Dear Sunflowerbabe:

If I understand correctly, by nature you are “fun and outgoing”. Your boyfriend before the recent didn’t like that about you, so you pretended you were not fun and outgoing. You continued to pretend the same with your most recent boyfriend. Your most recent boyfriend broke up with you because you successfully pretended to not be that which he would have liked (a fun and outgoing girlfriend). Did I understand correctly?

You shared about this man being a smoker August this year, in your previous thread, and how much it was a deal breaker for you. I suppose this is the positive part of this breakup?

anita

Dear Sunflowerbabe:

I am sorry that you are experiencing a heart break. I hope you already feel better, or that you will feel better soon.

I misunderstood, I thought he smoked nicotine in addition to weed, and that it was the nicotine smoking that was a deal breaker for you.

You shared in your recent post, “I also considered my family plans too much when making plans with him…. This made him think I didn’t want to do anything fun”-

– this means that your family’s plans were not about having fun… I wonder what you mean then, by “family plans”.

“I also don’t know what to do with the regret about not being me… I’m just heart broken wishing I behaved differently”- I don’t know what behaviors constitute you-being-you, and what behaviors were you not being-you.

“Also the breakup came really quick. One week he’s making plans with me for months out and coming over when I don’t feel well…  and then he comes and ends it all”- I wonder if you suffer from chronic health issues, and what kinds of plans he made with you.

I wonder these things because I am missing key ingredients in your story, without which I do not have adequate understanding of the nature of the relationship and breakup. Off course, it is your choice to elaborate or or not.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by .

Dear Sunflowerbabe:

You are welcome. You shared that your (now former) boyfriend wanted to take you to the beach the weekend after your birthday, but you turned him down because you didn’t want to hurt your parents’ feelings in case they will want to do something for your birthday. He also made plans to celebrate Halloween and you turned him down for the same reason.

I am assuming that your parents were not able to celebrate your birthday earlier than the weekend after your birthday, and that you did not know if they planned anything for that weekend.

I also assume that you didn’t and may still not know if your parents planned anything for Halloween that is yet to happen, at the end of this month, but you didn’t want to commit to celebrate it with your boyfriend just in case your parents will want to celebrate it with you.

Is it that your parents instilled in you the inclination to believe that their feelings will be hurt if you don’t avail yourself to them during holidays and special occasions, even when they didn’t let you know if they made any plans for those times?

anita

Dear Sunflowerbabe:

If he is game, as far as getting to know the real you, maybe it will not be closure to the relationship, but a new beginning?

anita

Dear Sunflowerbabe:

In August 5, a couple of months into this relationship, you shared in your thread titled “My boyfriend is perfect except 1 thing”, that he “is perfect except for 1 thing”- sometimes he smokes weed, “this past weekend I found out he smokes which has always been a deal breaker for me”, “I would have never let things go this far if I knew”.

“there is something about him smoking that gives me anxiety”, you wrote. On one hand, you wrote that a man smoking weed “has always been a deal breaker for me”, on the other hand,  you wrote on the same day, that it “isn’t a big deal to me as we live in California and it is legal here”.

You shared that your grandmother smoked weed, “and I saw the way it made her get less and less healthy. I also am allergic to the smoke”.

When I suggested back in August that you ask a man you consider dating if he smokes before dating him, and wondered if you asked this man that question, you replied: “I didn’t even think to ask about it! Which is silly, considering it is something that is very important to me”.

Two and a half months later, in your current thread, “It’s a long story”, you wrote: “The smoking ended up not being a deal breaker because it turned out he just smoked weed sometimes which is legal where we live. This doesn’t bother me”.

* My thoughts: how can it be that you are “allergic to the smoke”, that you feel so strongly on the matter, so strongly that it was “very important”,  a “deal breaker” for you, and yet.. it is not a problem at all?. My answer: him smoking weed was never a problem. My next question is: what was/ is the problem then?

You shared that at about June of this year, during quarantine, you started dating this man, a man who was “everything I’ve ever wanted.. ambitious, handsome, kind to me, and we have amazing chemistry together.. exactly what I’ve always wanted and we are the same in so many ways and I feel like we just connect… I’m crazy about him”. Your emotional experience with this man was unusual for you, “I don’t often find people I click with this way”.

The two of you were “fun and outgoing… open to doing fun stuff”, “we are the same in so many ways”, but you pretended to be “not outgoing.. not open to doing fun stuff… rejected a lot of his outing ideas”.

“I.. considered my family plans too much when making plans with him to the point where I wasn’t being flexible with what he wanted to do, even though I wanted to do those things too.. he would invite me to do things and I would turn him down just in case my family wanted to make plans that day and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings… he wanted to take me on a beach get away the weekend after my birthday, and I turned him down because my parents might want to do my birthday those days and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings and a similar situation with Halloween”.

Early in the relationship he made plans with you “for months out.. dropping subtle ‘I love you’s”, but after you chose to not go out with him, he broke up with you.

You wrote: “being so clingy to my family… I drove someone special away”.

* My thoughts: I think that the lesson here is in what you wrote here: “I wish I had let him see the real me and stopped being so clingy to my family”.

When I asked you, on this thread, if your parents instilled in you the belief that their feelings will be hurt if you don’t avail yourself to them during holidays and special occasions, you answered: “my dad did make me feel like this..”.

Seems to me that you have an allegiance to your father which is a problem for you. It is as if.. (is it?) you feel like you will betray your father if you make plans to be away from him. As a young woman, if you do want to date and have a relationship with a man, you need to be okay with being away from your father and have fun with another man.

When you rejected your boyfriend’s plans to celebrate your birthday the weekend after your birthday, not because you had other plans, and not because your parents had plans for you, but just in case they will, this is.. a result of you feeling guilty and anxious: …what if, what if my father wanted me with him and I will not be there, is the thought and dread I imagine you experienced.

Halloween did not happen yet. Your boyfriend suggested celebrating it, and yet, you rejected his plans, again.. just in case your parents/ father will want you there with him in over a week from now.

I think that your relationship with your father (and perhaps with your mother as well), is not healthy. I think that this unhealthy relationship is the part of your “long story” (in the title of your current thread, “It’s a long story”), that you didn’t tell. It may help you if you do tell, if not here, then perhaps in the context of psychotherapy.

anita

Dear Sunflowerbabe:

I want to be clear about the smoking. Your Aug 5 thread was about you finding out that he smoked nicotine: “this past weekend I found out he smokes which has always been a deal breaker for me”. Oct 20, you wrote: “The smoking ended up not being a deal breaker because it turned out he just smoked weed sometimes”- so what you are saying is that in Aug he smoked nicotine, but by Oct he stopped smoking nicotine, or that in Aug you thought he smoked nicotine, but made a mistake, he didn’t smoke nicotine, you only believed that he did. Which one is it?

You wrote that your father encouraged you to get into online dating, which is how you met your ex boyfriend, and that in the beginning of your relationship with your boyfriend, about June of this year, “it was hard for (your father) for us to have less family time because I did start spending a lot of time with my ex”, but now your parents “say they don’t even want to spend that much time with me and they need space to do things too and we can make plans for any time”- then why did you reject your ex boyfriend’s plans to celebrate Halloween with you in more than a week from now?

“Although this break up has really hurt I think I’ve learned a lot about myself”- I wonder what you learned about yourself.

anita