Dear Paradoxy,

No, he means emotional consoling. That I should be there for her to help her heal and it was not her fault and etc.

Hmmm I am very skeptical that she actually confided in this guy about her prostitution. Why would she do that? I doubt he is like a father figure to her. And as I said, the whole story is very suspicious – that he is married, sick with cancer, but still decided to travel overseas (alone) and have fun at pool parties. All of that sounds bogus to me. Specially the part where he is “consoling” her.

I think she said that only to make you feel guilty. Like he is so much more compassionate than you, who is judging her and “crucifying” her. I can totally see it as another guilt-tripping narrative, a story that is completely made up.

whatever he said to her, convinced her that I was cheating and lying to her the whole time. But when I asked him, he said that she misunderstood him and he didn’t lie.

I saw her rant about me to her friend and she painted me as the villain by omitting details and the friend kept supporting her, saying that I am not worth it and etc.

It’s easy for her to paint you as the villain – she simply omits important details, adds a few invented ones, and voila – here is her version of reality, in which you are the villain. I can totally see how she did the same after talking to your guy friend. He most probably didn’t say anything bad about you, but she twisted it and concluded that indeed, you are cheating on her.

I can even imagine a scenario where she doesn’t necessarily believe that you are cheating on her, but she pretends that she does, so she can torture you and falsely accuse you. I can’t tell, but I am starting to wonder if she actually enjoys to torture you, to tell you the things she knows will disturb you?

No he got married prior to his diagnosis I think but he essentially got married when he was ready to settle down with one woman, after he had enjoyed his youth to the peak with multiple other women.

So why wasn’t his wife with him, if he is severely ill and possibly going to die? You don’t go on an overseas trip alone, without your loved ones, specially if this might be your last big journey. It just doesn’t add up, Paradoxy.

Can I really blame her for not giving me the laptop cause she needs it for work and doesn’t have enough money yet to buy a new laptop?

No, but it’s not your duty to provide it for her. In fact, she can ask her old rich guy friend to give her money for a laptop, if he is already so “supportive.” I’d actually suggest it to her, and see how she reacts…

And I know I can use it, but I really don’t want cops to be involved in relationship crisis like this. It would raise unnecessary attention and I prefer to be invisible. But I did tell her that I would be forced to call the authorities on her, but she knows I wouldn’t cause I am not that kind of person.

I understand you don’t want to escalate things. But it’s good that you told her. Actually, you could give her a deadline by which time you expect her to give the laptop back, and if she doesn’t, you can say you’ll be forced to contact the authorities. And that you mean it seriously (even if you’re bluffing).

More like traitor. This is not the first time he fueled her fire with more misunderstandings so I am not amazed, cause last time she messaged him with her suspicion that I was cheating when in fact I was actually sleeping, and he agreed with her that I could be cheating, despite being fully aware that I am not the type of person to be cheating or anything

Was that when she broke up with you because she couldn’t reach you on the phone? Did he explain why he told her you might be cheating? Maybe he doesn’t like her, and that’s why he said something he knew will piss her off?

Yes I told him, but B is telling me that it was not in my right for me to share what happened to her, but she doesn’t realize that the trauma may be her experience, but her decisions as a result of the trauma became the root causes of my pain and suffering, therefore making it my right to share the cause of my pain and suffering.

Well, yes, it’s kind of intimate, so I understand why she was upset. But I also understand that you needed someone to talk to and “decompress”. But okay, perhaps he didn’t have to tell her that he knows.

It seems to me he really dislikes her (can’t blame him) and I guess he gets upset with her, and then tells her even the things that are better not to share. Specially since she is such a person who will later torture you for any of your friend’s slip ups.

He betrayed me by doing exactly what I told him not to do. He could have at least respected my wishes. But I think I still forgive him tho. But I don’t see him the same way as before anymore.

Yes, do forgive him, because I think he doesn’t have bad intentions. However, tell him that she will use every information he gives her against you, and that’s why it’s better not to share anything with her. Because she will use it against you. So he would need to stop communicating with her, specially as a mediator between you two.

And he would also need to stop “defending” you by being mean to her (if that’s what he’s been doing), because that will only infuriate her more. It is your task to deal with her, and he shouldn’t intervene.

So yeah, I think you and your guy friend should conspire a little and be strategic, because you are dealing with a serious enemy. So no information leakage should be allowed from him to her. Although she has already stolen the chat between you two, which I can imagine is a great resource for her to keep torturing you on various accounts :\

Let me repeat this, IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO HELP, THEN DON’T HELP. It is better than taking the risk of making things worse I swear.

Yes, in this case I agree. If he wants to help, but gives away information about you that she can later use against you, that’s counter-productive. However, she also invents things out of thin air – things that are completely untrue – so she doesn’t even need your friend’s slip ups. She knows how to torture you anyway. But yes, it’s better to protect yourself as much as possible by giving away as little information as possible.

Don’t I have a right to my wishes? I already told her that I wouldn’t commit suicide. I was just extremely depressed and I just wanted to die, I never said I would actually do it. Shouldn’t she be respecting my wishes? Don’t you think it is wrong for someone to pretend to be your friend and let you feel comfortable enough to open up and then instead of respecting your wishes, they think it is in their purview to do what they think is right for you?

Did you know that therapists for example are legally obliged to inform the authorities if someone is seriously considering suicide (or homicide)? In every other case the therapist must respect the client’s confidentiality, but not if there are serious indications that they might harm themselves or someone else.

That’s because protecting the person’s life is more important than betraying their trust. In your case, your friend was worried about you and it would have been too much for her to keep this type of secret. As I said, even a therapist is obliged not to keep that kind of secret.

It is people like that who make situations worse than it actually is, because they try to help and they don’t know how so they go about it the wrong way. In the end what happened? All she did was drive me further into depression, further into suicide.

Yes, I understand what you’re saying. Because you had to deal with your parents’ wrath afterwards – with their totally inappropriate and abusive reaction. And you were left at their mercy – you had nowhere to go.

It’s a big mistake that no one e.g. ordered that you should visit a psychologist. That the “ball” was returned back to your parents, who were actually your abusers.

So I understand why you are so upset about people trying to help, but not taking into account the consequences it may have on you.

But also please be aware of who the enemy No1 is: the abuser. Your parents back then. And B now. They are the ones you really need to free yourself from, on the long run. You need to free yourself from their toxic influence, from their grip on you.

On the short run, you should of course try to mitigate the impact the abuser has on you (even if it means playing along, pretending to be kind until you e.g. get your laptop back). However, on the long run you shouldn’t be their easy prey. You shouldn’t be in agony about their false accusations. You shouldn’t believe them when they tell you you are a bad person.

So the goal would be to liberate yourself from their influence. And for that, you need healing.

Lol you sound like you are saying that I am the problem only 99% of the time but there is the remaining 1% where I am not the problem.

Haha true 🙂 But I said it because you had the feeling that ALL of your interactions are a failure and that you inevitably hurt people (or at least people you care about). So I gave you my honest feedback that in this particular interaction, with Anita, I don’t believe you said hurtful things. So that’s at least one example where your false belief is not true.

But I understand what you are saying. I will work on changing my core beliefs, but it is difficult when the way others behave towards me strengthens my core beliefs. But thank you for your help.

You are welcome. The thing is that having this false core belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy: because you will be attracted to people who have no empathy and understanding for you (people similar to your parents) and you’ll be trying to prove to them that you are lovable.

That’s what you’ve been doing with B. She is a bully, like your parents, and that’s why you were so eager to prove it to her that you are a good person. A person worthy of love.

You stopped wanting to prove it to your parents, but you needed her to believe it, to confirm it to you, because that’s what we do in romantic relationships (before we heal): we are trying to get what we haven’t received from our parents, in our childhood.

You actually expressed it perfectly here:

She is the only person that I wanted to correct. The only person I wanted to understand. I don’t care about anyone else, my parents, family, friend etc. SHE IS THE ONLY PERSON WHO I WANTED TO UNDERSTAND HER MISTAKES SO SHE CAN CORRECT THEM BECAUSE I WANTED TO LOVE HER WITHOUT HER CAUSING ME MORE PAIN.

See? You didn’t care about proving that you are lovable to your parents. Instead, you transferred all that longing – that super strong need – on her. That’s your unmet childhood need right here: to be seen as a good person, worthy of love.

But she never met that need of yours, she never acknowledged that you are a good person. On the contrary, she kept falsely accusing you and guilt tripping you, just like your parents did. She was deepening your core wound, instead of healing it.

she keeps hitting my ego when she keeps making false accusations which then gives me the urge to fight her and prove to her how wrong she is.

She actually keeps hurting your inner child. She keeps telling you that you are bad and unlovable. And then your ego, which is trying to protect your inner child, is fighting back. But no matter what you say, she will never admit that you are indeed a good person. And so, your inner child never gets that need met. You remain the bad guy in her eyes.

And so your inner child – who is looking to her and only her to heal him – gets stranded again. Get stabbed once again. Sinking deeper and deeper into depression.

Your ego is doing you a disservice here. Because you are looking to get what you need from her. And she – being the person that she is – is never going to give it to you.

So you’d need to stop wanting it from her. You would need to give it to yourself: your adult self to your inner child.

Therapy can be a great help in that process – to strengthen your capacity to love yourself.

Dear Paradoxy,

She comes to me whenever her work is over to rant about how her day went and etc and she likes talking about her problems to me but it is just comfort through texting, nothing more.

So sometimes she just complains about her stuff and you are her shoulder to cry on, but sometimes she steals private conversations from your phone and accuses you of your supposed “crimes” against her? So you are there to comfort her and have a nice word for her (i.e. be kind and supportive to her), but also to listen and agonize about her false accusations of you.

How perfect for her – you indeed giving your all, and she taking it all and accusing you that it’s not enough, that you are a bad person, with bad intentions, that you stopped loving her way earlier etc etc.

See? You are never enough, never worthy of her respect, no matter what you do.

But also, I would be careful of whatever she tells you about her problems at work and her supposed difficulties, because she has a habit of lying. I wouldn’t trust anything she says.

Just an example: She told you that her rich old guy friend, who visited from Spain, has pancreatic cancer (or some other deadly disease) and is close to his death:

she had already informed me about being invited by her girlfriends to go the concert and the guy friend was visiting from Spain after several years and it was the first time in a while he came to visit.

these men are like 60 or 70 years old, even her guy friend is married and close to his death (I think he has pancreatic cancer but I don’t remember exactly).

Well, someone with pancreatic cancer or any life threatening condition wouldn’t be able to travel from Spain to the Caribbeans to have fun at a pool party. Pancreatic cancer is the worst type, in the sense that it’s usually diagnosed when it’s already too late, and it takes the person away in a matter of months. So no way that he would be able to make such a trip.

Even if it’s not a pancreatic cancer but another life threatening disease, you don’t travel across the world, specially not without your loved ones (she said the guy is married). People with cancer do tend to travel with their loved ones to make memories, while they still can (before the disease has spread), but it’s always with their loved ones, not to have fun as a bachelor, with their male buddies. And it’s always to destinations closer to home, where they can access hospital if necessary, not across the Atlantic.

So, on both of those accounts, B’s story is a total fake. No way a terminally ill guy, who is married, would travel across the Atlantic to have a private party at the pool with his male friend and young local girls.

So… why would she be honest about anything else? Why would you believe any of her supposed “hardships” at work, with bad employers who want to take advantage of her, etc etc? It can all be fabricated. Perhaps not all, but you cannot tell for sure. Would a snake tell the truth?

Just that fact (her tendency to lie and fabricate things) would be a reason for me not to listen to anything she says, not to try to comfort her, not to try to help her. You were trying till now, but now it’s time to stop. Now your goal is to be strategic and get your laptop back, without engaging with her too much emotionally.

I am planning to cut my ties to her as soon as I get my stuff back, but she keeps bringing up excuses and asking for more time. She doesn’t have enough money to get a new laptop for her work so she can’t give me back my laptop and I will get in trouble if I don’t get the laptop back so I can’t just let her have it for free.

Yes, and that’s typical of her. More lies and excuses. She probably isn’t even planning to give you back your laptop. I wouldn’t be surprised if she came up with some lie about what happened to it, e.g. that it got stolen or something. Sorry, but I wouldn’t trust her one single thing.

She doesn’t have enough money to get a new laptop for her work

Why doesn’t her employer provide her with a laptop? It’s certainly not your duty. What is for sure is that you don’t need to stand by and tolerate her emotional abuse and false accusations, while at the same time being her shoulder to cry on and allowing that she is not returning your belongings and is finding excuses to drag the entire thing.

my stupid self does not like being cold to people in general. I am always kind and that kindness is my weakness here. I am being kind cause I don’t want the guilt to be nagging at me later on. It is like a pain for me cause I could walk by a beggar on the street and if he begs me for money and I say no, I end up constantly thinking about what the beggar said and wondering why I said no and also wondering if I should go back and give him some money.

This tells me that you don’t have any boundaries. Your parents never allowed you to have a will of your own, you had to do what you were told, no questions asked. You were not allowed to say No, to reject what you don’t like, and to go for what you do like. A simple example: you were forced to sit with adults and listen to their discussions, when you wanted to go out and play, like every other kid.

You were also taught that saying No means that you are a bad and selfish person. If you don’t comply with your parents’ wishes, you are a bad and selfish person. And so whenever you feel like saying No, you feel guilty about it.

That’s why, if a snake accuses you (falsely) of being a bad and selfish person, you believe her. And you try to be kind to her. Instead of protecting yourself from further abuse.

How do you even give yourself empathy? I will try to heal from all of this, but I think I need to change myself as a person overall.

It just occurred to me: having boundaries is a key aspect of self-love. Saying No to abuse, to people who are falsely accusing you, lying to you, manipulating you, and then have the audacity to seek your help and support. To people who are taking advantage of you. To people who are telling you you are selfish for not tolerating their abuse and their stepping on your head.

That would be the first. According to some therapists, we have three main needs in childhood: love, safety and boundaries. And you definitely weren’t allowed to have boundaries. None whatsoever. If you want to heal, you need to start setting boundaries, specially with people who want to hurt you.

A beggar, who asks you for a dime, might not want to hurt you. But B certainly does. So you might want to give a dime to a beggar, but please stop giving your all to B.

If you can’t get back your laptop for the time being, at least don’t allow her to bleed you out emotionally. Don’t try to comfort her when she comes with self-pity and fabricated problems. Even if you don’t block her phone, don’t engage, or be very curt, e.g. say “Ugh that’s tough.” And that’s it.

Whatever you do, don’t engage emotionally, don’t rush to offer help, even if she tries to guilt-trip you into helping her. Because it’s all a scam. Politely refuse, even if you have to say a white lie. E.g.”sorry I am really busy, don’t have time to talk”.

How does this sound? Is it too much? How do you feel about starting to set boundaries with her?

Dear Paradoxy,

I know that I am behaving like I don’t learn from my mistakes Tee please forgive me.

I am sorry you are suffering so much, and I am not judging you at all. I know how it is to do things that are self-destructive, or against our best interests, but to keep doing them still, to not be able to stop. It’s like an addiction, it’s stronger than us.

The thing is I know better but I have a lot of pride and I can’t seem to let go of it. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of believing that she was right all along.

It is like the saying “Imagine being bitten by a snake and instead of trying to help yourself heal and recover from the poison, you’re trying to catch the snake to find out the reason it bit you and prove to it that you didn’t deserve that.” I can’t seem to be able to get myself out of that mindset.

Okay, so you are aware that she is like a snake, but you still have the urge to prove it to her that you didn’t deserve to be bitten – that you are a good person, right?

Because she is portraying you as a bad person, as an abuser, and you want to prove it to her that she is wrong. So I guess you want to prove it to her that you are a good, loving person. That your intentions are pure, right?

EVEN IF I WAS LYING, THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE MY INTENTIONS. That is what I hate the most.

Okay, so you want to prove it – to her – that your intentions are pure. I see a theme, the main striving of yours: to prove that you are a good person and that your intentions are pure. Would that be true?

Even though she is so wrong, she hit my ego really really hard and I don’t like it. She has successfully hit me where I am most vulnerable.

But she is hitting me hard where it hurts the most and idk how to deal with it. The way she describes everything just makes me question my reality and doubt everything I have done and it is driving me further into depression cause everything I did and trying to do seems pointless.

It seems to me that the place you are most vulnerable is believing (at least a part of you believes it) that you are bad. That you are an abuser. That you cause other people pain. And that’s exactly one of your false core beliefs, which we’ve identified before: “I am the source of pain for others.”

So the dynamic is: one part of you (your inner child) believes he is a source of pain for others. And he is trying to prove that he isn’t. He is trying to prove that he is a good, loving boy, with pure intentions, and that he doesn’t want to hurt anybody.

The problem is that he is trying to prove that to people who lack empathy and understanding. People who are unable to understand. People who refuse to listen. People who are accusing him, instead of seeing how hurtful their behavior is.

And who are these people? B. And your parents.

So that’s what you are dealing with, Paradoxy. A childhood wound that you are trying to heal with the wrong means.

As you said, you have been wounded (by a snake), and instead of tending to the wound, you are trying to catch the snake and prove it to her that you didn’t deserve to be bitten. That you are a good guy, with pure intentions, who doesn’t want to cause her pain.

Does the snake listen, is she trying to understand? No, she bites you once again… and again… finding more and more “proofs” how bad and insincere you are.

And so, by engaging with the snake, your inner child gets wounded more and more. With each interaction, he gets a confirmation of his false belief: that he causes pain to others.

That’s why this is happening:

The way she describes everything just makes me question my reality and doubt everything I have done and it is driving me further into depression cause everything I did and trying to do seems pointless.

Exactly. Because in the interaction with the snake, the wound of your inner child gets deeper. And it causes you to feel even more helpless and depressed.

So what’s the way out? You need to tend to the wound of your inner child, properly. Which means: you need to stop interacting with the snake. Stop wanting any kind of validation from her. Get away from her. There is nothing she can give you except injuring you even more.

Can you see that?

And then you need to start healing your inner child. Which means: start loving yourself. Start having empathy and compassion for yourself – something that neither your parents or B had.

You need to give yourself empathy, rather than seek empathy from people who are unable to give it.

How does this sound?

Dear Paradoxy,

I’d like to comment on some of your thoughts, because it seems you believe that your lying and deception about her ex is the same as you lying about having received a message from you high school crush.

She is referring to my high school crush incident that I shared with you which unfortunately looks like I lied, from her perspective.

Let’s see: you received a message from your high school crush and family friend (a girl named Pryanka, right?), practically flirting with you because she asked you if you cook, and when you said only pasta and noodles, she said you should cook for her some day. You declined the offer and deleted the entire conversation because you didn’t want to be unfaithful to B:

one of my crushes from high school (who is a family friend so we still talk) asked me about how college life was and whether I cook and stuff and I told her that I cook simple meals like pasta and noodles and she told me that I should cook for her one day. I obviously declined that offer. B saw those messages and couple days later asked me about what I would do if a female asked me to cook for her. And my stupid self completely forgot about the conversation with the girl as I had decided to keep her out of my life by deleting everything related to her (including that conversation).

So by deleting that conversation, your intention was to remove even the slightest possibility that you would get tempted by this girl. Your intention was to be 100% faithful to B, with no distractions and no temptations. You lied to B about it because you didn’t even want to make it a topic of discussion, since you in your mind and heart were resolute not to engage in it and to nip in the bud. Would you agree with that?

B on the other hand lied to you about being in a situation where cheating with her ex was highly likely, because they both had feelings for each other, and they were living under the same roof. So her lying was to hide the ongoing cheating, or a possibility for cheating – her lying was to hide a potential foul play. Whereas your lying was to not even start the entire topic, because it was a non-issue for you, and you didn’t have the slightest intention to cheat.

Can you see the difference in those two cases of lying? She lied with the intention to hide a potential foul play, while you lied because you wanted to spare her of jealousy and worry, since you knew that there would have been no basis for her jealousy and worry (because you were 100% faithful). And perhaps you lied also to spare yourself of her false accusations.

So those were two totally different categories of lying, with a different intent.

But she made them equal. She equated her foul intention (to possibly cheat) with your pure intention (not to upset her about something that is a non-issue).

There was another situation, where she too unfairly accused you of lying and possibly cheating, just because you confided in your close friend about fighting with her:

She had told me not to tell my only other close friend that we broke up, but in a weak emotional moment, I told him that we were fighting. She found out and she told me that I lied to her and made her look like a fool. She also said that if I am able to hide her from my parents for two years, then I can also hide a “bitch” from her too (implying that I would cheat).

This is another such outrageous twisting of the truth, where she equated your inability to hide the truth from your friend with deceptive lying (which she was a master of). And then she had the audacity to further escalate it and accuse you of potential cheating as well.

You see? She equated your inability to hide the truth with her lying and twisting of the truth – as if those were the same categories.

Where they are completely opposite. In fact, according to the Bible (and common ethics), the former is not a sin, whereas the latter is a sin.

She was equating your non-sinful lying (which would be equal to saying a white lie) with her sinful, deceptive lying. And then saying “we both lied”, “we are equal”. Whereas this cannot be further from the truth.

Dear Paradoxy,

I’d like to comment on something else she said in her letter:

You don’t tell me I’m beautiful, but you will let a stranger on the internet know that. You don’t make me feel wanted. … You may have been my boyfriend, but there were certain areas of me that needed you, and you ignored those.

It seems like she didn’t feel wanted by you, while she has the need to feel wanted. So she fulfilled that need by being in the company of men who desired her, who lusted after her. Right there she admitted what I told you earlier in my analysis.

So she wanted to be desired by you. But you said you didn’t want to have sex with her after you found out that she prostituted herself. Around that same time you also found out that the guy in the half-naked photo was her ex, who was living as her housemate.

After she dropped those two “bombshell” news on you, no wonder you didn’t want to have sex with her anymore:

But ever since finding out what happened, the pain and sorrow never left me. The inner turmoil I felt was eating me up from the inside. I no longer wanted to have sex with her. I feel disgusted. I hated myself. I hated the pain. I wish I could just die. Though we continued to date, nothing was ever normal again despite trying my best to.

Your reaction was normal. How can you appreciate and be intimate with a woman who sold herself for money, and who was lying to you about her involvement with her ex. You cannot. But she was blaming you for that – as if you suddenly and for no reason at all stopped desiring her. She saw herself as the victim, completely disregarding the causes of you turning cold towards her.

I just wanted to mention this, because I think it showcases how she was blaming you for your reactions, without acknowledging her own actions – her own bad behavior, which led you to react the way you did.

But it is extremely difficult for me to knock some sense into her, as she does not have the patience to listen and arguing with her is a waste of my energy.

A person who doesn’t want to admit their own mistakes and be accountable for their actions behaves like she does. You can’t reach them. And they turn everything around: they blame you for being upset about their bad behavior. That’s what she has been doing to you.

Why does it seem like she is not even aware though? Like even in the long message she sent, she appears to not even be aware that she is the one acting like a victim and blaming me.

She doesn’t want to be aware. There are people who always blame others and never take responsibility for their own actions. She seems to be one of them.

There is no point in arguing with such people. The only way is to let them go.

In some languages, there is a saying “The smarter one gives up first” (as in, gives up fighting, gives up arguing). That’s what you should do with her – give up trying to make her understand. Give up arguing. Let her go.

And refrain from replying to her letter, because it will be futile, and you’ll risk getting entangled in another round of pointless, exhausting arguments (that are aimed at blaming you and portraying you as the bad guy).

Dear Dafne,

If I was sad, I had to get over it & stop being so sensitive about it. My only coping mechanism was to shut down & find solace in my solitude.

I am sorry, Dafne, it is very hard when you have no one to confide in, no one to understand how you are feeling.

I stayed for too long. I felt frozen. I felt that there was no way out & that there is nothing better out there in this scarry world. And fear was my only companion.

You concluded those things based on your childhood experience: an abusive and neglectful father, and a mother who is pushing you to love him. No wonder world seemed like a scary place, because you didn’t have anyone to protect you and to understand you. You were lacking a basic sense of safety, which is one of our existential needs. Perhaps you didn’t lack physical safety as much as emotional  safety – to have someone to understand you and empathize with you and validate your feelings.

The same old fear comes back to me when I think that I ruined my chances with the man I’ve met at the church outing.

This fear would then be the fear of staying alone and left to struggle with your emotions alone, never be seen for who you are as a person, never be soothed that things will be okay and that someone has your back. It seems like both the need for physical and emotional safety, right? Which you are looking for in a man, in a romantic partner.

Those are all our basic childhood needs, which if we don’t have met, do cause us a great deal of fear and anxiety in our adult life. We believe we need a partner to meet those needs, when in fact we need ourselves and a good therapist to help us along the way.

Somehow I still keep thinking of what did go wrong and if not contacting him first, contributed to his decision?

You actually did contact him and sent him a video, if I remember well, but he never responded to that. So it wasn’t the lack of your initiative that made him pull away, but probably he wasn’t “feeling it” with you, which he felt with that other woman. It’s not about you not doing enough, you can be sure about that.

But I understand how the fear of staying alone is making you believe that you didn’t do enough, that if only you had written a few more messages, he would have shown interest in you. That’s not true – it’s your fear speaking. Fear of staying alone and not having those basic needs met.

Yes, Tee, most of my relatives passed away, and unfortunately, there is no one now to really listen.

This holiday felt quite lonely. I’m still taking care of my elderly and feel guilty leaving them. Talking to my mother seems pointless at this stage. It always ends up in some kind of argument and pointing all my past mistakes. I also realised that she feels quite comfortable with my current situation.

I am sorry, Dafne, that none of your living relatives can really understand and support you. I am not surprised your mother is unable to do that. She is in fact invalidating your feelings and forcing you to go against them – forcing you to be kind to your mean father. So don’t even aspect any kind of empathy from her.

And yeah, I can imagine it suits her to have you stay single and take care of her (if that’s what you are doing for her?). And who are the other elderly, that you need to take care of, if I may ask?

So it looks like I am on a good path to healing, I am aware and I know that I need to work on my self worth more. But at the same time I feel stuck again and can’t find an exit.

It’s great that you are aware that you need to work on your self-esteem. But what is also important is to be aware of those basic childhood emotional needs (the need to be seen, appreciated, your emotions validated, also the need to be seen as special and important), that you need to meet, at least to a certain extent, before you can actually have a healthy relationship.

Basically, you would need to meet the needs of your inner child. Perhaps till now, you have been identifying with your inner child – the part of you which is scared, feels helpless and needs others to save her. And you were looking for a partner, who would fulfill the role of the loving, caring parent – whom you didn’t have as a child.

But now, the goal would be to stop identifying with the inner child, but to strengthen the adult part of you, who isn’t so helpless but can actually do something to help yourself. The more you feel capable of changing your life, the more chance you have to be happy and even find a healthy partner in the future.

But the focus right now should not be on finding a partner, but on strengthening your adult self and soothing your inner child. In other words, on meeting some of your basic needs.

For example, if you feel that you are stuck in the caretaker role for others ( I’m still taking care of my elderly and feel guilty leaving them.), and that you are neglecting your own needs, the goal would be to start paying more attention to your own needs and reject some of those requests if they take a toll on you.

The goal would be to learn how to set boundaries and say “I can do this for you, but I won’t be able to do that.” Basically, learning to set boundaries, the same as you are learning in the relationship with your father.

Setting boundaries and respecting your own needs (both physical and emotional) is a way to become more anchored in the adult self, and less in the helpless child self.

So I would suggest learning about childhood emotional needs, and then trying to meet those needs, either by yourself, or with a help of a therapist. I can provide you with some resources (youtube videos and such) if you’d like to start learning about childhood emotional needs and how to meet them.

Dear Dafne, you have the capacity to help yourself, please know that. Start small, with tiny steps, and you won’t feel so paralyzed any more. It’s great that you are helping in the animal shelter – but that’s again helping others, focusing on others and their needs.

I think it would be super important to start focusing more on your own needs (e.g. to simply become more aware of them throughout the day) and how you can actually meet them – be it by simply taking a nice bath, or going for a refreshing walk, or doing something else that fills you with energy and inspiration.

Thank you for your kind words, and your empathy and encouragement on my healing journey. I wish you healing too, and want to ensure you that healing is indeed possible! <3

Dear Paradoxy,

She apologized for saying that it was not my business to know about what happened in January but she could still be manipulating the truth.

It was also very recently that she was still claiming that you didn’t need to know about it, because you were not together in that week:

We are already broken up, but we still kept in contact since she owes me a lot of stuff but she cut out the last part of me that cared for her when she told me that what happened to her in January was none of my business because it happened right after our break up and that she shouldn’t have even told me because we were not dating when it happened

So I wouldn’t trust any of her apologies. Because it seems that’s her modus operandi: first she tries to find an excuse, then she blames you, and then if you’re still insisting that what she did was wrong, only then does she apologize. Her goal is take the responsibility off of herself, at all costs. No matter what she does, she isn’t to blame. Everybody else is, including you, but not her.

In her letter, her 3rd sentence is already a lie and twisting of truth:

The fights and lies were a lot to deal with for both of us.

She doesn’t say “I lied to you”, but she makes it seem as if you both lied to each other. Which isn’t true because she was lying and hiding the truth about her ex. You did nothing of the kind. She was lying to you, but she makes it seem as if you both lied.

because I was your first relationship, you had expectations, and when those weren’t met, I was crucified but made excuses for it at the same time.

She blames you for having expectations, and says that you had those expectations only because it was your first relationship. As if having expectations is wrong. Well, your expectation that your partner shouldn’t lie, hide the truth from you, or deceive you are totally legitimate expectations. But she feels “crucified” for not having met those basic expectations.

She was shamelessly lying to you, and when found out, she feels “crucified”. That’s victim blaming. She blames you for calling you out on her dishonesty and deceitfulness. She presents herself as the victim, as the “crucified one”. Whereas you – the real victim of her lying – she views as the perpetrator. She is not only twisting the truth with this one, but turning it upside down!

Because I know I am being held to a certain standard, I have always told you that I felt like you were pure, and I didn’t like that I had sex with you.

As if the biggest problem is that she had sex with you. A much bigger problem is that she had sex with other people, while being in and out of the relationship with you.

I felt terrible because I knew that I had so many things to deal with that I could never tell you.

Well,  she did tell you (very early in your relationship) about her aunt’s plan for prostitution.

Though I was your girlfriend, it felt like I was your protector,

Protecting you by hiding crucial information from you, such as that her ex (whom she still had feelings for) is her housemate? How “thoughtful” of her…

You think I didn’t wish I could just run to you and lay everything at your feet? You think I didn’t want to just tell you everything and know that I was safe and secure? You don’t think I would love the feeling of me feeling like I don’t have to worry because my man got me?

If you were “her man”, why was she secretly living with her ex?

Godwin, you had broken up with me while I was going through the inhumane things I was experiencing, and then the things your parents said about me that had you upset and coming to me, which then turned into a fight later, made me feel like I really needed to handle things on my own. I did not feel safe telling you any of that.

Your parents labeled me as a gold digger, a girl trying to secure her future by dating you; they said I was taking advantage of you; I would cheat on you, etc., all because I am black and from the west.

I had already never felt safe. I love you, and I felt like over time we would reach that level of security in our relationship, but I was not feeling it, and with the fight and what your parents said added on top of it, I decided to deal with it on my own.

Let’s see: she was hurt by your insensitive question (whether she was a gold-digger) and by your parents’ (alleged) racist comments, where they warned you that she would cheat on you and that she is a gold-digger, only because of her skin color? (is this true btw?).

She felt they labelled her unjustly. She presumably felt alone and abandoned by everyone, and then…. she decided to deal with it on her own? So her way of dealing with an offer for prostitution is to accept it?

And then to blame you (and your parents) for “forcing” her into it?

See how insidious it is? She is again playing the victim: this time she is the victim of your “racist” parents (and of you, who is upholding their beliefs), and she had “no choice” but to accept the offer for prostitution. But why? That’s a very twisted logic. Actually I think I know why she accepted it, but it has nothing to do with you or your parents offending her. You are not to blame. But she is still blaming you.

Even though in the very next sentence she says she is not blaming you:

I do not blame you or anyone else for anything. I was a grown 21-year-old who was dumb in my ways. I take responsibility for my actions.

Yeah right. The whole previous paragraph was about blaming you and your parents for her prostitution.

Okay, I’ll stop here because it’s hard to read all those lies and manipulations. I might continue analyzing her letter later.

B keeps saying that she is not trying to justify her actions. She says that she is only explaining how she felt.

But you see that she IS trying to justify her actions and blame you in process, don’t you?

But reading her messages make me feel like maybe she is right, maybe I am the problem overall. Maybe women are just better off without me.

No, she is manipulating you because she doesn’t want to take responsibility for her actions, even if she claims she does. She is still blaming you, while claiming she is not. Pretty insidious!

I understand my mistakes and I want to correct them.

Good to hear that. But you shouldn’t take advice from her on what to change, because she is a very manipulative and abusive person. Please don’t believe her words, don’t believe her judgment of you.

Dear Helcat,

those are all great affirmations for improving body positivity! Yes, we often focus on our imperfections and what is lacking, while forgetting and taking for granted what we have.

Very long ago I was very unhappy with my own body, but as I got older, I realized that health is the most important. And I was grateful to my body for serving me so well. Nowadays, with my health (i.e. movement) limitations, it is harder, but I am not blaming my body. I know it’s not my body’s fault that things turned out the way they are, and so I am trying to work on my mind, to help my body too.

I am glad that you are finding more and more acceptance of your body every day, loving it, and taking care of it. Also it’s wonderful to hear that your husband is a great support, both in taking care of your baby, and in every other aspect of your life.

And congratulations on finishing your exam!