Dear canary,

Sorry for the late reply, I am on holidays and not really near the computer often. Thank you for your kind words and I am glad that what I’ve said has helped you.

This is so kind and this acceptance makes me feel a bit better. This makes me feel like I have a choice going forward and don’t need to explain to my parents anymore.

Good to hear this!

All I know is that whenever she would lash out at me, I would feel so alone and unlovable because I feel like if my own parents can’t handle me then no one in the world can or even wants to.

I understand where you’re coming from, because ideally the parents of all people should have the greatest understanding for us. But unfortunately that’s not true for so many people, myself included. My mother for example doesn’t believe me when I complain about some health problems that I have. She thinks I am inventing it and exaggerating. I’ve learned not to expect empathy from her any more – neither from her nor my father. It’s a bit sad, but I can’t do much about it. I get empathy from other people and I give it to myself, so I am not depending on my parents emotionally any more.

I really like that last phrase, “I am allowed to feel anxious. I am lovable and worthy, even if I feel anxious.” Because I believe this is true for everyone. I am easily able to tell an anxious friend how lovable they are but I don’t tell myself that. I think I get so caught up in the physical sensations in my body that I can’t think rationally. All I can feel is fear in those moments.

It’s a traumatic  reaction, the flight-fight-or freeze response, which takes place in our limbic brain. It takes over and switches off our rational mind. To alleviate it, it helps to practice anti-stress techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing or do grounding exercises. You can look up “Barbara Heffernan anxiety” on youtube and you’ll find plenty of tools and techniques to help you deal with the fear response.

I don’t know if I will get along with the therapist, I don’t know if I can trust them and open up because I am afraid of them being dismissive (I know therapists won’t do this but still have the fear!), I don’t know if it will be helpful, and part of me feels guilty for even seeking support in the first place.

This is exactly how you are feeling whenever you approach your mother, seeking help: you are afraid to open up because she might lash out and dismiss your problems as not a big deal, you’re not sure it will be helpful (because often times it isn’t!), and you feel guilty seeking help because she is a busy mother and you feel like a burden.

So one reason you feel discouraged to seek professional help is that you are projecting your experience with your mother into counselors and other help professionals who unlike your mother might actually help you. Another reason is that you did have some bad experiences with counselors in the past and you’re afraid it would be the same again:

I feel discouraged sometimes when I look at all the times in my past when I’ve reached out for help. I think the best help I’ve received was when I was 15 from my school counsellor. She was easy to talk to and I could trust her and relate to her, it’s just that we couldn’t talk as often because she had other students. Then after that all the other counsellors I’ve had I couldn’t get along with because they either never understood me or were dismissive. It feels like every time I opened up to someone they misunderstood me or invalidated my feelings. I think my first counsellor understood me because she would listen to everything I said and respond to it, whereas when I would share my story or thoughts with other counsellors they would only respond to the general problem. This made me feel like they are just listening to my general problem and sharing as many solutions as they can, instead of empathizing and really understanding then sharing support best fit for me.

The only counselor who truly helped you was when you were 15 yrs old. You could trust her and open up to her because she would listen to everything you said and then respond to your specific problem and not give you some general advice. You felt seen and understood with that counselor, unlike with your mother and other counselors you went to.

This is very important – that you did have a good experience with at least one counselor, and she did help you. So it is possible and you’ve experienced it. Now you would need to look for a proper counselor – one that is attentive and listens to you and your specific problems, and gives support that fits you. There are many quality therapists out there, so be open to the possibility that you’ll find one, just like you’ve found them when you were 15 years old. Trust that you can find the kind of support you need, by someone who sees and understand you.  So instead of telling yourself “no one can help me”, tell yourself “I can find appropriate help”.

Also, try to change your attitude from “I am a burden and undeserving” to “I am worthy of love. I am worthy of help and support. I am a gift, not a burden.”

I am grateful for everyone that has supported me this far, whether or not they are even in my life. Such as old friends, family, and strangers. I have met people that have understood me and listened to what I had to say. This makes me feel validated.

It’s great that you’ve had people in your life that saw you and understood you. “This makes me feel validated”. –  I’d say this made you feel validated to a certain extent. Because your core belief is still that you are unworthy of love and undeserving of help – wouldn’t you say? That’s because the core beliefs are imprinted in us in childhood, based on the experience with our parents, and even if we get a different, affirmative experience later in life (e.g. you being seen and understood by a number of people), we still operate from the same old core belief. That’s why you feel undeserving of seeking help now.

But now you at least know that this core belief is not true. You can tell yourself “I am a gift, not a burden”, to dispel the old programming. This will help you seek a quality therapist, and persist until you find one, without quitting! It will also break the spell of never finding the help you need and then giving up.

Thank you Tee for the help, I feel a little less afraid because I am reminded that there are such kind people in this world that want nothing but the best for you!

You are very welcome, canary. I am happy you feel less afraid and also that I could help!

Dear Anna,

I would like to highlight just a point: we had a first 5h convo on the 8th of April, one week after the breakup because I thought he was cheating on me. Then we talked more about the reasons why he broke up.

So basically on the 8th I wasn’t questionning him about the reasons why he broke up

Okay, on April 8 you weren’t questioning him, but you were talking about the reasons why he broke up with you. But let me ask you something: if he said that he is scared that he lost you and that he still has feelings for you, then why didn’t he try to get back together? He never tried to get back together, has he? So no matter what he was saying at that point, he didn’t change his mind about the breakup. What is important is his actions, not his words.

I trully wanted to respect his decisions and not overthinking about whatever.

Well… it seems to me that you haven’t respected his decision to break up with you, because you wouldn’t accept that he didn’t feel romantic attraction, and so you wouldn’t accept that he has a “legitimate” reason to leave you. You questioned the sanity and legitimacy of his leaving, haven’t you?

Also, you haven’t respected his decision to start seeing someone else 2  weeks after he broke up with you. When you found out, you attacked him for that.

And then, you haven’t respected his decision to talk to the girl he fancied, almost 2 months after you broke up. You stormed right between them, showing your fierce protest.

I am sorry but I don’t really think you respected his decisions…

Dear Anna,

Just to answer quickly; yes there was those physical touches again and when he disappeared that wasn’t to be with her but because he completely shut down because of some issues which happened and because of some talks we had me and him.

Yes we did [exchange messages in the second half of April], because that was at that time I was made aware of what happened in his life and that he reached me out to ask for my advices and such.

So you are saying that he disappeared in the second half of April because something happened in his life, some difficulty due to which he withdrew from social life (working at the pub, going to parties and suchlike) and stayed mostly in his room? During that time, he reached out to you via messages and asked for your advice in the problem he was dealing with. So he didn’t really withdraw/shut down from you, but only from social life? Am I understanding this right?

You also say another reason he withdrew in April was because he had some talks with you. Are you saying that those talks – in which you were trying to help him with your advice – made him shut down, even towards you? Or those talks made him shut down only towards the world?

Sorry for asking a lot of questions, but I would like to have as clear a picture as possible, to be able to give you meaningful feedback.

Dear Anna,

now that you’ve provided new information about him spending quite a bit of time during April and May in his room, and you hardly seeing him (or not seeing him at all) during that time, I am re-arranging the “story” that I’ve created in my mind, through which I am trying to understand what happened. So this is the info that you’ve provided so far about the months of April and May:

The two first weeks after the breakup he was always around me and if during our first 5h of conversation I didn’t insist of the two of us taking our distance for my own sake, he would have kept being around me. I was the one who insisted to keep our distances in a first place, he didn’t take it well at all.

During the rest of April and May, we kept bumping into each other because we belong to the same student associations

I know he shut down many times in April and May (didn’t get out of his room for two weeks until end of April, two weeks and half in May he did the same pretty much)

So, in the first 2 weeks after the breakup, from April 3 to April 17, you were bumping into each other often and he sought your company. You insisted on keeping distance to make things easier for yourself, but he didn’t take it well. Then, about 2 weeks later, about the time he started seeing the other girl, you stopped seeing him around because he was spending most of the time in his room. I don’t know if you communicated via messages during that time?

Then, he popped up again in early May and you started bumping into him again. On May 10, you bumped into each other and you told him “yeah, it’s stupid to avoid each other“, to which he responded “yes, I was kind of hoping that you would come and talk to me”. The friendship was reinstated and it was like in the good old times:

From this moment, we started to talk again, be around each other, bursting out of laugh as we used to do. During an event, he even said to one of his friends that he was going to stay with me and one of my friends instead of going with his own friend to join other people. At another event, we stayed talking for somehow 1h just the two of us and when a girl came, he ignored her. Finally, during a ball, I was ignoring him but when he saw that I wasn’t going to talk to him, he literally grabbed my arm to start a conversation with me.

This is just my interpretation, but during that time, you probably started hoping that he still has feelings for you, while for him, it probably meant going back to being just friends, which is the arrangement that he liked best.

Then, after the ball, which was sometime in mid May (after May 10), he disappeared again and spent 2 weeks or so in his room again. Next you saw him was May 26, at a pub event, when the incident with the other girl happened:

On the 26th of May, we had a pub event, I wanted to talk to him but since the moment I asked him if we could talk, he was being distant. … Later in the evening I think my world crumbled. I saw him going outside of the pub to meet with a girl, not a random girl, but the girl he told me nothing happened. They didn’t stay long together, she didn’t get in and at the end he.. PAT PATED her to say goodbye. But it was already too much for me, I stormed between the two of them, he got mad, I got mad and then I left.

I must say that when looking at the events now, I realize that I’ve made a wrong conclusion in my last but one post. He actually wasn’t pursuing you during the entire April and May, as I thought before, but only in the first 2 weeks after the breakup, before he started dating the other girl. Then he disappeared – maybe to be with her? (just a thought). When he reappeared in early May, he was friendly, but he started communicating with you only after you gave him the green light. You told him (on May 10): “yeah, it’s stupid to avoid each other”, to which he responded “yes, I was kind of hoping that you would come and talk to me”.

He might have thought that you don’t have a problem being friends with him anymore, that you “cooled off”, and so he went back to his usual style – being friendly, talking and laughing together (I don’t know if physical touch was present too?).  You probably interpreted it as “he still cares about me”, while for him it was just friendship. When he grabbed your arm at the ball, he might have wanted to talk about some practical issue, since you said he used to ask for your advice?

Then later in May, after the ball, he disappeared again for 2 weeks or so. During that time, was he in touch with you via messages? Was that when you sent him a supportive message, to which he hasn’t responded? (How can you feel that it would not bring any good to answer a simple supportive message yet thinking that staying around each other in real life was less dangerous?)

And then May 26 happened. First you wanted to talk to him about something (perhaps about his real feelings, i.e. the game you felt he was playing with you?), but he avoided you. And then you saw him talking to the girl you knew he fancied, and you stormed between them. That’s when he got angry with you and isolated himself for 2 hours. Later that evening he was just staring at you. Here I can see how he could have been angry and offended at what you did, and that’s why he didn’t even utter a word.

The next day the two of you had a conversation. He told you he doesn’t want to hurt you, but that he owes you nothing and that he doesn’t want to talk about the past any more. A week later, at another party, you confronted him about the girl, and it turned out they have been dating since April 17/18 and that he has feelings for her (although he didn’t know how serious it all is). He also said he doesn’t have feelings for you anymore. The next day you sent him a message, which you shared here, and then you blocked him.

Now viewing it through this new prism, I must say I’ve changed my opinion once again. If this is how things happened, I don’t see that he was pursuing you and leading you on with his behavior, because a) he wasn’t in touch with you when he started dating her, b) when he reappeared, he was friendly and sought out your company, but only after you agreed that there is no point in avoiding each other. In May he disappeared again and wasn’t around much, so again you weren’t really in touch. Unless he was trying to contact you via messages?

So all in all, I don’t think he behaved selfishly, except in the beginning, before he started dating her, when he told you that he didn’t want to lose you and that he still has feelings for you. And that you may even end up together in the future. Maybe he said those things to make you feel better, but in fact, it gave you false hope, to which you held onto ever since.

He in the meanwhile has moved on, started dating someone else, and distanced himself from you somewhat. But you haven’t really noticed it, you kept seeing his friendliness as a sign that he still wants to be with you. When you wanted to clarify it, he refused to talk about it and avoided you. So yes, this is another problem – that he didn’t clearly told you “no, I don’t have feelings any more, sorry”. He was probably a coward to admit it, and only did it when you confronted him about the other girl. So in a way, by refusing to “push you away”, i.e. say clearly that he isn’t interested, he left you hoping all this time. And it caused you pain.

I am sorry, Anna, that it ended like this, I truly am. I hope you can move on from this, and in the process heal from the false belief that you aren’t worthy of love. Because you are worthy, Anna, and you deserve a guy who will say a clear “YES, I want to be with you!”, without second thoughts and lame excuses…

Dear Anna,

I went back and read the whole timeline of your relationship and breakup with him, on Page1 of this thread, and I must say I’ve changed my mind about him. I now think that you indeed were not misinterpreting his signs, but that he was actually leading you astray with his behavior after the breakup.

I am so mad at him for not having kept his distance with me, while we both said to each other that keeping our distance would be the best attitude as it was obviously way to painful for us to stay around.

It seems to me that it was painful for you to stay close to him, but not for him. He in fact told you that the perfect setup for him was being just friends: “He told me that for him the perfect set-up was back in February when we were just “friends”. This “friendship” involved a lot of physical touching and closeness, a lot of hard flirting, as you said, and I think you rightfully felt it was more than friendship. After the breakup he wanted to return to this kind of “friendship”, which he knew was painful for you because you had feelings for him and you told him so.

He not only sought your proximity but even told you he still has feelings for you. He did that on April 8^th, when you’ve heard a rumor that he is dating another girl: “On the 8^th of April we got into a 5h conversation at our student pub because a girl told me about him and another girl, she thought they were dating since a long time and that he cheated on me. He promised me that nothing happened between them. However, he admitted that he felt the chemistry between the two of them and that he kept his distance out of respect for me. We also discussed about the breakup and he finally admitted some important things: 1) he was scared that he lost me for nothing because he was simply overthinking and that he actually had feelings for me 2) it was more about him thinking he couldn’t reciprocate my energy 3) he wanted to stay friends with me but I told him that it wouldn’t be possible, not when so much feelings were involved“.

What he admitted about his feelings about you seems misleading. On one hand he said he was scared that he lost you, and that he “had feelings” for you. However, he didn’t want a relationship with you, but just to remain friends. Which you refused because it was too painful for you.

Nevertheless, after this conversation of yours, he was often seeking you, wanting to talk to you and spend time with you. He once even grabbed your arm so you would talk to him: On the 10th of May, we bumped into each other and I told him that yeah, it’s stupid to avoid each other to what he responded “yes, I was kind of hoping that you would come and talk to me”. From this moment, we started to talk again, be around each other, bursting out of laugh as we used to do. During an event, he even said to one of his friends that he was going to stay with me and one of my friends instead of going with his own friend to join other people. At another event, we stayed talking for somehow 1h just the two of us and when a girl came, he ignored her. Finally, during a ball, I was ignoring him but when he saw that I wasn’t going to talk to him, he literally grabbed my arm to start a conversation with me”.

I understand why you felt angry at him and wanted him to stop this game: “I couldn’t keep doing this masquerade with him. I decided that I wanted to talk to him about the situation. He avoided me.” He didn’t want to talk about his behavior though.

But the biggest disappointment was yet to come, because it turned out all that while that he was trying to get close to you and be “friends” with you, and you were hoping that maybe you have a future together, he was in fact dating another girl, unbeknownst to you. He started dating her on April 17/18, and you only found out in the beginning of June, after the party where you stormed between the two of them. During the months of April and May, when he was trying so hard to get you to communicate with him and be “friends” again – he was actually dating this other girl. All this time he made you believe he has feelings for you. No wonder you were furious when you found out about it (I was enraged, I went to see him, asked him what was going on, what game he was playing.)

When you confronted him about it, he told you that he has feelings for her but doesn’t know what it means to him (He told me that he had feelings for her but he didn’t know the meaning of what they had and if it even had a meaning for him). He also said that he didn’t have feelings for you anymore. Since that day – when you discovered the truth about him – he started ignoring you, not greeting you, not even acknowledging your presence with a nod. Suddenly he turned from a warm, fuzzy friend into a cold stranger…

Maybe I am too strict, but I now believe he isn’t as innocent and confused as I previously thought he was. I mean, I could imagine that he told you back in April that he still has feelings for you because he felt guilty for not being able to reciprocate your feelings, and so he said it not to appear cold and heartless. I can imagine he said some things he didn’t really mean because he might have felt pressured. But the fact that he insisted on being friends with you when he knew this would only hurt you, and also hiding the fact that he is dating someone else while fooling around with you – that’s a bit too much. I believe it’s plain selfish.

I don’t know how you are viewing it, but this is my impression at the moment…

Dear Anna,

I’ve read the last message you’ve sent to your ex, and it’s mostly fine. You expressed your feelings and your appreciation for him and the time you’ve spent together (I am really sad that you couldn’t see how much you brought to me, how much I just needed you in my life because for what you genuinely are. … My sadness was about what I lost, you and these times together. … I wanted to be with you, my feelings for you, it all comes from because you opened up about yourself, not only the brightest side of your personality but also your past, your scars, not because of the nice social picture you give to the crowd.).

You said you don’t understand why he left you if he was happy with you ( I was mad at you because I never understood how one could jeopardize something which makes them feel genuinely happy).

At the end, you told him he owes you nothing and that you are accepting the fact that he rejected you. You also wished him well. (You don’t owe me anything, this is your life and I am accepting that you didn’t want me to be part of it. … I sincerely wish you the best in your life.)

One part of the message is accusatory though – you accuse him of pursuing you even after the breakup, of not avoiding you like he claimed but seeking your company (No, let’s be real, none of us were avoiding the other. We both know how we are when we REALLY want to avoid someone.), and of not doing enough to push you away when he was already dating someone else (Why did you not push me away out of respect for her, as you told me, you did with her when we were together?)

I would like to explore that part a bit more. You said that in the first 2 weeks after the breakup you remained pretty close because he wanted it, he sought your company (The two first weeks after the breakup he was always around me and if during our first 5h of conversation I didn’t insist of the two of us taking our distance for my own sake, he would have kept being around me.). He even told you: “I totally picture the two of us in a near future, catching up once our lives will be on track”.

On one hand you didn’t want this closeness because it hurt and you have a bad experience staying friends with your exes (I said, no, there is no way, if I wanted to move on and heal, I couldn’t afford to stay around him, because I did this mistake in the past and it never ended well and that we needed to cut the ties completely.). But on the other hand, I think you were hoping that he still wants to be with you, and so you wanted to stay close to him (“I realized that I was still looking for you, I still wanted to be around you. It was not the smartest choice but it was the one which felt right.”)

His friendliness and even giving you hope about the future made you believe that he actually doesn’t want to break up with you. So you were seeking him out, watching his every move, every glance, every detail… trying to find a sign that he might still want to be with you.

I don’t know when exactly he changed and became more distant, but it appears he stopped answering your messages at some point (how can you feel that it would not bring any good to answer a simple supportive message yet thinking that staying around each other in real life was less dangerous?). But you felt that he still wanted to be with you, or at least around you, even though he later told you “I was avoiding you.”

The culmination was when you stormed between him and his new girlfriend, after which he got mad at you. It seems to me  that in your mind you couldn’t accept that he lost interest in you – you interpreted his behavior as still being interested in you even when he wasn’t replying to your messages. You told him he should have pushed you away when you were in his vicinity – to prove that he really isn’t interested in you. Anything less than physically pushing you away wasn’t enough of a clue for you. This is how strong your conviction was that he still loves you.

Please don’t get me wrong – I am not judging you in any way. I totally understand your reactions. I used to be like that myself, seeing things which didn’t exist, believing that the guy is interested when he wasn’t etc. I know what a strong yearning and a strong desire is. This guy was at least interested for a while, and even gave you false hope about the future, so it’s not that you misinterpreted everything. You only misinterpreted the end and his behavior after the breakup. You wanted him so badly that you refused to see that he has actually moved on.

This still doesn’t mean that the main dynamic that we’ve discussed – you falling for “broken” guys – isn’t true. I think it is. And I would like to ask you, similarly like anita did, in what ways do you believe you are broken?

In your last message to your ex, you said you both were “very dysfunctional“. Could you explain this a bit more – how were you dysfunctional?

Because you believing that you are broken and dysfunctional may be just a belief, a consequence of feeling unworthy of love, which is a consequence of your mother’s upbringing… Or if you are really broken and dysfunctional in certain parts of your life, it’s actually the consequence of believing you aren’t worthy of love, that you are bad, that there is something wrong with you. Once you heal that main wound and main core belief, the brokenness and dysfunctionality will lessen too…

Dear Anna,

I am really sorry for your heart-break and for having been rejected by someone you deeply cared about. You haven’t responded to anita’s latest post, but I think she gave you an excellent possible explanation for your relationship difficulties: feeling not good enough. You said:

When I was younger I grew up being over and under-estimated at the same time: being praised for my skills, for being part of the “elit”, for being cute, polite and nice, yet everything I did was never enough, I got a B? Oh well, I could have gotten an A if I had put more efforts. I got a new haircut? Oh well, you could have left your hair a bit longer, etc.

Hence why I decided a few months ago to distance myself from the environment for which I never was enough.

You might have been praised for the things you felt are superficial: being part of the elite and having the skills needed to fit in nicely among the elite: having great social skills, being intelligent, being an excellent student, being polite and cute – in short, having all that it takes to reach success. And not any kind of success but the kind that is expected from talented youth of your social status, I imagine? And you have reached that success: at the age of 26 you are working closely with politicians, diplomats, EU commissioners and MPs, you are going to a prestigious university for your masters degree, you are publishing papers in renowned journals… you are shining like a star, and you are headed towards even bigger successes. You are heading to the top!

I imagine many are praising you and have praised you while you were growing up, but not your mother… for her you were never good enough. Perhaps she is even minimizing your academic and other achievements, because “you had it easy”, so in her eyes, your success is self-understood and nothing special. A (rare) B could have been an A, you could have left your hair longer… I know the feeling, my mother was the same – never happy and never pleased with me.

So even though you are very successful according to external measure, I imagine that internally you feel like a failure. Never good enough. And you are looking for someone for whom you will be good enough. For someone who will choose you not because of your status and wealth, not because of these external adornments, but because of you, the real you. The vulnerable, less than perfect, messy but still beautiful and amazing – you. You are no longer expecting to get it from your mother (you gave up on her) but you are expecting to get it from your romantic partner.

And I imagine you are attracted to men who are vulnerable and messy themselves, with whom you can be your true self. So that they would finally accept you and love you as you are. You aren’t attracted to promising young diplomats and others from the same social circle because maybe you expect that they will be superficial or judgmental like your mother?

You are currently dating someone who is very ambitious, knows what he wants, belongs to the same social circle, but… you aren’t feeling it (He’s amazing, ambition-wise, we are at the same level, we come from the same social environment, he knows what he wants etc. But.. I am not emotionally connected as much as I was with the other one). The reason you aren’t feeling it could be because he really is superficial and focused only on external successes, or you might be projecting that he is superficial and this is a big turn-off for you. Because you don’t want anyone who reminds you of your mother.

What do you think? Does this sound true to you?