Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Lisa,
Welcome back! I’m glad you are enjoying this new experience you have! It sounds like he is a really great guy with a good head on his shoulders.
I’m a very delicate flower who wears her feelings all out in the open and he needs to be very careful how he proceeds with me Let’s talk about this a bit. It’s important to understand what he most likely is feeling here. With all that he is dealing with, he is VERY smart to take things slow. It sounds like you are just ready to jump all in and the truth is, you still barely know the guy. It takes at least a year to really see all sides of someone and yet you are already “in love” with him. I know he is treating you well, but the flood gates to your heart are fully open without discernment. Loving someone is VERY different than being “in love.” Love is what it starts out as while still getting to know someone. “In love” is what it grows into over time through having A LOT of time and experience together.
The reality of your situation is that you want to give your FULL self to this guy and he is still unavailable on some level for you. He is still dealing with his last relationship AND depression. That’s A LOT! He is NOT on the same page as you, so where are YOU slowing yourself down? He hasn’t earned the right yet for you to be all in. You still don’t know him very well and he is figuring out who the heck he is now, so he is NOT clear and available to jump all in…and that’s a GOOD thing.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE that he is being very honest, working with a therapist and wanting to create a different experience for himself. I suggest you align with that. Slow down. BE DISCERNING!!! Look within yourself and what is happening for you that you are jumping all in without knowing someone very well. You are traumatized from the past and don’t want to be a fool, so the best way to approach a new relationship is with discernment and going slow.
You have what you need from him. You have exclusivity, you have his attention, you have his great communication….why do you need more from him? And what exactly would that be anyways? Just a title? What it feels like to me, is that you are wanting HIM to make you feel more secure in the relationship vs. YOU looking at your insecurity as something that lives within in you and that’s for YOU to take care of, not him. He is working with someone to face his limitations, his fears, his own baggage. That’s amazing! Why not take that journey yourself? If you don’t start to learn how to connect to your own baggage and work through it, this guy will not stick with you. You will be relying on HIM to make you feel better all the while he is learning how to NOT to look to anyone else to fix him. Your approach to relationship will be very different. But if you join him in learning how to take care of yourself, own your baggage and start to approach this relationship with a more grounded mindset instead of letting your emotions run the show, you guys will become more and more aligned and set yourself up for success.
I know I’m being very blunt here. He sounds fantastic and he is doing the work to become a better partner by facing his past and his limitations. Why not do the same for yourself?
Heidi
Hi Cindi,
Checking in. I’d love an update! How are you feeling about your ex? How are you feeling about your old friend coming back into the picture. Did you have another session with your new therapist yet?
Great to hear from you Cindi! Thank you for the update. I’m always sending you good vibes when you come across my mind.
I’m glad to hear your girls are doing much better. It sounds like they are navigating the loss in a pretty normal way.
I love how you are really focusing on yourself and making some powerful realizations about yourself. Shadow work is far from easy and a path very few people take. Well done! It’s all worth it! I know for me, it just got easier in the sense that I knew no matter what trigger showed up and knocked me on my ass, I had the people and skills to recover and get back up again. The process never gets any easier, as hurt is hurt…but you just get so used to doing shady work, that it becomes less scary and something you just get used to doing.
How did you and this “old friend” end up reconnecting? I’m glad you guys are taking it quite slow. Talking is good! Friendship is good! And now you possibly have a new therapist that will help you do some deep diving, so he will be a good sounding board for you!
Heidi
Hi Elizabeth,
Welcome! It’s wonderful to meet you. Thank you for sharing your heart and your story. I can feel your heartbreak and I am soooo so sorry you are having to go through this. I know how confusing this is for you. I know it doesn’t make sense for him to go from loving you and wanting to create a life together, to all of a sudden claiming to have no feelings at all. It hurts and is devastating.
There IS a reason this is happening and there are a lot of layers to this reason. It’s actually not an uncommon occurrence. In my 20+ years of working with relationships and dating, I’ve come across this exact scenario MANY times. If you understand the inner workings of the psyche and how we all function on a fundamental level, this pattern actually makes sense.
I’ll do my best to explain it to you, but what is MOST important to understand, is this choice he is making is NOT under his control and it has NOTHING to do with you. It is NOT something you can fix or hope will go away either. The only way to shift what is happening permanently, is if he got some help with an expert. And even if he did that, it would take quite a while to address the underlying causes influencing his need to put some serious walls up. It’s a sign of some VERY deep rooted negative beliefs about love, happiness, and is full of low self esteem.
On the most basic level, here is what is most likely happening:
We all have what is called an “upper limit.” It’s a limit that tells us how happy we will allow ourselves to be and feel. This limit is DIRECTLY tied to our low self-esteem. The more low self-esteem we have, the lower the limit. The core belief that lives in ALL low self-esteem is “I’m not enough…” I’m not enough to love, I’m not enough to fight for, I’m not enough to be great in my life and so on. We ALL have low self-esteem and high self-esteem in different areas of our lives. When it comes to love though…our low self-esteem gets especially triggered and if someone doesn’t know how to work through it, the low self-esteem and the beliefs “I’m not enough…” will take over our system. What is very confusing for most people to understand, is that it’s the feeling of “happy” and “love” that are actually triggers for the low self-esteem.
Imagine this….you grew up with a father who constantly criticized you. He was ALWAYS telling you that whatever you did was not enough. He also told you he loved you. So what happens for a child brain, is it will pair together love and criticism. That child grows up and ends up picking partners that are very critical. That is what that person is used to, it is familiar to them, and it aligns with their beliefs. Now the most important part to understand about these beliefs, is they live in the subconscious…the part of our brains we are NOT aware of. Any rational or logical mind would say “Of course it’s not okay to be always be criticized and put down. That’s NOT love.” Yes…you will find people over and over and over again, choose EXACTLY what they struggle with BECAUSE it is what they know AND it aligns with the low self-esteem that says “I’m not enough to have anything better than this.”
This kind of person has a VERY low “upper limit” – a very low ability to feel comfortable being happy and at peace for extended periods of time. Meaning, when they start to feel happy, the VERY strong low self-esteem gets triggered and says “No way…You don’t deserve to be happy. You cannot trust this feeling. It’s not safe and you are NOT allowed to be happy.” Again…this is all happening on the subconscious level. The low self-esteem ALWAYS wins when someone doesn’t know how to recognize it or how to work with it.The way you can tell a person has hit their Upper Limit is through their behaviors. You see it everywhere, but you just don’t realize what you are looking at. It’s the person who wants to lose weight and is successful at it, but then reaches a point where they start eating ice cream again or they miss a few days at the gym. It’s the person who lives paycheck to paycheck who goes on a shopping spree they cannot afford. It’s the person who wants to be the first one in their family to graduate college, but then gets drunk one night and does something so harmful, that the school expels them. All these people have the same thing in common…they want something MORE for themselves, but then they aren’t actually set up emotionally to have it and keep it. Why? Too much low self-esteem that is influencing their BEHAVIOR, not their thoughts.
In relationship, it’s the same thing. I have seen it soooooo many times. A couple is happy and bonding and getting closer and then one day, one person says “I don’t love you anymore” or something to that effect. I have been that person. One day I would feel strongly for a guy and the next day I couldn’t feel anything. It drove me nuts! I never trusted my feelings, because I just never knew what was going to happen and I couldn’t explain it away….UNTIL I started digging into my subconscious and uncovering the VAST amount of low self-esteem that lived within me. That low self-esteem would NEVER allow me to feel happy for too long. I could have it for a period of time, but then all of a sudden I would go numb, I would lose feelings, I would find something wrong with the guy, I would start picking fights….these were all various signs of what was happening in my subconscious and I had NO control over any of it. My low self esteem was soooooo strong and it all felt so real, so I did what everybody does and followed how I felt. It wasn’t until I uncovered all the negative beliefs, did it start to make sense to me. It wasn’t until I started working with those beliefs and clearing them out of my system, that I became more stable, that I was able to be more happy and for a longer period of time, that I was able to recognize the symptoms of my sabotaging methods to break my peace and happiness. I finally had more control over what was happening.
So again…in summary…whenever someone is reaching their “upper limit” of happiness, they will unknowingly sabotage that happiness. Imagine a bathtub filling up with water. As long as the water stays below the edge of the bathtub, all is good! The moment the water starts to spill over, DANGER DANGER DANGER and chaos ensues. So…your guy reached his upper limit and his system needed to sabotage in order to keep him in the “safe” zone….in order to prevent the water from spilling over.
And to add on top of that…depression is in the picture and that just adds on a whole different dynamic. I have yet to meet someone dealing with depression that is actually able to be happy in a relationship and in love. It just doesn’t work that way. Someone who is depressed is in survival mode. They don’t have the capacity to be open, feel happy, feel love, feel connected. Hopelessness is consuming them.
Bottom line is Elizabeth, your guy is not emotionally available for you in the way you want. The thing is, he needs to fight for himself. He needs to find SOMETHING inside that says “I cannot tolerate this anymore. I need help.” He needs to start to make different decisions that can help him get back onto his feet. And sadly, it doesn’t sound like he is in enough pain yet to make that decision. And you are not helping him to get there. The more you rescue him, the worse he will get. You are pretty much taking care of the home and making sure his basic needs are met. As long as you are doing all of that for him, there is no need for him to care about himself and fight for more in his life. He hasn’t hit rock bottom yet and you are preventing that from happening by all the caretaking you are doing for him.
Have you considered moving out? It doesn’t mean the relationship has to end, but it actually might be the best thing for him. Otherwise, he will take you down with him. The energy of depression is sooooo strong and I have no doubt it is wearing on both you and your son. Is this the kind of environment you want your son to grow up in??
I know you love him and I know you want him back and I know you want things to go back to how they used to be. That’s just not going to happen. You need to really look at and embrace TODAY and the kind person he is showing you he is. This is one of the reasons NOT to move in so quickly together. There wasn’t enough time for you to truly learn about who he is. You both have an incredible connection when things are good, but not so great when things are challenging. You are learning that he runs from stress. You are learning that he is not helping himself enough to feel good in his life. You are learning that his low self-esteem is MUCH stronger than his love for you. You are learning that he is not willing to fight even for himself…and if he won’t fight for himself, there is no way he has the ability to fight for you or your son.
Botton line, no matter how much you love him, he is not able to offer you what you want. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with all the low self-esteem his carrying around caused by people from his past. This is NOT something you can fix. It’s only for him to fix within himself.
I know this is not what you want to hear, but maybe you have more understanding about why he is acting this way.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi Gerry,
I just thought I’d check in and see how you are doing. Any new developments? How are you feeling about letting this guy go?
Heidi
Hi Cindi!
How are you doing? Any new developments? Are you starting to feel more freedom from the hurt and pain caused by the breakup? Have you done a session yet with your new therapist? How are you kids handling everything?
Heidi
Hi Celia,
Do you have any friends there that can help you out? Maybe they would be willing to call and then go over and get your stuff? If not, you can always call or text and let him know you would like to get your stuff back.
You can say something like “Hey. I’ll be in town and I thought it would be a good time for me to grab my stuff. Is there a way we can arrange for that? Hope you are doing well!”
Do you think that could work?
Heidi
Okay! I love that you are finally willing to step into parts of yourself you have been avoiding your entire life. I know how scary that can be. It’s a hard journey AND as you heal, it will change your life.
If the CBT doesn’t resonate for you, I’m happy to recommend other types of therapy that is very powerful and effective. Keep me updated!
Heidi
Hi Joanne,
I wanted to check in and see how things are going. The baby shower has happened, yes? When is graduation? How are you doing with disconnecting from him? Or maybe you are not ready to do that yet. Either way, I’d love an update!
Heidi
Cindi!!! Oh my goodness! I’m sooooo so proud of you! Look at how you are setting very clear boundaries from a place of self love and self care. Woooohoooo! This is BIG BIG BIG! You are sending a message to yourself that you are worth loving, honoring, and respecting and you are saying no to subpar connections that are being offered to you. What an incredible thing you have done for yourself! I’m so proud of you!! Your inner strength is coming up and you are protecting your heart in a healthy way. Thank you for sharing so I can celebrate with you!
I’m a little confused. You are going to start seeing a Psychologist in a few weeks? I thought you were already seeing a therapist?
Heidi
That’s a big one! I’m glad you are going to start facing that! You have strong co-dependent tendencies and not being able to make decisions is a common side effect. You are so worried about what others will think or how they will feel about your choice that it becomes paralyzing. It’s a beautiful quality to care so much about others, but when it goes to the extreme, it becomes toxic and damaging, especially to you.
How do you think this pattern of yours got developed? Have you traveled into your past at all with your therapist, in order to help identify the core root beliefs that created this pattern?
Heidi
Thank you! I’m going to look it up.
Those are great goals and I love that it is resonating for you! Are you still working with your therapist?
yes! yes! yes!
What’s the manifestation program you are doing? I always love looking at that stuff and seeing what people are teaching.
I totally get your need to call and ask to meet him. I’m so sorry you had to feel rejected again. It’s awful. It definitely is like pouring salt on an open wound. Like I have said, you need to be in enough pain to start to make decisions…which you are.
Of course you cried. You are okay and you are not. You are both and that is quite expected.Each day is one more day that you have kept breathing, living, and getting through letting go of unrequited love. You can do this. At some point, it will start to get easier. I’m proud of you Cindi!
Heidi
