If he had told me he had left his boyfriend and wanted to be with me… it would have satisfied me forever, ahah.

Regarding getting answers I may not want to hear: I don’t think i’m afraid of that 100%. I mean, the worst that could happen already has. I could ask for more “clarification” and perhaps receive some negative responses. But I think, to be honest, I’m already anticipating the next steps before I need to ask them. The realisation that this time around he won’t leave his boyfriend, I anticipated before he told me later that same day. I can see he isn’t ready to leave his boyfriend.

Maybe for him, at this stage in his life, it is easier to think the genuine love between us was something a person only deserves in fleeting moments like we had. The end was “inevitable”, when looked at in retrospect. As you said before, maybe he is trapped in this relationship because of his poor relationship with his own father. A love affair, no matter how genuine, can’t really do the job of resolving that for him, if anything it will have left him more confused, I suppose. I have tried various times to “see it from his shoes” and I suppose it’s a hard choice really.

I think i’ve realised this is a long run thing, of indeterminate time, and I think too that I realised that… probably last week? There is very little that will change now. I can perhaps influence him, advise him when his relationship with his boyfriend inevitably falters again (if he decides to share that with me). I think I know that it is “over”, for now. I say “for now” as, if he was honest as I think and you have thought from what I have said, there is always a possibility that something may happen in the future. He said even on Saturday “I love you” in a way that wasn’t forced. I suppose that will happen less often.

But still, we had nearly 3 years with barely any contact yet still drifted towards one another, so I also suppose that anything may happen, maybe we will drift back together. Perhaps, maybe, we are destined for each other, as I thought in the moment I met him. (I am a believer in true love!). Maybe this time circumstances didn’t allow… (I keep remembering that even now, when I lamented that it was all over, he would say “I wish these 5 years left of my course would pass” – always in direct response to me talking about the loss I had)

But, for now, I suppose any idea or glimpse of me and him being together should simply be a remote hope, not the all-consuming hope I have been feeling the last couple of days. To be honest that is where I thought I would be happy. Keep these feelings remote, a possibility, nothing imminent.

OCD… I believe we talked about it in my last thread! But since then i’ve been to a therapist who, when i’ve been talking about many aspects of my life, said many times “this sounds like OCD”. Indeed, I had a realisation when you said it, that… well… I can’t really do anything now. It’s “in god’s hands” as he would say, or for the universe to decide, as I would say. As I read that I thought “gosh… in a way, its just a sad thing that’s happened to me, and I have a life to lead” – a brief moment of clarity. Of course, the many feelings that come with a loss and an ending are to be expected. I’m sure i’ll be back here soon, morose and upset. But, I think what was really tormenting me was it’s presence in my mind all the time. I had nothing to counter it with except “oh gosh, RESOLVE!” – which is impossible, as I have done all I can to sustain, maintain or rescue this relationship. Now perhaps I can tell myself “you’re over thinking this!” instead of all the triggering of anxious attachment that it had been doing before.

Thanks, Anita, as always (I hadn’t said that yet!)

edit, if I may: if he had told you and followed through with all the action it takes to make it happen. 

Most certainly!

– the need of a child for his father’s (or mother’s) love is so intense, so raw, that a romantic love story in adulthood cannot satisfy that early-life, raw longing, not for long.

Coming to think about it, you (as so many of us) have this longing too, and likely, if he did move to England and was with you, your own early-life, raw longing for a father’s love will not be satisfied for long either.

The first sentence is true. The second, I’m not entirely sure…

I did not grow anxious about him, if anything I felt more secure as time went on, I felt closer and could open up to him easily… something apparently he felt too. I also wasn’t dependent on him like my previous relationship. I could send him a message or two in a day etc. It never felt like that sort of relationship that’s all about childhood trauma, if you know what I mean. I was never bargaining with him for his affection or attention, nor bargaining with myself to tell myself he loved me. It doesn’t feel as borderline “delusional” like the previous relationship, it felt like a genuine attraction. I saw such a long happy future ahead, not the one of “oh, if just did this or that differently, or he did this or that differently, if we just resolve these issues first” – the never-ending cycle that my old relationship had and his current one appears to have.

It felt deep enough that I felt myself growing because of him. I would get sulky, but then realise that’s not the best way to act. He would be open too and help me work through whatever caused the sulkiness, or really whatever problem we had between us. He did this when I was there and right up to to the day we ended… for me, regardless of love, it was the healthiest romantic relationship i’ve ever had… I don’t feel it was (at least 100%) a sort of love-craving on my part, nor his. (My previous thread, having read a few posts, was most certainly so).

Having said that… I suppose the two threads here are proof of a childhood trauma – a lack of self-soothing!

as I said before, I think that his emotional expressions (the drawing of a heart with his hand stands out for me) are honest. It’s just that there is often a HUGE distance to bridge between the feeling in one’s heart and.. all that it takes to make practical and real-life changes.

This makes perfect sense, even my mother said it as such. “Maybe he just thought, at the end of the day, with all the distance between you both, it just didn’t seem possible for him” – (even though we had planned that I move there in a year’s time).

An object in motion tends to stay in motion (that would be him moving to England), an object at rest tends to stay at rest (that would be staying in Brazil), the undisputable laws of physics.

True. A useful analogy. I think a part of me hopes that maintaining communication will maintain it. By that, not an intense romantic love… I suppose I just would like that he doesn’t forget me. I’m obviously going to suffer from some wishful thinking… but it would just be such a shame to let it all go.

 you want this too much.

I think my feelings are intense and pushing this a lot at the moment… because, I read it and agreed,  my feelings run riot. For now at least, especially once you said about OCD, I can see the normal feelings of this situation have been amplified by my OCD. I’ve pushed and sulked for things that really I didn’t necessarily want, need or expect from him.

I’m aware of course that pushier you become, the more desperate you appear and the less control both parties feel they have in the situation. I worry too that this will toxify things, but for now I think I am grappling with these feelings. I don’t want to exhaust him by doing this, as he seems very much willing to still be friends at this point.

You can make things happen, sometimes. Less likely, if you want something too much.

I think here is also my source of conflict, and I don’t know what feeling or thought to trust, and I think it’s what’s making me feel lost. I don’t know if I can “make something happen” – persuade him or whatever – or if doing that is “wanting it too much”. A heartfelt message? Or a desperate delusion?

The conflict churns and churns. Do I swallow it all, accept what is in front of me, and we stay friends? Or do I fight for love? Or am I saying this with the words “True love wins in the end” in the background of my mind hahaha. A conundrum!

Well… what followed was another very long video conversation.

In summary, he said that despite his best efforts, it was now increasingly clear to him how he really felt about everything, his boyfriend, and about me.

He said “slowly i’m figuring out what I really feel, and want”. I reassured him, as before, that he deserved a love that was free-flowing, not one that is constantly negotiated and that is always in the future. Him and his boyfriend were constantly “oh but when we do this” – a relationship based on some future that was never going to arrive. I said that the love I offered him was direct and unconditional – I never wanted to control him, demand anything from him in the way his boyfriend wanted. When I was saying this, he covered his eyes and was crying.

Soon after, he said that it was clear to him that he loved me, and that he had felt bad that, deep down, he loved me and not his boyfriend. “Sorry it took so long”. He said all that he had dreamed and planned to do with me was what he really wanted. He said the feelings he had passed through the previous weeks were simply showing him that he loves me, and that what he feels for his boyfriend really is just guilt and pity.

He said too he would “start the process” of breaking up – which indeed he did do right after our call. His boyfriend had called him and he had explained all he felt – he was tired of the arguments, and felt that their relationship was over. In that call, the boyfriend simply said “I don’t want to talk about it now”. As he was telling me this (via video call) he received another call from the boyfriend. I left him to answer and went to sleep, and awoke this morning.

The boyfriend it seems is a little unstable. He said he has to go to a psychiatrist now “because of what you are putting me through”… the boyfriend apparently said “Let me go there for one month, if I don’t change I will accept breaking up”.

I was terrified when I heard this… oh gosh… is he going to wait this month out?

“No,” he said “It’s the start of the process. I don’t want him to do something crazy -(I think he was referring perhaps to self harm or even a suicide threat)- and feel guilty about it. It was never going to be simple breaking up with someone like him. But I will just not react and will have to just disconnect from him”.

With that, I understood that perhaps there was some intensity from the boyfriend that was spooking him – controlling him – at the time. Someone threatening you with their life isn’t exactly an easy situation to deal with. I can see the boyfriend acting like that too, it wouldn’t be out of character, even from the little I know of him.

I reminded him that he is not responsible for the actions of others, no matter how grave. He agreed, but said too he doesn’t want to feel guilty about something for the rest of his life. He said he had imagined breaking up while the boyfriend was visiting him in Argentina, and imagined all sorts of horrible things. He said at least if he is in his hometown he will have some support there – including being referred to a psychiatrist.

Throughout the call yesterday he was saying “oh, when I visit, it’ll be like x or y” “When you come here again, x or y” “We’ll do this” – he had seemed to have quite resolutely made his mind up. “When i’m there it will be so funny to have to use google translate to talk to your parents”.  I remain a little hesitant, indeed I still can’t quite believe all of this, but I do believe him. I worry that maybe his will might be broken – his boyfriend really does seem to have some problems – but I trust him to try his best, and will just have to wait out this process. He has started out with saying that he knows it will be tough and he’s going to have many things thrown at him. So it seems he is ready.

This morning I was so nervous about it I couldn’t think about anything else. But when we called again today, I asked him if he had faith in it all, and still felt the same way – “of course I do” – well, probably my OCD whispering lies in my ear.

Aside from that, yesterday one sweet thing he said was “Would you let me care for the injury I gave to your heart?” He also made a few gestures – “what’s the size of your ring finger?” – a slightly impulsive gesture but that is a part of his character.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>He didn’t say it directly but I think it was in his mind, he said “I know him, he wasn’t just making drama”. Perhaps not an explicit threat, but a sort of implicit one used by his ex to control him.</p>
He said before he had had a girlfriend who threatened suicide after they broke up, which perhaps is a fear he now has that is triggered.