Time to give up the ghost

My boyfriend and I were getting back together after a month apart. Then he broke up with me again before he left town for New Year’s. He said he doesn’t want to be a couple anymore. He wants me to be around to talk to because he loves me to death, but cannot handle it when I question him about why he doesn’t call me as much, hang out with me or take me where he goes. He said that he still wants me to call him and all that stuff. He’ll be back Saturday, but it is driving me nuts because I do not know what he is doing and who he is with. He trusts me, but I do not trust him. He said he’ll call every night but he doesn’t. I feel stupid waiting but think I should to prove that I love him and want to be with him. But I do not feel like he is even trying to save this relationship. After two years, it is hard to let go. What do you think?

I think that you should make friends with reality. Start here: Your romantic relationship is over; there is nothing to save. What he is doing and who he is with is none of your business because your relationship has ended. It’s d-e-a-d. Of course, you can try to resuscitate the corpse for a few more weeks or months, but why bother? It just prolongs the pain.

The intensity of your attachment to this man is not a sign of your love. It’s a symptom of your addiction to your own low self-esteem. Who knows why he behaves as he does? It is possible, for example, that he has serious intimacy issues; he avoids committing so he can remain in denial about his real problems. Or he already may be involved with someone else and lack the cojones to be honest. Regardless of what he is doing, your neediness suffocates your self-confidence. And, honey, that ain’t sexy.

Love blossoms when two independent people come together, are truthful about themselves and gradually learn to trust and depend on each other. Now, that is sexy. So instead of begging him to include you in his life, pinch yourself awake and get a life for yourself. Invest energy into something that would improve your life or the lives of others. Become a volunteer, take a class, begin seeing a counselor or join a Co-dependents Anonymous group. Become someone you would never want to leave.

I have just started dating a man who seems to be exactly what I always have wanted in a partner. The problem is that he works out every day and I have kinda let myself go over the last year. It doesn’t really show, unless I’m in a swimsuit or naked, but I am so afraid that when he sees me that way he’ll reject me. This is totally freaking me out. I have started working out again (this happened before we met). What should I do?

Exercise caution when those little gremlins in your head start rejecting the way you look. If your new man cares about you, he will encourage your commitment to better health while accepting you as you are and as you are becoming. If you care about him, you’ll accept that he’s probably pretty visual (male-stereotype alert!), but hopefully not so shallow that he would dump you for looking less than perfect in a bikini (if that is even true!). And if you care about you, you would embrace yourself now—and as you are becoming—while trusting that the right man will love all of you, “hot bod” or not.