Hi Anita,

Thank you for your answer.

Would that mean that for him rebounding with that girl so quickly was also a way to reassure himself about his condition? Because in this context, I can’t imagine how low his self-esteem must has been, breaking up not because you didn’t get along with the person but simply because you felt inadequate.

I really wondered why he chose her over me while he has known her much longer before me. He knew they had a sort of chemistry between the two of them since the beginning. So if at the end he just ended up choosing her, if she was really his first choice, why then dating me? I mean, he told me that since the first weeks we have known each other, he was kind of hoping that something would happen but didn’t expect too much. But again, we started to really talk only around November/December.

Could it be a fair guess if I said she made him feel more confident about himself but not necessarily in a good way? Our university and the student residence where we all live being a fairly small world, it happens that I know who she is and what she looks like. And she is the total opposite of who I am or even another girl he used to have a crush on, 1/2 years ago, physically and mentally.  She is younger than him, she is also a board member of another association but according to one of my friends who works there, she is not really appreciated by the people who tend to find her “weird” (and I think it’s pretty obvious when looking at this association events’s pictures on social medias, all the board members take pictures with each other but never with her, unless it’s an official one where everyone must be present). She is never invited to parties, she doesn’t have friends either. In other words: she is socially very left-out and doesn’t come from a wealthy environment at all. To be honest, she doesn’t seem like a bad person at all, most likely like someone who wants people to genuinely pay attention to her.

Either way, I can’t stop myself from thinking that was very dumb of him, we both knew we were genuinely happy together and very compatibles. Him dating her right after me while in a first place choosing me over her, kinda proves me a point: if it was the other way around, me being from a lower class, having less social skills, being less what I am in general, he would have stayed with me. How in 2022, a man (or rather a BOY) can think of a successful woman as a threat for his ego? Let’s be real, at the end, he went for her because she makes him feel better than me about his condition in general. He could have had “feelings” for her because she didn’t make him feel inadequate. He didn’t have to make any specific efforts to please her (1/2 weeks of talking and bam, they were dating while before they never officially interacted nor met up (except in a classroom or during official representations, what I mean here, is never meet up nor interact on a personal basis)).

I can’t believe he also thought that we could just go back at the situation we were right prior to date, February was the month we were flirting ALL THE TIME. We were all over each others, being together all day and all night long. For a very longtime I really wondered how the situation could have changed so fast while when we started to date it was just so obvious that it was the most logical path for the two of us to take. Why do I feel like for him I was at the end someone he wished to be with yet he didn’t feel worth enough and once he had a chance he just.. panicked and screwed everything? I promise you Anita, I can sens from miles away, the same situation than with my other ex, will happen in a few months. It’s not a question of compatibility but rather a question of ego at the end.

I’m still so mad at him for ruining something which was so good just because. The guy I’m seeing now, he’s amazing but I know something between me and him was blocking me. Turns out that it was the other guy for whom I still have feelings unfortunately. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the one I’m dating now. 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. I can’t stop myself from thinking that something is definitely missing. And this is also why I’m so mad at him. How one could choose his ego over such a strong emotional and physical connection

Hi Anita,

Thank you for your answer.

I am guessing that the universal motivation of sex applies here, as well the universal need to feel better generally

Yeah that makes sens, I mean, I did that in the past in order to feel better about another relation which ended up poorly. I don’t know, in my case it didn’t feel that it was the best way, to rebound so quickly with someone right after a breakup, unless all I wanted was a casual fling. I don’t know, maybe it’s me but I don’t get how we could create a genuine emotional bond with someone else that fast.

IF she looks up to him and thinks well of him, and does not challenge him.. if she doesn’t ask him questions that he feels uncomfortable with, I see the attraction he may have for her. I don’t think that the dry facts (her lack of friends and wealth) attract him, I think that it’s more likely her attitude that attracts him

Yet he also broke up with her. But I don’t get in which ways I would have challenged him to be honest. The only time I asked him if we could talk, was when I felt something was off between me and him. Otherwise, I don’t know, I was just like yeah, let it be. I never told him before about those doubts and all of those questions I had about me and him, I talked about this with some friends. I just wanted to clear out things with him, for real. Never ever I asked him to justify himself about whatever he did with his life; i even told him many times that he didn’t owe me anything, everything I did when we were together I did because I wanted to.

Despite our differences, if I only thought bad things about him, I wouldn’t have fell in love with him either, if I was that arrogant, I would be paying much more attention to details such as social backgrounds and whatever. Ever since the breakup, I’ve spent a fairly huge amount of time telling him that his personality, his kindness, his intelligence, his reliability were some of the qualities I admired the most with him. And that despite his fears, I admired him for being able to always be present for the people he cared.

did you express to him, when in the relationship with him, directly or indirectly, that he had to make specific efforts to please you, and if so, what were those specific efforts?

NO-THING. And that’s the point, I told him ever since the beginning that him, being himself, was what attracted me so much and that I just wanted to be around him because his natural presence made me feel comfortable. Me and him staying in bed all day long or going to whatever events, for as long as it was with him, everything would be awesome for me. I even told him he could decide for whatever he wanted to do and I would follow his lead. I know he needs a lot of alone time, I know he likes to spend time with his friends and the day after he usually needs a cooldown. I told him, I’m the same so really, don’t feel as you had a pressure to communicate all the time with me because I would feel super stressed too.

You know what? He realized that we were both from different social environments ONE week after we started dating and 6 months after we met for the first time. He told me yeah no, I didn’t know you were this kind of person because you come to this student pub and you know, it’s not really known to target the fanciest people in town, also you didn’t look like one of them. He realized it because I started talking a little bit more about my past, not because of my attitude. I promise you Anita, I know I have rich kid attitude in many ways, but never ever I would date someone or be friend with someone and then looking down at them just because why not.

When we had to buy some grocery stuffs, I didn’t mind being the one paying for because I knew it would be complicated for him to afford some things, obviously I didn’t say it loud, but for me it just came naturally.

what if.. what if what is missing is not entirely his self esteem, but your self esteem: what if your self esteem is tied to your higher social class, to your family wealth, to your professional prestige and social connectedness; what if this is your attitude and it shows.. (while all along what you truly crave is “a strong emotional and physical connection”)?

I don’t get this part? Which attitude? I mean, nobody know about me and my social background, I choose to stay extremely private about myself and I carefully choose the information I display. And he was the only one among those people who actually knew about my social background as it seemed more fair for me to be honest about my life with the one I wanted to be with, I don’t feel ashamed about it, it may be hard to imagine it through those messages, but I really don’t over-do in real life lol. He doesn’t even know that I actually have two identities because of some protocols, nobody actually knows about this part of my life. Our first date happened in a park, on a random bench with random foods we bought in a random supermarket.. I talk more openly about these part of my life here on this forum because at the end of the day I know my real identity will stay hidden

After, obviously my self-esteem is extremely tied to my social class, this is how I was raised, like the rest of the people from this side of the society, it’s unfortunate for sure, but I can’t deny where I come from. I can hide it, but this is also my core education, as much as I hate this class, this is also a huge part of me which would be very stupid of me to deny. I am not ashamed, I may not like it that much but I don’t feel that I am in conflict. Modesty isn’t my best quality for sure, but I also genuinely think that I shouldn’t be hiding this side of me with someone I plan to stay on a longterm basis. If I accept someone’s differences and flaws, why then it couldn’t be reciprocate? But again, I don’t care about from which social classes people come from, I don’t care about degrees, grades and whatever. If it was really the case, I would have been extremely alone in my world. I want to see people for what they truly are and I want them to see me for what I truly am.

I think it’s easy for people to see your qualities, to think they like you for your good sides. But for me, seeing and acknowledging someone’s flaws and weaknesses, yet choosing to stay with this person, this is the real proof of love. I got interested when I saw his qualities which are numerous but I fell in love when I saw him accepting to drop his walls around me

Hi Anita,

Sorry for my late reply, I wasn’t feeling very good and I had some meetings since yesterday..

a superficial connection is comfortable for many people who have had an uncomfortable experience with deep connection.

I actually ended up having this conclusion about him, but again, to be fair, I don’t see how it could have been an uncomfortable experience; it’s not like we were mentally abusives, toxics, control freaks. It feels the other way around, for once in our lives, we were finally able to be open about who we were. Me and him, we genuinely trusted each other. We had plans and as we are both very fond of writing (one of his bigger dreams is to become an author and I used to be myself one and a journalist as well), we even started to write a novel together, it was pure imagination and pure creativity where we just freed our minds from everything which intoxicated us. On a personal level, I even felt that our two styles combined formed something extremely interesting; we both have the same references and the same literature tastes (Lovecraft being our master haha).

Which is also why I am so mad at him, we had a strong creative potential, we were on our way to make something really good for the two of us, because we were planning to write this novel for a writing contest. When I said that our relation was really fantastic on all the levels, I also talk about this, we fueled each other’s creativity and we used it to produce something extremely positive: him because he finally found his missing inspiration and me because I finally overcame my writer blocking.

I am mad at him for rebounding so fast with someone else because I am aware of everything we had together, of everything we did in such a short amount of time. I am mad at him for breaking up because he couldn’t overcome his fears and it destroyed his feelings for me, I am mad at him because I know he couldn’t have this emotional connection we had together with this girl, yet he chose to be with her. I am mad at him because he once told me that “if you don’t make the effort to know me, then I am not the kind of guy you want to date in a first place”: I know he is/was looking for a genuine and deep emotional connection where someone would love him for what he is, someone who would see behind his appearance. I am mad at him because I am sure that for him, if we stayed friends, I wouldn’t run away from him because he didn’t feel worth of being loved (all these sentences about him feeling useless, him telling me that he felt he couldn’t reciprocate my energy etc). I am mad at him because we saw each other for what we truly are, yet, when I thought he accepted me for what I was, he.. rejected me. And it grosses me out so much, just the thought of him being with someone else, doing these things we used to do, sleeping with her.

oh, I forgot that he broke up with her as well and I understand that you didn’t challenge him before you felt that there was something off between you and him. Maybe you are so angry with him because he didn’t appreciate what you gave him, what would have made such a big difference in your life if you received it early in life (?)

I didn’t even necessarily challenge him, once I started to feel that something was off with him, I asked him if we could talk, he clearly avoided me, I didn’t even understand why. One week later, I learned that he was seeing that girl, it just got worse and worse and I couldn’t have this conversation about what I felt off because I obviously had other things in mind. And when I asked him why he was avoiding me, he told me yeah no, I thought you were going to talk about the situation and I genuinely think that we have nothing left to say. I don’t even understand why he thought I was going to talk about this, and even if I wanted to, he could have simply told me by message that he felt that he didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Instead, he just avoided me, like WHY. I just wanted to tell him that we should piece ourselves because our attitudes towards each other was extremely weird for me.

I think what makes me very angry is the fact that I accepted him who he was, his good sides but also his downs. I did my best to offer him the emotional support and the appreciation he was looking for. I know he reciprocated it a lot, making me feel better about myself. And I think the worse is that when I sent him this supportive message after I was made aware of him not feeling good because of a particular situation (which he told me personally about and asked me for advices), he didn’t answer to it because he felt that nothing good would come from answering it. How on Earth, answering a simple supportive message would be more dangerous than staying around me in real life??????

-so you have a rich kid attitude in many ways, and you perceive it as a flaw?

I don’t perceive it as a flaw, but with time and experience, I realized that not everyone was comfortable with individuals from a different social class. Since it’s easier for me to “hide” and because I don’t want people to think that I am a show-off, I try as much as possible to adapt myself those I am around. Although, as I said, I can hide but, in many ways, it will be seen once people start hanging out with me on a regular basis. I think this is really sad that I don’t care about social classes, money and those kind of things when it comes to my personal relations, as you said, I want deep and genuine emotional connections, which makes me feel closer to people who don’t come from wealthy environment, I don’t have to play an act (which sounds ironic when I just said before that I “hide”) because I can simply be myself.

I really hate the fact that he felt so bad about our financial differences, because I am sure at 99,9% it was the real reason why he broke up and convinced himself that he didn’t have feelings for me. I mean, I got that combined with his low self-esteem, his current life, it didn’t help. But why refusing to be happy? Why refusing to accept that someone genuinely love him? Does he know what loving someone and being loved actually mean? I have some much doubts about this. He told me that his parents divorced because after two children they realized that they actually didn’t want to be together..

Hi Anita,

Your first point seems very interesting and I am really curious to read more about it. Because after all i wrote, i thought it was pretty obvious that i wasn’t seeing only the good sides of him nor mine neither. Like, ever since the beginning, i was aware of all our differences. I don’t know, for me it was about complementzrity.

Concerning your second point: I don’t think I am trying to explain/justify the withdrawl of those two guys because of their low self-esteem or their mental illness. In the first relation, my ex was actually very honest about his depression. We talked a lot about how it made him feel, how it made him withdraw from everything and everyone. When we broke up he even said that he didn’t feel ready for anything serious because of this. And having a lower self-esteem is also part of the depression-package.. he also talked a lot about him not feeling good because of his academic failures.

When it comes to the second guy: he got diagnosed almost a decade ago with autism, I remembered a conversation we had about our therapies, his lasted five years. His lack of self-esteem was extremely obvious through the sentences he had many times « perhaps I will be for once able to teach you something », « why did you choose yo be with me », « if you don’t make the effort to  know me, then i’m not the kind of guy you want to date », « being around those people remind me of what I don’t have and what I can’t afford » etc).

Maybe I can also put this on his lack of experience when it comes to relationships; i was the first girl over the past 6 years he dated. But i’m also aware that when being on an autistic prism, emotions and feelings aren’t displayed in a similar way as with neurotypicals (hence why i think i’m that much attracted to neurodivergents, being ND myself, it’s way too challenging to be with a NT). I have a very good friend who is autistic as well, we talked a lot about emotions and feelings and she told me many times that love was a way too abstract concept much before I met the second guy.

I think it’s kind of normal for me to try to understand how their brains work. It’s not about making me feel better about myself, because I could have all the answers of the world about the kind of patterns their brains took before breakint up, the results will always be the same: us being separated and me being heartbroken. I genuinely think that since I am fully aware that a relationship with a ND is « better » for me, it’s also better for me to understand how a neurodivergency different from mine works. As we know that as ND we have our own way to communicate and create emotional bond depending on how our neurodivergency works.

I mean, after digging down a lot with my ex who was depressive, I learned a lot about myself and why i decided to stay with him: it was not about love but rather about a sens of duty to not let him down while he was doing so badly in his life.

With the second guy, i don’t know yet what is the lesson. Hence why I keep writing here. What am i looking for despite knowing what went wrong already?

Actually when i think about it, i’m starting to see a reccuring pattern in those two last relationships. I’m not sure if i can word it yet tho.

At the end of the day, I mostly feel that it’s more about trying to heal myself through my attempts to understand them and to forgive myself about some stuffs from my past or my own personality.

To circle back a little bit about my depressive ex, interestingly enough, I was so sure he didn’t have feelings for me because he couldn’t develop some. But now i think it’s been roughly two months he is trying to come back, he has made it clear that he wanted to rebound with me. He told that he felt much better and that he was on his good way to finish his studies and to finally have his own appartment.

For my first ex, i know the breakup and all the complications occured because of his depression which was very recently diagnosed when we  started to be together if I remember correctly. I wasn’t that familiar with depression.

For the second, i think it’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t ready to settle down: him going to walk to Spain (and saying out loud that he wanted to be alone at that time), him not knowing about his life, him freshly university dropped out, him financially struggling (because from the moment he dropped out he also stopped receiving grants and these grants in our country are really huge, in USD i would say that it represents somehow 500$/month). Again his low self-esteem was also pretty obvious. Concerning his ND, the more i think about it, the more it makes quite a lot of sens. Although i’m still not completely familiar with autism yet. But him being so oblivion; for instance he asked me a lot of things which at first were common knowledges (ex: him telling me that i was really hard to emotionally interpret and it was hard for him to tell if i was really into him, despite me being physically all over him, complimenting him and spending a lot of time with him, sending pictures of me etc). To which extent his ND affected his ways to display emotions and feelings and how it makes him understand people’s emotions and feelings.

I genuinely think he is a good person, however his life being such a mess currently, he just got confused. As I am too about many other things.

Tbh Anita, i may be digging down where i should  have stopped earlier but i promise, it helps me a lot.