Hi Shelby,

” ‘nah, look it, you’re a highly sensitive woman who loved beyond measure a commitment phobe. You thought it could work and it didn’t, so naturally you’re devastated. You’ll be ok’. So we shall see.” – I love how honest and frank your therapist is (:

You will be ok and the anxiety will ease in time, I wish I was waking up early, I love it when it feels like you’re the only person awake and it’s just so relaxing.

– V

Hi RebirthandRestart2018,

“I’m slowly learning that it’s not healthy to “emotionally attach” myself to a man and pin my current and future “be all and end all” happiness on him.”  – I don’t know if this is relate-able but when I first got into my relationship my happiness came from him, he was someone in my life who made me happy but I didn’t think my happiness depended on him. I found that my happiness depended on him when I started having friendships break-down and felt isolated because he just got me. He saw me in every mood possible.

I have found since breaking up with him I have forced myself to meet people and start delving into old interests, but I seem to have an intense fear to embrace life again and feel at a loss when I want to do an activity which is enjoyable for more than one person. I have some friends at the moment but they aren’t really close friendships so I am finding myself at a loss and spending a lot of time doing things on my own, I like my own company but I am getting fed up of only sharing experiences with myself or telling others about an experience that they could’ve shared with me.

Self love seems to be a difficult journey as an adult, I felt like as a young child I was so sure in myself and had so much confidence in my abilities and now its just been torn down by others and now I doubt everything I do and my abilities.

Have you felt any better today? Were you friends with the person you pursued a romantic relationship with? Usually a strong friendship is a good foundation for long-term relationships?

– V

Shelby,

Yep, contact does not help. It doesn’t, I know this. I just wish that now when he’s so open to communicating with me I was stronger in myself to withhold. I know better, why can’t I seem to do better?! It really is like an addiction and someone is literally waving drugs right in front of me and I can’t resist even though in the long run I feel even more run down!

Honestly, what is wrong with me. I feel stupid as I write this because I KNOW it makes things 100x worse so why do I let him do this?!

Please for the love of God just let this man have a sudden change of heart and shut me out for good. Because I don’t think I’m strong enough to do that for myself.

Kkasxo,

“I was stronger in myself to withhold. I know better” – I think it’s familiarity with the person. I feel like we have all been distracting ourselves but if we feel like there’s unfinished business even if it’s just friendship it is difficult to let go and even if we know better we will talk to the person.

Even deleting his number I still wrote it down, just in case. Even though I know I should delete everything, but I don’t know where we stand so I’m not ready to do that.

– V

Kkasxo,

“Quite frankly, I’m so over the whole ordeal now. Earlier on when the situation turned into a bit of a scene I found myself explaining myself and then about mid-argument I thought what the hell am I doing?! I really can’t be bothered for all this. This man has been with me for many many years and knows me enough to know my exact trail of thought and what I would expect etc. Especially that we literally never had these issues in our relationship, yes he couldn’t progress but he did always put me first.” – Yeah I know what you mean, was he in front of other people? I found my ex acted differently in front of other people at times where I’m there thinking why are you saying x? or acting like that?

” I literally want him to either be like right this is it no more hoping, no more dwelling so that we can just be done with this or to have some sort of crazy argument which causes it to be easier to let go.” – yeah I’m in the same position with my ex. Part of my brain is like we could make this work, he needs to show me he’s prepared to put in that effort that I feel like Im putting and have put in or I want us to have an argument so my brain can just be like “oh we broke up because we were arguing” it may be one argument but its enough for our brains to justify our decisions. I feel like I am just thinking about him all the time, Im sick of putting men on a pedastol because I just get so involved in them when they probably haven’t even thought about me. But I struggle with female friendships because of being stabbed in the back by them or feeling like I have to be a certain way for me to be invited to stuff.

“he is giving me puppy dog eyes about wanting to reconcile.” – I hate it when guys do that! It’s so hard to resist!

It’s much easier to do so when things are going really shitty or you’re angry at the other person or in all honesty I’d prefer for

“Im so tired of entertaining the back and forth now and I know I’ve only got myself to blame for responding or allowing him the option to even get in touch with me. I know. You girls probably think I’m a fool, I think I’m a fool for it!” – Its natural instinct, especially if you’ve been missing him, maybe you are in love with what you could be still and not ready to really be realistic and be like he’s never going to progress.

“I need to learn to stop letting my heart take over! Please someone just come and knock some sense into me!” – haha same!

Another point is that, did you like his friends? I feel like as nice as my ex’s friends are I feel like I put up with them because he was mates with them? Idk, I feel like me and him could be a casual long-distance thing like casually dating/hooking up but I know he wants full commitment, I’m not sure I can do that.

I think im talking to him again because I’m tired of being alone and giving myself pep-talks “you are pretty”, “he would want you to go out” – it’s like he had died.

I went on tinder but just felt empty and dead inside. I didn’t even care to talk to anyone because I wanted to talk to him. Now he’s talking to me I’m angry because he hasn’t turned up with red roses on the doorstep saying take me back. I know thats ridiculous. I also cannot help but shake the feeling that he thinks im the issue and he doesn’t have to change anything. He feels like he has no reason to question why I may have felt second best in our relationship at times or maybe he’s acted to parental at times by accident (he’s older so when uni came along a lot of stuff he said was rather patronising and sounded like what my parents would say). Its odd, stuff he’s done or said isnt really an issue I just need him to understand why I see it as an issue and question if its worth it.

I too, am feeling exhausted. I need a holiday but I’m too scared, even just to go and relax in a hotel on my own for the weekend.

-V

Shelby – personally I would advise strongly against any contact. BUT I do realise that we all fall into that trap unfortunately.

Although I must say you have been doing extremely well. You have had your moments of weakness but more often than not you’ve made the choice to not act on it so well done you!

Victoria – yes it sounds that you have some work to do. From my understanding, you can’t quite commit to him at the moment for personal reasons but at the same time you want him to show up and let it be known that he will be waiting for when you are ready. I was unfortunately on the other end of the spectrum, the person waiting for a while and I can tell you first hand it is draining and absolutely heart breaking. You never know if you’re coming or going.

Right now because we’ve kept the contact light AGAIN (I’m so angry at myself) I haven’t had the chance to see any actions and therefore i’d Be going into this with a blind fold not knowing what to expect. But I feel even the situation with the concert has kinda shown me enough.. I’m not the priority. So it is what it is.

He txt last night following the ‘disagreement’. I’m not intending on replying.

P.S – I am somewhat disappointed that I’m not gonna get to go to a concert I’ve beeb looking forward to for so long whilst he’s having the time of his life with his mates! I’m angry at the fact that I’ve had to put my life on pause so he can have his fun.