Take healthy dose of reality
Dear Carolyn: I’m pretty sure I’m addicted to a person. It’s not doing anything good for my life when I continue to see him even though he spent two nights with me and another with another woman last weekend, and told me about all of it.
I don’t like the situation, and yet feel powerless to stop it because I love him, and I know if I say anything, I’ll lose him. It seems like losing him would create this giant gaping hole. – Anonymous
You mean “another” gaping hole – there’s the void he doesn’t fill, that no relationship can fill, from which the drama provides a distraction.
You won’t “lose him,” because you don’t “have” him. And you will never “get” him by staying on these terms.
Why? Because staying against your better judgment makes you feed bad about yourself, and it’s tough to love people who loathe themselves. Meanwhile, the approval-lust created by low self-esteem opens you to users, abusers, enablers, “rescuers” with agendas of their own.
“Like yourself” is impossible advice. But “take care of yourself” isn’t: Start treating yourself like someone worth caring about.
Dear Carolyn: How do you know if your partner’s behavior during a fight is abusive? I think that label would make breaking up easier.
The fight was about her (in my opinion) overreaction to something I did, which I didn’t think was that bad. There was name-calling, including accusations of being a liar and a cheater. She was out-of-control angry. The thing that causes me the most PTSD is that she pulled the emergency brake in the car while we were on a highway ramp. No harm done, thank God, but, is that abusive? – Washington
“Liar” and “cheater” don’t send me running for my abuse pamphlets; if she ventured into the “you’re (expletiving) (worthless, useless, stupid)” territory, then you have a case for verbal abuse.
Certainly the brake-pulling, which could have sent your car out of control, was reckless and beyond the pale. If her volatility is a pattern that leads you to alter your behavior, then that’s a form of control.
The tantrum tells you all you need to know about her: She’s not mature enough for a serious relationship. And, it tells you all you need to know about you: If you’re not strong enough to walk away when you think you should, then you’re not mature enough for a serious relationship, either.
But your immaturity doesn’t match up perfectly: You have the presence of mind to recognize that this out-of-control fight, label-worthy or not, is grounds for breaking up with her. Knowing that will make the breakup as easy as it’s going to get – which is to say, never easy, not even close.