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Hi Kandy,
I am so sorry to hear about what’s happening with your situation. It’s truly awful to feel so good with someone and then have them end it. It must have been really hard to be dealing with cancer as well. How are you recovering?? I’m wondering if that had something to do with it. It takes a TON of strength for someone to stay committed to someone dealing with the effects of radiation and a cancer diagnosis.It’s incredibly difficult to offer guidance of how to get back together with this kind of situation. This guy cheats and it sounds like he doesn’t know any other way to go about dealing with how he feels. People like this are serial cheaters. He goes through several relationships and although it lasted a lot longer with you, he still found a reason to end it – without a valid reason other than he has some things to figure out.
The thing is Kandy, he is using you. He wants to stay connected with you to get to have the best parts of you – by having a weekly lunch, but then he doesn’t want ALL of you. I have no doubt he loves you and feels a connection, but it’s a very limited love. He is not willing to do anything more than have a weekly lunch – why??? To go from being together for 3 years to a weekly lunch is NOT okay. He doesn’t want to disconnect completely so instead, he agrees to get a good dose of you each week without having to put the other effort in. What is he trying to figure out??? He knows who you are, so it’s not like doing a weekly lunch will help him get to know you better. Again, he is using you. He is staying connected so he doesn’t have to feel the FULL weight of his decision to let you go. And you are letting him use you. You are willing to let him breadcrumb you all so you can stay connected and hope for something more. You are worth more than that Kandy. Do you really want to stay connected to a guy who truly doesn’t value you? He cheated and now he is getting a weekly dose of you all the while fighting for this other girl who sounds like she is messed up!!!! The reality is, HE is messed up.
If he is really going to figure out whatever it is going on in his “heart” then why is he dating someone else in the first place? He is not figuring out a damn thing. Dating this other girl and then having lunch with you once a week…he gets everything he wants without really committing to anything. Again, you are worth more than that!
You deserve to be with a guy who has NOTHING stopping him from being with you. You deserve to be with a guy who is 100% CLEAR that he wants to be with you and know you. You deserve a guy who doesn’t play games – which is all this guy is doing. You deserve a guy who is honest and authentic and who will work through things WITH you instead of cheating, breaking up and then stringing you along for the past 9 weeks. He is not treating you with respect and he is not valuing you and what you bring to his life.
If you want him to respect you, then you need to respect yourself first and that begins with you having standards as to how you are treated. So tell me, how do you want to be treated?
Thoughts on this?
Heidi
If a need for me telling him that we take our separate ways, how politely can I do that so that I don’t sound rude. What’s important to understand is that being “rude” is relative. MANY times I have been clear, honest, and open and I was called “rude.” So…the reality is, he will take what you say and put his own story onto it and you have no control over that. Instead of trying not to be “rude” your focus needs to be on just being clear and authentic.
Being that he is depressed, has misled you quite a bit, and hateful towards women, know that NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY, it’s most likely going to land on him in a hard way. It also means, the less you say the better. He does NOT have the capacity to care much about how you are feeling right now, so keep it simple and clear with the least amount of information as possible.
You can say something like: “Hey. I feel it’s time for us to go our separate ways. This design isn’t working for me anymore and I’m clear that I appreciate and love the time we shared and it’s time for an ending of this chapter. I wish you all the best!”
It’s short, simple, clear and does NOT go into all your feelings. He is not safe to open up to, as you have learned. He has lied to you and invited you into loving him, all the while he was sleeping with other women. He cannot be trusted with your vulnerability and your beautiful and sacred feelings. He broke that trust in a big way, so simply just state that you are done and if he tried to pull you into a conversation about it, stay focused and just repeat….”I’m not going to get into it. I am clear that this chapter is complete and that’s all that matters.”
How does this approach feel to you?
Now I can clearly see that I am innocent the only problem I called for my self is being in love with a depressed partner. I’m glad you are able to see this! Yes! Trying to build a loving relationship with someone who is depressed is IMPOSSIBLE. Maybe look at that within yourself. What made you decide to go down that road? Did you think you could help him? Save him somehow? Did you think he would change? What was happening inside of YOU that you chose to open your heart to someone in this state of mind? These kinds of questions can help you understand yourself so that you don’t go down this road again.
Heidi
Have you apologized for your reaction?
I know there is are a lot of amazing things about this guy. Maybe you never saw any red flags before, but there are PLENTY of them now.
He first said his experience at the wedding made him hate women more. Yikes!!! This is a HUGE red flag. Obviously he has been hurt, but it’s clear he has not forgiven the ladies who hurt him. You will NEVER get close to his heart as long as he feels this way. This “hatred” will ALWAYS be stronger than love and will sabotage any connection that gets close….just like you are experiencing now. He has one part of him that really wants to love and be loved, but the other part of him that hates women and is holding on his anger and hurt – is asking to be friends, pushing you away, confusing you, and sabotaging connection. This part will always win out, as long as he does nothing about it. This is not about you…this is about HIM. It is NOT your job to fix this for him or even try. That will just fuel the hatred he already carries.
The reality of ANY person who is showing you mixed feelings, is that they have 2 parts of themselves that do not agree. This also is a BIG RED FLAG! It means he will always stay confused and these 2 parts will constantly be switching who is in control. That’s why one part is very connective and amazing and the other part is angry, disconnected, cold, and wants to be friends. Again, this has nothing to do with you. He would be like this with ANY woman who wanted to be closer to him. These 2 parts of him will always battle and will always take turns who is in control and will always create confusion for the person on the receiving end. It just means he is not 100% all in. It means he has 1 foot out the door. The hatred for women he carries and his excuse for hiding behind religious beliefs are all just keep you away and not close. Someone this “split” – meaning he has 2 parts of himself that disagree – is NOT available for a relationship. It means he cannot offer you what you want.
I know this is not what you want to hear. I know you want a resolution. There is no resolution for someone who is acting like this. The resolution is him getting help. the resolution is him understanding what is happening and wanting to fix it. The resolution is him caring about how he is affecting you. None of these resolutions are things he is doing, and you are powerless to change that.
I’m so sorry Felicity. If you want to continue to connect, just know that it’s going to keep hurting. You need to accept that this is who he is and that means you have a choice to make. If you stay connected, you will just keep feeling rejected and confused. If you disconnect, you will have to face the pain of letting him go. Either path, you are facing heart ache. The first path however, is never-ending. The second path, at least there is closure and you can heal from the hurt.
It’s not a fun choice to make, but nonetheless it’s the choice you have.
Thoughts?
Heidi
Hi Felicity,
Thank you for sharing more. Have you ever met in person?
It sounds like he still has some stuff to work out. Whatever happened at that wedding, I’m sure it triggered something from his divorce.
I do want to encourage you to also look at your own triggers. You went into desperate mode and bombarded him – which I understand – AND that is one of the fastest ways to drive a guy away that is needing to figure out some stuff in his life.
The thing is, he got triggered from whatever happened at the wedding and because he needed to have a little space, instead of supporting what he needed, you made the entire situation about you. You went into your own trigger, asked if he wanted to breakup, demanded the truth, bombarded him with texts and phone calls – did you ever ask him about his trigger? Did you ever ask him if there was anything you could do to help him? Did you ever find out what specifically triggered him? Even if he wanted space and needed to “go into his cave” (which is what most guys need to do when they get stressed) as a supportive partner, your job is to just wait, check in on him every once in a while so he knows you are there, create a safe space for him to tell you what’s going on, and most of all, have compassion for him knowing that he is struggling with something. Instead, what happened was your anger and insecurity and that just added a ton more stress on top of what he was already dealing with. Do you know why you got so upset? Have you dealt with being abandoned, betrayed, ignored, neglected or any of that in your past?
Also, long distance really makes things like this incredibly difficult to navigate. It’s so hard when you are not able to really talk things through in person. Text is the WORST way to try and settle anything.
I’m guessing he is not sure about what he wants right now. Being triggered at the wedding and then seeing how you reacted, he may just want to take things slow for right now. Are you able to just let go of what he wants right now and instead just ask him what he needs? How can you best support him right now? Have you apologized for how you reacted?
Does this make sense?
Heidi
Hi Felicity,
Welcome! It sounds like a challenging situation you are in. How did you guys meet? How often do you guys get to see each other? Is there any plan in the near future to live in the same area?
Trying to make a long distance relationship work is incredibly difficult, especially if that is how it starts out. The reality is, you guys know very little about each other. You only get to experience each other in these small windows of time and you both miss all the small, intricate details of each other that exist while moving throughout normal life. There is sooooooo much you don’t know about him and vice versa. It’s not unusual for there to be a hot and cold kind of connection, because a relationship cannot be built on any solid ground when there is distance from the beginning. It’s different if a foundation was established where you lived in the same space for a while and really got to know each other and then entered into a long distance design. A foundation at least exists.
I know you love him, but it’s a limited love. It’s a love that cannot grow into something deeper and more expansive, because you need experiences, memories, time together for extended periods of time, for that kind of love to grow into something more sustainable.
Do you have any idea why he is so hot and cold? Has he talked to you about how he feels and why he is like that? Do you understand why he wanted to break up at some point?
Heidi
Oh Lisa,
I am soooooo so sorry! That is soooooo awful!! Have you talked to him about it?
He clearly is NOT ready for a relationship. Your heart must be broken. I know how much you believed in the connection you had with him and how much you really invested. I know you imagined a forever kind of connection growing with him and now it all just fell apart.
Of course you want to give up. I don’t blame you. You have a lot of hurt to deal with right now. I imagine you feel like a fool for believing in something that was not what you thought. He sure mislead you.
Do you have a therapist or someone you can work through these feelings with? You are going to need some help to heal your broke heart. Something like this will activate sooooooo many of your past experiences and drudge up all kinds of hurt and betrayal feelings. This one is a doozy! How are you going to help yourself get through this?
I want you to know…I believe in you that you can get through this. I believe in you and your ability to heal and move past this moment. I believe in you that you can find love again when you are ready. This experience is REALLY important for you. Experiences like these have many layers to it that can help you heal, grow, and learn. These kinds experiences bring so much pain, but healing that pain can absolutely help you activate more of your greatness…if you let it. Is that something you are willing to do?
Heidi
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
