Dear Milly:

To change limiting beliefs, repeating affirmations can help short term, but not long term. It takes examining the existing beliefs, their origin, the feelings behind them,  considering new, accurate beliefs to replace inaccurate, old beliefs,  and then, experimenting with new behaviors fitting the accurate beliefs. It is only after we experience success with new behaviors, that we grow to believe, truly believe the… accurate, new beliefs.

If you would like to examine this one and only relationship you had for better understanding, will you answer the following:

1. You wrote that he told you that the two of you “couldn’t be ourselves around each other, that there were problems we couldn’t work out”- what did he mean by him not being able to be himself in a relationship with you, do you know? And what problems was he referring to?

2. You wrote: “I also know exactly what I want and need in a relationship, now that I found out what went wrong in my first one.”- what went wrong in the three month relationship?

anita

Dear Milly:

You wrote: “He said that this easy-going, open, and uncomplicated me was the girl he had fallen in love with, and not the sad girl who felt lonely all the time and asked him for more care. He accused me of having tricked him and that the girl he fell in love with didn’t exist after all and I had just been playing a role. That hit me very hard.”

When you wrote that it hit you very hard, do you mean that you agree with any of his input? Do you  think it is possible that once the friendship became a relationship (your first) that you abandoned a role?

anita

Dear Milly:

I re-read and studied your posts on this thread. The following quotes are from your three posts here.

First part of my post:

Your high priority goal is “to experience a warm, stable, and loving relationship with a wonderful guy… to experience true love and know what it feels like to be loved back.”

You wrote: “I literally did anything for him and always put my own interests behind his… When I was hurt or sad, I hid my feelings from him, worried that he might get upset and stop liking me…I was very careful around him and worried a lot about what he thought about me in general.”

You identified these as your mistakes and concluded, “in my future relationships, I know that I need to put my needs at least on the same level as my partner’s”- I agree with your conclusion and I know, from experience, that it will not be easy to behave differently next time you are in a relationship: the tendencies will still be to hide your feelings, to be careful, to worry a lot, and to put your needs on hold while attending to his needs.

It will require ongoing attention on your part, willingness to practice a new behavior even though there is distress inherent in such practice; forming the intent again and again to behave differently, expecting to not perform as well as you would like to, patience… and it will also take an honest, willing and capable man and an ongoing, honest, clear communication between the two of you, one based on Empathy, Assertiveness and Respect (EAR).

Second part of my post  (includes questions, and if you would like to answer them, please do. My purpose is to understand better so to be helpful with your high priority goal, stated above):

1. You wrote: “He pretty much talked me into breaking up… That’s why I eventually agreed (to the breakup)…he said these things just to convince me to break up with him…I eventually gave in and agreed that a break up”-

I was wondering, as this is unclear to me: do you believe that you had to be” talked.. into” breaking up, that you had to “agree” to it before a breakup would take effect, to be “convinced first… seems to me that all it takes is one party in a relationship to choose a breakup, not two.

2. You wrote: “Most of our mutual friends actually also cut their ties with him after what he did to me… I am still very much shocked and hurt by what happened.” It is unclear to me what is it that he did to you, didn’t read to me that he mistreated you. Is his getting involved with another woman AFTER the breakup shocking…and a reason for his friends to cut ties with him?

Third part of my post, more comments:

You wrote: “After that (telling him he was inattentive to you) he made an effort to contact me and see me more often again, but I felt like he was only doing so because I had asked him to, not because that was what he actually wanted. And after about 2 weeks, those efforts also stopped again.” It reads to me that you discouraged his renewed attentiveness to you and that your expectations for how attentive and the motives behind a man’s attentiveness may be exaggerated, unrealistic.

anita