Dear Danny:

First, I will retell much of your story, retyping quotes from you,  because it helps me process information. Second, I will offer you my thoughts.

You shared that you used to be “the misfit, teased.. an awkward teen.. never really felt good enough”, that A, the first girl that you really loved and planned a future with, dumped you for your best friend at the time, and you lost two people whom you loved, ending up “broken and coped badly with the breakup”.

Mates told you to “get out there again and scr** over every woman as basically revenge for what A did or to forget the feelings”, and being a “red blooded male”, you did just that, going “on loads of dates”. One of those dates was B, a “super fit and hot” woman with “the physique of a model”, you were “excited by the chase and her showing interest” in you, and thought of her as a woman who will give you affection in exchange of “goods and gifts”. So, you figured that you’ll enjoy her “and she’d benefit with a new handbag”.

But you learned that she was “not willing to give it up for just anyone”, and “she didn’t go to 4th base” with you. Plus, you found out that she “certainly didn’t ask for any type of exchange.. so giving and emotionally supportive.. She made me feel alive again and believe in myself, she gave me confidence”.

But you felt “inadequate compared to her”, that she is out of your league, and “deserved someone better”, that “she was too good to be true”, that she was with you because she pitied you; that “she was making a fool of” you and will hurt you, and you felt hurt that she wouldn’t have sex with you.

Next, you manipulated her, “be attentive then ignore her”. The lads told you that “she was just playing games” with your feelings and “had no intention of being with me long term”. So, you told her that you “didn’t want to see her anymore” and that you “had never been that interested in her in the first place”. She tried to reassure you but you treated her “with contempt and she walked away”. You later heard that “she was badly upset.. deeply hurt”.

After that, you “jumped back into the game.. started dating and then met C”, but “after the newness wore off”, and “it got stale”, you “enjoyed the intimacy”, but “deep down (you)  still felt lonely”, the relationship ended.

Your brother, after he recovered from his serious illness, was available to you, and “bluntly laid out the facts”: that you “never processed A’s betrayal”, that you will regret treating B the way you did for years to come, because she was the one who stood by you at your weakest; that C “was just to have sex” with, for you, that you “needed to grow up and become a real man” if you wanted anything meaningful.

You figure, at this point, ten months since the breakup with B, that the “truth is B is the best woman I’ve ever met. She gave me stability.. always wanted the best for me like no other.. had self respect to not sleep with a man to gain his affections, she brought out the goodness in me.. the only one who has deeply cared about me without wanting me to pay for dinners, handbags, shoes and clothes etc.”.

And now, my input (still, with quotes from you): as I read what you say, what your brother said to you, what your mates and lads said to you, I need to distinguish between what was/ is said and what is true to reality. I will try to do just that here:

1. What happened between you and B was not solely a result of what happened between you, A and your former best friend, as you and your brother suggested, but mostly as a result of your experience as a child, that of being “always the misfit, teased.. never really felt good enough”. Notice the words always, and never: always the misfit, never good enough. These words mean that you felt like a misfit, as a child, for what felt like eternity, to you, and you felt not good enough for what felt like an eternity. For children, when they feel badly, time does feel eternal, and within that time, the child’s emotional experience takes a strong hold in the child’s forming brain.

The experience with A was powerful, but less powerful and of way shorter duration than your always-a-misfit, never-good-enough childhood experience.

I believe that your brother was correct to say that you never processed A’s betrayal. I would add to it that you probably need to process your childhood experience as well.

2. B’s self-esteem was so low that she endured your manipulative behavior (“be attentive then ignore her”), staying with you.

Her self-esteem was so low that when you broke up with her, telling her that you “had never been that interested in her in the first place”- she “tried to reassure” the man who just told her, basically, that he had deceived her earlier, throughout the relationship, by pretending to be “that interested” in her.

Her self-esteem was so low, that after you treated her “with contempt” when breaking up with her, and after that breakup, she contacted you for closure, sending you messages. When you ignored a message from her, she sent you another message, or other messages (“I was awful in giving her closure. Instead I ignored any message from her”).

You wrote about B that she made you believe in yourself and gave you confidence (“She made me .. believe in myself, she gave me confidence”)- no, she didn’t, she didn’t give you any confidence that lasted, nor did she make you believe in yourself. The two of you entered a relationship where neither one had adequate confidence, she didn’t believe in her worth any more than you believed in your worth, seems to me.

3. “I know you are probably going to think I’m just a f*** boy .. but it’s far from the truth. I was scared… I’m not evil”- I don’t like the term you mentioned, but I want to look into the term. The online Urban Dictionary defines it as “someone who only wants you for your looks, body, and pressures you into sexual activity”. Another online dictionary defines it as someone “who doesn’t respect women, but relies on them heavily. He’s distant.. self-absorbed, does stupid things, and f**** with others’ emotions”.

I am guessing that you have been that, then, a .. well, that. And I understand that being that does not mean being evil in each and every way, and it doesn’t mean not being scared. It means.. what it means.

* Regarding your questions: “What shall I do?.. I don’t want to hurt her further.. I desperately want to make amends for the pain I caused her.. How do I fix my mistake?”-

– You (used to?) believe that the following was a fair exchange: using a woman’s body for your sexual gratification in exchange “for dinners, handbags, shoes and clothes”. I am suggesting that you aim at changing this belief- it is demeaning and insulting to women, and that you use your money next for a different purpose: send B a message apologizing sincerely for your misbehavior, letting her know that you need to attend psychotherapy so to address the core issues that led to you having mistreated her, and add to your note a sum of money that will be adequate for her to attend at least 3 months of bi-weekly psychotherapy so to address her low self-esteem, which caused her to be involved with you for as long as she had.

Help her this way, so that she does not end up in a similar situation again. Then, attend psychotherapy yourself.

anita

Dear Danny:

You are welcome. What you are saying is that you don’t believe that B suffers from a low self-esteem, that what motivated her to be with you was her being “big hearted, selfless.. so kind”, and from what I understand of what you shared in your recent post, she felt great empathy for you when you shared with her your “low dark moments” and experienced your “raw form”.

When I read your original post yesterday, I did not feel your raw form… but B did. I wonder what she experienced when she saw and heard and felt your raw form. I wonder if she still cherishes it.

anita

Dear Danny:

In my recent post to you I did not send you the message that you are unworthy or that I have a lowly opinion of you. I considered new information that you provided for me in your second post on this thread, and figured that B may very well be the big-hearted woman that you say she is, and as such, I figured that she wasn’t with you because she felt pity for you, but because she had a big enough heart to see through your crude behavior, and see that worthy, loving and lovable “raw form” that you are inside.

And then, I wondered if she still cherishes what she saw in you, and if so- there might be a chance that the two of you will get back together.

Those were my thoughts and my intention in my second post to you. I hope you feel better about it.

anita

Dear Danny:

It was only this morning, the day after I posted to you last, that I read your post on another thread, a post that supports what I wrote to you in my most recent post to you. This is what you wrote there: “When ‘B’ met me she had this sixth sense or something she could see past the fronting. She could feel my pain and just had a unique emotional understanding.. her inner beauty. She tried so hard to reflect back what she saw in me and she had a positive energy. So when ‘B’ would express that about me, it would irritate me because I didn’t believe it… ‘B’ was a rare kind with values and self respect. I’ve never met someone so giving, selfless and pure hearted. She felt great empathy and.. saw my real self and that I was hurting and there was more to me… she walked away so gracefully carefully to not undo the work in building me up and ensured I didn’t feel sh** about myself because she had seen the fragileness when I was in a low place when we met, she knew exactly who I was and still accepted me”.

You asked there: “Do you think with time I could prove to her that I am capable of being the man worthy of her and not the idiot by she met? …Do I give it up and not try, do you believe it’s too late?”

My thoughts/ suggested answers: It is not too late for you to be again who you were in the beginning of your life- a precious, worthy, loving and lovable child, a child with a big heart, as big a heart as B’s- B saw this child in you, “past the fronting”. But this child was so hurt early on in life, a hurt solidified by having been betrayed by A and a best friend, that he is hiding, locked in an emotional prison cell within you.

You need to create circumstances in your life that will free this child in you from his prison cell within. These are the circumstances I suggest:

1. Make sure that you treat other people, including women, with empathy, honesty/ transparency and with dignity no matter how you feel. This is key- don’t wait to feel better before you treat others well. Treat others well now, today and every day. Be gentle with yourself as you don’t treat others well perfectly and at all times; learn from your mistakes and improve. When you live your life this way, with this intention and practice, paying attention, day after day, you will build confidence in your ability to behave right no matter how wrong you feel. This confidence in this ability will make you trust and like yourself, and you will no longer feel “like a sadist.. like an arsehole”. Instead, you will feel like a good man, a kind man, an honest, decent man.

2. Take personal responsibility for your actions, do not blame others for your actions. When you are given bad advice from your lads and mates, and you follow their advice with your actions, it is you who is responsible for your actions, not the lads (“I’ve also been listening to really bad advice too, from my mates who told me to get out there again and screw over every woman… I don’t understand what happened. Maybe the bad advice from mates but I royally cocked it up… The lads convinced me..”)

3. Expect your bad feelings about yourself to continue for a while because such deep feelings do not just disappear because you want them to. You may require quality psychotherapy to help you along in the process of emotional healing: healing from the emotional injuries you suffered as a child and later, in context of your relationships with A and former best friend. The goal of your emotional healing is for you to see that inner child in you, trapped in pain and fear, and free him. The goal is to one day see yourself as B saw you, and be kind to yourself just as B was kind to you.

* As far as possibly reconnecting with B- first question, is she willing to reconnect, she may, she may not. -If you contact her, put no pressure on her to have future contact with you, make it easy for her to say No, if that’s what she chooses for herself.

– Don’t contact her unless you feel confident enough that you are capable of treating her respectfully at all times.

– It may be wise that you start quality psychotherapy and discuss the possibility of contacting her before you do, if you do, so to come up with a plan of how you should contact her and what you should offer her if/ when you contact her.

anita

Dear Danny:

You are welcome. I will be responding to the two posts you submitted today because the more input I have from you, the more I learn and the better the chance that I will be able to offer you something useful. Please let me know if you prefer that I reply only to what you post here, for future reference (and keep in mind that if you prefer to not communicate with me, or with any other member, you can either state so or simply to not reply further to that member).

“part of me wants to go back to being ignorant of these feels, when I was able to shut everything out and she didn’t matter, when I had convinced myself she would be better off and wasn’t meant for me”- when B was in your life, she held a figurative mirror to you, projecting an image to you- an image of a worthy, loving and lovable person. If you go back to being ignorant and shutting everything out, you will be shutting out that image of you, not a good idea.

The “HELP!” that you need (title of your thread) is in believing that the image she saw and projected to you is true, that it really is you.

You shared that she loved a certain artist, you listening recently to a song he wrote and the lyrics reminded you of her. I looked up the lyrics, some fit with the mirror image I just suggested: “.. golden as I open my eyes- Hold it, focus, hoping, take me back to the light”- open your eyes and see that image in the mirror, focus on it, let it take you to the light= to mental/ emotional health.

“I’m hopeless, broken… I don’t wanna be alone”- you will not be hopeless or  broken or alone if you believe that you are indeed what she saw in you

“You’re so golden”- one day you will believe that you are golden too. We all start life as golden, then many of us get broken somehow, somewhat,  and we proceed unfortunately to break others. But if we persist in changing and correcting our behaviors that need to be corrected- we will go back to that start and be golden again, the golden we’ve been all along inside.

“What if I call her after so long and end up hurting her further.. refreshing that pain for her”- for a proper apology with minimal refreshment of her pain, a thoughtful letter will do. Seeing you in person, I believe, is likely to refresh her pain/ overwhelm her, but a letter is a piece of paper that she can read when and where she chooses to, at her convenience, undistracted. If she gets overwhelmed, she can put the letter down and read it later.

“Maybe if I had been more transparent with my feelings, fears and communication, I wouldn’t be in the crap I’m in now… I’m seeking as much advice as possible to ensure I do the best possible to make amends”- you can transparent with your feelings in the letter that I suggested as a possibility. Put it all in that letter, be as honest as you can be and more. Another advantage to a letter is that you can take all the time that you need to write it, making sure indeed that it is all honest, not manipulative, not pressuring her in any way, etc.

You can write the letter, put it down if you get overwhelmed, and  go back to it later, when calm and undistracted. On the other hand, if you meet her in-person, you might get overwhelmed and unable to think and express yourself honestly and accurately.

“I don’t know if with a psychotherapist digging it would help. I don’t know if I’d be able to be as open”- it takes a good therapist, a competent, hard working, honest, patient, empathetic therapist, not any therapist will do.

anita