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.

Hi Anita,

I hope you had a good night (it’s soon 11:00 am here).

I would say about my own self-esteem that it’s doing pretty good actually. Besides the breakup which obviously hurt me a lot, I really enjoy what I do, who I am and the people I am surrounded by. And everything got better since I’ve been taking distance with my mother. It’s amazing how a simple decision like this has changed me so much in only 6/7 months.

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. I realized that I could and wanted to do so a few weeks after my last conversation with my depressive ex. I was also talking with someone about relationship and I asked THE question: “are we meant to be together?”, she told me “it’s not about knowing whether you are meant to be or not, it’s about what you want to give and if the other can reciprocate it. Give what you want to give if you feel like it, don’t restrain yourself because you are scared.” So after, I completely opened up about my feelings for him, of course I was scared he would reject me, but I also understood and accepted that if I decided to tell him how I felt, it was in a first place mostly for me and only for me. My feelings are too precious, too unique, they belong to me and only to me, metaphorically speaking: it’s like wanting to share candies, if the other doesn’t want your candies, then it won’t make you like less those candies. You will keep liking and wanting them and at some point in your life you will find someone willing to take your candies and shares their candies with you.

I fell in love with the second guy because of the emotional bond we developed the 5 first months we knew each other, it was not imaginary, maybe it was just about timing. Although I also think that everything happens for a reason at a certain time. So I don’t know. Maybe at the end, he also realized before me that me and him would have also been extremely complicated in the sens that from the 20th of June, we wouldn’t have been able to see each other for at least 5/6 months because of our schedules and that would be unfair for all of us to stay with someone yet not being able to provide the emotional and physical care needed when in relationship with someone. Also I just realized that he was going to walk to Spain and after we both knew that I was going to leave for Asia around January/February for at least 5/6 months. Ehhhh..

Hi Anita and Tee,

I came back two days ago from my trip, it was really lovely and it felt so nice to be outside of my big town with my friends! We had an amazing time and ever since I am floating on a big chill summer cloud haha. I hope you had a nice week-end too wherever you are!

Before responding more in details to the both of you, I’d like to share some parts of the last messages I sent to him before blocking him from everywhere. I don’t think I was venting out, as I told him, the purpose of these messages was to simply clear out the situation and to be completely honest towards myself and him in a first place, never ever I wanted to make him change his minds and to create a rebound situation. Although, now when I read back, I realize that some parts of them were led by me being annoyed and extremely sad, hence I wasn’t as chill I hoped I would be. But eh, who could blame me to be emotive when the guy I used to have strong feelings finally admitted that he was dating someone else two weeks after breaking up with me out of fear?

Tee, you wrote to me:

As for him not being polite, not even greeting you but just staring at you, maybe he cannot or doesn’t want to pretend that he is fine, when he is not. If I understood well, your communication stopped completely when you wrote him a long message spilling out everything you had (I assume your outrage and disbelief about his actions), and then blocking him on social media. He probably didn’t take that well, even if what you said was mostly true. I imagine there is a mix of feelings in him: anger at you, a sense of embarrassment at himself, perhaps even hatred and disappointment in himself, combined with resentment towards you, perhaps also a sense that life in unfair etc etc…

There could be a storm of conflicting emotions inside of him, perhaps he isn’t even aware of all of them, and this makes him kind of stuck, like a deer in the headlights – frozen and unable to respond. If this is true – if he is an emotional mess right now and doesn’t know what to think or feel, it would explain why he can’t even utter a word to you. Or he might be resenting you for the things you’ve said – things that in fact might be true, but he doesn’t want to admit them. And so he “punishes” you with his silence.

“You always felt that you had to over-compensate with me, that you weren’t good enough, I know everything you did in order to please me, I also noticed every times you felt that you weren’t enough. On one hand, I am really flattered that you had such a high opinion of me. But also, 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. I don’t know what happened exactly in your mind back in the days (and again, it is what it is now). But I refuse to believe that you didn’t feel this flow and connexion between us. Because it was as obvious as the nose in the middle of the face. As hard as it is to believe, I promise you, I am not mad at you anymore. Really. My feelings for you came from those times together, talking to you, spending all this time together, gradually and then it became very intense. I am sad that it has to go that way between you and me. But you also really have to understand that when I think that actions don’t match words, I need to clear out the situation. What I saw, was us always in a way, ending up around each other. We both know that I was always the one coming to you ever since november/december. We both agreed that it would be better for each other to keep our distances. Yet, before one of your event, when we accidentally bumped into each other on a Wednesday, I quote unquote yourself « I was kinda hoping that you would talk to me ». I thought I was really ready to see and talk to you as if nothing happened, so here I was.

But then, 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. « I was avoiding you » you said earlier. 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, 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? Why did you not push me away out of respect for her, as you told me, you did with her when we were together (IRL and not by messages obviously, at this point we didn’t talk anymore by messages)? Nothing happened back in the days with her, but me and you, that’s a different issue. And my issue with you is that none of us succeed to stay away from the other every time we had the opportunity for. It was NOT ok for us to do so (…)

So to be clear, I was mad at you because I never understood how one could jeopardize something which makes them feel genuinely happy. I was mad at you because I could sens your fears deep in my bones and that because it was YOUR fight, I didn’t have any right to say anything if you didn’t want to talk about it first. But never ever, I was mad at you for the way you are, I accepted you as the whole package. My sadness was about what I lost, you and these times together. I could sens you but well, i’m very communicative so I guess I just wanted for you to confirm what I already knew. 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.

I told you, clearing out my minds from parasite thoughts is my way to get out from toxic behaviors and useless overthinking. 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 hope that someday, you will understand that being happy with someone and making this person happy, isn’t a proof of you being intoxicated by someone else’s feelings and emotions, but simply the mark of a deep emotional care. I will miss you, we were both chaotic, very dysfunctional but at the end, we managed to find our own form of happiness and it was really great. I sincerely wish you the best in your life.”

So I don’t know, to be fair, I feel like I was trying to make peace with myself and him through those messages. I mean, I wasn’t expecting anything in return: I blocked him right after sending it because I knew if I didn’t do it I would have been constantly sneaking in the conversation to see when he would has seen it and I knew if I had those kind of expectations, that would have been a very toxic behavior leading me to some very toxic patterns.

Now if I am being completely honest with myself, I have mixed feelings: I am disgusted to think of him dating the girl he told me to not worry about despite knowing that nothing happened when we were dating and understanding why he has been rebounding so fast. I am still a bit angry at him for breaking up while we were both so fine together. I also feel sorry for him because I am aware of his personal situation and I know it’s really bad which also kind of makes me angry at him, because he told me that he would rather stay alone as he wanted to before dating me because of this. Yet, he decided to date someone else two weeks after breaking up. And on the other hand, I can’t stress enough how I actually feel extremely lucky for not being part of this anymore. Apparently he hasn’t gotten out of his room for two/three days in a row now. Like, I will never wish him any bad, but I can’t stop myself to think that this girl he is dating and who has to support him and his mess, it could have been me and at some point I feel that it would have been so much worst than the situation I am now: grief is temporary and it will pass while getting dragged into his messy life, I really think would have hurt me so much more. Mostly when I think about my other ex who was depressive and to whom I stuck with out of duty and most likely out of emotional dependency. I got so damaged by this two years relations, I can’t afford to let someone else hurting me.

Hi Anita,

Thank you for this very long answer!

I don’t know if I wrote it in this thread but.. the first ex-boyfriend is trying to come back now haha. I am going to talk about it now because you mentioned him in your last message. We have been talking for a few days now and he told me really great news for him: he managed to pass all his exams and in September he will be in second year of his data science engineering program, on top of that he will move out from his parent’s place. We also talked a little bit about his depression, he is feeling much better now. Aaaaaaand.. he actually asked me out. Which I obviously refused. I think it’s very interesting and kind of funny to see him coming back after pushing me away for so long and making me go through emotional roller coasters for two years. I was so sure that he broke up because he didn’t have feelings for me and that he didn’t feel good enough to be in relationship Anita, to be fair I was almost sure he was actually gay.

Honestly, it feels kind of good to realize that me overthinking wasn’t that “much” overthinking and me imagining things which would please me more. I mean, I knew his depression was hitting really hard on him and it was affecting a lot his life, I didn’t know the extent of everything and I guess I will never. Anyway, the past is in the past. I am really glad that he feels better now and that he has finally a life he feels comfortable with.

When it comes to the second guy, I don’t think I am that far from the “truth” with him either. I mean, obviously there is a lot of overthinking because of me not being able to control my emotions and feelings. Although now I am finally back at having a better control over my emotions. I also know that his neuro-divergency plays a huge part in his relations in general, I can’t dismiss it but I can’t use it as an excuse or a shield to explain everything obviously. He never named it and his best-friend was actually the first one officially telling me that he was autistic. However, he told me many times that his ND made his brain working much slower than average and that people needed to be extremely patient with him, time being his best ally. In addition, I know his life is extremely messy, he confessed to me a lot of things about it. I know it played a huge part. We both deflected our own fears onto each others, not the healthiest way to deal with relationships indeed.

But I also think the line is extremely hard to find when it comes to dissociating ND behavior and regular behavior within romantic relationships, I got the proof with my first ex-boyfriend and I also got the proof with myself. Hence why when I am aware that the person in front of me is a ND and differently from me, I try to understand as much as possible.

When the second boyfriend told you that he was not attracted to you romantically, you refused to believe him and researched romantic attraction online, posting your findings here on your thread, arguing that he was (!!!) romantically attracted to you. In your message to him, you wrote: “I refuse to believe that you didn’t feel this flow and connection between us. Because it was as obvious as the nose in the middle of the face“- you refused to accept rejection and argued that you were not rejected! You asked a few times regarding the men who rejected you: “what is wrong with him?“, “what is wrong with them?“, all to deflect from your feeling-inside that there is something wrong with you.

Well, to be fair, I wouldn’t be questioning him not having romantic feelings if he hadn’t told me that he was scared for having lost me just because of his fears. Plus, a few weeks later he told me that he took decisions out of fears and was regretting them (we were talking about the two of us at that moment). And the main point of me questioning it, was obviously the reason he broke up: “I am happy with you, you are happy with me, we make each other happy, hence why I realized that I don’t think I could develop romantic feelings for you” ………. I would have accepted him not feeling attracted to me he had just said something like “yeah nah I just don’t feel like it” instead of this kind of argument. I mean, I can blame my first ex-boyfriend for everything I want but at least he was honest with me when he broke up: him not feeling ok, not feeling like it and not feeling “in love” with me or whatever he said, I don’t really remember.

Point is, if you are genuinely happy with someone, if you genuinely appreciate being with this person and their personality, doing regular couple-thingy with this person, I am sorry Anita, but I really don’t see thousand of other explanations for a breakup in this context mostly after such a short amount of time spent together as a couple.

The second ex-boyfriend at one point, told you that he did not want to talk with you about the past, and later, he did not speak to you at all, not even a “hi”. This is a clear post-break up rejection, yet you were not able to accept that he rejected you. You rationalize his rejections as non-rejections, as reaction not to you, but to his poor nutrition and poor mental health.

Ok so for the context, when he broke up, he insisted a LOT to keep in touch with me, he even told me “I totally picture the two of us in a near future, catching up once our lives will be on track”. Which 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. 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 am not twisting the situation at all, this is what happened for real. I was the one who insisted to keep our distances in a first place, he didn’t take it well at all. I was ready to make peace with him and to talk to him again on a regular and normal basis because I also though that throwing away the bond we used to have, would have been a waste. On the other hand, I think I was having a hard time to let him go, deep down I know we both just wanted to be around each other. The simple truth Anita, is that we weren’t and aren’t on the same page. I think at the end, it is just what it is.

Now again, I am fully aware of his situation which I have to take into consideration in the equation; it would have been very easy for me to snap out the context around him and me and just take it as it would seem to be: me refusing his rejection because he didn’t feel whatever for me. That could have been the hard truth but with my first ex-boyfriend, now I am also learning that situations are more complicated than they are, time being indeed our best ally in every situations. I know that sometimes I took decisions which I wouldn’t if I had the opportunity to go back in time, just because I didn’t feel ok with myself, I know I hurt a lot of people because of my poor mental health in the past as well. And this is why I also try to understand people’s actions and behaviors, I don’t want to hold grudges or feel bad about myself or about someone else just because of unconscious fears from both sides.

Obviously I don’t take well rejection, to a greater extent than average for sure. But the two of them aren’t my first relationships and it wasn’t the first times I got dumped. Twice before, exes broke up with me. It wasn’t hard at all because I knew we didn’t have chemistry and on a regular basis, we didn’t necessarily match each other’s energy. I can feel when something is off between me and someone, like when you just don’t match someone’s energy and personality. I wasn’t looking for excuses to justify them wanting to breakup with me because I accepted that our personalities didn’t work together, they found some parts of me annoying and I found some part of them annoying too.

-this leads me think that the praising and the feeling of superiority for being a member of a social elite, these placed you on a higher elevation platform from which you fell each time you were criticized as a child (and each time you were later rejected in the romantic context). The falls therefore were longer and the crash at ground level was more painful than if you were not praised or thought of yourself as a social elite 

You know what? I’ve started to realize that I was being part of a different side of the society when I actually started to date my first ex-boyfriend. My reality has always been this glamorous and elitist one, everything I’ve lived so far, was completely normal. I mean, I felt something was off with me of course, but I didn’t understand it until my universe clashed with his. I think I wanted to date someone from a different world because of this feeling to be off with myself. Don’t get me wrong, I would never reject my life, I really love it and I would be a fool to say no to the chances I have. I don’t think I have a feeling of superiority,  otherwise my second ex wouldn’t have taken so long to realize that we were from different worlds. I mean, I guess that for many people I would look like someone who would look down at people, isn’t it the result of an education more than a trait of personality tho?

But I also have to be conscious that people react differently according to social differences, I don’t care about them because I’ve never been in a defensive position when it comes to this. So I am aware that I don’t understand how it feels and this is also what I am trying to understand, I can’t say to someone to snap it out and that money doesn’t count if you really appreciate someone. I have to be aware of the differences which exist between me and other people: not everyone looks like the people I use to deal with ever since I was a child. I have to adapt myself to the other because I would be a real piece of trash to ask everyone around me to adapt to my lifestyle while being now perfectly aware that I am extremely privileged. If I don’t understand and be realistic about myself, I won’t be able to understand why sometimes people don’t feel comfortable around me.

My closing words for this post: you are worthy of love, Anna! And you are good enough! Your mother criticized the child that you were because she (your mother) wasn’t good enough: a good enough mother would not have criticized a vulnerable child who needed acceptance and love, not criticism and who looked up to her mother for what she needed most.

Thank you for your words Anita. My mother is being an interesting case lately to be fair, she told me “I want people to take care of me” = undirectly asking ME to pamper her (!!!!!!). I don’t have time for this, I don’t want to give any single piece of energy to her, she has a man in her life, he is the one who should give her all the attention she wants, not me her daughter. When I told her about my job, she didn’t even congrats me, she only asked about the money..