[Ashley B]

Coach Spyce-

Of course, no worries on the delayed response! As I said in my previous message, I’d been having some major technical issues causing delays as well, and knew everyone was away just as I was and busy over the holiday, so no worries at all!

Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful message. As I also stated previously in my last reply, I will reiterate that I had already decided that I am no longer going to bother trying to move forward any further in terms of this connection with Jason and understood that now was not a time to pursue a proper relationship- I said so not only in the message I sent to him, but the one I last sent to you- and was simply looking to initiate one last conversation with him to deduce exactly what and how things went so abruptly awry here…but that doesn’t seem to be something that you feel you can help me achieve at this point- and through your thoughtful response, I completely understand what you believe and why. I deeply appreciate your candor and advice on that note. So, I think my need to seek any further advice or guidance on this issue has come to its natural conclusion here- no sense beating a dead horse, as they say! I so appreciate your thoughtful and detailed responses these past few weeks! Thank you for all the advice and guidance. I wish you all the very best in life and appreciate all the correspondence and heartfelt advice and support! Thank you again, Spyce! 🎇💓

All the best to you always,
Ashley

[Ashley B]

Hi Coach Spyce!-

I’ve been trying to write again for several days now, as I knew the holiday weekend was upcoming and wanted to hopefully get your thoughts and advice before it came, but for some extremely frustrating reason, I have not been able to log in to this forum for 4 days now. I sent an email support request as well which has yet to be answered, but lo an behold, after multiple failed attempts to login again today, this time, it miraculously and unexpectedly worked! On that note, I know you probably won’t see this until after the weekend (I hope yours is absolutely fabulous, by the way, and that you’re doing something fun and relaxing!) very unfortunately, but I’m glad that I’m at least able to write now!

On that note, moving on to the fact that 2+ weeks later, I STILL have not heard a single word from Jason. At this point, I am so incredibly angry, disgusted, and disappointed in his behavior that I can honestly say that I am definitely not interested in pursuing anything further with him right now, or possibly ever again. But, on the flip side of that same coin, I have been deeply, irrevocably affected by this. Here is someone who is not only my first love, but a lifelong friend, beyond all shadow of any doubt whom I know to be my soulmate and the love of my life…and more than that, most importantly (and perhaps what has been the most devatastating and paralyzing): the one man I could always trust implicitly with my heart and soul, someone I truly believed could never hurt me and betray that trust in this way. Trust does not come easy for me with people in general, let alone men, and even more so NOW at this point in my life, being 37. I am humiliated by this situation and it has truly left me questioning how the hell and what the hell possibly could be going through his mind to act this way. As such, I think the biggest thing for me here is understanding WHY, and WHAT caused him to behave this way. I absolutely have come to terms that for whatever reason(s), he is clearly not capable of having a healthy, loving relationship of any kind with me at this point, as earth shatteringly heartbreaking as that is, that is not on me and I have come to terms with the reality of that over these past few weeks and done a fair amount of grieving it. However. I truly CANNOT accept not knowing what the hell caused this and why. To be able to move on from something of this incredible magnitude, I need to hear from him what EXACTLY went through his mind in that moment I said “I love you” that sparked this catastrophic reaction to set this domino effect escalating to full on shutting me down and not saying another word.

This is where I truly need your help and expert guidance and advice, more than ever with this final piece of this puzzle. I need to know how to approach him after these weeks of complete silence between us in a way that is non threatening and strategically planned/orchestrated to be able to coax out a response, the truth, from him. It is so incredibly frustrating to me that it even has to come to a game-like, strategically orchestrated plan like this, and to be frank, in any other case with anyone else, I have always absolutely and always will operate under the philosophy that sometimes, we do not need to get closure, nor will we get it. I truly support that 100% and absolutely have had the self-respect and self-love to walk away without straight answers or apologies in the past, and I will continue to do so in the future. However, even in the strictest scientific sense, there are exceptions to every rule. This is my one single exception. The magnitude and meaning this connection and love with Jason has held in my heart and soul over the course of my entire life was exceptional, and is the exception, for me. Alas, I am in uncharted territory for myself and need some serious help with a task I’ve never had any experience carrying out here.

I thought it might be a helpful start to copy and paste the exact text messages I sent to him when I tried to get him to open up about what the hell was going through his mind a few weeks ago. Here they are, word for word, from May 12th:

“So, have you been reflecting upon this past weekend at all? I’ve been decidedly reserved and silent on my end because I knew you had a particularly tough and chaotic re-entry into your “normal” routine, and I honestly just wanted to wait and organically allow you to offer up any musings or thoughts on any part of this past weekend as it came to you. And I honestly still do. That’s also why even though I desperately and wholeheartedly wanted to and found it extremely important to continue talking all the way through our conversation that got a bit off the rails on Saturday night to an agreeable conclusion, I chose to hold back and defer to you. The only thing that I’m disheartened about is that I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re shutting me out on some level. Forgive me if I can’t accept that, because I genuinely and wholeheartedly do not believe/want nor do I even believe that YOU believe that we’ve come this far just to come this far. But I know better nor would I ever begin to presume what you’re thinking or feeling. I deeply and completely understand that you need to express yourself for your own self, and I absolutely respect that. But here’s the thing, Jase. You actually have to express it…SOMETHING. I’m not a mind reader. Even though I absolutely know you. I can’t know what’s in your heart, what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking about towards me or for me if you don’t let me in at all. That’s all I’m asking for. For whatever it is that you genuinely feel and are thinking. I hope that you can also appreciate putting yourself into my shoes, having poured my heart out to you because that’s truly the only way I can operate, my love language, you know it always has been. I’m not sorry nor regretful for that, and I can’t be- it’s part of what makes me who I am, the person capable of loving you the way that I always have, the way that I still do. I can’t and won’t apologize for that, and to be honest, I don’t see how you could even want me to.

Again, I honestly wasn’t going to nor planning to write that novel to you just now. But I feel like it’s only a matter of time before you start excusing away the need or intention to express anything at all. And there’s so much I’m willing to defer to you on and about. So much that I would and will always gladly put myself second for and about in the interest of things being easier on you, and I will do it gladly. But it’s also kind of dishearteningly unfair to give me absolutely NOTHING by way of your inner thoughts and feelings at all. I totally understand and deeply appreciate and respect it does not come easy for you, which is why I take no issue with being patient and treading lightly, without an ounce of regard to my own personal needs and preferences 99% of the time. But its been 4 days and I can palpably feel you trying to ignore even the slightest affectionate thing I’ve said in passing since, and I cannot betray myself by allowing this to just go on unapproached and unaddressed. Who would I be if I did that? Not anyone I’d want to look at in the mirror, for sure. And not anyone you’d respect, either, I’m sure, if you’re being honest too.

I’m not asking for your hand in marriage, a committed relationship, I’m not asking for ANYTHING but the authentic inner thoughts and feelings of YOU. Because you are the important part for me. I deeply respect you, I want the literal and absolute best for you, always. I would hope to god you understand and deeply trust in and feel that, especially now. So I didn’t approach it the optimal way Saturday night. I came at it in a way that was all wrong for you. And I apologized, and I sat with that discomfort and sadness and deeply beat myself up for it when I probably don’t deserve to be beating myself up for it, to be honest, because how can I know how to tread if you won’t even attempt to meet me at the pass, let me know what you need or feel or how you need it and what you actually truly feel and think about anything?

I completely understand and absolutely appreciate that words don’t come easy to you and especially as that pertains to expressing your innermost feelings. But my god, Jase, at some point, there have to be SOME. It has honestly been devastating me these past 4 days to know that you know exactly how I think and feel about you intimately and yet you’ve made a conscious decision to leave me in the complete darkness…and as such, left me in fear that I dare presume to have any idea where you’re coming from or a single iota of what you feel, because you made it clear that I don’t. Yet you won’t tell me! Anything. I have to believe that until I’ve broken it down this way and spelled it out so long-winded here in these messages that you truly didn’t understand how cruelly unfair that is, and how hurtful. For example, I tell you I miss you, something so incredibly minute and absolutely innocently inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and you ignore it. Several times. Don’t say it back…because you truly don’t feel the same way? or because of some other reason I can’t possibly be privy to because you shut me out completely? How can I know? And the last thing I want to do in the slightest is PRESUME where you’re coming from, obviously, especially after Saturday. But tell me when you truly sit with the scenario I just presented to you from my point of view, if you truly put yourself in my shoes, how YOU would feel? What would possibly be running through your mind, even if you were as positive as I am and had such a positive outlook as much as humanly possible, if the shoe were on the other foot?

Here’s the bottom line: I had an unbelievably incredible, amazing, soul filling, absolutely and truly blissful time with you from the moment I saw you walk out that door and wrapped my arms around you and kissed you for the first time…. to that first time you laid me on the bed… to that amazing first dinner, our dressed up dinner date, I will literally never forget how goddamn devastatingly handsome you were and how lucky and proud I felt to hold your hand on the way to the restaurant and how you held the door for me to get into the car, and how amazing of a time I had talking to you for hours, toasting with oysters and cocktails… not to mention the hours of making love after…. to you playing with the next door neighbor’s dog and the distillery cat as much as me, which really is saying something and seriously warmed my heart to see…to that last little embrace and few parting kisses at the coffee shop before we had to leave. Plus the million other things I could list here. And I honestly feel in my heart that you were reciprocating everything I was feeling in all of those moments with me. It would be really nice to know for sure…😏😏

I think this novel DEFINITELY sets the record. You’re going to see this amount of text at first glance when you wake up and be like “WTF?! 🤯😅” Bear with me. You know I’m a long winded storyteller, and clearly that penchant is multiplied when the subject is something extremely important to me ❤”

So, coach Spyce- dare I say, my friend at this point (especially after all that personal detail haha 😄)- there you have it. That’s what I wrote and the next morning he did respond the following:
“Not only ‘what the fuck’ but how the fuck and when the fuck am I going to be able to respond to all this. Killin me over here” Then, our usual daily chatting continued but was a bit more distant than before our weekend together. 4 days later, he still hadn’t said a word in response to those messages. That’s when I decided to try a different approach and give him a call, which started out fine and jovial and then I simply said, “so, I was thinking since it’s been a few days and I knew this would be a good time for you to talk that you finally wouldn’t be busy, now might be a good time to finally touch base and talk a bit more.” He replied, albeit begrudgingly, “I guess so, sure, why not.” And he pretty much proceeded to say nothing, again. He just kept reiterating the same things he said in his initial in person freak out, “this is not how this was supposed to/I wanted this to go, you know I’m not good at expressing myself like this, this is so much stress, etc etc”- generalized statements that didn’t actually have any substance and even as gentle as I was being, he just kept getting more and more frustrated and angry at even having the conversation. At NO POINT did I raise my voice, get angry, place blame or any demand on him, just kept trying to listen and respond as neutrally as I possibly could hoping that would get him to feel safe exprrssing anything, but again, nothing. At some point I gave up again and he said he had to go to bed, and that was that. A noticeably shorter and colder amount of our daily chat continued the next day and then the morning after that, but that was it. Since then, 2 weeks ago now, not a single text or word.

So, I think this would be a great place for me to stop writing and get back to trying to enjoy my holiday weekend! I know I’ve left you with a lot of information to look over and process to hopefully be able to help formulate a plan of action for the next step to be able to gain this closure. Thank you again SO MUCH for being here and working with me and supporting me through this insanely complex and difficult situation/time! I look so forward to hearing back soon, as always!

xoxo,
Ashley

[Ashley B]

Hi coach Spyce!-

Forgive me for giving you that impression, certainly not the case at all! I just wanted to wait to respond until today so that you didn’t feel the need to take time out of your fun weekend to check in 🙂! Time got away from me today and before I saw this notification of your response I was planning to respond first thing tomorrow, as I was just thinking of you and hoping that you had an absolutely fabulous and fun time at the wedding! How was it?! Hope you had an incredible and fulfilling time! I would also be remiss not to take this opportunity to say that I am so grateful and truly thankful for your insightful guidance and support it truly means so much and I deeply appreciate you! Thank you for your amazingly thoughtful, thorough, and supportive words in your last message. I am doing ok, not the best for sure, but I am inherently an incredibly resilient person, my cross to bear from a lot of trauma in my childhood, I suppose, the ultimate catch 22. Coupled with my inherently positive energy and outlook on life as much as possible, I definitely do not want you to worry about me in any urgent sense, certainly! That being said, I can’t say I’m loving life at the moment and not struggling with all of this, of course.

Sadly but unsurprisingly at this point, it has been a full week and I have not heard a word from Jason. I have not reached out, either. I’m just trying to figure out the best way to proceed, and I honestly am so thrown for one of the biggest loops of my life with this scenario and how it played out that I truly have no clue where to begin. So in the meantime, I have been laying low, trying not to think about it or him as much as possible, and trying to readjust my course and steady myself, get my bearings again. It’s been difficult but I knew it would be and probably will continue to be for some time. I’ve been feeling overall extremely exhausted, varying between anger, shame/guilt, sadness, and self-consciousness, and all combinations of all of the above. Which I know is obviously normal and expected. Anyway, I’ve got to get to bed for now, have an early appointment in the morning unfortunately! But I’m looking forward to hearing back and continuing our correspondence! I will absolutely respond morning depth tomorrow. Thank you so much for being such a calming and helpful guiding force in this storm I’ve found myself in! 🎇💛🎇

-Ashley

[Ashley B]

Coach Spyce,

Again, can’t edit, so sorry I had to make an additional post, but I forgot to add:

This is now the 3rd day in a row I have not heard a word from Jason. I am absolutely respecting that he needs space and time, but I also want to hear your thoughts and your experience with how long I should stay silent, any tactics and tools and/or ways and at what point you think I can approach speaking to him again to try to communicate, once he’s had an opportunity to recover from this clearly overwhelming him, whether that’s right or wrong or fair, I have to meet him where he is but have absolutely no idea HOW To go about doing so, as my 2 previous attempts clearly did NOT work on ANY level. As you know. So, I’m hoping you’ll have some techniques and communciation tools and a plan of action to help guide me along on this path to non threatening communication with him, going forward, and when that may make sense to do so?

Thank you again and so look forward to hearing back, grateful for your support 🙏 🎇

[Ashley B]

Coach Spyce,

I figured you’d be able to understand what I was saying through some typos, but when I went back and saw the sheer volume of them, the writer and recovering perfectionist in me had a bit of a heart attack haha, I had to clarify! And yes, strangely enough I can edit the original post I made, but for some reason that option is not available on the responses. I’m using my phone as you suspected, because for some reason I am not able to login to the forum from my laptop, an odd glitch! But anyway!

It was so incredibly helpful and very comforting in a strange way, and also SO illuminating- a true light bulb moment for me- when I read what you surmised about the toxic and demanding “love” relationship with his mother perhaps making him feel that not only is he not deserving of love because of the way she’s always treated him, but also that he may have an idea from this lifelong terrible example that love is something that can only trap him, add stress to his life, instead of add anything of beauty to it. I absolutely think you’re right, ans that never occurred to me, wow, it truly does make so much sense ans knowing the situation intimately, I am certain that is a huge part of this extreme and adverse reaction to my declaration of love, especially since he seems to be too emotionally stunted to realize it was coming, but in retrospect thinking of what you’ve laid out, I think he absolutely WAS blindsided by it, and I think the word love itself might be a huge trigger for him at this point in his life, having never had the opportunity to heal from this unfortunate situation with his mother. In fact, adding even more confirmation to that, I will tell you that he had lived with her, in his childhood home, “taking care of her/being man of the house” his entire life, from back when we were together for the entire course of our relationship, all through adulthood, up until a couple of years ago, when I know that he was sharing an apartment with a long-term girlfriend named Molly. We weren’t in regular contact at that time because we always kept our diatance whwn we had committed relationships for the most part as I previously said, but from the timeliness on social media I gather they were sharing an apartment for at least 6 months- 1 year, they also got a dog. They broke up sometime between a year ago and 9 months or so ago, and unfortunately because she kept the apartment and he had to go live with a friend temporarily, she kept the dog as well. He actually told me at length about the transition from that living situation to moving in with the friend he was living with until very recently, about 7 or 8 weeks ago at the most. He unfortunately got taken advantage of by this now ex-friend and totally betrayed when he found out that not only was the friend not paying some of the bills with the money Jason had been contributing, but he also decided without Jason’s knowledge or consent to give Jason’s room to his new online girlfriend whom was coming our of a rehab program and had nowhere to live, thus effectively telling Jason he had only 2 weeks to find a new place to live. Throughout all of this, Jason started to get a bad gut feeling ans saw some red flags that this friend was going down a bad road and could no longer be trusted, and even before he began feeling that way, he had actually already been looking for a house to buy for the entire time he’d been living there since leaving the apartment he shared with his ex. He actually has his own home inspection business ans is a master contractor/carpenter, and even with all his connections and a good mortgage budget, this housing market has been absolutely insane and every house he’s had his eye on or bid on thus far has fallen through. Fast forward to his now ex-friend telling him about 8 weeks ago that he was moving his recovering drug addict girlfriend in to Jason’s room with no notice, while Jason in the midst of trying to buy a home so he can’t sign a long term lease to rent something and risk tying up his assets in a lease in case the perfect home does come along and he’s able to get it…guess where he had to move? I’m sure you guessed it: as of 6 weeks ago, he’s back in his childhood home, under his mother’s thumb ONCE AGAIN. And in our daily correspondence, he mentioned to me how stressful it was already to be back, how she’s trying already not respecting his personal space or choices- like trying to force him or guilt him into eating the meals she cooks even though he’s on a specific diet and wants to do his own thing, and is constantly asking him very intrusive questions and always demanding to know what he’s doing or where he’s going all the time. A nightmare. And extremely ironic timing, given that his mother and I obviously DO NOT get along and my relationship with Jason was the first and biggest threat to her control over him all those years ago, and I told her so to her face. In fact, for our reconnection weekend, he lied to her and told her he was going on a guys weekend with friends to avoid a huge blowout, but was willing and able to tell his sister and friends the truth.

Wow. In even writing all of this down and re-reading it, stemming from that initial light bulb moment you initiated in me with this, of course this must be a huge part of his extreme reaction to this. Especially given the very shocking timing that he JUST had to move back into his mother’s house at the exact same time I- the person who absolutely has always had her number and refused to allow her to get away with or accept her treatment of the person I love most, her own son- came back into his life in a big way. HOLY. TRIGGER. With that being said, what are your thoughts on this? I feel like this may be a good point to stop and see what you think about this huge piece we just uncovered here! Thank you again SO MUCH. This is so incredibly helpful and I am so grateful for you being here to support and guide me, coach Spyce!

xoxo back,
Ashley

[Ashley B]

Coach Spyce,

I am so sorry for all of the typos in my response above, my goodness! I tried to go back and edit it, but for some reason, it will not allow me to! 🤦‍♀️😅

[Ashley B]

Coach Spryce,

Thank you SO MUCH for such an incredibly thoughtful initial response to my conundrum- and yes, a LOT to unpack indeed, don’t I know it! 😅 Hence, especially given the recent development, my need to reach out for some guidance, because it’s quite a bit to make sense of on one’s own. I am so incredibly appreciate and grateful for your advice and input, and fully agree that the best course is to proceed unpacking this in pieces, very wise and astute idea, indeed!

With that said, in reading your response, I do want to clarify a key important piece that I think I may have failed to make clear in my initial telling: When I said that we fell in love initially when we were 16 and 17 years old, I didn’t make clear that from that moment all the way through our breakup in our early 20s, we were in a deeply loving, deeply committed relationship. We absikutely said “I love you”, “I’m in love with you”, “you’re the love of my life”, ans every other ititeration you coukd think of thousands of times iver the course of our relationship. Tying directly into that, I also want to touch here in 2 other points you brought up for clarification’s sake: I love when you said “The definition of soul mate that I subscribe to is different than that of twin flame. A soulmate is someone where you click instantly. It may not always be the most exciting, but it’s easy, it works. There’s not a lot of processing that you need to do to be together. Your triggers don’t intersect in that way where you constantly are tangling up in each other’s energies. First and foremost, I love your views of soulmate and twin flame being entirely opposite entities, and I have come across a lot of different views on soulmate/twin flame concepts, and I don’t neccesaily disagree with your assessment. I think there are elements of twin flame that in specific cases can overlap/can be the same person but for the most part I totally agree with how you put it. That being said, I can see how it would be totally beneficial for me to exclude the twin flame moniker and any thought of any twin flame overlap into the equation of how I view him and the situation between us going forward, I think you are absolutely correct in this case, because here is what I DO know, beyond all shadow of a doubt: your quoted description of SOULMATE in italics above, is 100% exactly how it was between Jason and I, from the moment we were old enough to awake to it, as teenagers. It was instantaneous and effortless, there was no processing, and we just fit from the very beginning throughout our entire relationship. There were no triggers, nothing but deep, once in a lifetime love that was never triggered by anything internal, between us. Unfortunately what happened to cause us to break up was largely if not completely due to 2 external factors- long distance (I lived in NYC and he lives in NH) and his toxic, controlling mother being threatened by his plan to move to NYC to be with me as well as puruse his own dreams of becoming a professional musician, thus “abandoning” her, as “the man” of the house, meanwhile his older sister was always allowed to go live her own life and because she was a woman and wasn’t “needed” (she has a Multiple Sclerosis- but an extremely mild case- that she has used to guilt and manipulate him from “leaving her”, absolving herself of any sovereignty over her own life by manipulating him telling him he can’t “abandon her” like his father did- which is not true, I know the true story, I knew his father very well and loved him dearly before his tragic and untimely passing- and she has also never been in a romantic relationship since his father had left the picture when Jason was very young, about 3 or 4 years old. She still doesn’t date to this very day and literally not a single part of the situation/dynamic between them as mother and son has changed AT ALL these past 17 years, I was truly disheartened and disgusted to find. I believe she is the single biggest cause of his unhappiness and unfulfillment.) So, your definition of soulmate is exactly in line with my own, and it is literally and exactly how things were between Jason and I, absolutely, from the start. I believe in universal energy as my spiritual path and in that same vein, reincarnation of soul energy, and I truly believe that this is not our first go around as loves of each others lives, I sincerely believe that our souls have found each other in previous lifetimes and will again. I’m starting to feel at this point as though this may not be the lifetime we can make it work, perhaps not the one in which the universe has that fated. And that would have been fine, truly, I had already come to some sort of peace and acceptance with that on a certain level, but then, WHY this reconnection?! Why was I allowed to see his amazing smile again, hold him again, laugh with him again, enjoy everything we had from the very beginning all over again and feel like not a single minute had passed in 10 years? I’m truly trying my absolute hardest to use and lean into the tools and self work I’ve done to see how, after so much pain, tragedy, and trauma my whole life, the universe would even use this a teaching moment and think that my mental health could sustain it? How this could even happen and what it could possibly mean in the grand scheme of everything, at this point?

That musing brings me to your point in your response: “You say: I can’t believe that the universe would have brought us back to this place just to rip him away from me again
This may or may not be the case but look at your languaging. You have left his sovereignty totally out of the equation. Is he really being “ripped” away? Or is he not stepping up to the plate? Is he not choosing to look at why he reacted that way and what’s getting in the way of loving you as an adult man? I honestly couldn’t agree more with the sovereignty part of that, and in the little that he did say, I believe that idea of his sovereignty being threatened or at least, that he felt, not being acknowledged or heard in some way (even though he offered up NOTHING by way of what he actually WAS/IS feeling, to which I said, “I’m not a mind reader, I am not assuming or pontificating where youre coming from or what youre feeling, that is why you need to tell me, give me something”- but, crickets) definitely contributed to his extremely adverse reaction to me saying “I love you” at this point. Which is why I immediately tried to correct course by sitting down and having a conversation about it, but he just kept stonewalling and not really contributing anything of value, just kept saying that I had no idea how or what he felt and I couldn’t project any of my own ideas of what that might be onto him. I made it clear that I wasn’t trying to do that, was deeply apologetic, and asked for clarification and for him to say where he was coming from, which he was completely unable/unwilling to do, for I’m sure a myriad of reasons.

This may be a great point to say THANK YOU so much again, and to see what your thoughts are to this new cluster of information in this lengthy situation! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this lifeline of being able to have your help and guidance with this very difficult relationship situation! I truly feel so supported, so thank you again. I look forward to the continued support and guidance/advice!

[Author]

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