Trading myself for affection

I have been having problems with my partner, again.
I guess there isn't anything unusual about having problems, but what worries me is that it seems to be the same kind of problem. It makes me feel stuck.

The basic problems I think is that I do not feel cared for in the way that I want.
I feel that a part of me, my inner child one could sat, is not being heard.
My partner seems to avoid emotions. He doesn't like dealing with them.
It has happened in the past that we have been talking about how I find it difficult to feel loved, that I feel lonely many times, that I feel pathetic for wanting to be loved.
In the middles of the conversation, which took place in bed, I have needed to go to the toilet just to find him getting dressed and talking about breakfast when I got back.
I have been shut down in a variety of ways. Silence being one of them. I talk about something and he just goes silent, there is no comments, no questions nothing. In many cases after a very long time in silence I have asked "what are you thinking?" and then be told he is thinking about work, or some random thing that he has read, but not about what I have tried to explain.

I feel very much abandoned in a sense.
He is very supportive in many respects, but when it comes to deep emotional issues, he completely shuts down, and shuts me out.

We have had many arguments about this. I tend to get angry about it, not every time. It is more a matter of accumulation.
While we were going to couple counselling things between us got better, and he was a bit more receptive. Even if it wasn't having the opportunity to talk about it in the session would normally make things better for me. There he would listen, and despite the uneasiness he would not run away, physically or emotionally. The counsellor have that effect.

The way things have developed since we stop going to counselling (because we moved) has resulted on me finding myself reverting to old ways of coping and behaving.
Ways that are not good. Because he becomes more distant if I bring charged topics up, or I find myself not doing it. Particularly when I am feeling more vulnerable and more needy, when my issues are more pressing to me, since this is precisely the time I more want affection.
I am re_learning what i have worked so hard to unlearn, that I have to be someone different in order to be loved. That my inner child, has to remain hidden, that I am not to talk about the abuse or its consequences, that I am not to discuss things about us that are "too emotional". This is the price to pay for affection, and attention.

Therefore I think it is not strange that I do not feel loved, I feel he loves someone else, that feel differently than I do, has different needs.
It all goes very well with the old feeling that wanting affection, love, is dangerous, is weak, pathetic even.
It is what led me to not remove myself from a situation where I was being hurt, and I have this deep believe that I can never really shake, that I got what I deserved because I didn't stop it. I kept going back to it, maybe expecting that it would be different, but surely knowing that it would probably not be.

Now I am burying myself in order to have affection, but the care doesn't touch me, because it doesn't go where it is needed.
I feel utterly rejected and hurt.

Eventually we argue, because I "explode", and he says he really wants to know about all those things, and he thinks about it sometimes, but he feels that is not his place to ask questions. He doesn't want to bring something painful up when I seem to not be thinking about it.
There is also his baggage, coming from a family that didn't talk about emotions, and having spent most of his childhood trying not to show any, and learning that his role was to be "good" so as not to upset anyone.
I can understand how he as developed this coping mechanisms, and why he would withdraw so much. But this rational understanding doesn't go a long way in softening how I feel.

We both knew about this differences between us form the beginning. But he said he wanted to change. He had chosen an emotional, fairly outspoken person in me, and he thought it was because he wanted access to that world.
Change however is not coming, or came for a while and then left, and I don't know what to do now.
Don't know if it is sensible to wait for things to change when I am making this very costly trade fro affection and feeding all these old demons.
It feels as if the real me is unlovable, and I wonder if this "poisoned" love would make that believe even deeper. Maybe by the time, if ever, that things change my perception of myself will so entrenched that I can not love myself. Maybe I will bury myself so deeply I won't be able to find me.
Living in a state of numbness is not life. I have been there. And I have revisited those experiences lately when trying to decide what to do.
Life seems like a big fruitless effort, not worth doing.

Something needs to change.

Shall I pack and go? or shall I give it another chance?
Do people change?

Worry

I have had three interviews last week, for teaching jobs. Didn't get any of the positions. form what I can see there are not many positions going around so I am worrying.
I am really worrying that I am not going to find any job, of any kind.
I have been unemployed for over three months now. It feels like forever though.
And my worry keeps growing. I also worry that my relationship with my partner on whom I am dependent right now, is not going as well as I expected either.
I worry I have made a mistake, that I should not have moved here with him without having a job. That I should not have allowed myself to think that it was going to be good, that I should have know better to know that good thing do not happen to me.

So, that is quite a lot of worry. To that I add that I am worried about my reaction to all this. I don't seem to have much energy anymore.
I remember that before I used to be very determined, and I thought that if I worked for things I would get them, and I guess in many cases it worked (I had to put a lot of effort but I did it)
I don't seem to be willing to put that much effort into things anymore. I wonder if it is because I do not want it enough, or maybe it is something worse.
Am I getting depress again?
I don't think I am, but from time to time I get this ideas about ending my life.
I have had these kind of thoughts before. I was in pain, not physically, I was too tired of being in pain, and not manage to get a bit of peace ever.
I wanted those feelings to stop so much, and it seemed so impossible that not existing seemed a better option.
I don't really know where the thought are coming from now.
I just don't find my life fulfilling. I don;t think I am suffering, I definitely have felt a lot more depressed, worthless, tired, helpless that I feel now.
However the thoughts come, and it seems as some kind of relieve.
I wouldn't have to worry about anything anymore. I wouldn't feel scared, or lonely.
I wouldn't feel anything, and that seems attractive.
Maybe I am not feeling particularly bad, but I am not feeling any good either.
And I don't seem to find a reason why to carry on. I think maybe that is the key. I feel guilty about some of the people i would leave behind, who might feel responsible, or just sad. That is the main thing that makes me discard the thoughts. But they worry me.
It worries me to find myself so unattached to live.


I started reading a book about how to stop worrying.
I am not finding the advice helpful so far. First, the author proposes to live in day tight compartments. Leave the past behind and do not worry about the future, live in the present. He doesn't mean not to plan at all for the future, but not to postpone things, and not to worry about it, not to be anxious about it. At first it seemed to me something I could do, but then I have come to realise that I can't do it. I am working on the living the past behind, take the lessons, drop the rest, no resentments, grudges, guilt... learn from what has happened, think about what you can do better next time. That is all you should take from the past. That I am working on, and I can believe in.
The second part, the future, I am struggling with. I don't know what my future will bring, but one of my worries is that it will be as my present, which I am not enjoying at all.

There is more advise I am having trouble with. It is suggested that it is a good strategy to prepare for the worst that could happen then calmly improved on it.
One is told to reconcile oneself with the worst. I am finding I can not do that either.
If I stop to think about what I am worried about, and what is the worst that could happen, I find that for some of my worries, the worst that could happen is that things would remain as they are, because I can not reconcile myself with living like this long term. I guess this is were the suicidal thoughts come in.
I am not worried that terrible things would happen. I am worried that I will carry on on this existence that I am not finding fulfilling. I just don't see the point in living however many more years like this. It seems pointless.

The part of improving on the worse calmly doesn't really work until you have managed to reconcile yourself with the worst. I wish it did. But it doesn't.
I am trying to improve the situation, but I am doing it because I do not reconcile myself with it, and I am doing it with worry and anxiousness, and with a deep sense of defeat, with little hope.
This might have a lot to do with my lack of success so far, but I am stuck here.
I can't bring myself to feel differently.

Anger

I am struggling with feelings of anger lately. I seem to be getting quite angry quite quickly over small things.
The truth is that my partner seems to be the trigger. I am not having any issues with other people, except him, and maybe myself.
I think it is very closely related to the situation between us, for which I seem to blame him.
He didn't do what we have agreed as a way to deal with my trust issues, and then he didn't deal with the consequences either. I actually feel he has not even tried to understand them.
Of course he seems to make an effort every time I make a big deal, but he doesn't bring it up himself, and what is probably affecting more of all, he doesn't act on it.

I am not sure where I am with all this.
The way I just wrote I am picturing a person who is not being really honest, and I don't think I really believe that of him.
I guess this is my constant battle.

We had the opportunity to go to see our therapist the weekend before last, and I talked about how difficult I am finding the situation between us, How I am struggling to handle the relationship, the mistrust, the disappointment.
She, the therapist pointed out how all this anger, and even the difficulties I am facing, are not only due to what is happening now but also because of my past.
I know this, I knew it already.However, I can't really see it. There has only been one occasion when I have realised I wasn't angry just because of what he had done, but because of what it triggered. Most of the times I see such a clear direct link between what he has done and my anger, that I can't really see the other factors; can't see how my history is playing part. Not only I can not see it at the time, but I can't see it later either.
I can see that I get "too" angry, that my reaction is somewhat out of proportion, but this does't help me much.
Also the fact that we have "danced" around certain issues for such a long time, and they keep happening, he keeps doing the same, seems to me part of the reason why I react so strongly nowadays.

I am worried, I don't like the person I feel i am becoming. I seem to have no more empathy, or compassion for him.
I get angry, I shout at him, explaining why I am angry in a way that I know he has trouble coping with. The he looks very fragile, as if he was loosing his strength. I know he is punishing himself for getting things "wrong" (again).
Yet, what goes through my mind is " Here we go, now he starts feeling sorry for himself, seeks comfort, from me, and then does nothing about any of this". I play this thoughts in my mind, how so many times this has happened, I am angry or hurt, as I used to get hurt, not angry like now, and then when I say it, he goes into this self-deprecating exercise. Then the focus is on him, his needs, his problems, his... and I always buy into this, and try to help.
I guess I always expected than once that was sorted he would actually go back to think about what i said, and take it on board, try to help. So I feel cheated. In a very profound way. Because this has been going on since very early in the relationship.
When we started therapy one of my main complains was that there was an unbalanced in the relationship, that I felt I had to take care of the emotional need of both of us.
More than a year after our first therapy appointment I don't see significant change.

Here is where I see how what is happening related to my past. I have definitely felt like this in my previous relationship.
I have actually felt like this about my parents. People who supposedly love me end up just taking from me and not giving.
This is actually why I have such an apprehension to being told "I love you".
It used to, and it does again, feel like a trap. That what is means is that someone is just going to give me enough so I stick around while they take everything from me.

And I guess that the art that makes me really angry is that I fell for it, every time.

That when I confront people and say "how is that you say you love me yet you keep hurt me the same way, even though I have told you what hurts me." and the answer is normally not very elaborated here, is either " don't know why i do it, but I don;t mean to hurt you and I know I do love you", or the maybe more mean variation where the problem is shifted to me taking things the wrong way, and just feeling like I do because I decided to do so.
Of course I know there is much to say for what he read in other people's actions, and I might be interpreting things in a way that is not meant. But the question remains, why keep doing it once you have been told about its effect.

I am actually feeling rage now. And I do not know how to handle it.
I used to have this problem a lot as a teenager, I believe it is what led me to try some drugs (the I found out that they provoke more problems that they solve. They actually don't solve anything, just help avoidance).

I guess I need help, I did agree to seek help with this when we went to therapist.
Part of me though, feels like what I need is to leave.
I wonder I have not crossed a not return point in this relationship. I really don't like being so callous.
And of course, I really don;t like being so angry.
It is a very very uncomfortable feeling. (I even have angry dreams)