We can spend so long trying to rationalise why someone’s actions don’t match their words that it can eat us up. I remember once I was in a LDR with someone and literally mid-conversation on the phone one evening, he hung up (I thought the signal had dropped) and I didn’t hear from him again for over a week. I had so many stories in my head about why. Then he came back and was sweet and kind, and knowing that he’d had a fuckd-up childhood I created more stories and tied myself in knots about being too much, not enough, too needy, not demonstrative enough, not supportive enough, too demanding… on and on and on. It was exhausting. Did I break up with him? No, I made stories about how patient and understanding I needed to be! I was desperate for him to go back to being the man who’d been overwhelmed at our connection, who’d “never felt like this about anyone before”.
Then my DD’s dad. Again I was exhausted trying to explain away the shitty behaviour to myself. Being a cool girl, not like the other girls. Not being “too much”. Because those were things he’d admired in me before- but he just meant that I was boundary-free and it could always be my fault if his behaviour didn’t meet my expectations- I shouldn’t have expectations!
My own mother once said that to me. She said “I never had any expectations of your dad.” I could see at once that that was bollocks, because of course she had the normal expectations that he would be respectful and kind and faithful, and spend time with her and with the family. (And others besides.) But it’s messages like that which tell girls and young women that we are always going to be too much, it’s always our fault, even when it isn’t.
The film “He’s just not that into you” is pretty shallow but I think it shows up a lot of the thought processes that we can go through at these times. Universal enough that we can recognise some of them.
If he’d been thinking about you, your ex wouldn’t have said any of those things comparing the depth of your feelings to his. He would have said “oh ok, maybe when you’ve unpacked and got back into your routine we can go out for dinner, in a week or so.” Because he would want to give you the space you asked for when you first separated, and to respect your boundaries, your fatigue, your plans. But then if he’d been able to say that, you wouldn’t have had to break up with him in the first place, would you?
There’s nothing wrong with your instincts, @PithyBeaker , but it suits his agenda for you to feel weak, desperate, lonely, and as if you’ll never be happy again. That’s why he keeps returning to this idea that you should be “proving your love for him” by doing what he wants, when he wants, and why he won’t accept the actual demonstrations and proofs of love that you showed while you lived together (and continue to show). If they don’t meet his agenda he won’t admit it as evidence, so nothing you do short of going back to the way things were before will appease him. And if you decide to do that, he will take it as absolute permission and proof that he needn’t bother to consider you, his behaviour is fine and needs no changes, because you are back to obliging him and “you (he) can be happy now”- the fault will (as he said all along) have lain with you.