Should I Give up Hoping for a Reunion?

Rather than focus on whether you should give up hoping to get back together or hold on to what you feel, I think you should try to understand the reason behind your feeling stuck on a guy who left you and intentionally avoids you. If you've been reading my columns for a while, you have heard me speak of unfinished business and the repetition compulsion.

In short, we all have a craving to recreate the wounds we suffered as children and replay them with a happy ending. The girl who was abandoned by her father will keep chosing abandoning men, hoping that this time around she will succeed in getting the abandoner to stay with her, thereby symbolically healing the original wound with her father.

The fact that you feel a compulsive urge to hang on to a man who dropped you makes me suspect that you are locked in your own repetition compulsion. The fact that you don't want to give your husband up indicates just how much you want to heal the old wound.

To give him up means--to your unconscious mind--giving up any chance of healing. This isn't true, and I will show you how you can heal and move on without your husband.

First, figure out what childhood wound you are trying to heal Close your eyes and recall who abandoned you when you were young? Mom? Dad? Both of them? Remember what you yearned for as a child. That's your happy ending.

Now, work on separating your happy ending from your ex. He isn't your parent and he isn't invested in healing your wound. It's your job to heal the wounded girl inside yourself by: 1) join a therapy group in order to receive the type of healing and loving relationships that you didn't have as a kid; and 2) do inner child healing work in which you give to yourself the emotional messages that you craved for from your parents.

Imagine the little girl inside yourself and do healing exercises in which you 'feed' her emotionally. John Bradshaw's books will show you how to do this. Take care.