Dear Shelby:

You mean you didn’t have a boyfriend throughout your adolescence  and your twenties?

anita

Dear Shelby:

I think this is significant information, very relevant to your current struggle. Do you want to  explore it with me?

If you don’t, it is fine with me. My goal is to maybe, just maybe be of some help to you, this is why I ask.

anita

Dear  Shelby:

I think your lack of relationships history is  relevant to your current struggle not because other people experience this kind of heartbreak earlier, and you experience it later, but because there is a reason why there hasn’t  been a relationship in more than ten years of your adulthood, from your late adolescence on, through all of your twenties. That reason or reasons are why you are so pessimistic now about your future.

Maybe it is a depression from before, being lonely and depressed for many years before meeting your ex boyfriend that was activated following the first and second breakup.

anita

Dear Shelby:

This  role of caretaker in your family, what is it about?

You wrote earlier in this thread: “I have this belief that if it doesn’t work out with  my  ex, that I’ll continue working etc., basically functioning but I’ll always feel the loss and always have a melancholy of sorts and always miss him and basically live out the rest of my days in a mediocre sort of life… I feel like if I have to suffer for the rest of my days enduring this sad  life,  I’ll do it, for my  family.  It will just  be my lot in life”

What  if it is this caretaker role that is responsible for this melancholy, this mediocre sort of life, this sad life. Is it necessary for you to continue this role, is it what you want, or maybe, maybe there can be  a different  kind of life for you?

anita

Dear Shelby:

You shared the following: “I grew up with loving parents, no abandonment… I had a stable, caring upbringing as far as  I  can remember!” There is only one scary incident from your childhood that you remember,  “one tiny small incident”, when you were maybe 10-12, something you “didn’t make a big deal of”.

Following a supposedly loving, stable and uneventful childhood, you didn’t  have a single boyfriend all through your adolescence, all through your twenties and past thirty. Instead, you had “flings with a few guys, but none were  in a relationship with me. And  none were serious.”

All through your twenties you “assumed the role  of caretaker in my family… It was comfortable and safe but loneliness catches up with everyone I think so that’s probably why I decided I  wanted a relationship a few years ago”. And so, four years ago, at about 32, you had your first and so far one and only boyfriend.

About a couple of years  ago the relationship ended, you experienced severe anxiety and depression, started taking anti depressant/ anti anxiety medications and attended therapy. There was a resuming of the relationship and about two months ago, a second breakup. Following the second breakup you experience persistent anxiety and depression and you are still taking psychiatric medications and attending therapy.

I reached out to you repeatedly in the context of your three threads, trying to lead you to consider the  idea that your childhood was not as loving, stable and  uneventful as  you presented but failed to get your interest in examining your childhood/ current relationships and  position in your family of origin. I suppose you are  comfortable enough as is. It is time for me to give up my  efforts. because  I figure you are  not interested and  it  is frustrating to try again and again… and yet again to reach  out to a person who is not interested.

In your most recent  post you wrote: “Sometimes I  wonder am I meant for more?”-

I don’t  know. Regardless, I wish you well and I hope you continue your active participation in this  website, communicating as well as you have, empathetically, respectfully and gracefully with multiple members.

anita

You are welcome, Shelby. Glad  you are here and best wishes to you!

anita

Hi Shelby,

For me, acceptance is about acknowledging the truth about what’s happening and how I’m feeling about it without judging either as good or bad. Sometimes it helps to actually say it out loud like “I’m sad because he’s chosen not to be with me” and then becoming aware of how your mind/body responds to that. Breathe, and focus on where in your body you feel the pain/tension not with the purpose of getting rid of it but to just feel it and understand that it won’t kill you, that it’s perfectly okay and normal to feel this way, that you are just fine.

B