There Always Seems To Be Someone Else And It Just Pains Me

This week, our letter comes from one of our beautiful sisters who has asked to remain anonymous. I've called her Scarlet and her story is one of constant betrayal.

Here's what she wrote:

Hello!

I have been reading a few posts and I’mjust anxious to hear what you think about my situation. 

I met this guy 2 years ago and we really clicked.

We hit it off from the beginning and I got super close to his family and everything was perfect. I would say we’re both very jealous people and had a few bumps in the road.

No cheating, just simple things - if a guy contacted me or a girl contacted him, things got eerie.

As the months went on I really started to wonder if he actually cared and loved me (overthinking). I started acting difffent and doing things to make him show love and affection more which he started to see as change.

He didn’t like the way I was acting and we just weren’t the same. We ended up breaking it off at about a year and kind of went our seperate ways.

Three days after we broke up he wanted to get back together but I told him it was too late. About a month later, he unblocked me and contacted me again asking how I was doing and that was that.

He was with other girls and I had been with other guys.

Fast forward 6 months and he cut off everything with his girls and wanted to be with me again. We started sleeping together and became attached but I don’t believe he was in for anything more than the sleeping together.

We stopped talking again when I found out I wasn’t the only one he was sleeping with. (Mind you we are each other’s first loves so we have a very strong connection, and we’re both still young.)

And then here we are today.

He contacted me again 2 months ago and this time he wanted me and wanted to start something real. I went into it slowly and carefully and it felt just like old times.

There was laughs and his family was just like my own. However, a couple days ago I noticed he has been talking to a another girl.

I didn't look at the conversation so I don’t know if they were flirting but I quickly grabbed my things and left.

He tried to talk about it and got panicky I was leaving again but I am just trying to keep things under control. Every time I think he truly loves me and wants to be with me, there always seems to be someone else and it just pains me.

I am trying my best to get over him but he always contacts me saying the sweetest stuff to pull me back in. I guess I am just unsure what to do at this point.

He gets really upset when I do this and says I need to stop pushing him away. I feel it’s the right thing to push him away, even if that’s not what he or I want.

My parents don’t like us together because I always come home crying. I’m just lost and don’t know what I should do.

He doesn’t understand I love him and want to be with him but it’s like he wants this dual life and wants to be with me and someone else and I just can’t do that.

Signed,

"Scarlet"

My Response:

Dear Scarlet,

There never just happens to be someone else, as if this is all beyond his control and he’s only a victim here. There’s someone else because he lets there be someone else! He chooses to let someone else in.

This isn’t about you, Scarlet. This is about someone’s inability to give you what you’re looking for, otherwise known as his issue, not yours.

Not lost on me here is that he tries to turn it around on you and make it your issue, by telling you you’re the one who’s the problem by pushing him away.

But you can’t push someone away if they don’t want to go away. More pointedly, if they want to be with you, they behave in a way that doesn’t trigger you to push them away by acting out your own insecurities at being left or abandoned by someone who’s got one foot in the door and one foot out.

Until you can look at this objectively, of course it feels personal and your response is to pull him closer which he reacts to by drawing further away, blaming you for his behavior in the process.

If you didn’t do this, I wouldn’t do this - is what he's saying. So it becomes about you, not about the underlying issues between the two of you that he’s reacting to.

If he could put this into words, he’d tell you he’s not on the same page as you but likes you and doesn’t want to lose you and wants to still shop around and be with other women while keeping you hanging on.

But he can’t say that to you, because he knows he’ll sound like a jerk – and rightly so!

So instead, he absolves himself of any responsibility here and puts the blame on you.

Honestly, what stood out for me the most is the part about how you come home crying.

You come home to that one safe place in your own home, and the tears come.

Girl - and I say this to every one of you reading this, not just you, Scarlet - if you’re coming home crying, something isn’t right.

Something has to change!

Your emotions, how you feel, matters. Yes, you may be a very sensitive human being, and the tears may come easily for you. That doesn’t change the message your tears, your feelings, your expressions of those feeling, are giving you.

The message is loud and clear.

This person is not compatible with you. Not with you the way you are. If you want this man more than you want yourself, then change yourself and you can have him.

But I say that tongue in cheek because if you’ll change yourself for him, who else will you change for down the road?

And if you discover after you’ve  lost yourself because he was more important, that you’re more lost than ever because you’ve been pretending to be someone you’re not and it’s not working out the way you planned, what happens then?

What happens to the ones you passed up? What happens if you’re married with kids and suddenly this gets very real, very fast?

I want you to see that scenario because it’s one we can think is worth it when we’re looking at it from this end. But on the other end, it wreaks havoc in so many areas of our lives and can affect so many innocent peoples down the road.

You NEVER want to be with someone who you have to change yourself to be with.

Sure, all relationships involve give and take and a certain level of compromise, but we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about you changing the essence of you because that’s the only way to win someone over, as if he’s a prize you have to win over.

Instead, accept who you are and where you’re at and … what you’re looking for!

There’s a reason you’re in tears. There’s a reason the people who love you and want the best for you don’t think he’s it for you.

They see those tears. They see them from an objective point of view, which is really, really difficult for you to have when you’re blinded by your love for someone because you have an idea of that love that doesn’t reflect the reality of what real love actually is.

We’re attracted to people who represent ideas and concepts and programmed fantasies to us, more than we’re ever attracted to the actual reality of them. We never understand that when we’re in the throes of trying to have a relationship with them. 

And to be clear, he absolutely does understand that you love him and want to be with him and it’s not just like he wants this dual life where he wants to be with someone else and you. That IS what he wants and you don’t.

The problem for you is that you’re the one who’s feeling so lost because you can’t reconcile the two.

You want him on your terms and he only wants you on his. The feeling you’re experiencing of being lost, is because of the conflict going on within you. You can’t accept his terms, but you don’t want to lose him over yours.

There is a choice to be made here, Scarlet. It’s one of acceptance. You accept that he’s made his choice of what he wants; whether you can accept him in your life WITH those terms is the choice that’s up to you.

I really hope this helps.

Love,

Jane

How about you - what do you think beautiful Scarlet should do in this situation? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!