I think he may be dysregulating again

[insideoutside]

Hi all

After some advice.  Friend made contact last Thursday after nearly 13 weeks of ST.  He assured me he was better after splitting with his girlfriend as he said the relationship was making him unwell and unhappy and was now on a mood stabiliser after nearly being sectioned and suicidal.  He acknowledged he had hurt me and apologised for doing so and that it was important for him to not hurt me again.  Anyway he was piling the pressure on to meet up with him for a coffee and a chat before xmas and said it would be good to see me.  He explained he found it difficult because I was married with a family etc.  He made it clear he wanted more but i said I couldn't and that I was wary of our interactions as I was sure he would end up hurting me again and that I have to protect myself from anymore hurt.  He acknowledged that and said no worries, being friends is good.  He text me different versions of that like he was reinforcing it; to him, to me, who knows.  I tried to explain why I was wary and told him it was due to him saying he didn't want me or need my help last time he discarded me.  He said he didn't say he didn't want me and then it all started to feel familiar in his tone after that like he was dysregulating again and said it was getting 'messy'.  I said let's leave it, meaning the conversation and he said ok, bye.  I said can we not fall out again and he text back saying I need to keep things simple and stop over complicating things.  I agreed just to save an arguement and he reinforced the friends thing again to which I didn't respond as I saw no point.  Not heard from him so sent a text today saying hey hope you're good, catch up for a chat next week if you are about.  No response; been 7 hours since I sent it.  He's responded pretty much immediately to all other texts.

How do I handle this?  Am I heading for yet another discard?

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[fromheeltoheal]

How do I handle this?  Am I heading for yet another discard?

It depends what your goal is Izzy.  You're on the Detaching board, meaning you want to detach from him, so if he discards you that would be a good thing yes?  And is it OK for him to not communicate with you for 13 weeks and then show up out of nowhere and you're receptive, like he can do what he wants and treat you like that?  It sounds like standard borderline in that he broke up with his girlfriend, is likely feeling abandoned, so he reached out to if a previous attachment to see if it was still in place, and it was.

So what do you want?

[patientandclear]

Izzy, he likely has a very low tolerance for being criticized or faulted, and you wanting to process with him how he hurt you before falls into that category.  If you need to do that with him in order to proceed, he may not be up for that.  That is just a feature of him that you should expect if you are going to be engaging him.

Forward-looking engagement seems to work better.  Bring your boundaries and new understanding into that, but don't expect him to sign on to your understanding of what happened before.

Flagging a bigger issue, it sounds to me like you both have deeper feelings for each other than can be accommodated by the fact that you are married to someone else.  Last time it was you telling him that you have deeper feelings.  This time, it's him, with you saying no.  Now he is emphasizing friends only and inserting appropriate (for friends) distance and in turn it is triggering you.

Do you see that neither of you seems willing and able to apply appropriate boundaries for a friendship?  When he observes "friends" limits it hurts your feelings.  When you do, it hurts his, and he pulls back.  You're in a mutually reinforcing rejection cycle.

You don't control him -- you control your own choices and your own boundaries.  You are married.  You say friends is all you want.  If so -- it really isn't a big huge deal if he doesn't reply for a while, is it?

Suggest you explore these issues on a board other than Detaching, as you probably won't find much interest in the strategies for making this work well on this board, and the effort you're making can be triggering for people here.

[insideoutside]

Thanks HtH and P&C

Please feel free to move to improving board.

P&C if I was honest there are feelings on both sides and you are right in that when I say nothing can happen he reinforces us being friends only out of hurt/frustration etc.  It seems we do get in a cycle of hurt due to conflicting emotions and frustration.  I understand that but don't know how to stop it without jeopardising an already fragile connection.