Ask Andrew
Dear Andrew,
Many months have gone by now, and I am glad to report with the help of your book and the help of therapy my bf and I have now just moved TOGETHER to a new flat. We seem to be getting better, and we seem to be getting happier. He seems like a totally different person.
Despite all of this - despite how much happier I am and how much happier he is there is something I read in your book that seems to be happening to me now.
I have this fear that it will all happen again. I wonder how a few months ago we were so close to ending and now suddenly he loves me again. Also, every time we argue or have a disagreement I’m scared that things will go bad again.
I know one of the worst things I can do is to ask him time and time again if he is “in love” with me, and I know bringing up the past just upsets him. I just keep thinking “what changed?” I’m still the same person.
How can I get over these feelings? I get so scared sometimes that he is just going to leave. Its getting to the point where it bothers me in my sleep as well - I have the same dreams of him leaving me over and over again.
I just cannot seem to make myself a strong enough person to really consider myself equal to him. I keep thinking that he is too good for me and will realize this and he’ll tell me again that he doesn’t love me any more (though, not being “good enough” was never one of the issues).
Basically, I’m just scared… I don’t want things to go wrong again.
Thank you Andrew for helping my bf and I get to the point where we are now. Together.
Andrew writes:
Congratulations on making so much progress and for being so honest about your fears. I would suggest reading another of my books: The Single Trap.
Look at the sections where I describe our fears of letting people get close, in case they might hurt us. (Chapter 3 - Comfortable with Commitment). I would also read Chapter 2 about Working on Yourself and how our past can be impacting on today. My guess is that your current fears of being abandoned are rooted in some childhood experiences. Did you parents get divorced? Did you feel let down by either your father or mother? In the book, there are exercises about how to put the past behind you.
Finally, your situation of being back together but still having issues to discuss reminds me of many couples recovering from an affair. I call this stage Attempted Normality and many of the fears and over-thinking that you describe are experienced by the couples in the book too. So it might be worth getting ‘How can I ever trust you again?’ too.
Keep being strong, you’re making great progress.