Our beautiful friend, who has called herself "Regretful", is in an on again, off again relationship with a guy that disappears as soon as there is any little conflict.
Here's her story:
Jane,
I have been in a relationship which has been an off again, on again basis. Never any major fights , but any little conflict or misunderstanding and he disappears.
No talking about it. No resolution, no contact from him ever.
It ends up with me doing the crazy messages asking him to at least talk to me and to let me at least explain what happened or what was said or misunderstood. Initially when he would disappear, he would come around but for past year if it happens for what ever reason, it's always me trying to get him to come back and give us another chance.
We always have a wonderful time when we're together and I love him to bits. I grew untrusting of him when we did split up for a 3 months period last year and he was with someone else. I felt maybe he had been in contact with this girl and setting it up before he split from me.
I ran back into his arms when it didn't work out.
This time there was a misunderstanding and he felt offended and hung up on me. It wasn't true what he thought I had said but after my text messages explaining what I actually said he did text back that he was sorry. Since then he will not acknowledge me no matter how hard I try and talk to him.
I'm left angry that we can't have any 'life incident' without this happening.
After a week I said I no longer want to be in a relationship with a Man who can't be around through thick and thin. I don't want to be abandoned every time something happens that he can't deal with. I had told him before that if he just needs space, to let me know and I will give him time but I need to know what is going on.
This time I went to crazy mode and ended it.
Of course now all the doubt, guilt and regret is flooding my every waking moment.
This guy when he is with me and when I haven't upset him unintentionally is a caring and loving guy. He helps me heaps and always looking out for my welfare. I love him but I have said enough is enough and said my goodbye.
I do not think I will ever hear from him again. It makes me think was it true for him. He was always very generous and loving towards me, beautiful words and actions.
How can it be that for something so insignificant, he doesn't want to be with me anymore? How do I get through my grief of losing someone who felt so right to me?
I am always left with what If I reacted differently. We are both headstrong. He is very Alpha and I am learning to be more feminine. I have learn't not to pursue him when he needs to prove himself. This time all logic went out the window.
I would appreciate your advice. Do I go get him no matter what. Do I wait and see if he comes around?
Lonely and anger are what I am feelings. I feel disbelief that someone who ticks all the other boxes can just up and leave for the slightest thing. I know I have to stop the cycle by trying to get him back.
This time I just wanted some closure but I realize he isn't going to give it to me
Regretful
My Response:
Dear Regretful,
If only it were as simple as assigning a label to him to understand why he is the way he is and why you respond the way you do. But it's oh so much more than that when it's your heart – and your own programming - that's involved.
Yes, he is operating at the level of a little boy who has only learned how to run and disappear when anything that feels scary to him comes up. And if he was able to recognize this within himself, you might be able to have a conversation about it.
But he can't!
To acknowledge this is the very last thing he can do. For he has only heard the messages that he is supposed to be strong, to be fearless, to be a man. And within those messages there was nothing about what to do when things like conflict and misunderstandings come up.
No one ever told him what he was to do then, no one ever modeled for him how to be be, how to act, how to communicate his own very real feelings. He is doing the only thing he knows how to do; he disappears.
And yet for you, the only thing he knows how to do is also your biggest trigger.
When he reacts like this, you connect (albeit subconsciously) with that little girl inside you who finds his actions so scary, and all you can feel is this terrifying feeling of abandonment that compels you to do anything and everything to get him back.
No, it's not crazy. It's real. So very real for both of you.
What works for him, triggers you. What works for you, only triggers him more and keeps this push-pull cycle continuing for as long as one or both of you keeps playing out these roles. No wonder you feel so lonely and angry. You feel so powerless to stop it when its origins come from such a deep place within both of you.
But there is so much you can do, Regretful.
First of all, you can become aware of what's really going on here by recognizing this pattern of reaction between the two of you.
You complement each other perfectly in this way, so much so that it makes perfect sense why the two of you found each other – and keep holding on. Instead of putting him up so high on some pedestal and making him into someone so much more than he actually is simply because he can disappear on you and set off your abandonment trigger, you can have compassion for what you see.
You can see that yes, he's acting on the little boy part of him that has him reacting the way he does to all these little conflicts and misunderstandings. But no, you don’t have to take these on yourself.
You can acknowledge that you do have a choice here. You always do.
You can see him for who he is and where he's at. You can acknowledge this. You can see it for what it is. Not someone so much more powerful than you that he can call the shots, but someone who's only doing what works for him, whatever that looks like to you.
It's never as personal as it feels. It's always about him doing what works for him.
It's this awareness of what both of you are to each other, and this acknowledgement that you have a choice here, that you're not powerless to change this pattern that feels like such a deep part of you, that allows you to move on to the next part, where you can decide your next move, by accepting the reality of what is.
There's something that happens when you accept the reality of what is, right there in front of you, instead of trying to fight that reality by changing it into what you want it to be. In the potential you see.
Instead of blaming yourself for what you could have done differently, you can simply accept that whatever you could have done, you will always find something to blame yourself for. But it always brings you back to the same thing; it always takes two, and no matter what you say or do that you regret, someone who belongs in your life – who you even want in your life – will always have grace for this part of your humanness.
Everything he does or doesn't do shows you more of who he is and what he's capable of.
So what you do want to do with this?
Instead of fighting it, accept it. And then take your own power back by deciding what you – yes, you – want to do about it. Is this what you want more of in your life? Or is it the opposite of what you want?
You're not going to change him, but you can absolutely change the dynamic here by changing your own response to him. By accepting that his disappearing act triggers your own abandonment issues and deciding that you don't want to dance like this with him any longer in a relationship that's supposed to be about love.
How can he not want to be with you anymore over something so insignificant?
Because it's the only way he knows how to be, Regretful.
It's the only way he knows how to act when life happens, when things come up and he has no other tools he can use to get through this part. It's why men so often disappear and we've come to accept this as just the way men are instead of looking at no, this is the way our culture has programmed them to be.
Yes, they can still choose. But they have to first believe they can. And they have to want to.
You get through your own grief of losing someone who felt so right to you by focusing on the difference between a feeling you felt, and the reality of whether he actually could give you what you wanted, if he could relate to you in a way that worked for both of you.
Living in reality is so much more than living on a feeling, no matter how strong your feelings may be. It's an illusion that can never give you what you want and will only leave you longing for that fantasy that isn't up to you to make it be.
You haven't learned how to give him that space because that space triggers your own abandonment needs. It's the combination that makes the two of you such a lethal combo, not anything that's wrong with you or him, but the combination of both of you that makes this so.
If you want more of the same, then yes, go get him no matter what. Wait and see if he comes around.
But if you want something different, if you want to give you both a chance to see what's really there, or see what else might just be waiting for you when you get off this roller coaster ride that knows you oh so well, you leave this all behind and create something new.
Even if it's just a tiny step in that direction, it's still a step.
Don't worry that you've missed out on anything worth missing out on, Regretful. The right ones never leave. The wrong ones always do.
Love,
Jane
What do you think our dear friend "Regretful" should do in this situation? Tell us in the comments!
Dear Julia
sister sometimes we don't need to understand everything because not all things is helpful ..the best thing you can do is to help your mend the brokenness inside you..but always remember my dear friend you deserved more...we love you
Thank you, Kristine.
Hello Jane, (Sorry I am reposting my message without typing mistakes this time)
Again and again…here I am again, with my doubts and my questions. I know you are always here for me. My big question is : WHAT IS THE VALUE OF INDIRECT AND MIXED MESSAGES HE IS SENDING ME after I walked away. I walked away because he made it clear that we cannot be together because of another woman since we live in two different countries. And he insinuated that we can still have a “parallel” relationship by meeting in foreign countries. But after a lot of roller coaster times, I had the normal reaction of dignity to leave violently and unfriend him on facebook. But he started, months ago to send me indirect messages through his status, and now through a friend that we have in common who is posting sentences meant for me. All his indirect messages mean one thing : that we need to talk, that my reaction was too violent, that I am the one who is to be blamed, that I didn’t understand what he meant, that dialogue is the best way of communication etc……One of his messages (through this friend) was that he will not be able to leave his girlfiend for the time being. In the meantime, I learnt that she moved to live with him. What is upsetting me is : 1-that he is using these indirect ways and arranged scripts that he is preparing with this friend like a conspiracy. 2- that he is not being direct and is not chasing me, he is manipulating me in order to make me contact him 3- that after all, he is being clear about his commitment to his girlfriend 5-that I nearly know in advance what he is going to tell me : I will not leave her, but I want to keep on seeing you on irregular and uncommitted basis. But my God Jane, I DESERVE A DIRECT, FULL, FRANK AND PASSIONATE MESSAGE TELLING ME ALL THIS. Why is he using this indirect way? How can he expect me to reply? And if I don’t reply now, HOW CAN I BE SURE THAT HE WILL KEEP ON TRYING AND BE DIRECT ABOUT WHAT HE STILL WANTS FROM ME ? Please Jane, again and again, I need your help. Is too much to expect that he does his "come back" in a proper way? And can we even call this a "come back"? They says that nothing can stop a man who wants a woman to tell her, to call her, to reach to her... and without her needing to do anything. Is it correct in my case ?
Please tell me.
That's why I'm here, Julia; to remind you of what you already know. Because you do, deep down, this is what your gut instincts would say to you. The why of all of this? It's all he's capable of. Yes, you deserve so much more than this, but this indirect way is what's working for him. That's why he behaves like this. It works for him. Because this is about him, not about you. Yes, it's obviously too much for him to live up to your expectations. But not because you don't have a right to your own expectations, but because he can't live up to them. That's a huge difference. Two different pages. With someone who's on the same page as you, you wouldn't be asking any of these questions. It's how you know. Trust your gut instinct here. Let go of your need for him to be any different than he is, and in that kind of acceptance you will find your freedom.
Hello Jane,
,
Again and again…here I am again, with my doubts and my questions. I know you are always here for me and I hope you're not tired of hearing my story. I have managed to rephrase my main question today in the following way : WHAT IS THE VALUE OF INDIRECT AND MIXED MESSAGES HE IS SENDING ME after I walked away. I walked away because he made it clear that we cannot be together because of another woman since we live in two different countries. And he insinuated that we can still have a “parallel” relationship by meeting in foreign countries. But after a lot of roller coaster times, I had the normal reaction of dignity to leave violently and unfriend him on facebook. But he started, months ago to send me indirect messages through his status, and now through a friend that we have in common who is posting sentences meant form. All his indirect messages mean one thing : that we need to talk, that my reaction was too violent, that I am the one who is to be blamed, that I didn’t understand what he meant, that dialogue is the best way of communication etc……One of his messages (through this friend) was that he will not be able to leave his girlfiend for the time being. In the meantime, I learnt that she moved to live with him. What is upsetting me is : 1-that he is using this indirect ways and arranged scripts that he is preparing with this friend like a conspiracy. 2- that he is not being direct and is not chasing me, he is manipulating me in order to make me contact him 3- that after all, he is being clear about his commitment to his girlfriend 5-that I nearly know in advance what he is going to tell me : I will not leave her, but I want to keep on seeing you on irregular and uncommitted basis. But my God Jane, I DESERVE A DIRECT, FULL, FRANK AND PASSIONATE MESSAGE TELLING ME ALL THIS. Why is he using this indirect way? Who can he expect me to reply to this ? And if I don’t reply now, HOW CAN I BE SURE THAT HE WILL KEEP ON TRYING AND BE DIRECT ABOUT WHAT HE STILL WANTS FROM ME ? Please Jane, again and again, I need your help. Is too much to expect that he does his "come back" in a proper way? And can we even call this a "come back"? They says that nothing can stop a man who wants a woman to tell her, to call her, to reach to her... and without she needs to do anything. Is it correct in my case ?
Please tell me.
And yes, it's absolutely correct. In ever case.
Dear Regretful
i was there 1 year ago..i love that man so much in my heart i know he is my only last one...i don't know what happened but every time we have a little fight on text he disappear..1 month he never contact me i don't know why then he came back..but i still accept him because i love him as a long story short he left me without an explanation its been 7 month since this Boy hurt me..i know now it doesn't make sense and i don't know why he do this but to be honest with you my Dear Regretful if you follow the reality of the gift of pain you can understand the reality of what we deserved i'm so tired for making people happy then i disregard my own value? i don't want that anymore....i'm not a religious type of person but this is what i learned for more than 7 months of mending my Broken Self..
if we ask for 100 percent of people love well they never give that no matter how good,kind or lovable they are they gonna failed us instead of relying for people why we Don't look up and Ask God to give that ..he is the only one who can answer our all needs..
i don't know what you are believing for or what you believe and i respect that but my point is Just let God give our own way just let go that BOY!!haha i said Boy because of that kind of actions he made..forgive him then Love your self more because we Love you and God loves you
anyway Ms.JANE you don't know how much i thank God to find your Blogs you mean a lot of me thank you and I pray for you always and your family..
Thank you for sharing, Kristine, and for your encouraging and supportive words for Regretful. I'm so glad you found your way here and I so appreciate your beautiful words to me. Thank you. There is so much more for you still to come!
Dear wonderful Jane, thank you for posting this story.
My heart goes to regretful as I can so relate to her story and her pain.
I love your insight and response to what is actually happening here ;
They are complementing each other perfectly
- he is acting the little Boy part of him, triggered by engulfement and probably fear of intimacy
- she is acting on the little girl part that is set off by her abondonment and probably rejection trigger!!
This was such an Ahh moment Jane and I so believe what you say how this is all happening at a subconcious level.
What I really need to understand how do we change/reprogram the subconcious thoughts and beliefs so that we stop feeding the story and finally stop attracting men/relationships which continue the same pattern, as like regretful it all becomes very sad and distressing repeating the same pattern over and over again
Thanks Jane for all your love and support
Rosy xo
I hear you, Rosy. And I know you can relate to her and her pain. Thank you for your kind words. I'm so glad you're feeling that love and support for you. So glad for the aha moment. That's all yours. How do we change this? How do we reprogram? I go into detail about this in my e-course, Beautiful, Radiant, Confident, You - but you recognize what you're doing, you focus on that reality of what you're actually getting from this person, instead of the potential that only you can see. You focus on you, on what you want, on what you deserve, and you love yourself enough to give yourself THAT, instead of a fantasy that can never be what you want it to be because you can't control what someone else does or doesn't do.
You run after you. You find her - the real you, deep down inside you, before you learned to accept all these behaviors that you don't deserve - and you don't ever let her go. You love her like she's never been loved. You hold her like she's never been held. You give her everything she needs so she doesn't keep chasing after the ones who can never give it to her no matter how much she believes it's going to be different. Baby steps, Rosy. A little more at a time until you see this pattern clearly for yourself and tell it no, you're worth so much more than this. Because you are!
Hi Jane, Before anything, I would like to say Thank You so very much for posting my email. I feel so very humble that it did resonate with you and you have shared it with all your viewers....It's a bit overwhelming when it's your story and I so desperately needed this, so my heartfelt gratitude for your words of wisdom; your kindness and your encouragement. I was very overwhelmed and emotional when reading your response as everything you said was so true. Your words of me feeling scared and lonely are still there after all these years. You see I used to feel abandoned as a child by actions of both my parents. I remember when I was very young my Father always leaving after not long being home when he and my Mother had an argument and me pleading him not to go, ( When I was 12 he never returned). Also, if my Mother didn't like what I did or said when I was a child and throughout my early teens, she would then sulk and ignore me for days on end. I learnt ways to always try to win her love back by doing kind deeds and pretty much begging her to love me.
I can now see the pattern with this relationship as I have always reached out to him when he left by by me apologizing and that he was the world to me and I put him up on that pedestal. My feelings for him were so strong that I felt lost without him, so when he did decide that he was ready, after what ever he wanted to do while I didn't exist, I would run back to him and I then was the ever obliging over attentive girlfriend who would make him see that he would never want to leave me again.....until the next time when he did, over and over...
This last time was the longest disappearing act but he did finally call, and yes I did see him. The difference with this time is that I didn't run back. I met with him to explain clearly to him how I felt ( in case all the emails I sent him when he would leave didn't make it clear enough) that I finally wasn't going to accept that type of behavior anymore. There was no apology or even any acknowledgement that anything had happened from him. His actions of couldn't careless how I was but now he was ready to have me back so that should be enough was so evident while I was being so vulnerable and honest with him that I knew finally it would be a lonely ride for me if I stayed with him.
I know I will be fine and I hope he will be as well. I am learning to love myself more, to know my worth and my boundaries. No more being regretful !!
So Jules and everyone else who commented, I really appreciate you reading my story and I wish you all all the very best in love and life.
oh Judy, I'm so glad you got this, I'm so glad you could see this pattern - and this invisible yet so real pedestal - we can put someone on. You will be fine. And so will he. No more being regretful is right! But accept your humanness in all its beauty. You're so right that yours answers will be found in learning to love yourself more, coming to know your worth, and setting boundaries that you have every right to have. You're so not alone in this journey - I hope you're seeing that! And you're always loved and accepted here.
Where do I begin? In one way it is so sad for me that so many of us end up in these hot and cold relationships where running away seems to be the answer. However, a part of me is relieved that I am not the only one who has gone through this. I was with my ex fiance for twelve years and every time life got hard or we fought he would break up with me and disappear for a couple of says, only to call me up like nothing happened. And I took him back...no consequences. Once we lived together he not only broke up with me, but he would pack up his stuff and move out. Then once he moved out he would call me up, again, as if nothing happened, and I would,again, take him back no questions asked.
I've learned that I created this situation in a way because I allowed it to happen over and over. He knew he could come and go as he pleased with no consequences, so when the going got tough he bailed. I couldn't take it anymore so I need things a year ago and haven't heard from him since. He has a new gf whom he started seeing very quickly after we ended. I don't know if I'll ever hear from him again, but there's a huge part of me that's not completely over him.
Jane, I wonder....do these types of people hurt us on purpose (he was also very passive aggressive) or do they simply need to learn how to be an adult and deal with problems? And what is your take on trauma bomding? Sometimes I feel like that is the reason why so many of us go back for more.
Wow, Missy. I so appreciate your sharing the wider view, the bigger picture of 12 years of living like this, of how it changes, of what it progresses to when you go from dating, to living together, and what that looks like. Because we can fantasize that it will be so much better if only we lived together, if only we were engaged, if only we were married, if only we were together for a long, long time. So hearing this from you, although, yes, it's sad. Absolutely it's sad. But it's also real. Because we could so easily be you.
I don't believe that most cases are malicious or on purpose. I say most, because some may well be. But generally these men are the products of our culture, of the families that buy into that culture and aren't supported to do things any differently than what we've always done. Some are passive aggressive because they never learned how to express themselves in a way that they felt heard, and so this is the only way they learned. Almost all of them had no role models who could show them a different way.
So yes, they need to learn how to feel heard, how to be heard, how to communicate in a way like in NVC (non-violent communication) where both parties can be heard. When they've lived their whole lives being told from the time they were born that being emotional wasn't ok for a boy and then a man, it's no wonder they turn out the way they do. That's tough programming to break through, especially when it has its origins from being tied to the love of a parent; a child will do anything for that.
And the hardest part, is that it's the loving, caring, compassionate, so understanding ones among us that hear that and so want to be the one who breaks through that and gives him that love that changes everything. It only works if he wants that. It only works if he's aware of it in the first place. And even then, you alone can never be enough if he's not working on this, too. We want to believe we can, but we can't. And yes, I do believe there's something to trauma bonding. The more sensitive to those kinds of emotions, the more they represent a familiar place in our own deep childhoods, the more there is definitely something there.
It is so very sad. And no, you are so not alone.
Hi,
So I'm just going to throw in my two cents on a couple of points that Jane brings up because they are oh so salient with my own relationship.
The first is to find an ability to work through conflicts together. Prior to our relationship really becoming what it has, she would cook dinner for the two of us and simply allow me to sit at the dining room while she prepared everything. Well, this came to a head when we were on holiday in the Bahamas. I had walked into the kitchen while she was preparing the meal and she asked me if I was just going to sit at the table and watch as she did everything. I jumped in and I helped with the meal prep, set the table, and washed the dishes afterwards. The next morning while we were on the beach I let her know that my intent was not to make her do all the work and that I was sorry and that I wanted to be helpful and she said that she was not going to be my mother. I explained that I realized that and that I wanted the times when we were dining together (we don't currently live together) and that I wanted those times to be for us to bond both pre- and post- meal. Well, the other night I did just that and while we got off to a rocky start (I did not know where the table cloths were kept nor did I know where the silverware was kept either) but it gave us a chance to have both a good laugh and cry at my lack of cooking skills. The point being, we talked about it, she let me know how she felt and we worked out a path going forward for dealing with the cooking.
The second point I will make comes to what Jane said about whether you want to choose to accept his behaviors as they are or not. My girlfriend has a way of becoming distant with me when we things become too uncomfortable for her. It's her way of getting back to her center. And I have chosen to accept that as she has historically shown me that she will always come back to me and I also understand that when things seem to be heading in that direction that I can proactively give her the time and the space to re-focus on her own rather than putting her in the position of choosing to distant herself from me.
You seem to see things with a good sense of clarity and simply need to decide if you're willing to accept him as he is or, if not, to simply move on because it's not what you want for yourself.
Eric
These are great points you've made here, Eric - especially when you relate them to your own firsthand experience. It's through each of your unique perspectives on here that someone else comes to see things in a way that speaks to them. Thank you!
"Living in reality is so much more than living on a feeling..." ~Jane
This is going to be my new motto... will recite it to myself daily!! I can relate to this entire article but that is the line that made the light bulb shine bright for me. Thanks Jane, you are always so helpful.
Love that you singled these words out, Sheli. It holds true for so many things, in so many areas of our lives. And I thank you for your kind words.
Move on! On again and off again relationships are detrimental to your happiness. I was also in a similar relationship last year. Anytime I showed the slightest displeasure in anything my boyfriend did or neglected to do, he would leave and I would not hear from him for days or weeks. His pattern of stonewalling or withdrawing was just a way to keep him from having to face something negative about himself. In a sense he could control me by making me forget the grievance and start to worry if I was losing him. His behavior showed me that he was only concerned with his own feelings and he only wanted to be with me when I was complimentary and feeding his ego. I have since learned this is typical behavior of someone with Narcisstic Personality Disorder. My best advice is to not to beat yourself up over reacting to someone's else's bad behavior. You can't fix someone else and you are worth more than being ignored at the first sign of conflict. I believe the real prize is a man who will walk over to you and put his arms around you ... rather than head for the door....when there is a disagreement.
Beautifully said, Jules. Thank you for sharing your own experience and adding to the conversation. "I believe the real prize is a man who will walk over to you and put his arms around you ... rather than head for the door....when there is a disagreement." - oh this is so very true!!
This is my story exactly, to the point I am wondering if we are indeed talking about the same guy!
When we are together it is amazing! Then he disappears for no apparent reason. A pattern that has become almost as predictable as a period.
He has used alsorts of reasons, his best friend told him to, he would pick a fight, I reminded him of his ex wife, he doesn't know how to love, he had an affair (while I was overseas) an decided to pursue it, I was to good for him, I had sacrificed too much, I scared him (after he declared to his family and me that I was what he wanted!), the latest one is he is still in love with that fling. (And that is the order - note he declared I was the one long after that affair ended.)
Every time he says he has changed, he will prove it. It's me he wants, wants to "know" me, pursues me, and when I relent, disappears again.
It is so very painful, there is a permenant tightening of my chest, and water in my eyes when I am not with him.
I resist calling him, instead write in a journal.
I date, I am trying to make new friends, looking to try new hobbies, adjusting my future plans.
Knowing that when he calls, I can not not promise anyone, least of all myself, that I won't fall back into his arms again, inspite of what I have learnt.
Thank you for sharing your own experiences with this, Samantha. It is ironic how similar so many of our stories are, how many sound like they could be the same men.
"I can not not promise anyone, least of all myself, that I won't fall back into his arms again, in spite of what I have learnt." - And if you do, don't beat yourself up. You're human. We all know what we want to do; we all know it's so much easier said than done until we've truly ready. You don't have to promise anyone; you only answer to you.