Hi,
I would appreciate insights in my clouded emotional mind. I would like to hear unbiased opinion about this…
I have met this guy for 9 years, He liked me since college days. we started out as best friends then confessed that he liked me. I was a afraid of ruining our friendship at first but now we have been in a relationship for 4 years. It’s been a Long distance relationship, because of our friendship, loyalty has never been an issue. we wanted to work this out. there would be fights but we tried to improve our relationship by trying to communicate better…
for the past 4 years tho, I feel like I’m the one who always forgives, tries to make time to make this relationship work. He works as in IT engineer and he tells me it’s always stressful. I try to understand him, he would give me a brief call and update me about his life. but I feel like being a diary. at the back of my mind, “How about me? aren’t you gonna ask what’s going on in my life?” I work as Nurse. I would sleep late, waiting for his call, I would be on my phone waiting whenever he’s free. I feel like I’m always the one trying to accommodate for him. I’m waiting, looking forward one day that he would do an extra mile for me. (Or maybe I don’t see the sacrifices he’s doing for me)
I tried to communicate it to him. that I would appreciate if he would leave me text message, be more expressive (I don’t bother to leave a test message anymore cause I know he wouldn’t even back read). But he says that he’s too busy. (But he was able to do it on the first years that we have been together). I tried to be less emotional and thinks about his well being first. All I just wanted is he tries to get back with me by spending quality time on a weekend, at least do something for me of just one thing.
I really want to support him, because he’s building something for us in the long term. but I feel like he doesn’t understand where I’m coming from. What if we start a family and raise kids? would he be able to understand my emotional needs? Don’t I deserve a little love and attention as well? Am I being unfair? Am I being selfish?
Or he cannot balance his life at all right now, too focused on his agenda that he can’t juggle our relationship?
Do I love him too much that I kept putting valid reasons that “He’s busy” “His agenda goes first” when my emotions are also valid that my concerns also needed to be acknowledged.
Is it true that relationship should be both 100/100? or on bad days you as a partner don’t have any choice but to give your utmost.
thank you. I don’t have anyone to vent out.. I wanted to protect his image to my family. I thought we worked so hard for this.. or I mostly worked so hard for this for not to fall apart.
You have good reason to be concerned. This man is behaving in a selfish way. He is inconsiderate of you. You aren’t even married, yet he has you wrapped around his finger because he knows you will tolerate whatever he does. You are a doormat in this relationship.
That you are even asking me whether you have a right to feel what you feel and expect what you expect tells me that you have a serious issue.
How come you don’t know that you should expect more responsiveness from him? I don’t care how busy he is as an IT worker! It takes two seconds to reply to a text! He is not respecting you. He is not treating you like a friend, let alone a beloved partner.
The issue here is with you. We need to figure out why you are willing to take crumbs and why you are trying to convince yourself that crumbs are sufficient?
Is your mother a doormat to your father?
Or did you have an unavailable parent? Are you now trying to get from this unavailable man what you didn’t receive from your parent? Read Kiss Your Fights Goodbye to understand how we all unconsciously choose partners who emotionally resemble the parent who let us down/harmed us in an attempt to fix the Old Scar we suffered from that parent’s behavior.
Abused/neglect kids often fall into the pattern of trying to fix the parent—hoping that if they are very good, giving and loving, they will succeed in fixing their parent. And when the parent is fixed, he/she will be able to give back all the love we crave and deserve.
Of course, the attempts to fix a defective parent never succeed—it’s hard enough to fix ourselves and impossible to fix another person!
When we don’t succeed in fixing our parents, our unhealed wound creates tragic aftershocks in the form of a compulsion that drives us to choose partners who are like the parent who failed us.
We choose partners who are like the parent who let us down because we are unconsciously restaging the original trauma of our childhood. In this restaging, we compulsively try to fix the partner the way we couldn’t fix our parent. The same childhood fantasy rears its head again: if I am good and giving, I will win my partner’s love.
If we can succeed in getting from the partner what we didn’t get from our parent, we will feel as though we healed the original wound with our parent. Unfortunately, this scenario never works out the way we want precisely because the partner is limited and damaged in the exact way our parent was, meaning the partner cannot give us any more or better than our parents did.
But we don’t want to give up trying to win our partner’s love. Giving up would feel like giving up all hope of healing the childhood wound, what I call the Old Scar, that lives inside us.
Here is the crux of the issue. All this giving to a person who isn’t giving back to you, rewards and trains the partner to dump on you! He/she knows that no matter how much he neglects you, you will keep on giving.
The result is that giving to a person who isn’t giving back puts salt on your original wound, and even worsens your original wound. With each emotional gift you give, you are reinjuring yourself by reliving your original and very disappointing relationship with the parent who neglected/mistreated you.
I hope you see now why all your giving to your partner has not only trained him to dump on you but also awakened your early injury.
By the way, people with this particular childhood injury often become nurses. Their pattern of trying to heal the damaged parent makes them natural caretakers.
Now it’s your job to face that you have trained and rewarded him to take and not give back.
Next, you have to make the internal shift away from disempowerment and lack of entitlement.
Then you have to decide that you are willing to take this issue to the mat, and even walk from the relationship if he doesn’t straighten out. Whining and begging and complaining is not the way to turn this ship around! Your words weaken your position. You have become the boy who cries wolf: You complain but you stick around. So, no more words. Do not say a word to him about these shifts you will be making. He will feel that you have changed when you do what I outline next.
Once you decide that you’re ready to go all the way to stand for yourself, then you are ready to take this issue to the mat. The way you will take this issue to the mat, is by withdrawing from him. Don’t be available when he calls. Don’t reach out to him. Treat him the way he treats you. Then, he will know what it feels like to be dismissed.
In other words, you will no longer reward his bad behavior with any kind of attention. He should only receive from you when he gives to you first.
This is like a poker game. The person who blinks first loses. You have to be willing to lose this man in order to resolve this situation.
And, if he isn’t willing to step up and be a true partner to you, better you find out now before you marry and have kids.
It’s now or never. Either he will show himself to be a selfish narcissist who is only willing to take and not give back or he will step up to the plate and start giving you what you deserve.
If you discover that he is a narcissist who is not capable of giving, then you must save yourself and move on to a partner who can give to you. When you heal your Old Scar using the steps I outline in Kiss Your Fights Goodbye, you will no longer be attracted to or attract partners who take but don’t give.