I am Afraid To Speak Up and Honestly Share My Feelings Because I am Afraid He Will Leave Me: What Should I Do?
Q. I just started a new relationship with the man I have been in love with.
He broke up with his girlfriend and started to be with me after 6 months or so, but had feelings for me when he was with her. We have a lot of arguments almost everyday, even though I try to make everything perfect and he unknowingly upsets me almost all the time but I chose not to speak to him about it, because every time we have an argument, he keeps on telling me that he wants to leave the relationship and I always beg him.. and I'm afraid to speak up to him about anything because he is always saying things like maybe we are not meant to be together and you deserve better.
What can I do to fix it?
He's also super busy with work, I'm trying to be pretty cool about it but deep down I'm not.. I want him to make me a priority. Last time I confronted him about this, we almost broke up and I cried and begged him not to. He says he wants to spend time with me but he really is not making an effort. I really don't want to lose him, but I'm not feeling an emotional intimacy lately.
Please help.
A. I can almost feel your pain and despair which is just heartbreaking. I am going to be very direct; there is no fixing an abusive relationship! The best you can do is to run as fast as you can and get yourself into long term therapy.
Please hear this: Love is not a feeling but rather a behavior!
Arguing everyday is not love, begging, threats, walking on egg shells, lack of intimacy, emotional blackmail, these things are not love as a matter of fact they are the opposite. This is abuse and you deserve much better.
Another thing to consider is what is it about your baggage that keeps you in a relationship with someone who doesn’t want you.
Why are you clinging to a person who even once has said they don’t want to be with you? When people threaten to leave us, they are using control, manipulation and emotional blackmail to get us to do what they want. To become more subservient; it is a form of abuse and instantly destroys the fabric of the relationship.
I have no idea what your family background is but I am willing to make an educated guess that you have abandonment issues. What you are responding to is your emotional wound of being abandoned, which is what is keeping you stuck in a toxic relationship. That is why it feels so intense; not because he is a great guy and this is a great relationship, but because you are so afraid of being left.
This relationship is new. Right now is as good as it is ever going to get.
This is when everything should be a bright, fresh, shiny and new but what you have eggshells and daily arguments. The infatuation that you felt initially wore off and now you see whom he really is. You can’t ever change him and he is apparently not a good fit for you. See that and save yourself.
I will also say that if you do not heal yourself before getting into another relationship, you will likely have more of the same. Save yourself from more heartache, take a year or more to sit out of the relationship scene and work on you, learn to love you, learn that you are a person of value and deserve much, much better than what you are currently getting.
Take good care.
About Cynthia Pickett
Cynthia Pickett is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and a Licensed Addictions Counselor (LADC) with a thriving psychotherapy practice in Reno, Nevada. She assists in healing, adolescents, adults and families who are struggling with a variety of mental illnesses and environmental difficulties. She is an expert in drug/alcohol addictions, domestic violence and sexual trauma. Cynthia’s mission is to facilitate emotional and spiritual healing the world-over by making people aware of common behavioral patterns that actually create personal hardship and by providing simple, easy and effective solutions for life’s daily struggles. When implemented, these solutions are guaranteed to improve everyone’s quality of life. To further her mission, Cynthia is currently writing a book and speaks to groups, sharing with participants how to identify personal patterns that create difficulties and show them, step-by-step, how to implement solutions that will enable them to take charge of their lives allowing them the freedom to routinely make choices that work for rather than work against them.
To know more about Cynthia, visit her website, www.cynthiapickett.com.
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