Dear Dr. Love,About two years ago, I made a new best friend. We started spending alot of time together, and about a year after we ‘d met, we began seeing each other romantically. The first two months were great, until he cheated on me. I broke up with him and two months later took him back. Things were really great between us.Then we started fighting all the time about things that weren’t relevant to anything. He kept trying to make changes, and telling me that if we didn’t work on things, we were going to lose each other. He left me four months after that. When I met him, I was trying to break away from a guy who was extremely abusive, emotionally and physically. He helped me leave and stood by me for six months while I got over the pain. He doesn’t have a good family life and my family took him in like he was their own. He spent weekends with us.He has always being afraid of ending up a failure like his father. I was the first person who ever believed in him, or my family and I were. I am extremely selfish. Our family is well to do and so I am used to always having everything my way and everyone doing everything for me. I was also very possessive with him, always wanting him with me and with no one else. He kept telling me that if I didn’t give some space too, then it would never work out and he would leave. I didn’t take him seriously-I always believed he would always be there with me. He left and now I want him to come back.I know that he really loves me, that he misses me and he wants to come back, but I know that I didn’t make him happy, and I don’t know if he will take the risk. I also know that he isn’t any happier being without me. I believe God left us to each other to help each other, him to succeed and me to grow up. I love him very much and I don’t want to live my life without him. Please answer this for me. I don’t know where else to turn.In Love and Alone
I hear how desperate you are. But hang on, it sounds like there may be some light at the end of this emotional tunnel. Since you still speak with this man, and you know that he still loves you and isn’t happy without you, there may be a way to mend the bridges. We can do this in two steps.Step One: Let’s see if you can convince him to try again. Step Two: Both of you you will need to make major personal changes in order to maintain the relationship.Let’s start with Step One. It seems that the straw that broke it for him was your possessiveness. So, you can tell him that you’ve had time to think it over, and you realize that you were crowding him. And, that if he wants to give you another chance, you promise to be responsive to him when he tells you he needs room. Of course, you must be willing to practice what you preach.So, we need to move into Step Two and find out why you were so clingy with him. I know you said that you are used to having whatever you want, when you want it. The net result of this ‘spoiling’ is a difficulty in handling frustration. That is, when he says no to you, or I want some space, it is hard to not have your own way. We can work on this together, and you can grow past this sticking point, don’t worry.But, there are some other issues that you alluded to in your letter which may also explain your tendency to cling. You said you were abused by a former boyfriend. There is only one reason for being drawn to an abusive lover: you must have been abused in your childhood. And, if you’ve been reading my column for a while, you know that formerly abused children are drawn to abusive lovers, in an unconscious attempt to rewrite history with a better outcome.Now, you need to figure out how your clinging ties in with the abuse. Often abused kids feel that they deserve the abuse, and that their parents will eventually abandon them because they are so bad. So, in order to guard against being abandoned, they cling. I am pretty sure that this scenario is occurring for you. That is, I sense that you were abused as a kid, blamed yourself for it, and developed a pattern of clinging. This explains why you are in such pain now, because your worst fear came true, he did leave.Now, we have some idea of what is occurring for you in the relationship. Your boyfriend has his own issues. He needs space, he has a low self-esteem, he is scared of becoming too close and he uses infidelity and fighting as distancing tools.What can be done to bring you two wounded souls together? You need to figure out how you can heal each other ‘s childhood wounds. What do you need to heal and what does he need? In order to heal your abandonment issues and ease your possessiveness, you need him to remind you that he loves you, before he takes his space. And, we need to figure out what he needs from you in order to feel at peace in this relationship. We will only know this by talking more with him.This is a super complicated picture. In order to move from this point, you need to contact me in my private counseling section, so that we can work on your issues, his issues and the relationships issues more fully. This is not a hopeless situation. You both care for each other and that ‘s a strong starting point. So, contact me and we’ll work this out.
