I keep breaking up with my partner and I need help
Q. I'm a mess. I've been with my partner for over four years and I've been emotionally abusive in the way that I keep breaking up with her and then getting back together just to break up again. I think I've done it at least 10 times, starting around 8 months in.
Usually she talks me into staying with her, but on at least two occasions I've changed my mind and asked to be taken back. It's terrible for her self-esteem. Also, I am resentful toward her. Small things really irk me, like her obsession with childish things, and her at-times-poor English.
She is a beautiful, loving, caring, supportive person and we share many interests. But I have to stop myself occasionally from treating her like a child. I am in my early 30s and she is mid/late 20s. I become cold at times and embarrassed by her in public, which I feel awful about.
She loves me so much - why can't I just love her back unconditionally, and with the respect a person deserves? We often both make progress in our communication and understanding, but I feel trapped in this cycle of losing control and running away from the relationship, making up, suffering through healing together and then leaving again when things seem to be going well.
I can't think of any way to break the cycle other than to leave for good, but I know she would rather I stay and try to work on my issues, even though I will likely hurt her again. I love her and would miss her like crazy but at the same time she drives me up the wall. Help.
A. When you feel - and therefore are, for all practical purposes - unable to stop yourself from hurting someone, then you need to get good therapeutic care. I don't consider this open to debate. Look up reputable therapists, pick some, call. Today.
To help the process along, I would like to challenge a couple of assumptions you've made:
- "She loves me so much." She has a strong attachment to you for sure, but what you describe is dependency. Hers on you, yours on her. Mistaking that for love is one of the reasons you're on your fourth year of misery together and staring hopelessly at more.
- "Why can't I just love her back?" The "why" doesn't matter after the "what" of your not loving her. It's the end of any inquiry, not the beginning.
- "I know she would rather I stay." Do you? Even if she is telling you that explicitly, it is a conditional (and therefore ill-advised) preference, that you'll stay and transform into the partner she wants you to be. Since you have abundant proof that won't happen and zero proof it will, you can honestly project that you won't meet her conditions - and so reasonably conclude she doesn't want you to stay. Not on the terms you're able to offer her.
- Implied throughout is that her enjoying, loving and wanting you are reasons for you to stay. No. Those would be reasons for her to stay. Her reasons govern her, and your reasons govern you, and any overlap is a boundary issue.
Good issues for therapy all, by no coincidence - especially the last.
• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Fridays at www.washingtonpost.com.