Has anyone sabotaged a relationship? Or pushed away someone out of fear?

[edisonsjeans]

I have pushed people away a little before - in a "testing" sort of a way to sort of make sure they truly liked me, but the concept or idea of completely sabotaging a relationship and completely pushing someone away out of fear of being hurt always struck me as, well,...bollocks and a complete waste of life.

I always thought if you really like someone you just go with it and be happy with them because it's your instinct to just want to be around whatever makes you happy and no one would deliberately ruin that for themselves.

Most recent ex though has me wondering though and I am properly heartbroken from our breakup.

His first wife died, quite suddenly a couple of years ago. I met, and began to see him and everything was going very good. He had dated a few people over the years (he’s 46, she has been passed for just gone three years) but then he’d not loved anyone again and he told me after a couple of months he was pretty sure I was “the one” that he had felt with me like he did with his wife and that I aroused that same feeling in him of just “wow, I want to wake up next to her”.

It all seemed very genuine, wanted me to meet his kids and all of that and he was 10 out of 10 on the official fantastic boyfriend scale. We got very close, and I was falling in love too and then the anniversary of her death came up and he just went all funny. Cold / withdrawn / pushing me away and the very short version after a few months of a lot of up and down is that he finally admitted he was doing it all deliberately (after making me think I was going mad for a while) but that he feels that if he loves me, which he thinks he will / does as much, if not more than her - then I will die and so he feels it best for him to not love anybody at all because he says he couldn't go through that again.

I have every sym[pathy in the world for how he is feeling, I am sure it must have been awful beyond belief but it seems such a ridiculous way to look at life.

Can anyone tell me, is this a real thing....are some people truly and genuinely so afraid to be hurt / love / lose someone that they will avoid the whole thing entirely? I find it hard to believe it's true that people behave in such illogical ways to deprive themselves of whatever happiness they can find.

[horseygeorgie1]

Yes some people are like that. I have just spent 2 years of keeping a very lovely man at arms length to avoid being hurt. Luckily he has now worn me down!

It is a learned response - I was in a very intense relationship. I got married, then he cheated on me with my best friend. I cannot describe the hurt. Subconsciously love = being very vulnerable and the potential to be hurt is huge. So even without realising what you are doing, you try to minimise the risk. You want a relationship but not the risk! Unfortunately with one comes the other and you cannot escape it, you just have to hope it is worth it and take the risk.

He has more basis than most people to have this response, it may not make sense but is understandable.

[horseygeorgie1]

Although to be fair, I think unless you have been in that situation yourself describing the way he acts as 'ridiculous' is a bit dismissive. Losing a spouse must be horrifically painful, no wonder he is worried about coping with it should it happen again. At least he is honest (admittedly it took a while!) and self aware enough to logically put it into words.

[edisonsjeans]

Thanks for the reply, really appreciate hearing from the other side because I am struggling to get my head around this.

I think putting it into a paragraph /my mood at the time of writing might have made me sound flippant.

The longer version of the story is me being endlessly patient, tolerating a lot of "pushing away" (which is horribly painful for me also..I do have feelings) and trying to, over months and months, convince him to trust me /work through it /or seek a counselor and in the end him just continuing over and over to choose to push me away rather than take this chance and it's a very sad way to feel and a very hard situation for me too.

I love him to bits. We both deserve a bit of happiness.

The "ridiculous" comes from total frustration and anger inside at seeing this wonderful man chuck away the rest of his life on this irrational logic and seeing him so miserable.

He is clearly completely miserable now we have split up, but the behavior was just so ongoing and so hurtful and had me feeling so shit I wanted my boyfriend back, someone who was ready to enjoy intimacy with me.

[edisonsjeans]

Also, like you, I was married -very intense relationship and he also cheated on me like yours did so I do know what it feels like to get completely broken by love and go through indescribable pain.

I could not / would not let it stop me from living and loving again though, so I could not help feeling like if he cared about me more he would have fought a bit harder and not allowed himself to lose me.

We have been split up for a week, and I am miserable.

[Ineversaid16]

Yes, I am like that. But this is a bit different as its complicated by bereavement which is complex.

[RiceCrispieTreats]

Yes, I'm like that. I roll up the "nope!" sign whenever any man shows the slightest hint of liking me. It's been programmed into me from birth that love = being abused, and while I intellectually know how self-defeating this is, I really can't afford to waste all my energy and my emotions trying to steer my way through a romantic relationship, when I just don't have the tools for it.

Romantic love just ends up in a huge and all-consuming mess, in my case, given my past and my programming. That is what is the waste of life for me. So I'd rather just rule it out entirely, so that I can focus on all the other things that life is about and that I can do well.

Unlike your man, though, I choose not to get involved right from the get-go. I am sorry for your pain, it sounds awful.