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I have a lot of guilt for hurting two of my friends, and it was a shit thing to do. Even if I did try and resist for a while. Let’s talk about this for a bit. How come you are still holding onto this guilt? What would it take for you to completely let this go and forgive yourself for your humanness?
I LOVE LOVE LOVE that he is being much more responsive. You are doing such a great job!!! How are YOU feeling? I’m sure you are so much happier now that you get to feel more connected to him. Are you still sensing any insecurities? How are you feeling inside about pulling back a bit and controlling your emotional reactions more? Has it been easy for you? Or are you having to manage yourself a lot?
I really love Byron Katie’s “THE WORK” method. It’s a really great approach for emotional management. Check it out! It’s one of many skills to put in your toolbox for when your insecurities get activated. https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/
Heidi
aaaaaah…..and now we finally get to it. I’m tired of waiting. I need to know the nature of JB’s interest in me Of course you do. It’s been how long now??? You guys have really developed a strong, strong friendship. My guess is, that’s about all he wants with you. Men (typically) will make it known when they want a woman. They make advances, they flirt, they show signs of interest. JB has become a really good friend and support and that’s about it. He may have endearing type of feelings towards you, but whatever it is that he does feel, it’s not enough to inspire him to move into romance with you.
Just know that if you say something, it will change things between you and him. You have to be willing to take that risk. It may change things permanently or it may change things temporarily, but it’s going to change things one way or another. Is that something you are willing to go risk? What EXACTLY do you want with him?
I love that you get to have your kids with you now and that you deeply enjoy them interacting with each other and being close to you. That is truly wonderful! And holy smokes, that is incredible that JB sent you that money. He truly cares for you. You are definitely an integral part of his life, there is not doubt about that. That’s so sad he lost his car to the flood. That’s intense!
Heidi
Hi Wendy,
I appreciate the stream of consciousness 🙂 It’s really good for you!!! And it’s good for me to see what all of it means to you!
Let’s talk about your choice to stay with a guy that you continually have to build-up. He is triggering you with all his judgments towards your friends/family and strangers and he expresses his resentments that he didn’t get to have the same opportunities. This is a guy who is living in a victim mentality. As long as he stays a victim, you will have to play the role of making him feel better about himself. So this is more about YOUR pattern, right?
You say you have high self-esteem, which of course you do AND you have low self-esteem. We ALL do. It’s just part of being human. I just want to pose a question that can maybe get you exploring deeper into this choice to stay with him for so long. Do you think it’s possible that your subconscious would be choosing a guy who is highly insecure, so you can feel better about yourself? He makes you feel needed. He is so insecure which makes you feel in control and secure, right? I definitely had this very strong pattern when dating. I am a very high-functioning person with a lot of confidence. As I dug deeper into myself and my patterns, I realized I was choosing to be connected to men that felt intimated by me or had a lot of low self-esteem, or who were much less put together than me. This allowed me to feel good about myself. This allowed me to feel needed and wanted. I heard over and over and over again, some variation of “wow! You know so much. You are amazing! I’ve never met a girl like you. I’ve never felt so known by anyone before.” I really saw how this was sourcing my self-esteem. I REALLY realized the extent I was in this pattern when I came across a guy who knew just as much as me, didn’t need me to make him feel good, didn’t need me to teach him a dam thing and was high functioning all on his own – without me. I literally didn’t know what to do with myself. I heard myself say “What could you possibly offer this guy? How can I be of any value to him or attractive to him if I have nothing to teach him or show him or provide for him?” MANY long stories short, I had a lot of healing to do to 100% feel my value and be attracted to a man who was just as high functioning as I was. I am valuable just because I am. I don’t want to be his teacher, I don’t want to be a source of his self-esteem, I don’t want to be his source of motivation for growth…I just want to be me and support him while he also supports me. I want to be an equal with my guy, not above him (which is always what I chose). Could it be possible that you are doing this same thing? He is quite young emotionally. He doesn’t work through his problems. He runs away and will break up with you. He blames you for how he feels, he blames his parents for not giving him enough, therefore, nothing is ever really HIS responsibility. He can keep passing along his hurt to everyone else, instead of taking ownership. Again, as long as he chooses to stay in a relationship with himself as a victim, you will just go another 10 years of you saving him and being broken up with at least once a year. YOU are the second half of this design. You participate in it. So if you don’t want this anymore, then you need to change something.
I understand there are also MANY wonderful things about him, otherwise you wouldn’t be with him for so long. There is a wonderful connection that keeps pulling you guys back together. The thing is though, it’s just not enough. I wish love and connection were enough to source a relationship. So if you want to keep fighting for this, you only have control over yourself. Expect that he will continue to be resentful, jealous, insecure, judgmental and a victim. Expect that he will continue to break up with you and expect that he will perpetually get worse, year after year as long as he keeps blaming. This is part of the man who you are choosing. So what can you do to deal with your triggers? How can you communicate differently so that it won’t trigger his need to break up? How can
My point being…when you choose a relationship with someone you are constantly having to reassure, support and encourage because he doesn’t have his own internal self-esteem, it’s YOUR low self-esteem that is choosing this design. In essence, you both are doing the same exact thing to each other, just from different sides. You BOTH have low self-esteem that is being fed by each other. He is a victim so you save him and that makes him feel REALLY good to be wanted and cared about. You get to rescue and save him and feel needed which makes YOU feel REALLY valuable in his life. Does this make sense?
I know I am pretty much focusing on just the hard stuff, but the bottom line is you are only as strong as your weakest link. You guys have some weak links in your relationship that are really limiting your love and connection. So now what? What are you willing to do for yourself? He is who he is and your job is to accept him for exactly who he is. That means breakups when his stress if high enough, that means a victim mentality so he will always blame you or someone else for how he feels and that means dealing with a very emotionally fragile partner. If you want to keep choosing this man, then what can you do to love and accept yourself in this choice? What can you do to fully embrace him, as is, with no agenda for him to change? What can you do for yourself to help clear those triggers in you so you can find more peace with him? What can you do to build better communication skills? What can you do to better navigate his triggers so he doesn’t break up with you again?
Thoughts?
Heidi
Great to hear from you! I always get excited to see that you posted, because you always have the best updates!
The way I like to start the non-negotiable list is to list EVERYTHING you want in a guy. Leave nothing out. Wish for the smallest, most insignificant things, list things that are even surface and pretentious (i.e. I want a guy with a defined body – or a guy that is taller than me). Using Tim as an example is a GOOD thing. He is creating and fulfilling your standards. It’s how we discover our non-negotiables…through experience. Use Tim and every other guy you have dated. Even use your friends, because the foundation to a strong romantic relationship, is friendship.
Yes, I am seeing a lot of breakups as well. People, in general, just do not have the education nor skill set about how to keep a relationship alive and well nourished. People rely waaaaaay to much on their feelings of connection to carry them through, when that connection has to be ACTIVELY and CONSCIOUSLY cared for, in order to keep the flame going. The flame will die so subtly (especially with kids as a distraction) and people will just ignore it…until they can’t anymore.
That’s why my mission is to really educate as many people as possible about how to choose a partner that first and foremost has the qualities needed for a sustainable relationship and secondly, is committed to the growth of the relationship. That’s why the non-negotiable list is so important. To actually put it down on paper and to be challenged on every level, is a very different process than just thinking about it in your mind. I’ve taught this course many times and not once has someone not been shocked at how much they didn’t know about themselves and their needs when it comes to love.
Heidi
Hi Wendy! No, it wasn’t 3:26am when I wrote back to you. I’m in a different time zone than you are. That would be pretty serious dedication, right?? LOL
Thank you for sharing more about your process. It helped me understand just a little bit more about you. Let’s talk about this question:
Is it a bad thing that I indulge myself by thinking about the unkind things I’d like to say to him when I’m internally venting?) The very first thing to understand is that when your boyfriend (or anyone for that matter) triggers you, your reaction is about YOU, not them. Your boyfriend could do the same exact behaviors with a different girlfriend and she would not have the same reactions as you, right?? So first and foremost, I want to encourage you to shift your mindset a bit. There is nothing wrong with you indulging yourself and thinking about all the things you’d like to say to him, as long as that is not where it stops. I know you tend to shift into thinking about the positive things which is great! However, you skip a very important part of the whole process….YOU. To be blunt, you are wanting him be different. You are wanting him to behave in certain ways so YOU can feel happy. Basically, you are putting your peace and happiness in HIS hands instead of taking responsibility for your own happiness first and foremost. When someone triggers me into a negative response, my very first question is, “What is being triggered IN ME right now?” I connect deeply with myself and pay attention to the story I have created around the hurt I’m feeling. It might be “He doesn’t care about me” or “If he really loved me, he would pay more attention” or “He is not emotionally available for me.” Those are the stories we create about ourselves and the other person in reaction to the trigger. We ALL do this. If you understand that the feelings you have, fueled by the story you create, are NOT facts, then you have some work to do to get to the core truth. For example, if I have a story like “He doesn’t really value me” and I feel hurt by his actions of not responding to my texts or phone calls very often, I can go down the rabbit hole and really connect to a part of me that feels the hurt of rejection. I can connect that original rejection to a father who made work more important than his family and who was very emotionally unavailable. So the current situation is really triggering my past feelings that I have not resolved yet. What these moments of triggers are offering you, is information about the wounds and hurts you are still carrying from your past and your triggers have original moments where they were created. Your current boyfriend is just the trigger, not the cause of what you are feeling.I like to use the SUD Scale. Subjective Units of Distress (or distrubance) Scale. It’s a scale from 0-10 – 10 being the most Distress. So when I get triggered, I know that if my emotional reaction is over a 5, I am in a bigger trigger and a bigger network of emotions have been activated. When this happens, our emotions take over and our brain enters into a primal, lower state. This is why it’s always said to never make decisions when you are under higher emotions. We literally lose our ability to think clearly. So my rule of thumb is this…if I am over a 5, I need to really work on exploring what my trigger is EXACTLY, work with that part of myself and clear/heal/release what I discover. THEN…I come back to my partner, once I am under a 5 and have access to my critical/higher levels of thinking, and we have and ADULT conversation about what happened and we problem solve from that space. (the higher the number you give your emotions/disturbance, the more the wounded/child energy it is). The moment you are triggered enough to pull away from him and go silent, you are definitely over a 5. The thing that is missing in your process is you actually are not healing/releasing anything WITHIN YOU. You may calm down in 24 hours, as you have good practice as pushing your feelings down and rationalizing away your feelings. All that’s happening when you do that is those feelings get buried and will resurface over and over and over again. This is why triggers are such a gift. It helps us see where we are stuck and gives us an opportunity to heal.
In essence, it’s not your boyfriend’s fault that you have the level of reactions you do. If anything, he is giving you a gift by triggering areas in you that really would love some attention and are ready to be paid attention to, healed and released. It’s not to say that his behaviors are not tough to deal with. There is ALWAYS going to be something to deal with in every relationship, right? It’s more about HOW we deal with those triggers that can make or break a relationship. The moment you start to blame him for how you feel, you instantly become a victim and give him your power. Instead, take ownership for how you are feeling. Take ownership in your own happiness and feeling of peace.
I just had a conversation last night with a friend where he was just not showing up very well. I got to a space of acceptance of who he is, dealt with my feelings of rejection and got myself into a space of acceptance of who he is right now. In that acceptance, I was okay with stepping back from the friendship. THEN, I talked with him and just let him know what I was feeling and why and that I accept him for exactly who he is. He does not need to change. However, it also means I’m going to just have less needs in the friendship and I just was not going to invest as much. He instantly responded with compassion, understanding and validation of my experience and HE chose to change…not because I asked him to, but because he WANTED to. I didn’t need him to change as I have no control over what someone wants to do or be. The only thing I have control over is myself. The friendship, as it was, was not fulfilling me so that meant I can change and feel better about the friendship if I stepped back more. This is how I held onto my power and took responsibility for MY needs instead of putting it on him. If BOTH people really viewed relationship this way, where each person owns their feelings, works with their feelings and triggers and stops pointing the finger, THEN…you have a very powerful, healthy, loving relationship.
I know this is a lot. Hopefully it all makes sense. Let me know your thoughts!
Heidi
Hi Megan,
Now you can better understand what he is going through, right? Your fears and nagging and feelings of betrayal and rejection, come to the surface when he doesn’t respond in the way you need. I want to encourage you to REALLY work with those feelings. You are fooling yourself if you think you can just all of a sudden decide “I don’t want to be like that anymore.” Truth is, all those feelings are still there and going to be there FOREVER, until you deal with them directly. The same is true for him. You BOTH are carrying baggage from the past into this relationship (I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do that…it’s just normal and part of relationship). The relationships that last and really grow strong bonds are the one where BOTH people are willing to work through all the shit that gets triggered by each other. Yes, you can change your behavior by giving him more space and consciously choose not to nag him, but those feelings you carry inside will still live in you and still affect your relationship with him.
What you are doing is really working and that is fabulous! You are starting to get what you want and that absolutely feels really good, right? What happens when you get hurt again though? What happens when those feelings of rejection and abandonment come up again? Because it’s GUARANTEED they will. How can you work with your feelings NOW and help yourself heal so that you can better handle when he doesn’t show up for you the way you need?
Heidi
Hi Wendy!
Welcome! Thank you for sharing your story with us! Let’s see if we can break this down a bit more and help you get to a place of peace and clarity about what you would like to do next.
My first question is, it sounds like the last 3 breakups are originating from him triggering you, so how are you handling him when you get triggered? How do you communicate to him what is happening for you? Are you getting triggered from the same behaviors or do you experience him changing each time you get back together?
I love and miss my bf, and I accept his emotional baggage (because most of time it doesn’t affect us), but this time he really dropped his suitcase on me. Six breakups in seven years. Is it time to stay broken up with him? Can you accept his emotional baggage even though it does affect your relationship? You will NEVER find someone baggage free, so the question is more about can you accept HIS particular baggage? His baggage is also triggering your baggage, so what if you worked on your own baggage for a while? You would get less triggered, right? This is just a guess, as I don’t know what your triggers are.
I want to encourage you not to focus on “6 breakups in 7 years.” Yes, that is an important thing to look at, but what is the core issue here? What is his part and what is your part that is creating this design? What can YOU do to shift this pattern? If you want to stay with him, then how you both interact with each other through challenges needs to shift. It will take practice though. You BOTH have to be willing and make agreements about how you will work together. Is this something you want to do? Do you think he would be willing as well?
Heidi
Hi Lelah,
We are so glad you are here. Thank you for sharing your story with us. I can feel your heart breaking. You have put in a lot of effort and have been EXTREMELY patient with this guy.
I do have some questions. What are your ages? Why only once a week? Is he not willing to see you more than that? During the rest of the week, do you guys keep connecting through texts or phone calls? From what it sounds like, you guys are not exclusive, right? He isn’t willing to commit, so technically you or he can go on dates with other people. Am I understanding this correctly?
You say you can’t imagine your life without him. I hate to say this, but he is barely in it (compared to a more healthy relationship design where people actually start to build their lives TOGETHER). You are trying to make a relationship work with a guy who doesn’t want one. He would rather be in relationship with his anger and hurt than to let you in. That anger and hurt is meant to protect him. He never wants to hurt like that again. This is a guy who is not willing to face his feelings, not willing to forgive and not willing to risk again. He is a VERY emotionally fragile man.
Here you are, spending all of your energy trying to make him feel safe and show him that you are not his ex and that you are going to offer him a different experience….FOR A YEAR! How long are you planning on trying to make HIM feel better? That’s a lot of work with nothing to show for it after this long. Besides, you CANNOT fix him. What he is carrying inside, is for him to heal, not you. I wish we could actually fix peoples’ hurts through our love and kindness, but that will only go so far. A person has to also DIRECTLY deal with their feelings, fears and hurts if they are actually going to heal. All he has done is buried everything. That’s why he feels his anger with you. You trigger it to come out of hiding. It’s not going to go away. It will only get worse over time.
So if you can’t fix him or change him or prove to him that you are safe, then what? If you want to stay with him, it’s about you accepting him for EXACTLY who he is. Is that something you can do? Can you find peace in this once a week design with him?
Heidi
Hi Megan,
Thank you for sharing more details. It’s so hard to do the long distance thing, especially when the relationship is so new. I know you guys have known each other for a long time which definitely helps, but it’s still a very new romantic relationship. There is so much to learn about how you both function on the romantic side of things.
As far as activating his hero instinct, I think you are already doing a great job. With distance, the most you can do is asking them for advice….having a problem they can help you solve. You don’t want to overuse that though. I know you so desperately want him to connect more and I know you are feeling like he might be changing his mind about you coming to Germany. Have you ever approached him about this directly? You are sensing something and it’s important for you to be straight up about that. If you did, what was his response?
He has A LOT to face still. It sounds like his divorce is still pretty fresh “emotionally” for him. As long as he is not resolved, complete and putting the past in the past, he will not be fully available for you. My guess is, this is one of the biggest reasons he is not moving forward with you in the ways that you originally agreed. He is still very fearful. That fear, as long as he doesn’t deal with it, will be a block whose job it is to prevent intimacy. The fear can absolutely be bigger than any love he may feel for you. In fact, the more he may start to love you, the bigger the fear will become. Have you ever talked to him about seeing a therapist? I know you said you think he’d be open to it, but getting therapy is much easier to digest for PTSD vs. hurt and fear from a divorce. He needs help. People think that once the hurt stops going away over time, that things have been resolved, but reality is, unless those feelings are dealt with directly and consciously, they just get buried, only to rear their ugly heads later on. If he is not willing to get help or deal with his feelings (beyond talking about them), then you have a pretty looooong and tough road ahead of you. You will be spending most of your energy and attention trying to break down his walls.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi! Great to hear from you again.
So what happened? Did you break it off completely? If you did, what happened? What was his response? If you didn’t, what is stopping you from moving on?
We’d love an update!
Heidi
Yes Christine, you are right. It’s a looooong standing program you have running with thousands and thousands of repetitions and experiences to support this program that you are not enough. It absolutely is not something you can just shut off. You have some work to do, if you are willing. It’s not easy work, especially at first. That’s why it’s called “the road less traveled.” Most of us that have taken this path feel more alone and misunderstood because most people don’t get it. However, it is a road with the greatest of rewards. The friendships and relationships you DO experience are deeper and more authentic. The amount of pleasure and joy you get to feel in life is indescribable. You get to feel so filled up by life and you get to feel such a deep trust and safety within yourself that you can handle anything that shows up and you have people that will be right by your side. Sound good??
If the man I am/was with, married to and had children with can’t even look at me, how in the world any man would? How? Do you see how much power you are giving this man? You literally are saying if HE can’t look at me, how can ANY man? You are saying that every single man thinks like him and sees life like him. Whaaaaat???? No way!!!! This simply is not true. So what that he couldn’t look at you. This guy at work didn’t see you that way. That, in and of itself, dispels this very toxic belief. So where do you start? It’s a technique I call “finish the story.” You can’t help that this programmed belief that “I’m not worth looking at” is there. So look at it, acknowledge it and immediately finish the story by adding in the truth. So the first part of the statement is a lie, right? You have to now add the truth in. So it looks like this: “If the man I was married to can’t even look at me, how in the world can any other man look at me? I’m not worth looking at…AND…I am worth loving. I am worth looking at. I am valuable and beautiful even if my soon to be ex-husband doesn’t think so. My coworker absolutely thinks I’m worth looking at and that’s the truth too.” Does this technique make sense? Now…most importantly, it doesn’t matter if you believe the 2nd half of the story or not. Say it anyway. You need to start training yourself to put the truth into your system. If you don’t know what the truth is, it’s always the opposite of the low self-esteem statement. Finish the story by saying the opposite of what the first part of the story is.
Here are my thoughts about your next best steps. You can either start reading books or joining groups or programs to start doing some healing work. There are a lot that we can recommend for you. If you want the fastest route, I would suggest working with a specialist. When you do 1 on 1 work, the guidance is unique and tailored to you and you have someone fully focused on your system and issues and someone who can guide you to places that are extremely uncomfortable. They will be able to guide you through the scariest parts and help you come out the other end in a healthy way. I have a coach who is brilliantly masterful at this and her techniques and methods are the fastest I have ever come across (I’ve see a lot of different therapists/healers/coaches over the past 30 years). I’m happy to give you her contact information if this interests you, just let me know.
Let us know what you would like to do.
This is a program on how to get guys that you want to be with to fall in love with you and flip any situation. I guess I shouldn’t be using it for this right? Would it even work hypothetically? Because otherwise, I feel like I’m wasting your time by reading my sad loveless story. We are here to help and guide ANYONE who is interested in knowing themselves better and gaining a deeper understanding about their situation. Let me ask you this…do you really want to turn around your situation and get your co-worker to be with you?? Is he really the kind of guy you want to invest in?
Heidi
Hi Mary,
Thanks for sharing more details.
I’m curious…what does he think he is holding you or himself back from? Is there a timeline in which you guys would be able to be in the same space again? If he always thinking/worrying about what you are doing, is he wondering if you are cheating on him? Have you directly asked him this?
What does “effort” look like exactly? If you are going to work on this together, you both need to come up with SPECIFIC actions and create a concrete plan of how to deal with this long distance in a better way. Have you ever hear of Marco Polo? It’s an app of video messaging. I LOVE IT! I feel so close to my friends who are in other countries or states because the times between our conversations on the phone, I get to SEE them and HEAR them and they share all their thoughts and ideas all the time and vice versa. It’s kind of like walkie talkie. They send me a video message, I listen when I can and respond back.
It sounds like he is not very good at dealing with his emotions and feelings. It sounds like he would rather breakup than to face his feelings head on and directly work with them. Have you guys ever had an argument? Does he tend to shut down and stop communicating?
Heidi
I first want to encourage you to really find some compassion for yourself. I don’t know a person alive, who would say no to a big glass of water after being in scarcity for so long. You are just being human. What this is teaching you though, is what will happen if you continue to ignore taking care of yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually.
At this point I’ve just accepted I’m not good enough. This program you have running in your system acts like a poison. If it’s the dominant program you live with, that means you will be susceptible and responsive to any man willing to give you attention. This thought is part of what caused you to live in scarcity for so long. If this is what you want to believe about yourself, then you will perpetually create a life and circumstances to support it. Is this how you want to live? Because you can choose another story. We ALL have parts of us that believe we are not good enough. It’s the core belief that causes low self-esteem. The difference between you and me and the next person, is how much of that belief system has authority in our lives. I have those thoughts and beliefs too, but because I have done so much work on clearing the traumas that helped keep it alive for so long, I now choose a different story…I am loveable, even in my messiness. I am messy AND I am wonderful and amazing. I am hard to be with and difficult AND any man who gets to be with me is dam lucky! For you, your story stops at “I am not enough.” Yes, that’s true, but that is also true for every person on this planet. There are going to be millions of times that your love, your efforts, your intentions are just not going to be enough to shift a situation. For some men, you will not be pretty enough, thin enough, funny enough, attractive enough, sporty enough, romantic enough blah blah blah. The thing is, it’s not about you. If some guy isn’t attracted to you for EXACTLY who you are, then it truly is just not a good match…it’s not personal. If they cannot love and accept you, then they are not enough for you, right? You are living with a mindset as if you have to meet another man’s standards in order to be chosen…heck no! Instead, if you live with the mindset that you are a beautiful, badass, loving woman and every single man that comes into your life needs to meet YOUR standards or he doesn’t get to have you. You are the CEO of your heart. Are you going to hire someone for your company just because they applied? No! Your heart is sacred. Every man that applies needs to be going through a RIGOROUS interview before he gets to “work” for you. A woman who views herself this way is a woman the RIGHT kind of man will fight for. A healthy, confident man will accept nothing less than a woman who treats herself this way. Make sense?
Thoughts?
Heidi
Here are 2 great articles that may be helpful just to give you some general guidelines.
Here is a great article that might be helpful
https://markmanson.net/toxic-relationship-signs
