I just read the last couple of pages of your thread, so I don't know much about your sitch. But one thing that really jumped out at me is the idea of different languages of love. Have you read the book on The Five Love Languages?
It is very simple really. The idea is that there are 5 different ways in which people express love to each other: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, physical touch. One of the ways to know what your language is is to see how you express love to others. You said that you want to be told that you are loved -- words of affirmation. And you said that you give love that way. But he doesn't. He is stingy with the words, and that makes you feel unloved.
Maybe he speaks a different love language. Maybe he speaks no love language. I'm not ruling that out! But the point is, that for you to feel loved, he needs to speak your language. And he doesn't.
People go to this therapist, Gary Chapman, to learn to speak the language the partner longs to hear. I'm not saying your guy would go, or that he couldn't learn it from reading the book. He might. but I think this is an important part of the hurt that you are feeling.
Thank you Lotus. Yes I have read the book. I learned alot form it.
We get along fine when he is home. He lives in another state due to work. He is some affectionate when i engage first. He however is very playful. Almost like a kid. He will walk up behind me sometimes and hug and kiss me. BUT always playfully.
Over the phone is where we have the most prbs. When I try talking to him about how he feels, he get very angry and tells me thats just the way he is. I asked him tonight why he couldnt express his feelings or say i love you back instead of ditto.....always says ditto. He got upset and said i was badgering him. We have been together almost three yrs. He started showing his true self a yr into it. and Yes he's right, I know this is how he is. I just dont understand why he cant every now and then say hey i love you or anything on his own without me saying it first or asking him.
Tonight I asked him why he ignores my texts when i say i love you. Over the phone he will say ditto. He said i needed to grow up and get over myself. Once again he said i was pushing him. He says he doesnt need to hear that or talk to me everyday. He says he does love me but wishes i wasnt so needy.
We went to counseling once. Didnt seem to help. Like i said, we get along fine if i dont ask him the why questions. He has no prb saying ditto. BUT i am getting tired of being the one to say it first. I know that sounds childish on my part. If i try to wait it out before getting off the phone, for example, if i say ok goodnight and pause he will not hang up, i will say r u gonna hang up. he says why dont you hang up then i will say r u waiting on me to say i love you first and so i do then he says ditto and laughs. such a child.
I love him and it breaks my heart that he wont compromise. He has been alone for a long time. Never visits his family. ONLY calls every now and then. Doesnt have friends to do things with other than me. DOesnt go anywhere. Comes home from work and plays computer games until time for bed. OR watches movies. This is his life.
I don't have solutions. Except to say that through the years and the many men I thought I loved, I have found that often the man I think I love isn't the man he is at all. It's as if I project my desires onto a man and then think he is wonderful and I love him. But always, they have feet of clay, and when I get to know the real person, I realize that what I loved was an image I had in my head, not him at all. I've come to terms with that and have stopped looking for love in all the wrong places. But I spent a good long time doing it.
Just because you love someone doesn't mean you have to stay with him. You know in your heart that you aren't thriving here. This is why things are moving in this direction.
The reason you're shaking and freaking out is because you're probably undergoing some form of PTSD. A breakup for any of us in a relationship after the one where we were betrayed by someone else is probably going to bring back feelings that we experienced (even on a subconscious level) that we underwent when we got the initial bomb or went through our divorces/separations.
What you should tell yourself, because it's true, is that the feelings you experience are not just emotional but physical. My doctor has told me about "pain memories" stored in the body...that this is part of a PTSD sort of set of symptoms. They can be overwhelming, and they can probably scare us to the point where we think, I "can't" go through this withdrawal again, I "can't" go through this pain again, because I know how long it lasted before...but you CAN and you WILL. You are first off in a stronger place from before. You bounce back more quickly. And you already proved that you got through the worst of it with all that went on in your past.
The other thing to consider strongly is again the biology of this stuff...you are in a similar situation, this time you are the "breaker-upper", for good reason, and your body re-experiences the same physical sensations...the shakiness, the nervousness, anxiety, panic. But it's biological in so many ways. Think of it as having the flu or something. It's a set of symptoms triggered by the PTSD type memories...and as a set of symptoms, they will go away. In fact, the way that my doctor said you can combat PTSD is to relive on some level the experience that first traumatized you. By reliving the experience or one like it, and doing so with some tools to handle it and therefore handling it BETTER this time around, you are actively taking the steps to fight the PTSD in you. You are really "re-framing" your trauma.
Give yourself a mantra, something simple, and just breathe, count your in and out breath, 1-2-3..."I will be fine", or "Everything will be ok." Something like that. Or "I am stronger than how I feel at this moment."
This is a positive step for you even though it feels like hell. You're moving in the direction that shows the ultimate in caring for yourself first, and it's scary as anything to make that move, but pull strength from everyone here who has done it and moved on to a better place.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Antonia Yes I did BUT he is calling like nothing happened????? It's like he thinks I just will get angry and get over it. I am trying to set some boundaries as to what I want and he is somewhat coming around to them. I am in no hurry to jump right back in. I have also learned that with bf, if I just sit back and be patient and not push, he will give me what I need.
I am just doing my thing here at home. School and raising my nephew, whom is about to be a teenager. Pray for me! It's been years since I went thru that stage. My son will be 22.
Anyway, anyone have any advice how I should proceed with bf?
He says he dont see why we need to tell each other every day that we love each other. We should automaticaly should know that.
This is a huge red flag...it is not realistic. This "automagically" never works, and has never worked. Sorry, most people need to be told they are loved, to feel loved. I do. You do.
Stay broken up...just my male point of view...
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm
Getting what you want out of R with an emotionally unavailable person is nothing but frustration and heart ache.
The unemotionally available person doesn't keep you at arms length to be cruel. It's actually a deep seeded issue to rejection. I once read that emotionally unavailable and passive aggressive people reject and push away the people the wish to be closest to.
They also will do push- pull actions as well. Him not being able to say " I love you" back to you and then getting angry when you try to talk to him about it, yet turn right around and act as if everything is fine. They can't say it, but they don't want to lose you either.
I know it's hard, but I agree with T^2. Stay broken up with him. Staying in a relationship with someone emotionally unavailable is a very lonely, frustrating and ultimately very hurtful thing to do to ourselves.
I know this, given my XH has been emotionally unavailable for years now. And if it's any sort of help, my XH was very much like your BF. Kept to himself, never truly socialized, went to work, went home, and gamed on WoW up to 18 hours a day, but at least 6 hours a day for sure. The minute he started playing that game...that's really when he became my XH. He told me it was an escape and he didn't have to deal with anything in life.
