Home→Forums→Relationships→we broke up because he's feeling numb
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anita.
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July 4, 2017 at 9:22 am #156338
AnonymousGuestDear anon:
Your thinking and understanding of your boyfriend (or ex boyfriend) read reasonable to me. Reads to me that his parents have been mistreating him by fighting each other and him. He has been and is living in a war zone, really. This is why he is relieved his sisters don’t live there anymore. One self protective reaction to living in a war zone is to go numb. The three natural responses to danger are the three Fs: Flight (running away… which he should be doing!), Fight, and Freeze. Freezing is going numb.
It is bad enough for him to be living in a war zone, yet worse, he feels guilty for it. He doesn’t hold his parents responsible for creating the war zone, he inaccurately believes that he is the cause!
Then he proceeds to inaccurately project his false belief into the relationship with you, believing he can only harm you, just as he has harmed his parents (neither is true!)
Clearly he needs to get out of the war zone, join his sisters in no longer living there. Then he needs to learn that he hasn’t caused that war zone, and therefore that he is not a cause of ruin.
anita
July 4, 2017 at 9:48 am #156340
anonParticipantthank you for replying to me! and yes he is my ex boyfriend and i still love him and care for him very much! from what he’s told me nobody else truly knows what goes on through his head but me.
i remember me and him came to a conclusion that what he’s dealing with could be a sign of BPD a while ago but now it’s starting to look like it’s something completely different. quite a few people who know him also think it’s BPD but they don’t know about him feeling numb and how he can’t completely grab onto feelings. we talked on the phone yesterday and he mentioned how there’s some feelings that he knows will come back and some that he knows won’t and the ones he had for me don’t seem like they would be coming back and although i did believe it for a second, it still isn’t really making sense to me. like i mentioned above, the feelings he had for me were quite strong. almost stronger than any other one he’s had for anyone else (or at least thats what he tells me) so it just doesn’t make sense that he’d lose his strong feelings first and be able to keep his weak ones.
even when he was breaking up with me he mentioned how he still cares and loves me but not in the way he used to. like he loves me enough to see me do good and be happy because it’ll make him the happiest but he doesnt love me in the way that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. and it’s really confusing me because the way he makes it seem, its like this not wanting to be with me is only temporary. when i asked him why he doesn’t want to be with me anymore he says even though he still thinks i’m the most beautiful, he just wasn’t able to treat me good and that says a lot. :/ a few days ago he was being so hopeful saying that he’ll do whatever it takes to love and protect me even if it means he has to undergo that fight with himself because he knows i’m worth it but now he’s saying the fight is bigger than he is. i hate that he’s being hard on himself and he’s just pushing me away while doing it. i don’t know if it’s just better to stop trying or to still show him that he means everything to me and i still think he’s strong and can do this. :/
July 4, 2017 at 10:30 am #156346AnonymousGuestDear anon:
You wrote: “it just doesn’t make sense that he’d lose his strong feelings first and be able to keep his weak ones.”- it makes sense if his difficult life is made a bit less difficult losing the strong feelings. If his strong loving feelings for you are associated with strong guilt on this part, and the guilt is long established in relationship to his parents, then losing his loving feelings for you will ease his guilt regarding you.
I figure it is way more difficult for him to lose the guilt (a core belief established early in his life, during those Formative Years of childhood) than it is to lose his loving feelings for you.
Regarding “weak feelings” that do not cause him guilt, feelings that don’t threaten him with more and more distress and pain, I suppose there is no motivation to lose them.
I still think, as I wrote to you at the end of my last post here, that he should exit the war zone where he is living- I don’t see how he can be well if he doesn’t.
anita
July 4, 2017 at 10:46 am #156350
ElianaParticipantHi Anon,
I see alot of red flags in your post. You stated, he does not want to spend the time with you as much as he used to, and now it has gone from several times a week to maybe once a week. He is trying to break things off by saying “he is not good enough for you” and he also is very young and has many conflicts going on in his life with family, etc, that it is almost impossible, to maintain a healthy relationship.
You have made him your whole world, your everything as you say, and that is not healthy, that is co-dependent. I understand he is your first love, but you need to have other interests outside of him, or he will feel smothered, that may be Another reason he is saying he does not want to hurt you, because he knows he is your whole world and life and that is not healthy for either of you.
You need to develop a sense of security outside of him. A love for yourself, independence from him, female and male friends, church activities perhaps, volunteer work, hobbies, just time away from obsessing over him. Men don’t want someone who is clingy and makes them their whole world, it is smothering. He also states he does not love you the way he used to, and this has been a familiar pattern with his ex’s where he is so in to leave him when they become attached.
I think people no matter how much in love they are at first, drift apart, even first loves. We want everything to be “forever” but sadly this is not so. You mentioned he loves you, but does not want to be with you. All these are red flags that at this time he is unable to have a relationship with you, because his feelings are not like they used to be, and no matter what you do, you can’t change his feelings. I would just give him the space he needs to figure things out. Don’t contact him. Maybe he might contact you..maybe. But in the meantime, work on loving yourself, building a solid foundation of self-love, hobbies, outside interests, etc, so that you can find love and a healthy relationship. Keep us posted.
July 4, 2017 at 11:43 am #156364anonParticipantnono, he has been wanting to see me but due to his parents strictness and him working almost everyday AND the fact that we live an hour away from eachother now he wasn’t able to come see me as much as he used to when we only lived 10 minutes away. even last week he was explaining to me how being with me makes him the happiest. it’s just a very big switch up. but i really agree with what you said that he needs to figure things out and that i cannot change his feelings. for the past few weeks, i’ve been losing friends left and right and for a second i thought that he was the only one who was gonna stay but i didn’t put much thought into the fact that he’s still struggling with his own problems, and i know i am wrong on that part.
and about his previous relationships though, he said he does want to see them do good and to not be ruined by him but he didn’t see the beauty in them like he saw in me and didn’t let them in like he did with me so that sort of makes me feel like i do have a special place in him like he said he did. and even with his friends he doesn’t show them any of this side to them, and he even plans on leaving them too! it seems like he’s addicted to wanting to be alone but it’s only because he knows he’ll bring people pain as well as bringing himself pain.
he does mention how even when he lost feelings, he “still sees the beauty in me that he saw the first day he laid eyes on me” and to me it just sounds like he does still love me but just doesn’t want to hurt me anymore. a while before me and him started dating officially he told me he wanted to kill all the hope of ever being together again because he didn’t want to be in any kind of relationship and didn’t want me to be lead on. and during this time, he was friends with my old friends and they told me how even when he’d deny the fact that he loves me he would mention me to any girl he flirted with and tell them that he’s not over me at all and he would sometimes just bring his friends a place with a view and just would cry over me and talked about how much he missed me but still he wouldn’t admit that he loves me. and even when this first started happening, he mentioned how during that time he was going through this same situation, losing feelings and not being able to remember them, so i’m getting a feeling like maybe this is just what he means by he’s willing to fight himself for me… but i’m not sure if i’m just lying to myself to make me feel better or if this is actually the case haha! i think i should talk to one of his friends who was there for him when he was going through this and see if i’m not just lying to myself. but i do actually plan on forcing myself to get a job now so i won’t suffocate so much by being home. thank you for your response btw!
July 4, 2017 at 11:49 am #156368ElianaParticipantHi Anon,
I’m very sorry for my misunderstanding. I hope everything works out.
July 4, 2017 at 12:54 pm #156374anonParticipantits completely understandable!
July 4, 2017 at 3:11 pm #156392
MinaParticipantDear Anon,
What I have learnt from my previous recent break up is that love itself is not enough to keep a relationship going. I will not give any kind of realistic advices for you to do because I am also still struggling but all I want you to know is that sometimes .. you just have to let go of the things that are difficult for you. Relationships are not always happy but its not supposed to make you feel really awful too (most of the times) and I get that since its your first everything, its really hard to see things far beyond him but there will be the next one. Trust me. Your first love will always be special, but you will realise later that you will be able to love someone as much as you love him, just in a different way. Make sure to eat and sleep well. All love x
-Mina
February 21, 2024 at 8:48 am #427999
Anonym932ParticipantAny updates?
February 21, 2024 at 9:46 am #428008
anitaParticipant* Dear Anonym932: If you would like to tell your story and ask for feedback, you are welcome to do so, here, on this July 2017 thread of 6.5 years ago, or in a thread you can start by going to FORUMS at the top of the page.
anita
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