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I'm Desperate

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 11/10/2003 - 7:00pm
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November 10, 2003

Question

Dear Dr. Love,

I desperately need some advice! I have just recently broke up with my boyfriend. Where to start. I am 36 and he is 28. We never really thought the age was a problem.

We dated for about 7 months before moving into a manufactured home that we designed together and split the down payment on. His family is a farming family and he really hasn't 'cut the apron strings' so until I came along his mom and dad made all his major decisions for him including making his doctor 's apts. for example.

Our life was my dream, out in the country, horse I always wanted, not to mention how happy my two children were. As he had never been a parent there were problems with the kids but he was very willing to learn.

About 6 months after we moved out with him, he started to become a bit verbally abusive, and losing his temper at the smallest things. I had known that he lost his cool easily and treated his parents like s*^% when this happens but he had not done it to me or my children. (and I should stress that I am positive he wouldn't hit us out of anger)

As he said more hurtful things, we would have one good day and two bad, three good and one bad. I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride. I think I became resentful and then we became more and more distant including sexually.

I am attending college in my third year of nursing so the stress of dealing with him and my two children and school really got to me and I had to call it quits and move out. Prior to us moving out I had given him many chances, threatening that I would have to leave if he couldn't make some changes. We even had meetings with our parents to try to straighten things out.

Two weeks prior to me leaving he had become a new person and he says he wanted to show me that he could change but by then it was too late, the moving truck was booked, I had started packing and the kids new schools had been picked.

After I moved he called at least twice a day and I had decided that if he took some form of anger management and parenting classes (that I had agreed to go with him, even though I have two years of early childhood ed. and took tons of training when I was a foster parent for 6 yrs. ) that I would consider getting back together but that I would not move out with him again until I finished school.

At first he said he would consider it but would never give me a definate answer as to if he wanted to get back together or if he wanted to be only friends. He is very shy, and honest and I know there is no one else in his life. He would always say 'I don't know what I want I am scared to get back into the relationship because I feel like you will leave again if things get rough'.

I guess I can't blame him but I have tried to reassure him that I wouldn't as long as we both agreed to get help if needed. Last week we were close, going for lunch and spending time together with the kids and they are wondering what is going to happen between us. They want us to get back together.

I have told him that if we don't get back to gether I think just friends will be too hard for me as I have way too many feelings for him. After forcing it out of him last night he says that maybe we shouldn't see each other right now. He was crying on the phone telling me how much he still loved me but I think he can't get past the fact that I left.

He says he wants to be my best friend and still do things with the kids but that he can't handle getting back together but living apart. I have realized so much since leaving, mistakes I made and things I also need to change and I feel desperate to get back together with him. The kids miss him a great deal too.

I need to know if I should just play it cool and not contact him for a while and if he really loves me he will contact me? or should I continue to pursue him knowing if we both love each other we should be together?

It seemed in the past that the more confident I got with being alone the more he would phone me and he would be sad. The more I am letting him know I am sad, the stronger he seems to get.

I love this guy and would marry him tomorrow if he asked me to. I hope I haven't made a decision I will regret for the rest of my life by leaving him.

I know it must have been really bad if I left, but right now all I can see is that I may never find anyone else that has all the good qualities he does and his bad ones are fixable.

Please help me to do the right thing. . . . . . I'm desperate!


Answer

It sounds like you want to get back with this man and work out your problems. At the moment, however, he is resisting getting back together, so the decision to start over is out of your hands, for now.

Even though he is calling the shots, there are a couple of things that you can do to tip the scales in your favor. The first thing that struck me is that he is very attached to you. You said that in the past the more confident you got with being alone the more he would phone you and he would be sad. If he still feels the same way as he used to, then there's a good chance that your pulling away rather than pursuing him will bring him in closer.

The next thing that struck me was that all his hesitation about whether or not he wants to start over may be a way of paying you back for having left him. If this is true, then pulling away as I suggested above would actually serve a dual purpose, the one mentioned above and also to remove whatever gratification he's getting outing of yanking your chain.

If he thinks that you are suffering with all his hesitation, then he'll keep hemming and hawing. If, on the other hand, he gets the idea that you are pulling away yourself, you will remove any secret pleasure he's getting by leaving you dangling. At this point, your only shot with him is to pull back and even voice doubts of your own by saying, 'Maybe we can't make this work. . . maybe we are better apart.'

When he does come closer, you will need to point out to him that he's playing the victim. Saying how wounded he is that you left and how scared he is to be left again is a way of deflecting the responsibility onto you and off of him. He seems to forget that you left because he was being abusive.

The point is, he needs to see that whether you stay or not is in his hands. If he behaves himself, you won't be going anywhere. He needs to hear this so that he stops seeing himself as some powerless victim.

His hesitation to get back together is being fueled by this victim stance. If he sees the power he has over your staying or leaving, he shouldn't feel as terrified.

Here's another important point. He's afraid to start over because he's not sure that you won't be in the soup again. I would tell him that you will be in the soup again until you both work on your issues. Rather than make a decision to get back together, perhaps you could agree to work on the relationship and see what kind of headway you both can make on your issues. When you have some success under your belt, he will feel more confident in his ability to handle himself better when trouble arises and this will ease his fear of being left again.

In other words, you don't need to decide anything just yet. You have nothing to lose by working on yourselves and the relationship; you will only be making yourselves better people and this is a good thing no matter whether you get back together or not.

When you work on the relationship, tell him what you told me--that you realize the mistakes you have made and that you want to be a better partner to him. Tell him also that you want feedback from him on whatever you do to push his buttons, so that you can stop doing so; meanwhile, he must work on learning how to communicate his anger better.

Read my book, it will show you how to handle your conflicts properly. When you are skilled, the fear of the relationship falling apart and his being left again will be a thing of the past.

- Doctor Love

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