Words and actions don't match

[ErstwhileGoth]

I know the advice in here is always to look at the actions not the words and I believe this is very good advice when someone is promising you everything but delivering nothing or saying they love you but behaving in ways that don't demonstrate love.
Talk is cheap and it's easy to say, "I love you," or "I care about you," and the behave in ways that show contempt or a lack of thought. The confusion and hope is what keeps people in unsatisfactory and damaging relationships for years.

But what about when it s the other way round?

What about when there are no words or love or affection but their actions suggest otherwise?

Keep going with the therapy - I’m not yet there but it has helped me see why I have fallen for men who have love bombed me and all of them had ‘close living families’ which I was desperate to be part of the reality was all of my exes and their controlling families were not living but I was trying to fill a HUGE hole. My mum and dad are alive they live a few minutes walk from us - they often say they wished they hadn’t had a daughter - why so they could have had more money and travelled more (they are multimillionaires) they last saw us 6 months ago and they couldn’t care less. It’s my birthday today and I was hoping beyond any hope they might text me to say happy birthday they didn’t - nothing. My kids have tried to help me have a nice birthday but actually I really want my parents to cuddle and say they love me - I have never done anything wrong by the way - it’s them. They ignore their grandchildren and their daughter but are happily proud of us to others despite never seeing us. The mother wound or parent wound is serious and in you case I would sound him out and say

1. no pressure but are we committed and in a relationship? Happy to call me your partner and vice versa
2. I would like x from you, to feel more secure - what do you need? Etc Talk to him

All I really want from him is something to stop the to-ing and fro-ing in my head.

I'm afraid it's very likely that no one other than you, possibly with the help of a therapist, can do that for you. The solution is not somewhere or someone outside yourself, the solution is within you.

I sincerely hope you find it.

@2021V2

they often say they wished they hadn’t had a daughter

What the hell is wrong with people?! My dad told me he was glad he had a daughter, but he wished it wasn't me. I can laugh about it these days because it says a hell of a lot about him, as does your parents' comments about you, but jeez, it just beggars belief, doesn't it!

How you are treated is always more important than what anyone says to you, as you say, but if you like to be told that he loves you or finds you attractive, then ask him!

@TheFoundations

God I can feel the tears even just typing that. I don't know why it's so important to me

I nearly cried reading this! It's important to everybody to be loved, OP. We're pack animals, social animals, at the end of the day. If we don't feel fully accepted (ie loved) we're in mortal danger of being picked off by a predator, you know, like a wounded deer.

There's nothing unusual in being loved being important to you; you'd be odd if it wasn't. It's a display of emotional health that you feel so strongly about it. Like if you hadn't eaten for a long time, a strong feeling of hunger would be healthy. You've got a craving to get what we all need. But that's good. Hungry people find food if they look in the right places...

I know you're right in this. But so many times on here where women are told to just be happy single etc. But a relationship is not what I'm asking for really. I don't need to blend my life with someone else's and I'm quite happy going to places and doing things on my own. I'm not even sure i want a relationship with this man. 8 certainly wouldn't want more than we already have in many respects but being loved is very different.

I've just left a job after 2 years. I had parents children and colleagues tell me they loved me and would miss me. I said it back but I just feel empty. I had a very close friend in my teens who used to liken me to Data from Star Trek and say I just didn't have an emotion chip installed. We used to joke about it then because neither of us knew or understood the damage that was being done.

I think comments that I wouldn't know what it felt like to be loved are very accurate. I wouldn't know. There is just a huge black hole inside me. I feel it in my chest and I experience it as a physical pain. Almost like hunger really but one that will never be satiated.

@ravenmum

Well, if you don't want him, I'll take him, as he sounds brilliant. I suspect he'd quite like to be with you, though, OP.

He is lovely. He's had a really tough day at work again today and came round this evening for a few hours. He ate cakes that my daughter and niece had baked and was their Bake Off judge. He watched the nonsense TV programme they put on and has just left. We sat out in the garden after they went to bed looking at the stars in silence with his arm around me.

@2021V2

Keep going with the therapy - I’m not yet there but it has helped me see why I have fallen for men who have love bombed me and all of them had ‘close living families’ which I was desperate to be part of the reality was all of my exes and their controlling families were not living but I was trying to fill a HUGE hole. My mum and dad are alive they live a few minutes walk from us - they often say they wished they hadn’t had a daughter - why so they could have had more money and travelled more (they are multimillionaires) they last saw us 6 months ago and they couldn’t care less. It’s my birthday today and I was hoping beyond any hope they might text me to say happy birthday they didn’t - nothing. My kids have tried to help me have a nice birthday but actually I really want my parents to cuddle and say they love me - I have never done anything wrong by the way - it’s them. They ignore their grandchildren and their daughter but are happily proud of us to others despite never seeing us. The mother wound or parent wound is serious and in you case I would sound him out and say 1) no pressure but are we committed and in a relationship? Happy to call me your partner and vice versa 2) I would like x from you, to feel more secure - what do you need? Etc Talk to him

That's tough. I can see why you've fallen for love bombers 😢 I really understand the need you had to state that you've never done anything wrong. I used to do the same.

It's interesting, I've also experienced love bombing. I've known exactly what it was and didn't 'fall' for it but I haven't always walked away immediately because, if I'm honest, it was nice to hear it. But I have moved on as soon as it stopped - so never been caught in the "what have I done wrong, why has it changed?" scenario. But it has been nice on occasion to just hear the words!

When i was at school, my friends jokingly referred to me as Little Miss Fickle because, emotionally, I'd feel like I'd fallen for someone very quickly but would completely lose interest just as quickly. In my late teens/early 20s, I left a trail of emotional destruction really. One friend told me she didn't think i was capable of the emotional depth required to love someone. It's only really been in the past 5 years or so - so since I was 40 that I really began to develop an insight into what was going on for me.

I think this is the first man I've ever been in a position to love both because I understand myself better and because he's the only one who has stuck around and forced me to face up to some of this. And I don't know if he's doing it for 'us' or for me - he told me once that my mum had said the things she had for her own reasons but that she has for herself all the things she's effectively denied me and I deserved them as much as anyone.

I deserved them as much as anyone.

I'm glad to read that you have someone in RL to tell you this 'out loud' as it were.

I do hope that you get to really 'get' the truth of this, that you do deserve to be loved and to feel loved.