Really Needing Advice ....Encouragement

[AntoniaB]

I don't know if this will help, but this sitch reminds me so much of a friend of mine who got back in contact with me just as her 17 yr. rel. with her XB was ending (he was likely MLC). She spent a year without him or anyone else after their breakup. She went to 3 therapy appts and then stopped when her therapist (male) told her he was getting "feelings" for her and thought that he shouldn't continue a professional rel. with her (she stopped any contact with him). Then she sort of retreated into herself, drank pretty heavily, and just sort of detached from the world except for going to work. (not accusing you of the drinking part ;-)

Then about 15 mo. later, she met a guy, and started to see him. He was SO much better suited to her than her XB in that he really had his life together and was even into a lot of the stuff she was, stuff she TRIED to get XB into and he was disinterested. Anyway this guy really seemed to love spending time with her, but he works A LOT, and he volunteers, and he has a lot of friends and is close to them. Well she was starved for affection, going so long without, and not working on herself much or learning to be less "needy."

So he tells her one week that his really wants to see her, but he has almost no time for the next 10 days. He says he's going out to dinner with a couple he's been friends with for years and can he "pencil her in for 2 hours in a block prior to dinner, it's not much but it's something." Well she loses it (on the phone to me) about how this isn't right, that he should be cancelling with his long-term friends as "he's had countless dinners with them so who cares if he has this one dinner"...she just gives him the cold shoulder. A week later he comes over, sleeps with her, tells her how much he is happy to see her, and she DUMPS him. He's shocked. Keeps saying "but we're good together." She's not hearing it. Then she confides in me...and what I hear is only one thing:

Here's a guy who is NOT going to drop everything in his life for her, and that's a GOOD thing. He's fully present when he IS with her. No he doesn't call or text her a lot. She wants him to say he's thinking of her all the time, that's just not him at this point in time and may never be. The reason this is bugging her is that she is terribly insecure. She never took the time to learn how to be alone and ok with it. She spent over a year without her XB, but in that time she never once looked at what might have been her contributions to the demise of the relationship. She put it ALL on the XB. So when she got into the next rel. when this guy wasn't doing everything she wanted all the time, she ended the rel. saying he wasn't the right guy for her.

In her mind, the right guy is a guy who does everything on her terms. Not healthy.

So I'm not saying that this IS you, I don't know you well enough :-) But I do feel like there is a real streak of neediness coming through your posts...the need to be talking once a day, the need to hear the reassurance or the I love you...these things are nice, but if you need it to feel secure, I guess you're not very secure in yourself?

I heard all that from XH too, even when he was seeing OW. That stuff can be empty as well all know--so try not to depend on it to feel good, because the last thing you'd want is to be hearing it and having it be false or patronizing.

It may be that this guy isn't right for you for other reasons, but I think that what you have here is an opportunity simply BECAUSE this is a long-distance rel. to work on learning how to be more secure with yourself and NOT need him so much for "daily" validation of you.