How do I toughen up for good?

September 17, 2009 7:54 AM

I need to break up with my boyfriend and move on, but I don't know where to find the strength. I have tried to break up with him several times, but ultimately, we get back together. I am in a tight spot, not currently working, and feeling terribly isolated. How the hell do I get myself out of this codependent relationship for good, when I am feeling so exceptionally weak?

I feel foolish that I have let this relationship get to this point. We have been dating two years. We are in our thirties. We met, both in relatively emotionally unhealthy situations. I was (am) a workaholic. He is an alcoholic. I had let a previous relationship take too much precedence over my individuality and my life -- it went on for far too long. When I met my current boyfriend, I wanted a casual, open relationship. He wanted the same. We are addicts, though, and I realize now this was terrible folley, there is no such thing as a casual relationship between two people with so much emotional need.

We fell in love, but he was not being honest with his feelings for me. I did not want to get more "serious", and I did not care about monogamy, but I did care about his emotional honesty. I broke up with him. We got back together two weeks later after he admitted that he was in love with me and we became closer and more honest with eachother.

Things progressed well (there were some rocky points, but overall, things were good), and then I got a dream job opportunity that looked very much like a matter of "when", not "if" in a far away city. Right around this time he started dating somebody new. I was shocked by my reaction to this news, I felt betrayed and misled. I broke up with him. He did everything short of beg me not to end it. Neither one of us was able to let go. Eventually he broke up with this other girl and we got more serious.

I lost my job at the beginning of summer. The faraway job in another city fell through. I decided to take a sabbatical, to live off of my savings, focus on my creative pursuits and try to recover from the burnout and the hole I'd dug for myself emotionally after two years of brutal overworking (in a hostile environment). He took me across the country to meet his family (we got on like gangbusters). We got more "serious" and talked about our future more regularly.

Just tonight, we were having a long deep discussion, and he told me, in the interest of "full disclosure" that he is dating somebody new. The timing is not surprising. When things get scary, this is what he does. He does not want to break up, in his mind I am his girlfriend and things should just go on as they have. I know now that he is not going to change, and I want off of this roller coaster. He does not have what it takes to be worthy of a relationship with me.

The problem is I have no idea how to get out and stay out. He is not going to let me go easily. I know it should be easy, I should say to myself that I'm better than this and deserve more and hold out for better, but I'm really at the edge of my sanity right now. I've started looking for work, but it's going to be a while before I find something. I live alone. I have a lot of friends, but I am embarrassed to tell them that I'm breaking up with him again. I am terrified I will cave and I will frustrate and alienate my friends, who I realize in reality are all I really have.

I'm truly at a loss. Since I'm not working, I can't afford to see a therapist. I've been thinking about attending al-anon or coda meetings, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. I'd love to hear other's experience with these.

I know that he is not going to change. I know that his problems are not my problems and that I can't fix him. This is clear as a bell to me. However, his behavior consistently gives me glimmers of hope. When I am deep in the throes of loneliness and self-loathing (and trust me, there is a lot of this with me living alone and not working), I cling to those glimmers of hope, and he is happy to let me.

There has been a lot of love in this relationship, but our problems are bigger, I know we cannot overcome them. However, I do not trust that I have the emotional strength to not cave when I feel like I need him. I need real, logical steps to keep my focus and stay broken up for good.

My career is not in shambles, I will find a job, but it may be a while yet. I am not in financial danger. My creative pursuits are also going incredibly well, but are dead in the water for the rest of this month.

I suppose my other option is to not break up with him right now, and use him essentially as he's used me, to get through this difficult time. I am truly not sure which would be worse for my sanity right now. It's not really my style, but at the same time, I am actually scared of what would happen to me, mentally and emotionally, if I were to break up with him tomorrow. I can find volunteer work, little things to keep me busy during the day, but eventually will have to come home to my empty apartment and face the dark thoughts. I struggle enough with these as it is on the few nights a week I do spend alone. I am trying not to be ashamed of this, as it's simply the reality of where I am emotionally right now.

I vascillate wildly between beating myself up for being so weak and foolish and knowing that it's the beating myself up and hating myself for allowing this to happen that is causing me to be weak. I want my friends and family to be proud of me. I want to be stronger and less needy. I have moments of strength, but my isolation, fear and loneliness win out. I need tools to beat them back. I am not the sad sack that I sound like in this post, all of the time. I am a vibrant, creative and successful woman. My friends think the world of me and regularly seek out my company. I excel and soar when I am in a good place. I sink into the depths when I feel lost. Right now I feel more lost than I can ever remember feeling. No map, no compass, and it's completely dark. I need a light, desperately, that is not my boyfriend! Thanks for any wisdom or insight you can provide.

posted by anonymous to human relations (17 comments total)

Oh my goodness. I feel your despair right through your words. I do encourage you to seek out some sort of counseling situation - many United Way agencies can do a sliding scale fee arrangement.

You are very clear and conscious of what's going on and that's important now and will ultimately help you in the long run. You are the only one who can take care of yourself and asking for help here and in your offline life (friends and all) is a great first step.

Might there be some online support forum where you'd feel comfortable talking with others? Have you thought of that?

Support and encouragement are going to be the key issues here. Please feel free to me-mail me. I'd be more than happy to talk with you. (Been there, done that.)

I wish you peace and light in the days ahead.
posted by Mysticalchick at 8:14 AM on September 17 [1 favorite]

I have a lot of friends, but I am embarrassed to tell them that I'm breaking up with him again.

Find a friend or two or three or four. Tell her (or them) how you're feeling and what you're planning. Let them support you. You don't owe it to them to handle your relationship in a way that is easiest for them to understand. You don't need to be embarrassed. They will do foolish, unwise, or inefficient things in their own relationships, and then they will need you.

You probably have a couple friends who would be willing to have coffee with you one evening a week. You probably have other friends who would be willing to set up weekly phone calls.

If your friends are kind, considerate, and interested in your life (i.e., actual friends), then they will want to support you. Even if you've told them about breaking up with this boyfriend before, they will want to help you make it stick this time.
posted by Meg_Murry at 8:26 AM on September 17 [1 favorite]

I think you need to get away from him. Do you have friends or relatives far away you can go stay with? Might your savings stretch far enough to allow you to travel a little? Either to spend a few weeks/months just focusing on your creative pursuits, or to actually relocate and look for a job elsewhere?

For instance, if I were in your situation, I'd examine my finances and job prospects and decide beween: 1) descending on a cousin who lives halfway across the US from me, staying with her and her kids for a few weeks; 2) picking up and moving somewhere else in the US, leaving no forwarding address, and looking for a job there; 3) scraping up airfare to go somewhere -- anywhere -- in Europe, stay in hostels or weekly/monthly apartment rentals off of Craigslist, and focusing on my art. I'd probably also try to get a bit of casual work there because I have EU citizenship, but I might just enjoy living for a month or two in a different country.

You have nothing to be ashamed of; not in telling your friends you're breaking up with him again (they'll most likely be relieved) and not in being sad about ending a relationship. On the other hand, I think trying to "use him essentially as he's used [you], to get through this difficult time" is a bad idea. He *is* your difficult time, based on what you've said here. What do you see being different later on that would make it easier? Do you think you'd have an easier time of it after you get a job? How would you feel trying to deal with a new job and a relationship ending? In some ways you're in an ideal situation, in that you can make the break now and, at least for a little while, wallow in the sadness as much as you need to. But do the wallowing away from him, where you can't get at him and get back with him. Go see Paris in the autumn and think of the falling leaves. Go to Seattle and soak up the rain. Just get away from him. Don't leave yourself in the way of temptation.

Good luck! And seriously, trust your friends. They love you and don't want to hurt you. Recruit them to help you stay away from him and avoid contact with him. Get one of them to look into sliding-scale therapists for you (the one in my town starts at $10 a session!). Ask them to join you for a marathon of soppy movies, wine, and popcorn. Cry on their sofas and have them bring you hot tea. Let them help you out of this situation.
posted by katemonster at 8:29 AM on September 17 [3 favorites]

It is very, very hard to get out of a situation where there are those well-timed "glimmers of hope". I know this.

You need to accept that you will have a period of weeks or months of pain, sadness, loneliness, lost-ness. But you *also* need to accept that it will pass, and that you will feel whole again. You will love again.
posted by kestrel251 at 8:30 AM on September 17 [4 favorites]

got money? have no job and no pressing need for one right now? Move to another state for a few months or more and break the "spell." Then do not give phone number, email address, or mail address.
posted by Postroad at 8:32 AM on September 17 [2 favorites]

Hey, as tough as it is now, and as hard as it is for *you*, as I was reading your post I kept thinking - hey it's not so bad at all! You have lots of friends. You have your own apartment and are not relying on him for money. Your career will definitely get back on track. You were not abused by this guy or anything. You seem to have a good grasp on reality and are thinking this through logically.

Tell a friend or two. I've been in situations with guys where I was embarrassed to tell my friends that I've let the guy back in to my life yet again, but this is a situation where you really do need to tell. Tell them that you are embarrassed and KNOW you shouldn't do this and that's why you need their support. Ask them not to judge you.

I find that for me it is so easy to hang on to glimmers of hope, and I continue doing that until the guy does something truly horrible to hurt me. Sounds like he's done things to hurt you (ex: date other girls) but it just hasn't been enough to push you over the edge and make you think "fuck this, I'm done." So make a list of all those things and really focus on them. Make yourself see that the sooner you break this cycle the better it will be. Sure, it'll hurt now as you're getting over it all, but the hurt will end sooner if you end this sooner. If you drag this out, you're still going to be hurting throughout this, and THEN you'll be hurting from having to get over it later. Doing it now means less hurting overall.
posted by KateHasQuestions at 8:46 AM on September 17 [1 favorite]

he was not being honest with his feelings for me

I don't know what this means. I realize you can't easily clarify, but something in your thinking seems murky here.

I did not care about monogamy
he started dating somebody new... I felt betrayed and misled.
he is dating somebody new... I want off of this roller coaster.

It's also not clear to me that you've acknowledged to yourself, or communicated to him, that you were wrong at first, or have since changed your mind; clearly you do care about monogamy. If you haven't been forthright with him or honest with yourself about what you really need and want from the relationship, then it's no wonder your decisions feel shaky - they're not founded on anything solid.

I may, of course, have totally misread you...
posted by jon1270 at 8:57 AM on September 17

This reminds me of lifting. You can convert to mass to a nice neat bar and weights to put on the bar. Then you can spend years to learn the clean and jerk, or snatch method. You can practice for years before you finally do it.

Or you can just draw up all the strength you have, realized that others who considered themselves to be weak have done it successfully...and just fucking do it.

It seems as if rationalizing how to do it is the same thing that lead you to get back together with him.

Take it out of the equation. Just be stubborn, do it, and don't get back together.

The hard part isn't doing it, its NOT getting back together.

Good job knowing where you are weak...now improve upon that.

Best of luck.
posted by hal_c_on at 9:23 AM on September 17

jon1270,

When they first got together, she wanted a casual non-monogamous relationship. However, they fell in love and she admitted it but he didn't. She was upset that he wouldn't admit he was in love with her, so she broke up with him. They got back together when he admitted he was in love with her. I'm not clear on this point, but after they got back together either they explicity agreed to be monogamous or she made the not unreasonable assumption that since they were in love, they would be monogamous. Thus she was quite upset when she found out he was dating someone else.
posted by nooneyouknow at 9:31 AM on September 17

It may not be unreasonable, but it was still an assumption. Particularly if she was starting out from a non-monogamous position, it's not clear that he's been explicitly told that she wants a monogamous relationship. The absence of referring to his dating other people as "cheating" suggests that.

To the OP's question - you need to enlist your friends and cut contact with him to regain your equilibrium. As others have said, they'll probably be relieved.
posted by canine epigram at 10:12 AM on September 17

Facing Codependence by Mellody, Miller, and Miller. How to Be an Adult in Relationships, by Risho.

Read these books. They will help you. If you can find affordable therapy, go for it, but I know that takes a while, so start by reading those books.

Best of luck to you. And although I am a giant supporter of open and polyamorous relationships, if it doesn't work for you, don't do it.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:28 AM on September 17 [1 favorite]

When things get scary, this is what he does.
Finds other women? Rocks the boat? Makes you wary? Whatever "this" is, it's reason enough.

You never intended for this relationship to go where it has and those "glimpses" kestrel mentioned are fun little teasers, but you are not even in the same living situation you were in when you made the initial decision to keep the relationship open. It is no surprise that given this new other woman revelation and your lifestyle change that you, yourself, have changed. Even if your original intentions were hopeful, life changes courses and aligns us elsewhere, thus the whirligig.

Perhaps he's feeling the exact same way as you and his mechanism for trying to initiate a breakup is to be forward about this new woman, especially if forwardness was a trait he was not previously too keen on.

You say you can live off of your savings and dedicate time and energy to creative endeavors. This is fantastic and should easily pave the way for you to a) live, learn and become more inspired by this situation (spurting even more your processes) and if it's of interest to you b) create groundwork to find someone better suited for the life you're living now.

Best of luck to you.
posted by june made him a gemini at 10:35 AM on September 17 [1 favorite]

You definitely need to break up with him, and now. This emotional rollercoaster is not healthy, and you know it.

I think it's interesting you mentioned going to meetings in your question, because i have a solution that builds on that, since you are finding it so hard to break up with this guy completely and walk away.

You need a break-up sponsor.

I'll bet that when you do break up with him, you usually cave and see him and then feel guilty when you start back up again. You really need to break completely and totally off from him and cut all contact. I know, easier said than done, right?

First, block all contact with him, email and phone. Be strong. Remember that you have made your choice and it doesn't matter whether he wants to let you go easily or not. You have to do what's right for you.

Then enlist one of your friends to be your sponsor in this. If you feel like calling him, call her instead. If you absolutely break down and agree to see him, which of course you shouldn't but you are allowed to be human and might screw up--make sure you are NEVER alone with him. Bring your friend with you.

When I was very young and absurdly foolish myself, this tactic helped me and it didn't need to go on long before I was able to move on.

Good luck. You can do this!
posted by misha at 11:04 AM on September 17 [5 favorites]

"He is not going to let me go easily."

You have the wrong idea here.

This person is pretending to be what you want and undermining you with drama when his act isn't effective. This guy is not generally trustworthy, and he is not romantically faithful. Put all of your current effort into recognizing this guy for what he really is, and I promise you won't find him all that attractive or compelling anymore.

In truth, you have all the power control in your life. You do. Find someone to thoroughly explain this to you if you can't feel what I mean.
posted by jbenben at 12:44 PM on September 17

I know you know that beating yourself up isn't helpful. But you're going to keep doing it because you still see the decisions you've made in the past as bad. In reality, they're neither good nor bad - they just are what they are. You made your choices, and you had your reasons for making them, even if in hindsight they seem like mistakes. From the very beginning you've been trying to do what's best for yourself. That's what we do. The problem is, the more miserable you get, the less you trust yourself, because you recognize that it's your decisions that brought you there. But that's not your fault - you've just been using the tools you had available and did the best you could with them. Now it's time to get new tools.

I am terrified I will cave and I will frustrate and alienate my friends, who I realize in reality are all I really have.

This is absolutely not true. Say you lost every single one of your friends - are you saying you would have nothing? Of course not - you'd still have yourself. (take it from Nina Simone.)

And I strongly recommend going to an Al-Anon or CoDa meeting. They know exactly what you're going through.
posted by granted at 12:52 PM on September 17 [1 favorite]

The break-up sponsor is a great idea! I wasn't annoyed or frustrated when a very close friend asked if she could call me in those first weeks (or months) when she didn't know if she had the strength to stay away from her ex.

I was happy to get the call at 2:00 am because it meant my friend was getting stronger.. I was happy to let her sleep on the couch just so she could feel another person asleep in the apartment and get some sleep herself.

I felt for her but I didn't feel ashamed, I felt proud.

You can do this, whatever method you do choose, today you took a step towards doing what you need to do... keep going.

It won't be easy but it will be worth it.

Good luck
posted by Weaslegirl at 9:44 PM on September 17

I hope with all my heart that you find the peace and happiness you deserve. I am in almost the same position right now, feeling your despair, knowing your pain, wiping away tears of frustration, loneliness, heartache, and fear. As I sit here with my stomach in knots and my mind numb of any emotion, all I want to convey to you... all I *can* convey to you is that you're not alone. Forgive my schadenfreude, but it made me less panicked to realize that someone else out there is going through what I am going through. I sincerely hope that you - and I - find the strength to be good and kind to ourselves. We deserve it.
posted by Everydayville at 2:38 AM on December 6