Distance

Mins Asks:

Our relationship was going pretty good since 6 months…after the first “silent period” we were distant but I did the best to make him feel unique, it was going better and better, we had very deep discussions, he shared with me his fears and his dreams, he trusted me totally, I think maybe I did too much, I was the one panning always trips and give him presents, the bad thing is that after some months he started to be cold again (in the first period, 4 months indeed he was disappearing frequently so I decided to swim away too for 2 months, no one texted the other) ..

he said he was in a very bad period, but it was lasting very long and I couldn’t do anything more to help him because he was keeping me out. I tried my best and he made me feel not enough useful, not needed, like it seemed annoyed to texted me back every 2-3 days… What I did was leaving him again, without saying anything, just disappearing, it’s sad and I don’t even know if it was a good decision. I was waiting to see if he would have felt the need to come back to me, but he didn’t. So I have questions for you…

What do you think is the best way to act when you have your negative periods, how could we make you feel better?

Would you chase back somebody with who you were sharing those deep life discussions?

and the last one…You are used to swim away from people when you are uncertain or you are busy with your own problems, so if somebody leave you what are your thoughts and your reactions?

Thank you 🙂

Mins,

It sounds like he didn’t understand himself where you continued to give him surface level requests that he in a way “asked” for. As a result, out of “embarrassment” the person becomes distant. Okay, that was probably super confusing to most so I am just going to use stereotypical fictional scenarios.

People always say money does not equal happiness right? So imagine one day this guy comes up to you and pours his heart out to you about his life struggles, aspirations, etc. He is making it very clear to you that if he had a million dollars he would be happy. So you continued to give him like a million dollars and that made the relationship closer, he seemed happy, etc. He buys everything he ever wanted now because of your help. Once he has all that though, he is miserable still and feels empty.

What he really wanted was love and acceptance which he thought money and these materialistic goods would directly give him. That is not the case though. However, he doesn’t really understand his emotions well enough to get that. So because he doesn’t understand, he just goes in his shell. Think of it like here too, he asked you for a million dollars and you gave it to him. Yet he is still unhappy. I think you can understand how selfish and useless he would feel afterwards taking that much from you yet he still isn’t happy.

So the mindset is one doesn’t deserve a person like that anymore and they are just waiting for the day where the person tells them to get lost. The most they would want to admit is that they are just still unhappy. Hence, when you ignore him that confirms it in his mind that you just had enough and he can’t blame you for that as he asked for the world and you did indeed give it to him.

Just to add more complexity, you could argue that it shouldn’t be about love and acceptance from others first but rather he needs to learn to love himself and what he uniquely offers to others. He basically has a lot of work and growing to do. If what I said above is correct, then whether or not it was a good idea for you to just leave him really depends on you. Like saying, some people don’t have the patience for people like that or preference wise some prefer only people who are at certain stages of their life. Cause as mentioned, he needs a lot of work by the sounds of it.

To answer your other question, for me personally it really depends on what kind of negative period we are talking about here. If it is like the above scenario then I would imagine what I would need is life experience which is probably the best gift you could give me. It would help me to better realize who I am and the skills I have to offer to make something better. I am not talking about like a trip to Disneyland as an example.

The way over the top example would be like if he was a city person all his life you then bring him to an island with less fortunate people where his skills/experience are immediately beneficial. The experience of being able to make a child smile with nothing more than just yourself or seeing how his actions impact others positively is the way to go I think. Everything else like giving him a present is just covering up what he really needs where it’s like instead of dealing with guilt people try and drown the emotions with drugs.

Would I chase someone back who I shared those stories with? No with the scenario above because as mentioned it’s like I am taking too much. About the notion of if somebody leaves me, for me personally that really depends on what I feel I did for them and how much I trusted them. Like asking, what zone are they in when it comes to my life? There is a difference if the person is like a colleague at work versus someone you married too where the expectations are different.

But very generally speaking, if the person just leaves then it tells me that we are not good for each other in a lifelong journey way. Because in my mind anyways, we should in a sense be like inseparable despite the odds. But I am thinking of it for the both of us of course. That could result in me having less motivation in wanting to be around you in a consistent way.