Letting Go Archives - Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue

Why you haven’t allowed you to move on: self-criticism is an expression of an unmet need

November 6, 2018 By NATALIE 7 Comments Reading Time: 6 Minutes

When things don’t go our way and we feel as if we screwed up or failed, us humans can be pros at kicking ourselves when we’re down. This is especially so when we struggle with our self-esteem. We invest heavily in self-criticism and self-judgment when what we really need is self-compassion. We need a willingness to understand what we truly need.

Sometimes we fume at ourselves for ages. For some, this might be weeks, but for others, it’s months or even years. A part of us wants to move on, but the other part that exploits even the smallest of missteps wants to persecute us with images of our wrongdoings.

We keep reminding ourselves, for instance, about what we did or didn’t do in a relationship. How we should have had the boundaries we now realise were missing. How “if only” we’d foreseen the future, we could have done X and totally changed the outcome. We imagine that they’re having a laugh at our expense. That they’re cackling round the happily-ever-after cauldron with their new flame that, of course, is getting the perfect version of our ex.

We repeatedly rub our face in our embarrassment and humiliation lest we 1) are vulnerable and move on or 2) make the same mistake again. Next thing, a breakup or work issue that, for instance, could have taken us a few weeks or months to shake off has gripped our life for a year or few.

Self-criticism leads to character-assassinating ourselves for our perceived failures and mistakes without acknowledging something crucial: we wouldn’t have acted as we did if we weren’t trying to get or avoid something.

Our criticism and judgement are expressing an unmet need. They’re our response to using an [unsuccessful] shortcut to meet it.

The more acute our need(s) is the more intense our self-criticism and judgement.

All humans, not just those of us who keep persecuting ourselves for being not “good enough” (because we think it’s the reason we’re not getting what we want) act based on needs. It’s why we strive to get along with others.

Everything we do is our attempt to meet our emotional needs. These include safety and security, intimacy, connection and status, amongst others. This makes our ability to get along a critical life skill.

When we don’t feel as if we’re getting along in life (prospering, advancing) or that our efforts are leading to the relationship(s) we want, we assume that we’re failing as a person.

What we neglect to recognise, though, is that we’ve all been socialised to meet our needs. And not everything we’ve learned is beneficial to that aim. That’s why adulthood is about unlearning all of the unproductive and downright harmful messages and lessons that we’ve learned.

It Doesn’t Mean That You’re Not Ready To Move On If You Still Think About Them

February 2, 2018 By NATALIE Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Deciding that we’re going to be or do something that basically amounts to us moving on from a space where we’ve been stuck in a cycle of thinking, feeling and acting in a particular way, sometimes leads to the assumption that the cycle will end automatically. We might spend months suffering over our ex and finally decide that we have to try to move forward. It may be that clashing with a loved one triggered months of rumination. Thoughts and feelings that we associate with The Time Before We Decided To Move On, can lead to us feeling confused and frustrated. We doubt our decision or doubt our ability to move on. We wonder, Is the fact that I’m thinking about him/her/the situation a sign that I’m not ready to move on?

In short, the answer is NO.

Us humans are creatures of habit.

Imagine that last July, you finally ended your relationship after a year of going back and forth. During the relationship you overfunctioned to compensate, not just for where they weren’t showing up but also for your own underlying feelings of low self-worth. Maybe you reasoned that if you sacrificed you for the relationship, that they’d see that you were worth committing to. You’re ready to move on from trying at this relationship.

I Need You To Not Play With My Affections

September 6, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

When we’re really into or still in love with somebody who we’re no longer with, but they still text, call, or ask us to hang out or to fix something, or even use us as a sounding board because, well, we’re ‘so good at that’, what do we do?

We tend to drop everything because we’re hoping that this person will fall for us again.

We’re hoping that if we keep doing some or all of the things that signify our devotion to them, that they will feel compelled to get back together, to see us in the way that we want to be seen. We hope they’ll drop everything for us.

What happens next? More often than not, we get hurt, badly.

They are not as careful with our feelings as we are about our devotion to them, and after a while we start to feel bruised and possibly quite angry and resentful beneath our veneer of calm and being ‘pleasing’.

To them, it seems clear that they’re not intending to get back together. They might even seem OK with having this seeming power to decide the fate of the relationship–clearly if we’re still engaging despite the lack of reciprocation, then they can safely assume that we’re a shoe-in.

They might think that this is what hanging out, being friends and caring about an ex is all about, and I get it, because when you’ve been in a relationship for some time and then you break up, it can feel so abrupt to just go from that to being friends or even not being in touch for a while. The thing is though, blithely carrying on as if it doesn’t matter that we still have feelings for them and as if they’re not messing us around (they are, even if it’s ‘unintentional’), isn’t fair.

We’re, however, also not being fair to us if we don’t draw our line and step back for our own self-care, and actually, if we continue to engage with them in the secret hope that they will feel inclined or yes, even obliged to give us another shot, we’re not being fair to them either.

**We’ll keep opening ourselves up to being hurt and then call it something they’re doing.**

That’s not to say, whether it’s consciously or not, that they aren’t engaging with us from a place that’s based on us having feelings for them that they enjoy but are not willing to truly reciprocate to the level that we desire, but until we honestly reflect about why we remain open to it, we can’t see where we’re hurting ourselves.

Is It Time To Get Off The Rehashing Express?

August 23, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

When we keep rehashing something, we’re either getting too caught up in hearing what we want to hear, we’re replaying a ‘backing track’ that makes us small, angry and resentful or, we’re hoping to be struck by new insight.

Talking about something a lot after we’ve been let down, wronged and hurt, is natural and necessary.

It’s part of the natural grieving process that arises from experiencing a loss–each time our hopes and expectations aren’t met, it’s a loss, so it brings up a spot of grieving and reconciliation where we eventually arrive at a more grounded place, so that we can move forward.

Rehashing though, so discussing something at length time and again, after something has happened and yes, retelling a story that hasn’t been changed or improved upon, keeps us feeling stuck and bound to the story including the pain, fear, judgement and guilt contained within it. We get invested in telling the story and resist reaching insight and resolution.

Rehashing is often driven by this sense of having experienced a great injustice–It’s not fair!–and so we get to relive the feelings and we make ourselves feel special, albeit in a bad way.

Sometimes rehashing is driven by a heightened sense of wrongdoing, so feeling that we effed up in a major way and going over the story time and again to bonk us over the head with it but to also keep it fresh lest we forget how much we screwed up and dare to move on.

It’s the whole I did X, they should have done Y and Z should have happened, and being convinced that we did everything ‘right’ based on how we felt that things should go down and so feeling wronged that it didn’t or feeling as if our whole world is turned upside down because our self-concept and what we think makes us worthwhile is based on a faulty premise and assumption that calls a hell of a lot into question.

What we don’t always acknowledge is the deeper purpose of rehashing–keeping us safe from seeing the all-important lessons from the experience, from moving on, and from trying again.

We get to feel right even though we feel rubbish.

One of the things that becomes a point of stress about rehashing though, is that the story keeps popping into our head despite our most recent intention to move on. We may have decided that we’re sick of thinking/talking about something and just assumed that the story would cease to show up.

We then assume that because the thoughts arrive unbidden that it must be a sign of something, when in truth, the period of time where we willingly rehashed (even if we deny it) has now taught us to associate the story with certain cues and triggers.

Let’s say we rehashed it every morning for however many weeks or months–that story is now ascociated with that portion of our morning, with the start of each day, so whatever we were doing around it such as commuting to work, having a coffee, avoiding having to think about deliverables, or out for a jog, our mind thinks that it’s what it’s supposed to bring up. Same goes for a particular friend we talked about it with a lot, or that show or song that triggered a rehashathon.

If each time we felt vulnerable and maybe said self-critical, we responded with thoughts of us being inadequate, too old, too this, not enough that, and then we piled on with mentally raking over what happened, it’s become a habit to associate our sense of ‘enoughness’ with this story.

The fact that we keep thinking about something or it keeps popping up doesn’t mean that it’s relevant to our present-day situation or that it’s even accurate.

If we’ve been thinking about something a lot and saying the same thing over and over again, we’ve actually trained ourselves into a hearing loop so it’s out of habit, not out of a conscious choice of thoughts.

But we can choose the way in which we respond–ride the train of thought to pain and obsessing, or consciously choose not to hop on board. With the latter, we recognise what the rehashing has become a cover for and we make a new choice and gain new understanding.

We acknowledge where we soothed ourselves with pain. Maybe we see what we got out of telling a story (the payoff) such as attention, to feel like a victim, to feel special in a twisted way, to feel as if we were paying off our guilt about something else that we’re probably not even responsible for or even if we were, it’s clear there are more meaningful and productive ways to learn from a wrongdoing.

If we’re repeating a story again and again, and over time, we feel worse, less ourselves, stuck and more, then guess what? We’re not telling it right! We’re lying to ourselves about something.

After a while, we have to commit to catching ourselves before we jump on the Rehashing Express and ask:

Is what I’m going to say/think again going to lead to somewhere good?
Do I have some fresh, positive insight that releases me just a little bit more?
Nope, OK, not getting on.

By focusing our energy on being conscious, aware and present, we gradually feel more in command of us and as a result, less attached to the security blanket of the narrative—and it is one because we don’t have to look too closely at ourselves and we get to see us (or someone else) as the villain.

Distance also gives more objectivity, so redirecting our focus actually helps us to gain perspective organically rather than hoping that investing in self-criticism and revisiting the crime scene time and again will throw up something new.

When we realise that we’ve been riding the Rehashing Express, we have an opportunity to look for new insight, to see things in a way that we weren’t able to before. We might suddenly recognise the parallels between this experience and a hurt or loss from our past. We might suddenly make the connection about the similarities between this person and say, our mother, and all of a sudden we get to see why this experience was important.

Keep in mind that acknowledging that we’ve been rehashing doesn’t mean that we should silence ourselves–it means that we need to take care because our thoughts and words do hurt us. Admitting that, yes, in some instances we might have been obsessing over something is the path to being able to help us acknowledge that behind this story is actually a great deal of pain. We can then help us, particularly because this acknowledgment might be the first time we truly extend ourselves some genuine compassion and start to talk about what we really need and what’s really bothering us.

The answer isn’t to silence ourselves. We need to make a new choice and that starts with acknowledging the baggage behind what has happened.

We still tell the story from time to time but it’s different because we’re healing, growing and learning not tying us to the past. There’s a progression.

We tell it less over time, not because we think we’ve exhausted our audience but because we’re truly ready to be done. It’s not our showpiece, our calling card or the thing that we’re making ourselves near ill over.

We’re conscious of not wanting to make us feel bad.

We’re conscious of not wanting to talk ourselves into giving away power.

We can visit the events without taking up residence. We genuinely want to move on and find even a chink of light in there to find our way through because we remember that we’re human and that it’s down to us to give ourselves permission to move on.

Ultimately, when our desire for something else is greater than our need to hold on to the story or to stay afraid, we commit to choosing and re-choosing each day, to let go.

Your thoughts?

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Here’s Why I Keep Coming Back

July 24, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Dear Ex Who Keeps Letting Me Back In,

You’re probably wondering what the hell is going on, what this last go-round was all about, and whether I’m ever gonna change and finally give you the relationship, commitment and love that you desire and deserve.

In short, the answer is no.

I mean, why would you want me after all the crap I’ve put you through?

It’s getting to the point where you’re pretending to people who actually care about you, that you’re not in touch with me.

You rationalise that they don’t ‘get’ me or the relationship and that they’ll judge you/us, but your friends, family, co-workers and even the woman who saw you crying in the park the other day, are totally right about me.

Of course, I’ll tell you that they’re all assclowns and make you feel torn should you so much as hint about their well-placed dislike of me, but they are right–I just haven’t wanted you to agree with them. You might have the good sense to be done with me.

The truth is, I’m selfish.

It’s not something I like to admit, but if I look at my actions in the cold light of day, particularly when I consider how much pain you’ve been in, I realise that if I really, truly loved you, I would stop what I’m doing, even though it would mean letting you go.

I mean, isn’t that what people who genuinely care about and love something or someone, are prepared to do? Be prepared to lose it or them?

I can barely commit to showing up in a week, never mind to do something as bloody scary as genuine vulnerability.

I just want to know that you’re there, like a comfort blanket.

If I get sex, an ego stroke, or some armchair therapy out of you, even better.

In truth, I hate the idea of you not being there, of you not still seeing potential in me.

If you, who’s gorgeous, loving, kind, generous, empathetic to a fault, clever, and the list goes on, is no longer prepared to give me the time of day, what does that say about me?

When you have the good sense to scream at me that you’re ‘done’, to cut me off and refuse to reply to my texts or pick up my calls, or you even try to move on with someone else, I know that you feel bad about it and doubt whether you are right to do what you’re doing (you are).

You doubt yourself and question why you weren’t enough for me [to give you what you want].

I could have told you ages ago and, sure, I’ve hinted at it in various ways, but it’s not you.

This is who I am.

Even when I’ve appeared to give commitment to someone else, I’ve acted up in one way or another.

This is a me-problem, but, OK, I have benefited from letting you believe that it’s something you’re doing or not doing.

I keep dangling getting back together ‘for good’ and so when I crash and burn, yet again, you wonder where you botched things up.

You didn’t, unless you count taking me back in the first place…

The moment that I can’t access the supply of your love, you’re attractive again, because I associate being out of control with desire.

I also, yes, rather selfishly, see you as mine, and if you move on with someone else, I will feel incredibly insecure and fear (or know) that I’ve made a mistake.

Each time you take me back though, it gets rid of that fear.

I like your ‘goodness’ sheltering me from the truth of who I am.

I like knowing that someone like you wants to be with someone like me, even though I also know that I can’t give you what you want.

I like the idea of it, in that moment when I’m not sure if you will respond back to my texts or whether you will believe my promises, which admittedly have all fallen through.

I like the idea of it when I want your forgiveness because I hate the idea of being thought badly of [even though I wouldn’t put that same energy into doing better].

I like the idea of giving you what you want, when I get rejected elsewhere and suddenly, I’m not sure if I’ve still ‘got it’.

I like the idea of giving you what you want when I’m not in control.

Because then you want to give me that power.

That’s it. That’s the truth.

You keep thinking that we’re getting back together because you assume my intention is to get back together with you.

You assume that in giving me the power to provide what you want, yet again, that I will come through.

We get back together because I want the power and control back.

That’s it. That’s the truth.

If I have to lie, beg, borrow and steal in order to get back into your heart and likely your pants, then so be it.

If I have to mess with your head by disappearing, standing you up, cussing you, making critical comments, letting you see me with someone else, sleeping with my ex or someone you know, blowing hot and cold, and the list goes on, I will do it.

The moment though, that you give in or even enthusiastically come bowling back into the fantasy and drop everything for me, I know something isn’t right because you’re giving me the time of day.

I know that I don’t deserve you. How come you don’t know, too?

So, I go back to putting a question mark over your head, because amazing people like you [who I don’t truly respect and value] shouldn’t be fannying around with people like me.

If you let me, I will do this and more to you until the end of time, or at least until you have the good sense to shut me out of your life and move on.

I might even, move on to someone else, appear to give them what you wanted, but then still toy with you. You will wonder, Why them and not me?, even though you need to want better for yourself.

I do not want your heart; I want your attention.

Feck it, I want control.

If you’re serious about being in a serious relationship, stop believing me.

Stop giving me the power.

If you want a mutually fulfilling relationship with love, care, trust and respect, stop lying to yourself.

Stop trying to have the last word.

I know I have all of my stuff going on, but seriously, stop.

You can do waaaaaaay better than me but your unconscious desire to have the last word, to be right, to have what you think is a rejection of you ‘corrected’, is causing you to hang on and call it love.

Stop trying to please me!

Stop trying to show me how to behave and hoping that I will feel guilty enough about how badly I’ve treated you, that I will spontaneously combust into a better person giving you a better relationship.

I’m just not that fricking special. Yes, really!

Stand up for yourself. Don’t feel bad about it. Tell me to jog on, to eff off, to do one.

And I know that you don’t love me in the way that you deserve to be loved by that person who will be there for you when you get me out of your life once and for all.

I’m not saying that you don’t love and care about me, but letting yourself down to be with me, and secretly trying to have the last word, is keeping you with me long past my sell-by-date.

I keep coming back to push you to stop taking me back.

I keep coming back to force you to love yourself more than you love me.

Whether it’s me, or someone else like me, this will continue until you recognise what you couldn’t see before, which is that you can do better and it’s time to stop repeating the past.

I am not the love of your life. I am not the solution to your pain.

Let me go. And, don’t believe me when I get in touch next time.

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Advice Wednesday: How Do I Begin To Make Sense of Being Catfished?

December 14, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 7 Minutes

Jan asks: I met “Ryan, 35” on Tinder and we hit it off right away. Within a few dates, I asked why a guy like him (handsome, smart and funny) would be online and he admitted that his wife had died of ovarian cancer two years before. I took his baggage into consideration as our relationship progressed because I felt that our connection was too good to pass up. This meant giving up stuff like him spending the night at my house regularly and I wasn’t invited to his. He attended therapy twice a week to “move on” and “get over the guilt he had felt for her passing and him moving on.” With trouble, I let this go.

Within six months, he told me he loved me and that I was the love of his life. Our connection and feelings were something I’ve never felt before. We discussed moving in together and set a goal of Christmas. He met my family, my friends, but I had never met his. Maybe this was stupid and my fault, but I kept thinking, Well, they live in another state, so whats the big deal? I also rationalised that like me, he doesn’t have many close friends in the area. I kept brushing away my unease.

After 15 months, I snooped by entering his email into Facebook and discovered a completely different person—same photos, different name. His name is Brian. I was stunned. He came clean and admitted that he’d made up the entire story. Separated for two years and a father of two, his family, friends and therapist had no idea I existed! My conversations with ‘them’ were fabricated. I believed his story—who was I to question it? I believe that people are kind and good. I believed that people do not lie about death and cancer. Ultimately, after planning my life with him, I am shattered and devastated to know that I do not even know this person. Nor does the person I love even exist. So here I am, trying to recover and move on, but its so difficult because I can’t separate the “Ryan” that I knew and loved from the Brian, who manipulated and lied to me over 15 months. Natalie, I am at a loss. What do I do? How do I move on? And how do I not hate myself for letting this happen? I fear I will never trust anyone again. Have you heard of anything such as this?

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Jan, I understand how deeply painful the revelation of this deception must be for you but you are being way too hard on yourself. You are failing to recognise that he’s a con artist. His actions are what has in recent years become known as being ‘catfished’—this is where someone sets up a fake identity (typically on Facebook but not limited to there) to trick you into being in a relationship. There’s even a show about it on MTV (Catfish) and what you have experienced is far from being unusual in a world where you can effectively be whoever you want to be with the right social media account and technology at your disposal.

He told a series of lies that were plausible when put together. In a different context, you might have felt extra suspicious. To be plausible, a lie has to have a grain or few of possible truths. When the recipient of the lie has doubts due to what might seem more obvious lies, it’s the plausibility of the original lie that causes them to vacillate between doubting and believing.

He’s ensured that he’s told the kind of lie that typically causes doubters to feel guilty for even momentary suspicion, repeatedly overriding their judgement and their fight/flight response, in turn making it even easier for other lies to slip through, after all, if someone’s a widower who feels guilty about moving on, you’ll convince yourself that he’s finding the right moment to introduce you to his friends, that he’s worried about alienating his family, that the home they shared is full of memories, and that each time you sleep together, that he’s haunted by his dead wife.

Most people don’t fabricate dead spouses in order to lead a double life or get laid– They just tell you that they’re really into you, intimate or promise that they’ll leave, it’s just, ‘You know [their] situation’ and ‘Be patient’ etc. While this version of events would undoubtedly still be crappy, at least you wouldn’t be robbed of your right to choose. This guy is pretty twisted. He couldn’t just cheat; he had to garner sympathy and let you believe that his sock puppets were real people. I don’t know what the hell he talks about with his therapist but he needs to start with his deep-seated issues with women.

Advice: Why Did He Agree To Meet Me After 20 Years Just To Mess Me About?

November 30, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Alison asks: I recently visited a friend I hadn’t seen in twenty years. We had the briefest of hook-ups a long time ago that I vaguely remember as him not being able to ‘perform’, but it was still loving and caring. He’s smart, funny, insightful and back then gave me some advice that turned my world around.

I had not been in touch with him in all this time as we live in different countries and only reconnected just before I planned to visit his country. At the end of my trip, we planned four days together. I think he Future Faked me by writing how he’d thought of me and our connection over these years, on how he felt about me and that we would become ‘we’ on this visit. The visit really built up in my mind and then of course, when we met it was as though he wished he wasn’t there.

He talked a lot about himself and was cool to me. Aside from a hug and one moment of holding my hand, he never touched me. It was bizarre. I asked him about it and he got very angry and said, “What’s the urgency?”. Later when I asked why he agreed to meet me, he told me that he never asks why. I then went so far as to read one of his emails back to him and he said, “Well, I would be happy to receive an email like that!”. Sure, if the person who wrote it followed through. He also seemed to get very angry that I remembered the life-changing advice he gave me 20 years ago. It was so troubling. I have absolutely no idea what happened. When I left his country a week ago I said, “Have a nice life. Goodbye!” and that was the end of it. I haven’t heard from him and am pretty certain I won’t. I feel confused, angry, and hurt, like I was sucker-punched. What the hell happened?

********************

On a recent episode of the HBO/Sky Atlantic series, ‘Insecure’, when Molly introduces her hot, new guy who she’s only been on one date with to her friends at an engagement party, and they refer to him as her ‘boyfriend’, he goes along with it, causing Molly to feel rather excited. Alone at the bar afterwards, Chris essentially says that he could see her desperation so he was happy to fill that role for her but that it essentially should be oh-so-obvious to her that they’re not a couple.

Your pen not-so-much-of-a-pal, Alison, is quick with words, light on action.

He’s the type of person who’d give someone The Best Date Ever TM because he wants to feel good about not wanting to take it further. When the date feels confused about why they haven’t heard back, especially in light of what they thought was the “amazing chemistry”, he rationalises that at least he made sure he gave them a good time and goes on his merry way.

He’s insincere. What does he think you are? A charity that needs old flames to send love letters so that you can keep up the will to live? What’s the point in sending the letter if it’s fiction?

I think you hold him in too high an esteem. I’m not saying that you have to think of him an assclown, it’s just that a lot can change in twenty months never mind twenty years.

There you are thinking of him as your very own Buddha (or Yoda) and he doesn’t either recall what he said to you or rate its importance. Now at the end of the day, if advice he gave was life-changing, that won’t be changed by this recent fracas, but he’s either not the man you thought he was or he’s not the man he used to be. It’s also time to recognise that you’re not that woman anymore either.

Advice Wednesday: I Tried To Escape My Grief With An Affair–What Do I Do Now?

November 23, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Salma asks: I recently miscarried. My husband wasn’t supportive and we’d been having problems for a while. I felt useless, ugly and to cut a long story short, ended up meeting an attached man online. I told him I was not looking for anything but friendship but he pursued me for weeks until I gave in – and he didn’t just want my body, he wanted my heart. He wanted me to leave my husband and pretended to be upset when I said we were going to go for counselling. He paraded as the perfect boyfriend… but there were a couple of times he blew me off, including one day we were supposed to meet in his city but instead I was left alone with nowhere to stay and didn’t hear from him until some rubbish in the evening.

After that, I ended it, despite his excuses to try to keep it going. I have occasionally stalked his girlfriend’s Instagram since, which gave me all the answers. He was of course manipulating me all along. I realise now he was with her that day he abandoned me and that he had instead driven 150 miles to see her and knew what he was doing to me. I’ve blocked both of them on social media, but I feel so devastated and don’t know what to do with myself. My friends are supportive but not with me all the time. I am trying to work on things with my husband but I feel like such a moron. Please help.

********************

I’m so sorry for your loss, Salma. Miscarrying is a traumatic loss that’s so under-recognised, with many women feeling as if they can’t talk about it. This can be incredibly isolating.

One of the toughest places to be emotionally is to feel as if you’re struggling or even drowning and yet your partner either isn’t noticing or is standing there watching but, how you feel and perceive might represent what the person is doing but equally it might not.

Many of us fall into the trap of expecting our partner to mind read or to get it “right” even when they themselves are flailing. We get mad at them for disappointing us by not being perfect and for not being able to intuitively understand everything we need without us having to be vulnerable and show and tell.

What we don’t always acknowledge is where we have hinted instead of going the distance and where we have expected them to know the answers even when we ourselves don’t. We also don’t always acknowledge where we are mad at them for not fixing feelings that might be of our own creation–our self-criticism and the knock-on effect of it.

You were looking for more than friendship when you began communicating with the Other Man. You wanted to feel purposeful, interesting, attractive and hopeful–the opposite to how you feel in your marriage.

You have looked for an external solution to an internal problem (the relationship itself and the inner turmoil that you’re going through). He was someone to numb your pain or to act as an ‘upper’.

Anyone can be the “perfect boyfriend” when they don’t exist, which is what happens when you’re in a fantasy situation and that includes when it can’t be a real relationship because neither of you are ‘out of contract’ from your existing relationships. It’s a bit like how some people look like the perfect candidate for the job until they actually start doing the job. He was “perfect” until he had to be real.

This was a simulated relationship and that was part of the attraction.

Advice Wednesday: What If Grieving Takes Too Long After The End of My Engagement & My Bereavement & Then I Miss Out?

November 2, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Shelley asks: Four months before we were due to get married last January, my ex cancelled the wedding. He simultaneously pushed for us to get married and start trying for a baby straight away, while being very critical, looking for problems, and demanding certainty that it would all work out. I recognised that his actions didn’t match his words and that he wanted certainty before he would commit, showing that he didn’t know what commitment truly involves. We broke up and I feel that for whatever reason (I’m beyond caring), he faked a future with me.

Remembering that his problems are about him, I was taking time to heal and rebuild my confidence. I still had a way to go but felt I was on the right path. Then in January, my dad died suddenly and it threw me. I do OK with self-care including grief support groups but it’s not linear. My body tells me I’m stressed (bad skin, flaking nails, some mild hair loss) even if I think I’m doing OK on a day to day level.

I keep thinking I must be fully over the ex before getting into something new, but how do I know when I’m over it enough? We’re not in contact, nor do I want him back, but I’m still angry.

At 35, I really want kids and fear that I’m getting too old and that I’ll miss out while trying to get over my recent experiences. I fear that my distrust is going to put up a wall or send me into another unhealthy relationship. This is what kept me with the fiancé through 3 months of flip-flapping after we got engaged. That and I had committed and it took me that long to realise that the problem was he hadn’t.

I tell myself there is no race, but really there is. There will be a time when I can’t have kids and it is approaching. How do I calm that, focus on myself and make sure I’ve put myself back together enough that I can confidently go forward into the world of dating? How will I know when I’m ready? At the moment the thought of making another mistake is terrifying, which I know isn’t realistic. But I don’t want to go through more pain on top of all this.

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Life is a teacher and it loves to do it with ironic reflections.

The things that we dislike and that frustrate us in others, are things that we ourselves are guilty of in some guise.

Your ex-fiancé rushed, pushed and pressured you. He wanted everything yesterday and he wanted guarantees about the future. He simulated commitment by proposing and wanting to dive straight into trying for a baby, but the actions, mentality and attitude for commitment weren’t there. He had competing fears and beliefs undermining it.

Here’s the thing: You are now rushing, pushing and pressuring you. You also want it yesterday and on some level you want guarantees. You say you don’t want to go through more pain but there will be pain ahead, more so if you keep trying to avoid it.

And while you’re right that part of the problem was that he hadn’t committed, the other part was that you were trying to see through a commitment that was driven in part by your fear that this was the last chance saloon and also fearing trusting your judgement and revising your decision. As I explain in Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, yes of course we look more committed when the person we’re committed to is flip-flapping but committing to someone who is uncommitted no matter which way you slice it, is procrastination.

They Had A Life Before You. Acknowledge The Backstory.

October 25, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Sometimes we become so consumed by our involvement with someone that when it ends, we lose sight of the fact that this person existed before we came along. We spend weeks, months or even years torturing ourselves over the “what ifs” and feel shortchanged and even wronged that they couldn’t become who we wanted them to or who they promised to be. It doesn’t matter if one hundred exes came before us or what their backstory is; everything they are or aren’t now seems to hinge on our worth and our supposed actions.

When people say to me, “But Natalie, why haven’t they called? Why didn’t/couldn’t they change? Why don’t they want me?”, I remind them of the biggest truth that they’re steadfastly forgetting: This person had a whole life before you. They didn’t just fall out of the sky and land into your life ready to play a part.

A typical example of this scenario is when we get involved with somebody who even if they’ve been married, they never stopped dating or they were not a committed, emotionally available partner with their ex(es). We rock up and carry on as if we’re supposed to get the best version of them. What we don’t often admit to is that aside from expecting to be the exception, we on some level believe that it’s the fault of the former partner/spouse when somebody is not a truly loving, giving partner. We believe that their exes weren’t doing enough and that things would be very different if the right person came along who knew how to love them right. Of course when this person doesn’t change or even behaves worse, we blame ourselves.

The question we have to ask ourselves when we’ve been hellbent on peddling a narrative where we have determined that we have failed due to our self-worth and even that we have been wronged by our hopes and expectations not being met is: Why are we owning all of their pain and problems?

We also need to question why it hasn’t occurred to us that there are other people before us who have experienced disappointment with this person and blamed themselves. Why is it that we are The Biggest Loser of Them All? Why does our involvement with this person black out everyone else?

Advice Wednesday: I Realised I Never Asked For What I Needed In My 5-Year Relationship & Want To Go Back

September 21, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 7 Minutes

Bethany asks: I broke up with my boyfriend of 5 years just over a year ago. At the time, I thought that it was because I met someone else but after a short relationship with the new man and some serious self-reflection while single, I realised that it was because I never really asked for what I needed in the relationship. We had one big fight at the beginning which was definitely all my fault (long story short, the man before him dented my self-esteem and so I was pushing my boyfriend away) and because I felt guilty about this behaviour, I never liked to argue or confront him if I was unhappy with something in our relationship.

My ex would have given me everything I needed if I’d only known myself well enough to ask. We’ve both matured and I believe our breakup could make us better partners. I can’t get him out of my head. He is the first person I think of when I wake up and the last person I think of at night. I am constantly driven by a desire to be back with him but afraid of grovelling on my knees and being rejected. Is it even possible to make it work a second time round? If not, how on earth can I get over this?

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As humans, we have a habit of rewriting the past to suit a present-day narrative. When we’re self-critical and prone to being a blame absorber and something goes wrong, we misremember aspects of how things went down. Now that we know how things have turned out, we convince ourselves that we did XYZ and that the reason why the other person was or wasn’t being or doing ABC is because of us. We then work out what we think are the conditions for being OK and try to make it happen, or we beat ourselves up because we can’t turn back time.

How do you know that he would have given you everything you needed “if only” you’d asked him? Do you want to get back with your ex or do you have regrets about leaving a five-year relationship for something and someone that quickly didn’t work out?

Going through some serious self-reflection is no bad thing, in fact, if only more people would self-reflect to a more balanced perspective, there would be less chaos in dating and relationships.

That’s something that you can learn straight away: Whether you get back with your ex or not, what you’ve learned will make you a more emotionally available and engaging partner within your relationships.

Suppressing and repressing your true needs, expectations, desires, feelings and opinions to avoid conflict, criticism, rejection and disappointment (people pleasing) is very detrimental not just to your sense of self but to how you show up in your relationships and even to who you choose as a partner.

Conflict is a necessary part of life. We only truly experience intimacy when we can disagree and express our innermost feelings and thoughts even when they might not be ‘pretty’, opening up our awareness about each person’s perspective and allowing us to work together for resolution as well as to grow in self-awareness and self-knowledge, but conflict isn’t an automatic result of any and all expressions of needs, feelings, expectations, desires and opinions.

Consistently being authentic and showing up in the relationship represents our needs to ourselves as well as to our partners.

Some people assume that once in a relationship that they don’t have to meet any of their own needs anymore but actually, they have to meet theirs as well as express the needs that involve their partner, as well as be open to meeting those of their partner, who will also still be meeting their own needs.

Feeling that you’d provoked the argument (possibly not over your previous ex at that point), the guilt prompted you to make a rule to avoid speaking up out of fear of what might come out and/or that you would alienate him. Unfortunately, this was a self-defeating activity because doing things out of guilt just creates more fear as well as resentment plus you were cut off from intimacy meaning that your relationship couldn’t really grow. You were making a rod for your own back by trying to influence and control his feelings and behaviour with people pleasing and hoping that this as well as him potentially reading your mind would solve the issues and make you feel better.

When we feel that our needs have been repeatedly ignored and/or inadequately met in the past, we on some level decide that it’s less painful to silence our needs than it is to express them and run the risk of it being unmet. Throw in a negative association with conflict, and there’s a recipe for pain right there.