one being when you accused him of not letting you know that he’d be sleeping all day?).

You asked him about your intense two-month period:

Tell me just one last thing X, during these entire two month period, how much do you feel was ur fault for me ending up feeling this was ?

You again didn’t mention the real problem – his sexting, calling you bae, etc – but kept it vague. He responded by listing just one event where he sees how he possibly might have upset you, but other than that, nothing:

he legit said, just one event and apart from that whatever I did to you I did it because you were my good friend and I guess its just you who thought abt everything to this extent.

I was breaking by then, it was just so sad , realising, how much I want to be around him as a friend, but I don’t know if he deserves this friendship or should I actually let this go, and just get back to being friends( but this time with boundaries)

Since he pretended to be clueless till the end, I don’t know how he would have reacted if you gave him concrete examples of how he was crossing your boundaries. But in any case, this is what’s coming to me: Do you really want to be around a guy who sexts with you, calls you his bae, speaks so highly of you, opens up emotionally to you, behaves like a possessive boyfriend, and then says it means nothing to him and that’s how he treats all of his “best female friends”? Because now suddenly he called you his best friend, right next to his ex girlfriend who was his “best friend ever”.

He has been very particular abt to whom he refers as best friend.

So you should be “honored” to be put so high on his friends list, in fact to be put among his very few best friends, whose boundaries he can cross left and right and sext according to his liking, while acting clueless that he’s doing anything wrong. This is probably his idea of best friend – to tolerate this kind of narcissistic behavior.

I really don’t know if you should spell out the concrete examples of his misbehavior, and explain that it’s not how one should treat their best friend unless they’re interested in them romantically. It would only make sense if he were clueless about what he was doing, to sort of educate him and open his eyes. But I am not so sure he’s clueless, because you said he can very well see this kind of behavior in other guys. If so, it means he is deceptive and manipulative. And in that case, the best is to cut contact with him, and not allow him to mislead you again.

Dear lk09,

I am sorry that your friend’s father is in hospital fighting covid – I hope he’ll make it and fully recover!

Regarding your previous ex:

I always felt I was taking care of him. And within a year and a half, I wanted the relationship to end but he was already struggling so much in his life that I did not want to make life more difficult for him.

So what you’re saying is that you sacrificed yourself for him, because you didn’t want to leave him to struggle with his own problems. You thought you should help him. You have put him – the person who selfishly leaves you in the middle of the night on a deserted street – before your own well-being and your own interest. This is how you were conditioned in your family – to sacrifice yourself for your sister, to never fight back if she would strike you, to accept her abuse… Perhaps he even reminded you of her a little, with his anger and hot temper. With time, you realized he’s beneath you and you don’t want to be with such a crude person any more.

You then looked for someone more sensible and calm – the opposite of your sister – and that was your recent ex. With him, you didn’t feel weak, like a puppy, and at the mercy of his anger. You felt strong and confident, you were his superwoman. Now you were at least saving someone deserving to be saved – this gentle, sensitive guy who was so opposite of your sister. Do you think there might be a connection there? It never occurred to me before, but I guess it’s possible…

I just know that there was an emotion(Perhaps still is hidden within) too strong which neither of us could understand. I am saying this because we often discussed this that why do we still care for one another? … I was thinking to myself that why am I in this situation and why do I keep feeling for him when I haven’t even spent a month with him together.

I believe it was because of the dream of “what could be” that you were holding on to him. He was perfect for you from several aspects. One of his features you liked was his calm, sensible demeanor – possibly guaranteeing that he’d be different from your sister and that life with him would be peaceful and pleasant. And that you would be his No1 – something that you’ve never experienced in your childhood home. So he had a lot of potential, a lot of promise. There was a chance that your dream would come true… I think that’s the reason you were holding on to him.

Dear Pavel,

His brother died because of injecting metamphetamine, cancer and AIDS. He sees his brother in me. He was also bisexual.

My brother only used me as a sexual toy when I was a kid and he is definitely not straight, as I can say because I grew up with him and straight boy wouldn’t do what he did to me. So, he is probably pansexual.

We saw our brothers in each other. Drugs only made it more emotional. Brighter.

It appears you bonded over a similar life story, and a similar or related trauma, I dare say. You were sexually abused as a boy by your own brother, and Lukas’s brother died of drug abuse, cancer and AIDS. You see in him not just “a brother”, someone on a similar path as you, but you see your own brother, the person who abused you.

That’s why there was a strong sense of “recognition” and attraction towards him – because every abused child is seeking some closure to their trauma, and we’re often attracted to people who remind us of our abusers. We hope that this time round we can have a different experience with this person who abused and hurt us, but whom we also strangely love (because they are our family). Since Lukas reminds you of your brother, it’s possible that you saw the opportunity to finally solve that childhood trauma, to give it a different ending.

But the truth is that getting involved in a relationship with people who remind us of our abusers is only going to re-traumatize us, and hurt us more. The only way we can break free from trauma is therapy, to work with a professional who’ll help us properly go through all phases of grief and pain and come on the other side. Have you worked on your sexual abuse trauma in therapy already?

Dear lk09,

it’s a good strategy to focus on the things you enjoy and to “pamper”yourself, give yourself the best care and nurturance, and also new experiences.

Are you in touch with your girlfriend who offered to be your support buddy?

It’s only normal you’re thinking about him sometimes, but when he does pop in your mind, don’t just think of the (rare) good times when you felt close, don’t think at the beginning of your relationship when things were good, but think about the entire 2.5 years and the times he rejected you, told you he needs a break, is interested in other women and can’t be with you. Try not to remember him with those rose-colored glasses on, but take them off.  See the reality of it, see that a lot of that relationship was suffering for you.

You wanted to be his No1, and you got that place only in the beginning perhaps, but he immediately started asking for breaks, questioning your relationship because of your sister’s disapproval, and later drinking and watching online porn, telling you he wants to explore other women. This isn’t how someone who loves you and values you behaves.

What you’re missing is a dream of a perfect relationship that in reality you never had with him, or perhaps there were occasional glimpses but they would go away the very next day. The dream never lasted, but you kept chasing it.

If you want to move on, see things as they are, and also that the dream of someone healing your internal craving – is an impossible  dream. Only you can heal your craving, only you can give that inner child what she really needs.

Speaking of pictures, perhaps you can put up a picture of yourself as a child, to remind you of the person who now needs your attention and appreciation and love the most…

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Tee.