Journeygal,
Thank you for your reply.
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But as long as you're married and your friend is engaged, it is not possible for anyone to have a happy, healthy relationship.
You can break your obsession with her, but you need to recognize and accept that you have a problem that you need to address. Eventually your behavior will just drive her away and cause problems in both relationships. It may be necessary to break off contact with her for a while until you have a better handle on your feelings.
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I don't know exactly why, but this part (above) of your response makes me feel really sad. I wish I could get a better handle on how I feel. In most areas of my life I'm a pretty rational and healthy guy. It's like I have an incredible void, or "heart of darkness", that I don't dare go into. While I have been able to identify this in therapy, I don't seem to have any better control of it than when I was a teenager.
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But we all should strive to have loving, healthy relationships with ourselves as well as others.
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While there are things I definitely like about myself, I don't have any emotional understanding of loving myself. To be honest, I don't really have much of a concept of me (i.e. what is intrinsically good and lovable). I do know how to be good to someone I love, but I don't have
any any understanding of why anyone would be attracted to me if I don't continually do good things for them. This woman (not my wife) is always kind to me and is unconditionally accepting of me. I've not had that before, so I keep hoping that she will eventually fall in love with me. I know it sounds dumb and I can see that it is irrational and kind of pathetic, but it's all I've got right now (at least that's what I think).
Again, thank you for taking the time to respond to me, I truly appreciate it.