ask dr-robert

I am impressed at the time and care you take to answer all questions and inquiries. I will attempt to make my story brief as it is not a unique situation, except to me.

After 3 years of intense closeness and connectedness, my boyfriend (39) told me (44) that he didn't want to continue with our relationship. The reasons he gave me seem superfluous at this point because he has moved on and is actually seeing someone, which he did almost immediately after we separated. Who knows if she was the reason he left, I will never know. What he told me was that he just didn't have time for us and that he felt guilty that he couldn't give me what I needed in the relationship. .

It's very hard for me because we were together everyday and after 10 weeks, I am still completely devastated and having trouble letting go of this lost love. I am not in contact with him, I only spoke to him twice in the first few weeks and thought that I said all I could or needed to. It's never enough, I have so much to say. I mumble to myself all of those "unsaid words." It hasn't really helped get it out. One of the biggest losses for me (besides him, who I dearly miss), was the loss of his daughter in my life. She was 3 when I met her and she is now 6. We were good friends and did things together all the time, sometimes just the two of us. I also became very close to his father who we took in on the weekends after the death of his wife last year. So, you can see that the end of this relationship has meant a tremendous amount of grieving and loss.

Here are my questions: Do you think it is normal to feel this horrible 10 weeks into the recovery? Does the fact that I'm still in a state of disbelief over what has happened indicate that maybe I'm still in shock? Is there anything I should do for either the daughter or the dad to let them know that they are still in my heart and that I am always their friend? .

I know you're not psychic, but do you think that there's any chance that this love will come back for him and that he will see what he has lost and return to me? .

I will tell you one other small detail about the relationship, it was extremely intense in the beginning and highly sexual. That part cooled WAY down after about 1 year...for him, not for me. He seemed to have a true fear of intimacy after that and although we connected on many levels, there was a sort of dead spot in the sexual part of us. I spoke to him about this at great length and he assured me he was working on it, but it never really improved. I think there was probably a lot of masturbation and even porn usage on his part, but he never let me into that part of his world. Again, answers I will never get. .

I am totally in that state of mind where I feel that I'm not in my body. I practice copious amounts of yoga, eat healthy and I am even taking ayurvedic herbs (Brahmi) to help my brain. I, of course think I will never find another mate because I can't imagine loving someone else. He was smart, driven, and totally a big energy person who made me feel like I was cared for--until I wasn't. The only way I can describe how he left was that I was totally eradicated from his life. No mention of me to anyone and total removal of all evidence of me from his world. I've done the same, but he still lives in my head. It literally feels like it's killing me, or at the very least it has extinguished the light inside.

So, many questions, much poring out of my heart here. Anything you can offer will be appreciated. And please keep me in your prayers and meditation. I'm looking for the collective good in the universe to lift me up a bit until I am lifting myself up.

Thank you.

Tilly.

Dear Tilly--

I do understand your feelings of loss, and I sympathize. Losing a love can be terribly painful, and I do not think that your absorption in this situation after only ten weeks of grieving is abnormal. Each of us has a different schedule for getting over losses, and I advise you to go along with yours, and to follow your natural schedule as if healing this psychic injury were like the healing of a physical wound through scabbing over and healing. Just like physical healing, psychic healing is a natural process which most often does not need to be managed, but just allowed to occur in its own time and its own way. The best way to enable the healing and to cooperate with it is simply to acknowledge the hurt without guilt or shame, and then allow the healing to take place. If this proves impossible when working alone, then you might seek the help of an experienced person such as a therapist or older friend.

If it will help you, you might like to write to the daughter you care so much about, telling her that although her father has moved on, you still think of her and will always be her friend. That might help her too.

I don't know if I am psychic or not, but I do foresee that you will end up finding a new love at one time or another, and I imagine that then you will be glad that all of this happened so that you could be free to meet and love that particular person. Please get back to me when that happens so that I can add it to my list of correct predictions (just kidding, but I would like to hear from you).

When practicing yoga, please remember that the point of yoga and meditation is not to escape from the body; quite the opposite! When you meditate or practice physical gestures, that is the time to get out of your head and back into the body,

I will be wishing you the best.

Be well.