getting over a breakup Archives - Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue

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: 4 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.

Podcast Ep. 95: Can We Talk For A Minute? Ambiguity’s Not My Thang

September 8, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Subscribe on iTunes | Soundcloud | Android

A couple of day’s back, I wrote about how, when we’re in a situation where someone pretty much clicks their fingers and we come running, and then we’re gradually feeling hurt and resentful because they don’t feel the same way, we need to draw our line.

In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I delve into the subject of how ambiguous situations come about, some of the questions they raise, and why it’s so important for us to be unambiguous if we don’t want something vague and confusing to flourish.

Topics covered

Signs of ambiguity including when our mind is busy trying to work out whether our interpretation is correct and reluctance to take action disguised as confusion
I share three very real stories that have ambiguity written all over them
Why passiveness and latching on to hallmarks, so things we take as signs of romantic interest while ignoring the landmarks are key themes in these situations
Ambiguous relationships often originate from ambiguous friendships and as comfortable as it can be to admit, there is a hidden agenda
The breakdown in communication including our own ability to communicate honestly with ourselves and that tricky issue of hinting
Why it’s not just one person being ambiguous…
Why where’s there’s ambiguity, there’s assumptions and a bias towards collecting info that supports our outlook
How ambiguous situations open us up to being used
Why if actions and words don’t match, there’s a problem

Links mentioned

Next stop

If you enjoyed the show, please share the episode – every little helps. Email someone who you think this show is relevant to or use the share buttons at the top and bottom of this episode.

Subscribe and/or leave a review on iTunes (how-to guide here)–it really helps in growing the show! If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Have a great weekend!

Save

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.

Advice Wednesday: Why Is It Taking Months To Get Over Someone That I Wasn’t Even Into?

October 26, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Esme asks: I’ve dated Mr Unavailables pretty much since my teens (I’m mid-thirties now) and while it’s definitely hurt when things haven’t worked out, I’ve always been able to get back into dating within a few weeks, even if we were together for more than a year. Well, at least that was the case until my most recent ex. I honestly don’t know why it’s taking me so long to move on—we weren’t together for very long (about 5 weeks) and I wasn’t as into him as my other exes and I definitely don’t want him back. Nothing has worked and just going on Tinder or contemplating the idea of being with someone again induces anxiety. I feel paralysed and as if I don’t have the stomach for dating anymore. I’ve cried more over this last few months than I have in all of my dating years combined and I don’t even know what I’m crying about. What is going on with me? Will I be able to date again?

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

I have a friend whose dad went out to his favourite restaurant and had the same meal he’d been having for years, only for him to find himself in an ambulance after having a severe reaction to shellfish. Ten years on and he hasn’t been able to eat shellfish again and he’s also become intolerant to another favourite of his, sweetcorn. Everyone’s tolerances are different and sometimes we hit our capacity for certain things and our bodies say no more.

Over the years, Esme, life has tried to give you hints of varying sizes about the men you’re dating. For a time, you were able to get away with dating emotionally unavailable men, probably able to compartmentalise your various involvements and distract yourself with attention from a new guy.

Jumping from one involvement to another and never really allowing your emotions to surface has caused you to get more than a little ‘backed up’ and imbalanced. Those emotions that you’ve suppressed and repressed didn’t disappear and die. They have all been stored away and avoiding feeling and systematically putting you through the cycle of unavailable relationships has taken its toll. You have maxed out. You have hit your inner capacity for Mr Unavailables and it’s resulted in an outpour of emotion.

I get the impression that you want this all to go away so that you can get back to ‘normal’. You say that you don’t know what you’re crying about and this means that you’ve either buried your feelings and thoughts on past experiences for so long that you’ve forgotten that you buried them, or you on some level know what this is about but are playing it down.

It may be that you have normalised the unavailable relationship experience so much that while on one hand you recognise that you always go out with Mr Unavailables, on the other hand you haven’t made the connection between your habit of doing so and how you feel about love, relationships and yourself. It’s as if you had almost accepted that Mr Unavailables were the status quo and you weren’t expecting to be with anything different. It might feel like ‘home’ because it’s familiar from childhood.

It’s not that you don’t have the stomach for dating anymore; it’s that you don’t have the stomach for your pattern.

You don’t have the stomach for putting you through the spin cycle of being in relationships that are capped in terms of availability—they’re limited in intimacy, commitment, balance, progression and consistency (the landmarks of healthy relationships).

Imagine working long hours for years and years without taking proper time to rest. What do you think that life would do to force you to take time out? Probably make you so ill that you can’t do a damn thing and you’re forced to learn how to take care of your overworked body.

You’ve been so busy moving from one relationship to another that you haven’t stopped to pause and just be. Were you afraid that if you didn’t date and you instead spent time on your own or let your feelings surface, that it would be too confronting and that you couldn’t cope?

You are not alone in what you’re going through and it often is the person who you’re not that fussed about that becomes the straw that breaks the donkey’s back. You’d think it would be The One You Were Crazy About or The One You Didn’t Get Your Way With, but sometimes it’s the things without fanfare, the people who we have a much more subtle, quieter experience with, that make our past ring really loudly and force us to learn a lesson that we’ve been delaying on heeding.

If it had been one of the guys who you’d felt crazy about, you would probably have put your feelings down to being crazy about him and opted back into a cycle of pursuing your vision of the relationship or taken those feelings and tried to channel them into a new involvement. Instead, you know that you’re not into him and you know that you don’t want him back and yet there are all of these feelings there that you don’t have a name for or someone or something that you can hastily attach them to. It might also be that there is something about this last involvement that you haven’t been able to hide from, that was maybe more obvious to you because of the fact that you didn’t care as much for him as you did other partners. Maybe this involvement has shone a spotlight on something about your pattern that you would not have seen otherwise.

You’ve been forced to pause, to take stock, to try to let those feelings come so that you can step out of numbness or even what might have been edging into deadness. You’ve been in this cycle for the best part of twenty years–it had to stop at some point. Doing the lather, rinse, repeat of unavailable relationships puts you in an uncomfortable comfort zone where you’re limiting the amount of intimacy and vulnerability that you experience. It causes you to switch down your feelings in order to cope.

Crying is no bad thing. It’s a release. It’s grief. You’re grieving all of the previous losses and also grieving for your younger self who has settled for less. I know that it must be very painful for you right now but think of this as the clean pain of expressed feelings rather than the ‘dirty’ pain of repressed ones. Look at this guy who you didn’t want to be with as a very handy helper that’s awakened you to the realisation that you feel. Somewhere along the way you forgot this and have settled for crumbs. You have been through things that you’ve sought to escape via your involvements and you’ve also hidden feelings of low self-worth in your ability to move on quickly, which gave you a temporary boost. But this is no way to live.

Whatever you’re afraid of confronting is exactly what you need to confront.

You will date again but first you need to take time to heal. It doesn’t have to be a long time but listen to the needs of your body right now so that you can take care of you emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. If all you want to do is date, then sure, keep on doing what you were doing, but if you want to be part of a mutually fulfilling loving relationship, take some time out to heal now. Once you lean into this, you will find that these feelings move on remarkably quickly and you regain inner peace and a greater sense of self.

Acknowledging who and what it is that you’ve been seeking out and replicating through your unavailable relationships, will help you to close up the void and break the pattern. Therapy could be a good way of working with someone to help you process. I highly recommend engaging in self-care practices like journaling including keeping a feelings diary, Unsent Letters, learning to self-soothe and doing anything that helps to healthily boost your self-esteem.

And take it a day at a time and don’t try to avoid what you’re going through. The only way out is through.

Have you been in a similar situation to Esme? How have you dealt with unexpected grief from past relationships?

Each Wednesday, I help a reader to solve a dilemma. To submit a question, please email advicewednesdayAT baggagereclaim.com. If you would prefer your question to be featured on the podcast, drop a line to podcast AT baggagereclaim.com. Keep questions below 200 words.

Save

Advice Wednesday: He Didn’t Emotionally Support Me When I Lost My Father & Now He’s Done It Again

October 12, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 7 Minutes

Lucy asks: I’ve broken off my engagement to a man I’ve been with for nine years. The relationship hasn’t been plain sailing to say the least. We spent six months apart due to his lack of emotional support when my dad was terminally ill. The last four years have been very happy and I’ve spent ten months engaged and planning a wedding.

I changed my career a few months ago with the intention of starting university this September while supporting my [now ex-fiancé] through a job change and financial difficulty. I work in a private hospital and recently a major event occurred, which being part of a team, I was involved in. I turned to my partner for support and was faced with the following reaction: “You haven’t done anything wrong. I wouldn’t let it bother me, why are you letting it bother you?”

Following his reaction and lack of support, I clammed up, finding it difficult for the next five weeks to open up to him and even be intimate due to stress and exhaustion. I continued going to work and dealing with the investigation regarding the ‘major event’ alone. In that time, he struck up a friendship with a school acquaintance who he took to a charity ball while I was on holiday, something he lied about and later admitted to when he was caught out.

He said that me not wanting to be intimate with him led him to believe that I no longer found him attractive, although he hasn’t admitted to anything happening between them when questioned about why she’s suddenly a friend when she’s not been in his life for the last nine years and why we haven’t been introduced. She is someone I see at the gym; we know of one another but have never spoken in the nine years and he has ignored her. You can understand why I was shocked to learn they were now friends.

He doesn’t communicate well and immediately shouted and showed frustration, and then proceeded to tell me that ‘I don’t trust him, this is my problem and my insecurities!’ He has since moved out after attempting to call things off via text message. I have begun No Contact as I find it too painful to be in touch. He has since sent me a couple of messages which I haven’t read, but going by the preview, one says “Ignoring my messages isn’t the right way to handle this!” Can you offer some perspective on this situation?

**********

My first thought on this was, If they’ve been so happy for the last four years, how did things deteriorate at such a speed?

Here’s what is going on in a nutshell: You’ve experienced a traumatic event at work, which also represents a loss to some degree, which will bring up feelings and other associations from the last major trauma in your life: losing your father to cancer and also losing your boyfriend due to his lack of support during that time. It’s been triggering and this prompted you to retreat out of self-preservation. He took this as a cue that he’s being rejected (what he’s inferred from knowing he’s let you down and your reaction), possibly because he recognises that your response is similar to when you lost your father, so in a way he’s been triggered as well. His self-preservation is to seek out his ex and then to accidentally on purpose get caught so that he has a way out of the relationship without having to address the issues. You’ve also cut him off and so you don’t have to communicate either.

Lucy, you spent six months apart following the loss of your father, where you probably did a level of healing on your own and felt that it was ‘safe’ to go back to the relationship. It’s like, “Right, I’ve taken care of this big thing on my own so you can rest assured that I won’t need you as much”.

Based on what has unfolded recently, it is clear that aspects of that period remain unresolved, namely you feeling unsupported due to what comes across as a lack of empathy, you struggling to recognise and share your feelings even when it’s uncomfortable, him being dismissive of ‘uncomfortable’ feelings and being very confrontational in conflict situations, and there being a general communication breakdown.

Podcast: Why Did We Break Up? – The Lessons

October 4, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 3 Minutes

It’s time for a Why Did We Break Up? episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions.

This is a replacement episode for ‘Moving Goalposts’ which went live last week and so due to all of the shuffling about, I decided that this was the perfect time to share some universal lessons that apply to breakups that have been picked up through the themes in the shows so far. Here are the key lessons I talk about:

If we’re carrying deep pain, it will be revealed by our relationship choices.
Superficial choices lead to superficial relationships and reveal the inadequacy that we carry about something. We are not seeing that person or being seen. We have an agenda to ‘get’ something and to also hide something.
No decent, lasting relationship can be built or sustained on inferiority and superiority. If you’ve been in relationships that are based on this premise, someone has to feel elevated and someone has to feel diminished. This isn’t workable.
A partner’s sole or primary job isn’t to make you happy. If you try to build a relationship in this way, you will veer between under and over-functioning. The relationship will be a breeding ground for resentment, frustration, sadness and codependency.
There doesn’t have to be a villain or a f*ck-up in the relationship. If more of us would recognise our humanness, we would move on to the relationship that’s far more befitting of us much sooner.
Affairs are about escapism and hiding out for both parties. If you become the Other Woman or Other Man, you are inviting pain, guilt and delay into your life.
If you don’t take time out to heal from a previous relationship and instead opt to move into something else very quickly, whatever you’re trying to avoid is going to track you down. The more you run is the likelier it is that one day it will all pile up. Stop running and deal.
Don’t try to be a fixer/healer/helper because you won’t be rewarded for your efforts. You are guaranteed to invite past pain into your life and will end up sacrificing you in an effort to prop up the other person. If you can’t stay in your own lane in the relationship, you cannot honour the separateness and choose partners for authentic, healthy reasons.
If you overcompensate in your relationships, it’s because on some level you know that the other party isn’t showing up or you on some level feel unworthy and so feel that you have to match their efforts and then raise them. You will try to create a tipping point. When the relationship ends, you will blame you and you won’t know why you broke up because you’ve effectively focused on your fears, feelings etc in relation to the other person. You’ve worried to much about what you have to do or not do in order to try to make them be or do something. You can’t worry about and blame other people’s feelings and behaviour on you and expect to have a clue about what’s yours and what’s theirs.
No matter what speed you move at at the start of a relationship, it needs to be in a boundaried way. Sometimes we mistake simulated intimacy for the actual intimacy that comes from a progressing, balanced, consistent, intimate and committing relationship over time. Chatting a lot, hanging out, being a good listener, great! But is it intimacy? This takes time and experience and the showing out and showing up of your true selves. The honeymoon period is too soon to call it!

You can listen to this podcast below. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe either on Soundcloud or on iTunes. If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Leave a comment or post on Facebook, and please, if you enjoy it, subscribe and/or leave a review on iTunes (how-to guide here)–it really helps in growing the show. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps. Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know!

Enjoy!

Podcast Ep. 51: Why Did We Break Up? #6 – Moving Goalposts

September 27, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

It’s time for a Why Did We Break Up? episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions.

One of the recurring themes in Why Did We Break Up? is people putting their partners on pedestals. It’s one thing when we pinch ourselves as if we can’t believe our luck when it’s the early days but we’ve got to give this up and level up with our partners if we want our relationships to be truly equitable and loving.

Naomi was in the process of ending a one-year relationship and planning to go travelling in Australia when she met Alex in a London club. She had no interest as she technically still had a boyfriend but a couple of weeks of some aggressive pursuit and she’d ended her relationship and started dating Alex. It got off to a flying start with a ‘pretend engagement’ on the first date but several weeks in he was accidentally calling her his ex’s name on holiday and talking about the ex all the time ‘we this’ and we that’ and despite much initial marriage talk, no ring ever materialised.

After waiting in vain for him to propose of his own volition, she finally broached the subject of marriage five years in only for him to reveal that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to get married although he assured her that he still loved her and that they were planning children together. Another year or so down the line and he’s not sure if he wants children but assures her that he still loves her. Another few months down the road and just one week before they close on a house purchase, he’s saying that he’s not sure how he feels about her. Another few months down the road and she finally ends it, only for him to say that he hadn’t been sure how he felt for a few years. Oh, and he’s now going out with a woman who has her own child. You couldn’t make this shizzle up!

Enjoy!

Save

Podcast Ep. 49: Why Did We Break Up? #5 – Let Me In

September 20, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

It’s time for a Why Did We Break Up? episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions.

It’s really confusing when a brief relationship still affects us for quite some time afterwards. When it feels as if it had a lot of potential and that things were going swimmingly, we sometimes get stuck on wondering what we did wrong or blame ‘timing’.

Sandy and Rick got off to a flying start after being introduced via a mutual friend. They saw each other a few times a week, seemed to thoroughly enjoy each others company, and were making plans for future dates. He seemed to have all of the makings of the type of guy she could see herself with and she was feeling like they were making a great team.

One night Rick received news that a close friend as well as a favourite patient had passed away, so he called her and asked to hang out, which she was more than happy to do. Contrary to what he initially said he wanted to do while there, he got rather frisky and she slowed things down, which prompted him to leave rather abruptly. He called a few days later and they chatted for a little while but Sandy had to head off as she was out and they agreed to continue their conversation. Cue tumbleweeds. Sensitive to the fact that he was likely going through a rough time, she called him a few more times but he never returned her calls. It’s time to answer the question, Why Did We Break Up?

Posts on ghosting and u-turns:

What’s the Craic With Ghosting? (And no, it’s NOT the same as No Contact!)

We Need To Talk About: ‘Ghosting’ In The Early Stages of Dating

Recovering from somebody doing a U-turn on their feelings or proclaimed intentions

I also talked about ghosting in episode 20

Leave a comment or post on Facebook, and please, if you enjoy it, subscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps. Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know!

Enjoy!

Save

Podcast Ep. 41: Why Did We Break Up?

August 19, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Me recording the podcast in the closet of our Airbnb

It’s time for another episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions.

Greetings from Bilbao in Spain where we’ve just arrived after a few days in San Sebastián where I think I’ve eaten my weight in food–you can catch glimpses of our trip on Instagram.

I can’t believe that it’s a year since I started the podcast. It has stretched me in ways I hadn’t imagined it would and I love that my weekly sit-down has meant that I can cover an even greater range of topics and that it’s meant so much to so many people.

Episode 41 is a special edition of the show that marks the beginning of a new offshoot, Why Did We Break Up?, where I explore real breakups in depth and try to find the answer to that question, not just so that the person who’s stuck can begin to move on with perspective, but also so that we can learn not just about ourselves but also our collective humanness in our quest to love and be loved.

In this first episode, I share the story of Yasmine and Russell’s ‘breakup’ of a relationship that never actually took off but left her bruised and hurt beyond measure. It has some ‘Beauty and the Beast’ fairy tale leanings and it’s ultimately a cataclysmic brief relationship where two people who don’t really like themselves very much and have some skewed notions about beauty and attraction, and who ultimately want to be seen and appreciated inside and out, expose their deep pain.

I will be back with the usual Baggage Reclaim Sessions episode next week.

Enjoy!

Save

Advice Wednesday: I’m not over my ex–Opt out of my new relationship or see how things unfold?

June 15, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

I used to be a runner, literally and emotionally. I can still get my sprint on (I’m known as ‘Robocop’ by a bunch of teens that I chased down the street until they gave up due to my speed) but I don’t run from feelings anymore. I used to bounce from relationship to relationship (or date to date) because, well, I didn’t really know how to be on my own. OK, and I couldn’t cope with being flooded by The Feelings that were becoming increasingly difficult to bury and run from. I had always been of the mind that burying and running was best because after a few months and while safely ensconced in a new relationship with a new fella, I would be able to revisit whatever I’d run from and I wouldn’t be bothered anymore.

Of course like many a person before and after me discovers, there’s only so far you can run and if you never process and grieve your relationships, it all eventually catches up with you in what can feel like an emotional volcanic eruption. While sometimes it’s something big that sets it off, what happens more often than not is that something that seems theoretically smaller than other past pains, reopens old wounds. You end up ruminating and obsessing. You end up feeling stuck.

In this week’s Advice Wednesday, Victoria is experiencing a lot of discomfort in her relatively new relationship and she doesn’t know whether it’s because she’s unavailable and not over her ex (more like exes including one that she’s still working on not obsessing over, or whether she should just see how things unfold.

The handy thing about having an emotional airbag is for a time, you’re protected from having to face the feelings you don’t want to feel or face the things that you don’t want to see, but those feelings and truths don’t disappear and they make themselves known in our emotional, mental and physical health as well as how we’re showing up. We mustn’t ignore discomfort and we most definitely need to pay attention to our inner voice not the ego-led one that encourages us to ignore our truth and what we need to do. We also need to ensure that we don’t, even if it’s inadvertently, use people as a means to an end.

We need to get into relationships because we’re happy not as a means to become happy.

If we’re not empowered when we’re single or having to think and choose for ourselves, we’re not empowered in our relationships.

When we don’t know ourselves, we don’t know our decisions and choices and we don’t know our relationships.

How would you advise Victoria? Have you been involved with someone who isn’t over their ex or have you tried to see how things unfold when you knew your heart wasn’t in it or that you weren’t over your ex yet?

Advice Wednesday #8: Is He Really Not Over The Way He Broke Up With His Ex or Is It Just An Excuse?

March 16, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

The Tricky Situation: Marcy asks, I was recently dumped by a guy. We dated exclusively for four months and he ended it because he wasn’t “ready for a relationship” yet, though he had “thought he could be” with me. He claimed he wasn’t over what happened with his ex, who he had been with for four years, despite the fact that he doesn’t want to be with her and broke up with her. He says he still has guilt about how they broke up (over the phone cause they were long-distance) and that she didn’t get any closure. I can’t help but wonder if he is just making an excuse — can he really be hung up simply on how they broke up? They broke up less than a year ago when we had met and he had already dated one other girl between her and me. I believe that he stopped dating the other girl because she wanted to be “too serious too soon,” but since we made it to four months, I thought we were going to work out. I guess that was a sign, but I just feel completely duped. Am I crazy?

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

You’re definitely not crazy Marcy but I do think that you have fallen into the trap of ignoring your intuition and yes, even an element of trying to be the exception. When you said that you had “made it to four months”, all I could see was a situation where you were dating this guy and on some level knowing that he had issues and then pushing down anxiety and almost praying that you can get past what you might think was the rocky mark in his previous involvement. This sounds like a challenge not a relationship.

I can’t tell you whether he is or isn’t over his ex but what I can tell you is that he doesn’t seem to know his arse from his elbow, with all of his contrary, flip-flapping, “I’m not ready for a relationship” but then carrying on as if you were supposed to be a commitment sorceress who was going to make him available and able to forget his issues.

What also cannot be denied is that if he was in a relationship for four years and some or all of it was long-distance and things ended over the phone nearly a year ago and he feels guilty over the lack of closure, why hasn’t he done something about it? As Oleta Adams sang in her hit, ‘Get Here’:

“You can reach me by railway

You can reach me by trailway
You can reach me on an airplane

……I don’t care how you get here
Just get here if you can”

His kind of guilt is of the procrastinating, not really as guilty as he makes himself out to be kind. It’s a way of avoiding showing up in the present and when he fails to deliver in his new relationships, he can play the guilt card. He could have made this right a thousand times over in the time since he broke up with her, especially because surely the ending of the relationship he had directly after that breakup was the call to action? He doesn’t want to be with his ex and yet she’s his go-to excuse; I don’t blame you for feeling confused and suspicious. Not being over your ex isn’t always about still being in love; he’s not over the relationship. Even if he’s bullsh-tting to a degree, he’s not over his past relationship(s) because it is impacting his current behaviour.

He may very well be hung up on how they broke up because he is avoiding thinking about the content of those four years. That requires introspection and recognising who he is, what he needs, and what that relationship reflected about his emotional state or what he was truly available for relationship wise.

Us humans are funny ‘ole creatures. Even when we can be logical, we’re not, but even when we are being logical, we can often be derailed by emotional reasoning. His position makes sense to him but of course it doesn’t make sense to you. The fact that you think him being hung up on how they broke up is odd, doesn’t mean that it’s not real. His lack of self-awareness means that he doesn’t understand what is motivating him to reach for that excuse, but his position is his position.