Your Boyfriend is Emotionally Crippled

It sounds to me like you are looking for an excuse to kick your guy to the curb. When you ask me to label him, I think that you are really saying, 'Dr. Love, if you can convince me that he has a medical condition that can't change, then I can free myself.'

You shouldn't need me to give you permission to do what's right for yourself. You should never be a situation or relationship that makes you so unhappy. The problem here is that you don't seem to think that are supposed to be happy. On the contrary, you seem to think that you are supposed to suffer (I don't know how long I can go on. . . ). A relationship isn't supposed to be a test of your capacity for suffering! You are supposed to feel comfortable and if you aren't then something is wrong with the way you have arranged your life.

But before you pack your bags or send him packing, I want to delve into your unhappiness a bit more. As you will soon see, there is a deeper reason why you are unhappy and this reason has nothing to do with him. Let me explain. It sounds like you mostly object to his lack of emotional radar. By this I mean that you are upset by his inability to read when you are upset or worried. To quote what you said, 'he is caring in many other ways but when it comes to recognizing I'm upset or worried it just doesnt seem to register with him that anything is wrong.'

So you are upset with him because he doesn't read you well. In essence you are expecting him to be more like a woman than a man. Let me explain. We all know that men and women are wired very differently. Women are biologically programmed to be caretakers and mothers. One of the main skills that a mother needs is to be 'tuned in' to the feelings of her loved ones. For this reason, most women can naturally sense when another person is upset.

Men, on the other hand, are programmed differently. They are wired to provide for and protect their offspring. This type of programming leads men to focus on working hard, making money, and solving problems. In other words, men are not wired to be emotionally tuned in. True, some men are better at this skill than others, but by and large this is a skill that doesn't come naturally to men. I will go a step farther and say that no one should be expected to read your mind and guess when you are upset.

The fact that you have this need tells me that you are dealing with an unhealed wound from your own childhood. Let me explain. Baby's can't speak and for this reason 'good enough' mothers sense what is troubling their babies. If your mother lacked this skill because she was too self-involved, for example, then you suffered an emotional injury during this phase of your life. This type of wound leads to unrealistic expectations in adulthood: specifically it leaves you hungry for someone to read your mind, sense your pain, and comfort you without your having to say a word.

In other words, you will come to adulthood still craving for a loving mother. Women with this type of deficit invariably run into relationship trouble because they actually expect their boyfriends and husbands to fill this maternal void. If you are honest with yourself, you will realize that you are expecting your boyfriend to play the role of your mother and to fill the void that has been left inside you since childhood. When you realize this and tell yourself that he's not your mother and cannot be expected to make up for what went wrong during your infancy and early childhood, you are going to be amazed at the shifts that occur inside yourself.

The first shift is going to be that you will stop expecting him to heal you. This will mean that when you are upset, you aren't going to expect him to read your mind any longer. You are going to tell him what is bothering you and how you want him to respond. When you give him clear guidelines, I think you will find that he, like most men, can be taught to be responsive.

That's where my book will be invaluable to you. It will show you how to communicate your needs and feelings so that you get the responses you want. It also will provide exercises for him to practice with you so that he can cultivate his listening and responding skills. As you become more and more conscious of the starving baby inside yourself, you are going to find that you can actually heal yourself as you care for you inner child by communicating your needs and teaching him how to respond.