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Hi Cathy,
Yay! Well done! Stay empowered. DO NOT let him be the one to decide your value and worth. That is the most powerful gift that rejection offers us. When someone rejects us, it hurts because it pulls us out of the truth of our amazingness. The rejection hurts because we are giving that person the power to decide our value and worth. The process of coming back to the truth that you are wonderful and amazing, whether or not he or anyone else thinks so, is what strengthens you internally.
When I was much younger, rejection hurt sooooo much more. But every single time I was rejected, I worked on pulling myself back into my power and loving and choosing myself, even if they didn’t. Now, rejection still hurts of course, because that’s just normal, but I know how to find myself again, very quickly. That is what you are doing right now.
How are you feeling??? Are you feeling empowered?
Heidi
Hi Cathy,
How wonderful to get to feel butterflies again in your life. After losing your husband of 46 years, I imagine you would have wondered if it was every possible to feel anything again for someone else. And you quickly learned, absolutely YES! It’s possible! I love that you got to laugh and feel connected with him.
I know the conversation may have felt embarrassing, but from what it sounds like, this last conversation was NOT in alignment with his actions. Something DID happen on his vacation. Maybe his kids got upset about it. Maybe he got some really bad news about his health. You just don’t know, but for someone to be so warm and connective and suddenly go cold so fast…it’s NOT about you. Something happened and you may never know what. Either way, who knows how everything is going to turn out. Whatever caused him to put walls up so fast, I’m not sure it’s going to change. You may have lost your friend.
Here’s the thing Cathy. You need to know your value. You are worth fighting for, you are worth loving, you are worth getting to know and having adventures with. If someone doesn’t feel that way about you, they are NOT the right match. It doesn’t make anybody bad or wrong, it just simply means…there is not a strong enough resonance to keep the connection alive. Personally, I’m not interested in trying to keep a connection alive with someone who isn’t willing to do the same thing…organically. Meaning…if a guy does not feel inspired by me, then I say goodbye. Relationships have soooo many layers to work through. I sure as heck am not going to spend a dime of energy trying to get or keep a guy’s attention. If the guy doesn’t naturally see me as fabulous and amazing and someone he HAS to have in his life, then why should I try and convince him otherwise.
Yes! Life is short! Doesn’t that mean that your time is better spend investing and connecting with a man who has NOTHING stopping him? This guy pulled you in and connected with you and completely lead you on…and then he wants to claim that you misunderstood and it was only a business thing??? Nope. I don’t buy it. He knows the truth but is not willing to be honest and authentic with you. Yuk! You don’t need that in your life for one second. You want a guy who has the strength to be honest with you, even if it scares him and even if it might hurt you. That is a man with integrity. This guy is not showing up that way.
When you go into that meeting, feel good about yourself. BE CONFIDENT. KNOW that you are a gem and priceless. KNOW that you are magnificent and beautiful. Dress that way, walk that way, speak that way…embody your greatness. Treat him with respect and kindness and leave it at that.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi Jaemie,
I understand that you want him to be okay, despite knowing the mess you are stepping into. If you really want to help, then report him. You are a nurse and are required to report anyone who is suicidal. You cannot help. You are not trained to know what to say and when and can easily make things a lot worse if you try and rescue him. If he is really that serious about committing suicide, he needs professional help.
There is no such thing as “the right thing to say.” The pain he carries is deep and has existed for years. It’s highly unrealistic to think that you would have some magic words to help him feel better about the years of pain he has been carrying that is making him want to commit suicide.
It really is important for you to not put yourself in the “rescuer” position. Again, the best thing you can do is report him or get him connected somehow with a professional. It’s soooo easy for you to get pulled into his pain and drama and sink lower and lower with him.
I know this is not what you want to do and I deeply understand that. I wish there were some magic words to help someone with that kind of pain, but there aren’t. He needs to figure out how to rescue himself otherwise he will take everyone down with him. Pain is a great motivator! Let his pain do the job of kicking him in the ass to create some movement. Let pain be his motivator. Love him enough to let him figure out how to fight for more in his life.
And maybe consider focusing on yourself. You wrapped yourself up with a guy who isn’t available for you. You had an affair for 2 years. You fell in love with a guy who is emotionally unavailable and miserable deep inside. Your choice to hand over your heart to a guy that is in desperate need of professional help…exposes some of your own woundedness. Just something to think about.
Heidi
Hi Jaemie,
I’m so glad to hear you are moving on with your life. It’s liberating to be able to know that you are able to still live your life, even in the midst of heartbreak.
I know you feel concern for him, but IF there is something wrong, he needs to deal with it himself. He is a grown man. Trust that he is able to take care of himself. His well-being is not your responsibility anymore.
Besides, DO NOT fall into the trap of social media. So many people create assumptions about posts, messages, feelings etc. without ever talking to the person…and it causes so many problems.
It’s still important for you to stay on track with moving on in your life. Whatever is happening in his life, it’s HIS design.
Are you willing to let him go?
Heidi
Yes, true happiness only exists within the person. There is an inner happiness that needs to exist without needing to use external sources for pleasure. Meaning, true happiness is not reliant upon ANYTHING. It’s a happiness that exists because that is the nature of the soul. The baggage has to be dealt with first though. Not that the baggage will ever completely go away, but enough of the baggage is released that a lot of light is able to shine through. Does that make sense?
That’s why people who have nothing, are able to find happiness. The happiness exists within and is not reliant on any person or thing outside of them. That’s why people who have everything, are not happy…because “things” “people” “stuff” do NOT create that inner happiness.
Good luck on your journey! My wish is for you to truly be able to connect to the beauty, strength and courage that is already within you and that you are able to deeply see how valuable you are to this world. You matter!
If you have any other questions, need encouragement, want advice…we are always here for you!
Heidi
Oh goodness Halie! This is quite a story! You guys have been through a lot!!!
I love that you are reaching out for help. There are MANY layers to this situation and I’m happy to talk through all of them with you.
I have no clue how to let go of all of this baggage and just move on. Let’s just start with this. First, I want to say that it’s 100% possible for you to forgive and let go of all of this baggage. With that being said though, it does not mean that you will end up staying with your husband and having the marriage you want. Forgiviness, releasing and healing is just that…letting go of the negative feelings attached to a person/event, but going through that process DOES NOT guarantee any particular outcome. That’s the first thing to understand here. I know you want out of pain and I know you want to feel free from all the hurt you are carrying around. Part of letting go is about accepting what is. The truth is, you were lonely and felt anonymous in your marriage. The truth is, your husband decided to be with your best friend for several months. Forgiving him DOES NOT change the kind of person who makes those kinds of decisions. I know you cheated as well, so you BOTH end up making some very hurtful and damaging choices when in enough pain.
I would suggest that you both get some professional help. This is a pretty BIG situation that neither of you have the skillset to navigate in a healthy way. There is so much hurt and betrayal and soooooo many hard things to say, so having a professional to keep you guys focused, on track and connected to the truth will make all the difference in the world. Again, it doesn’t mean you will stay together…it just means you guys will hash it out with some help, so you guys can move forward in whichever direction is best…but in a healthier way this time.
Now let’s talk more about your choice to cheat. The first place to start with releasing all the hurt, is to forgive yourself. You were in the middle of the dessert without water for waaaaay too long. Someone came along with a wonderful glass of water and offered it to you. Do you know ANYONE who would refuse that water??? I don’t. Of course you drank it. The problem didn’t start with you drinking it, the problem began much earlier when you allowed yourself to continue to feel ignored, anonymous and lonely. The longer ANYONE stays in those emotions, it is INEVITABLE something harmful will happen. You were soooo thirsty by the time you cheated, that there was no way out for you other than drinking that water. So your job is to NEVER put yourself in that position again. You have to commit to taking MUCH better care of your emotional health. Do not fool yourself into thinking you are not capable of this again. You are. So protect yourself with everything you have. Commit to fighting for yourself. Commit to using your voice instead of staying silent. Commit to either feeling nourished in your relationship with him or get out. Commit to learning a new skillset about how to nourish your soul. And commit to forgiving yourself, no matter what. It may take some time, but forgiveness is a choice.
Think about forgiveness this way. When we don’t forgive, we are holding onto fears and hurts that prevents someone from being close with us. Your fears and hurts are valid AND…would you rather be connected, or hurt? Would you rather live in fear or freedom? He made some hurtful choices. So did you. Whenever we do something like that, it comes from a very wounded part of ourselves that is not healed and resolved. You cheated because you were in a rejecting marriage. You stayed in silent suffering because somewhere along the way, you learned how to cope that way. Your choice to suffer and starve comes from your own woundedness…and that is NOT your husband’s fault. That roundedness was there long before you ever met him. And the same goes for him. He is reacting to his life from a place of his own woundedness as well. His choice to be with your best friend was childish and FULL of hurt. So you see, you BOTH made choices from a place of a lot of hurt….baggage that you each are carrying around from your childhood experiences. So you have a ton of baggage and made some hurtful choices. He has a ton of baggage and made some hurtful choices. Your ex friend has a ton of baggage and made some hurtful choices. You all are coming from the same exact place. All the baggage might look a little different and gets expressed differently, but the result is the same…a lot of hurt.
That’s why forgiving yourself first is so important. When you are able to truly and deeply look at your own baggage and forgive yourself for letting that baggage pull you into hurtful choices, you will then be able to start to forgive others for their hurtful choices. I will circle around and say this again…forgiveness DOES NOT mean you stay connected though. There have been plenty of people who I 100% disconnected from because they were not people I wanted to keep in my life…AND I 100% forgave them for their choices. Forgiving is something you do for yourself, because you no longer want to live with the hurt, betrayal, anger, rage etc. You will most likely never be friends with her again, but you can 100% release the anger and hurt you feel by her choice and never have to exchange another word. You can make this choice because you choose peace and understanding over hurt. You choose to feel joy instead of betrayal.
In the end, I know it’s much easier said than done, but if you CHOOSE to reach forgiveness, no matter what and no matter how long it will take…you will get there. If you are relentless about it, you will get there even faster.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Oh this is GREAT to hear! I’m so glad you were able to talk with him about it and that he actually acknowledge your feelings as being valid. Yay! That must have felt amazing for you! And good job for taking some time so you didn’t emotionally vomit all over him. That was VERY adult of you to communicate your struggle and that you needed to think things through. Do you know how many people never do that?? Instead, their emotions slime the other person and it causes harm. I know this has been a pattern of yours in the past, but look at you caring enough to work on it! It’s not the kind of person you want to be. You are going to slip up now and then, but you will continue to improve, the more you practice. I really have a lot of respect for your choice to work on this!
Good job!
Heidi
Oh yes. I did misunderstand. Being a witness to that abuse is just as horrible. It is incredibly impactful and has all the same affects as if it happened to you personally. It terrifying as a child to watch something repeatedly. Of course he doesn’t feel safe to love. Of course you are timid. Experiences like that will impact every single second of every day of your life until you face it, forgive, release and heal. I truly hope you reach out to a specialist who can guide you into healing.
I know you feel you don’t have confidence, but let me normalize something for you. EVERYBODY has low self-esteem. It doesn’t matter how emotionally healthy and confident you become, there will ALWAYS be areas where you have very low confidence. The idea you want to work towards is feeling more confident than not. Love however, is a very special and unique kind of energy that will easily find all of your insecurities and shines a light on them. It does that to everyone. That’s why love is such a powerful force for growth. Love will show me areas of low confidence that only the energy of love can expose. So I really would like to invite you into seeing that you have more confidence than you give yourself credit for. Yes, you have areas of low self-esteem, but so does everybody. I personally see you as quite strong. It takes strength to come here and ask for another opinion. It takes strength to read what I had to say. It takes strength to even admit that you have low confidence. It takes strength to acknowledge the challenge you are facing. You are not burying your head in the sand. You are seeking truth…and I will tell you that over the 30 years I have been working with people, the majority of them will bury their heads back into the sand, even after I connect them to their truth. So from my viewpoint, I see you as quite strong…in that way that really matters in life.
And when you are ready to make the decision you will. Trust yourself. You will get there in exactly the right timing. In the meantime, focus on learning and growing within yourself. Instead of focusing so much on what he said, remind yourself of the truth. He feels what he feels because underneath it all, he is terrified to love deeply. So his system will naturally and subtly bring up feelings to cause him to sabotage. You did nothing wrong. This is not your fault or his fault. It’s just a result of the abuse he witnessed growing up. Remind yourself of THAT truth anytime the lies come into your mind about not making him happy and you should have done something different. Those types of stories that your mind is making up comes from your own traumas and are NOT true. What IS true is that you are lovable and worth fighting for, even if he isn’t able to fight for you right now. Your value is not tied to his choices or feelings. Your value is separate than him and everyone else. Stay empowered. DO NOT ever put your value and your worth into someone else’s hands. That is NOT where it belongs!
Heidi
It breaks my heart to hear that you both experienced being abused as you grew up. It’s so so sad that a parent feels so powerless and angry that they feel the need to target an innocent, young child to release their rage and get a power fix. Abuse causes so much damage. It makes a lot more sense about what is happening here and why. The reality is, your guy will NEVER feel safe with anyone until he faces the trauma he carries. Kids who are abused move through life with a part of themselves ALWAYS on guard and never trusting anyone. They don’t even trust themselves on a core level. Love is INCREDIBLY difficult for them. They can feel love, but it’s limited. I hope that you BOTH decide to get help. The baggage that abuse creates is massive and impacts every second of every day of your life. If you find a specialist you like, they can help you put that baggage down and help you say goodbye to it…so you can start living your life more fully.
I think him being unsure about me also has something to do with my lack of strong personality.
I tried too hard to be the perfect girlfriend for him. I guess I should not have.
I also should have given him a chance to invest more in me instead of making everything easier for him. I think this is a karma for me. Because of my past, I wanted to be different this time and be more mature and have a healthy loving relationship, but I took it too far I think.
All of these statements is you trying to figure out what you did wrong that caused him to feel the way he does. This is the type of thinking common with someone who has been abused. You think it’s your fault. That’s what a child thinks when they are abused…they think they did something wrong to cause the abuse, because their mind is not developed enough to think anything different. And that is what you are doing now.
I want to encourage you not to give any of these ideas you have about yourself ANY energy. What is happening is he has feelings inside that would have come up eventually, no matter what you did or did not do. These are feelings he MUST face if he is going to learn how to be a better partner. These feelings exist because he was abused, so instead of pointing the finger at yourself for not being the king of girlfriend that would make him completely happy, point the finger at his father who taught him it was never possible to be happy in the first place. That’s what abuse does…it steals joy and teaches a person that life in general, is not safe. Being happy only exists in small moments and then it will get taken away again. It shatters any ability to feel safe loving…anyone. The 2 people who were supposed to make your world safe and protect you, didn’t do their jobs. The father abused and the mother didn’t stop it. So how in the world is a child supposed to grow up and feel completely open, safe and loving when the core role models in their life taught them to do the complete opposite??? That’s why finding a specialist is something you both should do. Read books, find groups that work with people who have been abused, go to workshops and start to learn how to better navigate your life, your feelings, your fears etc. You both have soooooo many more years ahead of you. I imagine you want to spend them feeling free, happy, loved, safe and strong. You have to fight for that though.
In my mind, if I no longer feel anything for him, it is easier to break up. But I think it is not going to be as easy as I hope it to be. I might just fall more deeply in love with him and wreck my self. think I am still hoping that I can change his mind and that he will understand that I am the one for him and have no uncertain feelings towards me anymore. I understand your strategy. The thing is, it’s not going to work this time around. Breaking up doesn’t mean there isn’t great love between 2 people. Breaking up means that the love that is there, is not enough to keep the couple together. The problem you are going to have to face, is that staying is going to hurt and leaving is going to hurt. Either direction you look, you are going to be hurting. If you stay though…the hurt is just going to continue to grow, other issues are going to come up and cause more harm to the connection and there is no “end” to the hurt. It’s like seeing that you have cut on your arm and not doing anything to help it heal. Each day it is going to get worse and eventually grow into an infection that becomes much more serious. The pain grows. You both have such a beautiful connection. I would hate to see you both hold on for dear life and end up sucking the beauty that exists right now, out of the love you have. I would hate to see either of you end up making choices down the road that cause even greater harm to each other, because neither of you are willing to face the ending. That’s the road you are looking down by staying together. The pressure WILL grow. The discomfort WILL continue. Something is going to happen, at some point, that is going to cause greater hurt than what you feel right now. It’s inevitable. What you are both feeling now is nothing compared to what will happen down the road if you both keep ignoring what is happening.
If you choose to leave and honor that it’s time for him to face his thoughts, it will hurt like crazy. AND…you will heal. The pain will not grow. It will be at its worst in the beginning and then get better as time goes on, instead of the opposite if you stay. If you stay, the pain is less now, but will grow over time. I know you cannot imagine your life without him. I know that feeling. I am here to tell you that you are strong enough to get through this. The strength you will gain from going through this will help you for the rest of your life.
I understand you don’t feel ready yet though. You get to choose. People typically don’t make changes until they are in enough pain. I know I have done that many times where I stay in a situation much longer than I needed to, because I had a very high pain tolerance. It always came at a great cost to me though. But even in those choices I made, I learned, I grew, I healed and I asked for help to do all of that. I found a way to turn my pain into strength and resilience. So no matter what you decide to do and when, you are going to be okay. If you made it through being abused, you can make it through anything in your life! You are stronger than you think.
Heidi
Hi Marisa,
Great question! Let’s talk about this a bit.
I wouldn’t say that he is disconnected exactly. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t, but instead has a lot of fear he is carrying around and that is bigger than his ability to connect to his emotions. Either way, whatever is going on for him, what you DO know is that normal questions he calls “probing” are extremely uncomfortable for him, so that DOES make him emotionally disconnected/unavailable for YOU.
I am the type of person who asks a TON of questions. I LOVE asking questions. It’s a great way to get to know and learn about someone. I am definitely on the high end in my ability to ask a variety of questions. While dating, I found many guys who loved it, many who were uncomfortable, many who shut me out completely and some with a variety of responses. The conclusion I came to a long time ago was that I NEEDED to be with a guy who values, invites and appreciates my skillset in getting to know him…that means he LIKES my questions and even beyond that – he likes me…just as I am. So if I come across a guy who is uncomfortable with my questions, no matter how wonderful I think he is, I KNOW we will never work for me, because it would mean that I would not get to be my full and complete self with him and that doesn’t work for me. I want more.
So your guy is basically telling you that your inquiries are not okay for him….which on a deeper level he is rejecting a part of who you naturally are…which means for you guys to fit, you will have to shrink yourself down and shut off a part of you, so that he can feel “safe” with you. Is that how you want to be with someone? A good match is with someone who inspires your expansion and growth, not shrinking. You cannot change who he is and his reactions. He has something much deeper going on inside, which he has to be willing to face. My guess is, he is not interested in doing something like that, so that means you are going to have to adjust to him if you want to stay with him. There is no right or wrong here – you both just operate differently. Are you willing to stop asking him questions? What does that make you feel like?
Thoughts?
Heidi
Welcome! It sounds like there are a lot of layers happening in your situation. I’m so sorry you are having to face the possible loss of him. Let’s see if we can figure something out.
There are a couple of things that really need to be addressed first.
1. He is not able to forgive you. This is a tough one, because you cannot MAKE someone forgive you. True forgiveness is when someone has ZERO negative feelings about whatever happened. They have fully worked through it and do not have any bad feelings leftover from the event. Although he still chose to move forward with you, he is still holding onto hurt feelings that is keeping him from fully and completely feeling safe with you. There is something happening more deeply in his psyche that he is not aware of, and that makes this situation extremely tough. In general, when people are holding onto hurt, it’s because they are using that hurt to “protect” them from getting hurt again. If they let go of the hurt and open their hearts, then it means they can get hurt all over again, so the hurt they hold onto, acts as protection. They THINK that if they keep a part of their heart unavailable, protected by that hurt, then they will never be hurt like that again. None of that is true of course, and like I said, the majority of people that do this have no clue they are actually doing this. All they know is they still feel hurt and they don’t know how to deal with it and release it. They are dealing with a deeper fear that they are not aware of. Him holding onto this hurt has nothing to do with you anymore. Your actions in the beginning happened to push a button to trigger this kind of long term response from him. He is afraid of loving deeply, he is afraid opening up, he is afraid of love, he is afraid of relationship. My guess is, even though he is new to being in a relationship, he has struggled with relationships in general…friends, family etc….which is how the fear gets established in the first place.
Now, this other girl has come into the picture. This is his system very subtly trying to sabotage. His fear will masterfully manipulate him into believing he wants to experience her. It’s logical, it’s confusing AND he somehow has a story in his head that he won’t have to deal with his lack of trust with you. The thing is, she will hurt him too and so will every other girl he dates. When you love, it is just going to hurt sometimes and having the skillset to heal and release that hurt is ESSENTIAL to staying connected. This is something he MUST learn how to do or he will never be happy with anyone. He will just continue to bury himself in all the hurt, so he has more and more reason to support the belief “I can’t trust anyone.” Hurt can stick like super glue and can be incredibly hard to release.
I know you are not going to like what I have to say next though. He needs to go learn, by experiencing other relationships. Because he hasn’t let go of the hurt, there is a part of him that will never let you in and you can’t make him. It has to be HIS choice. He needs to either do some deeper work and really look at the fear that is controlling his life, or he needs to go have other experiences that will teach him that hurt is normal and just part of the process and he needs to learn how to let it go. It’s a very personal process and something you cannot rush. Many times, when someone lets go of someone they love, the pain and loss they feel just from that experience, has valuable lesson in it.
There also is an aspect where it might be good for him to go live a little regardless. How can he TRULY appreciate what you have given him, if he has never had any other experience? By him going out into the dating world and finding out what it’s like to date, he will quickly learn that what he had with you was quite special. He doesn’t actually know that yet though. He may know it in his mind, but he has no other experience to compare it to, so he will always be limited in his understanding of what you guys have together.
It’s an extremely painful thought of letting him go. He needs to face this though. He needs to face what is in him. He may push it down and try and keep it far away and that may work for some time, but eventually, that feeling will grow and grow and grow and he won’t be able to contain it anymore. This has nothing to do with a LACK of you or you not being enough for him. This has to do with what he carries within himself. He may point the finger at you because trust was broken at the beginning, but the truth is, it’s just an excuse not to love deeply…and that’s on him. Again….HE needs to figure this out on his own. No amount of words can change what he is feeling. He has to go EXPERIENCE it for himself, to truly make any changes.
You deserve to have a guy who is able to fully and completely forgive your humanness. You are going to mess up MANY times in the course of a relationship and you deserve someone who is able to let go and continue to move forward. You deserve someone who is able to love you fully and completely, without holding a part of himself back. Even though you guys have a really wonderful time together and you love each other, imagine what it would actually be like, if he let go of the hurt and he opened his heart to you completely?? Your love for each other would be 10x more powerful. I know you want this. I hope it is with him and it absolutely can be…but you have to let him go. He has a lot of growing up to do when it comes to love.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi Jacqueline!
Welcome! I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you are asking this question. It tells me that despite your challenges with your emotions, you reached out for help and you are still keeping your wits about you instead of going off on your guy and causing harm. WELL DONE!!!!
It’s been a few days since your post, so I imagine something more has happened between you guys.
I’m going to talk to you about general guidelines about how to confront your guy, or any person for that matter.
1. SUD (subjective units of distress) Scale: it’s a scale of 0-10. Rate your feelings/emotions. If you are over a 5, DO NOT confront someone. If needed, tell them you need a break and when you are able to talk with more of an open heart, you will reach out. When you rate your feelings over a 5, you are functioning in the lower centers of your brain where there is very little access to critical thinking. Your emotions are dominant and taking control of your everything in this space and your brain will make up all kinds of stories (like he’s embarrassed of me or I’m not enough fun) to fuel the emotions and keep you over a 5. It is NOT the time to confront or share your feelings. Your goal is to get yourself UNDER a 5 where we head more into the higher centers of our brain and have access to critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Emotions are lower and more manageable. This is when it’s a good time to talk to someone about your hurt feelings.
2. My favorite way to approach a situation is what I call the “Investigative Reporter Mindset.” The leading energy of the conversation needs to be curiosity. “WHY…..” is the main type of question to ask. So you could ask things like “You know, I asked you to go tubing with my friends and you said no, yet you went with your friends a few weeks later. It feels quite contradictory to me, so I’m CURIOUS what the difference is. My feelings were hurt, so I’d like to understand how you see the situation. I’m confused.” or “How come you went tubing with your friends, yet you won’t go with me? Something seems off about that and I’d like to understand your thinking about it.”
Once he answers, stay curious and ask another question, then another question. I like to go at least 3 questions deep MINIMUM so I make sure I am getting more of a FULL understanding about what they say. Let HIM tell you what the story is to help contradict the story you MADE UP in your mind that he is embarrassed by you or that you are not enough fun.3. Once you feel you have enough information and understanding, you can begin to problem solve. You might need to let him know how it made you feel. DO NOT use the stories you made up in your mind. Use the FACTS…you felt hurt and confused. One way I like to share my feelings is saying something like “When you do____________this is how it makes me feel________” So you could say, “When you do activities with your friends that are the same activities I have already invited you on, but you said no, I end up feeling confused and hurt. I want to do a lot of different activities with you, but you say no and I respect that. But when you turn around and do them with YOUR friends, I end up feeling like maybe you just don’t want to do these activities with me. And if that’s true, then maybe we should discuss what is really happening here. If that’s not true, then what ARE you willing to do with me??” Does this make sense? The idea here is…NOT blaming him for his choices or how you feel, but letting him know that his choices do affect you. He may try and make it about you trying to keep him from his guy time, but keep him focused. Remind him that it’s NOT about his guy time at all, it’s about him saying NO to activities with you and YES to activities with his friends…and that is confusing to you and makes you wonder what is really happening here. Does he still want to be with you? If yes, you want to have some fun together, so what activities WILL he do with YOU??
Let me know how this approach feels for you.
Heidi
Hi Jennafer,
Thank you for sharing a little more detail.
It sounds like you are moving pretty quickly here. You have only seen the guy 3 different times and you are already making an attempt for some type of commitment from him. MOST guys would not go for that. It’s quite fast. This guy, being that he is coming off of a breakup, tells you pretty clearly he isn’t interested in anything serious and yet you are still chasing him. My guess is, he was just interested in having sex and that’s about it. I’m also guessing he is ignoring you and hoping that you will let go. Being that you already mentioned you prefer to be the only one sleeping with him, he will take that as you trying to get some level of commitment with him, which just tells him that you were not listening to what he said about not wanting to commit to anything right now.
I’m still curious…you barely know this guy and yet it seems you are already trying to figure out ways to have him in your life. How come? Is this a pattern you have of jumping in pretty quickly with a guy?
Heidi
Hi Jaemie,
I can feel your heart breaking. It’s incredibly awful to have to say goodbye to someone you love. You both have a lot of history together. I am so sorry for what you are going through.
I’m not sure what to tell you. I know you want advise about how to get him back, but it sounds like he has really made his choice, not from a place of not wanting to be with you, but because he believes it is the “right” thing to do having a wife and child. Your relationship was full of lying for a couple of years. You couldn’t take it anymore and decided to finally be honest in the only way you knew how. Unfortunately, it did not turn out the way you wanted and that is so painful. It forced him into making a decision. It would have happened at some point. Affairs last only so long before something breaks, so whether it was through your choice or something else happening, it was inevitable. I’m so sorry his choice was not to fight for you, but it tells you about where he stands at the moment.
It’s really important for him to step back into his family and make an effort in a way that makes him feel better about himself. Sometimes, we need to step back into what doesn’t work, to know what we actually REALLY want to fight for. He may end up staying for a long time or he may end up deciding to leave again and come find you. Either way, this needs to be HIS choice and not something you try and convince him of. You deserve more than that. I know you guys have a really powerful connection, but it’s not a connection he is willing to fight for, no matter what. You deserve a guy who CAN”T live without you. You deserve a guy who cannot go a single day without reaching out to you, being with you, planning his life with you…because the love and connection he has with you inspire him to live his life WITH you and not apart from you. The story he has in his mind about the “right” thing to do is bigger than his love and connection with you. When stories like that are sooooo strong, a person NEEDS to work on changing that story within themselves and replacing it with a new story, but that is an internal process and something very personal.
Would you be willing to let him work it out on his own? Trying to “convince” him somehow that you are the better choice does not allow him the space and time to decide that for himself. Don’t you want him to come back to you because he KNOWS that he wants a life with you, no matter what? Even if you somehow you convince him to come back to you, it won’t change any of the guilt or shame he would carry with him for leaving his family. There will be strings attached to his family that will always get in the way. This is why HE needs to cut those strings himself, when he is completely ready….so he can be free to be with you. He may never reach that place or he may reach that place in a few weeks. Who knows. Either way, it’s important that he comes to that choice, all on his own, without you trying to influence him. You are valuable and worth fighting for. Allow for that to happen. Allow him the time and space to figure that out, instead of chasing him to try and make it happen.
In the meantime, it’s time you grieve the loss of him. Let him go and figure out his life. You can allow yourself the space to heal and open the door to love again…whether it’s for him or someone new. And if it’s with him again…it can be new and you guys can start all over again…hopefully from a place of honesty, full commitment and a healthier kind of love that is free to expand in whatever direction it takes.
Heidi
Hi Devon,
Let’s talk about this statement first: If this is seriously the way you do things on here, please stop replying to people because it isn’t helpful or encouraging at all. You’re mean and kind of hateful in the way you reply and I don’t deserve to be beaten when I’m already down. I hear you. I hear that you don’t feel cared about and feel judged and beaten up by me. I hear that you feel that I am calling you toxic and that I am basically saying that you are a bad partner. I am so sorry that’s the impression you have. Sometimes the most difficult part about this forum is that it’s only words and a person doesn’t get to see my face or hear my words or feel the energy of which I am delivering the information so they can have a TRUE understanding of how and what I am saying. I also don’t get to SEE you, feel your reactions, or hear your responses in order to know whether what I am saying is hitting the mark or not. Either way, my form of communication didn’t work with you. Instead of bringing you into deeper truths, which is only what I intended, I put you on the defensive with how I said things and that is my ineffectiveness. I 100% own that. I am deeply sorry that you ended up feeling this way.
Let’s see if I can clear up your perception of me a bit. I actually have zero judgment of you. In my mind, as I was writing everything, I was just seeing you like I do everyone….myself included…wrestling with the side of ourselves that has caused harm and being in suffering because of it. So in my mind, you are just a person who has been hurt and it ended up getting in the way of your love. Lord knows I have done that more times than I can count.
My reference to saying you are toxic was not at all saying that was all that you are. You ARE toxic, as we all can be, given the right circumstances. This statement I made previously was more what I meant to emphasize, but it obviously did not land the way I wanted. I am someone who has worked with and owned the darkness in myself for many years. Part of healing is embracing the toxicity we all carry within ourselves that causes harm to others as well as ourselves. My intention was more to help you connect with that part of you so you can embrace it instead of deny it. When you made this statement: show him I am not the same as I was it’s a statement of denial of the darker side of you…a side of you that will ALWAYS exist in one form or another….AND THAT’S OKAY! It’s normal. It’s human. It will shift and change some as you learn and grow, but there will always be a dark side to you. Please hear me when I say this…EVERYONE is toxic. We ALL have a dark side, low self-esteem, cause harm to others and ourselves…this is not about me pointing the finger at you and judging you…it’s more about shining the light on it and having it be okay, so you can work with it to create healing instead of trying to NOT be that side of yourself. The only way ANY of us can become less toxic, is to own it, look at it, embrace it, work with it and start to release the wounds that helped grow that toxicity.
You are MUCH more than your toxicity and my mistake was not letting you know that I also see the side of you too. You love deeply. You are incredibly passionate and I KNOW your heart is incredibly giant…not just with him, but also with anyone you choose to love. I imagine you are the type of person that once you open your heart to someone, whether a lover, a friend, an animal, a job…you give everything you have…your love is powerful Devon. You deeply care and I see that about you.
You are right in that I was contradicting everything you say, but not in the energy of trying to contradict you…more in the energy of trying to bring other ideas into the situation. The best I can do on this platform is to somehow take words a person is using and interpret them the best I know how and come up with a response. One of my challenges as a Coach, is that I have been studying love, the psyche, human behavior etc. deeply for over 30 years and because of that, I sometimes am not meeting the person where they are at very well. I absolutely can have this tendency to pound some other perspectives into a session and not let someone come up for a breath to absorb any of what I saying, little bits at a time. I will ALWAYS struggle with this. It’s my personality, it’s how I treat myself and while some people love it and appreciate it, others do not and I can cause harm, as I did with you. Again, my apologies Devon. I am doing the best that I can and a harsh truth is….sometimes my best is not good enough.
You weren’t there when we were arguing because there was almost never yelling This statement is confusing for me because you said he said this: He had always told me not to yell at him first thing in the morning because it was just not okay. and then you said: So, obviously, I yelled at him about something on that Wednesday after the 4th of July. If there was almost never any yelling, why would he need to ask you to not yell at him first thing in the morning? With everything you have said so far, my impression is that you yell when you are upset, jealous, angry etc. That is your main way to express your feelings. Like your impression of me, I also had an impression that your communication style, according to what you shared, was yelling and that it happened quite frequently. If you feel like elaborating and explaining this further, then I’m happy to shift my impression.
That being said, the arguments were few and far between until the last couple weeks. We were completely in love and happy 98% of the time. This also seems a bit strange to me. When a relationship is good for 98% of the time, people don’t break up. When there is great love and a few weeks of challenges, people don’t break up over that. From what he said in his message: I cannot be that for you because you want me to give it all up, family, friends, and only leave room for you. I had to leave the way things were going and all your fears suffocated me to no end. So to end my suffering and yours I left. Stop letting fear control you. You can do great things beyond it. These are some pretty deep feelings that he is having and something he has probably felt for a much longer time than just the past few weeks. These statements indicate feelings that have festered and grown over time. He may never have communicated them to you so you had no idea and that wouldn’t be surprising is he grew up being “forced into silence.”
the problem was simply lack of time with him because of his newfound busy schedule and the fact that it made him super tired, super early. This is something you have never mentioned. All you have mentioned up to this point is him being upset with you yelling at him and that you started to get very jealous of his new job because of all the women he was working with. So lack of time is another issue? And it’s only been an issue for 2 weeks?
I try SO hard to NOT be that person that I made it my mission to not get upset with him and, if I did, talk with him calmly. So from your perspective, from 0-100% how much would you say that you talked with him calmly vs. yelling at him? Do you feel he would agree with your percentage?
I’m in counseling, I’m listening to the self-help books, I bought this course to try to get more insight into where I went wrong and many other things in the last three weeks. You are taking some wonderful steps Devon, to figure yourself out, to figure out him and to be the kind of person that you deeply want to be. Again, your heart is BIG and it’s beautiful! It’s a tough road for sure and one that a very small percentage of people would take. I respect you for hopping on the path and being willing to learn and grow.
I’m happy to have Spyce step in and talk with you if you still feel closed off to me. I know I am not everyone’s cup of tea. I hope you are able to release the hurt and let this go and either move forward continuing to talk with me or work with Spyce instead. You just say the word.
Heidi
