How to Help Without Engulfing / Coming Across Controlling

Your brand of love here, complete with mind reading, making assumptions, tailoring all communications to the assumed and imagined emotional headspace of a gentlemen you have never even met but call FA, is codependency, not love.

"One false move and I lose" thinking IS NOT LOVE. it's fear and codependency.

Caring about his issues is compassion. But she wants a relationship and is afraid he will find someone else. This is about her getting a relationship from an incapable man and that is codependency.

He could be depressed and interested in Intimacy Lite , he may not be FA at all. He might be manipulative and just into casual attention. He might be FA . Whatever he is, you cannot have him figured out like you seem to think you do here- your posts are full of mind reading.

and caro , I am NOT shaming you! My point is not that your AP behavior is shameful. It's that it is really really hurting you! I am DA and very aware of how painful our attachment insecurity is for all of us. I still grieve things in my life that I missed out on or suffered because of the way I've been shut down. It's painful. I guarantee no one on earth could have lifted this for me or even made a dent. It's in my nervous system and truly hard wired. I have made progress over time because of a concerted, intentional effort on my part to understand and grow past it. It's been years and i am still working on it.
This guy isn't even doing that. Your chances of finding the love you want and need are better if you devote yourself to changing your love habits and choose a partner who is capable.
Right now, this is just repeating pattern.

You are hurting. Love yourself, enough to identity the real reason because it's something you can lead yourself out of. I think that what I am proposing is much more loving and kind to you than to suggest you persist at this with this man.

My intention is to help you see how old patterns have got the best of you and that there is a way to be free and find real love that hugs you and loves you every day and most certainly when you're down. You need a man holding you when you cry not ignoring you when you cry. I have found this in my life and I am EMPHATIC that the only way to do it is to identify and halt insecure habits. Halt them. You can turn your focus to identifying your own thinking instead of his and a whole new reality will set in for you. It will hurt but it will set you free.

Sherry I really love how you pick out words and phrases from my posts and string them all together into this wonderful creative fabrication. Its amazing.

Do you write poems? I wrote a poem this week. I would really love to know what you think.

The moon is bright,
And the moon is dark.

The shape of an ancient star
dying
and the shape of a golden sliver of sunlight
peeking over a winter morning cloud, on the horizon

The moon is an expanse
and the moon is barely a spec

And all of this is true.
And all of this false.

I think you're flaky and manipulative actually.

Hug hug hug , you're soothing caroline with virtual hugs and weaving a little FA unicorn fantasy with your own imagination. Go read the poem you have written on this thread about he instinctual creatures you claim to have figured out. Assume this, assume that, who is writing fantasy? You.

Are you here looking for answers? No but caroline is and you're feeding her fantasy and illusion ((hugs)).

Nonsense. 

I'm very glad you are taking this as it is intended from me.

Please do read that article. It's actually very powerful when it comes to revealing how the codependent trance harms you,, and seems like love but is not whole and solid and stable like true love. How can it be? It cannot be.

Also, I encourage you to not discount the voices of the many insecure people here who are aware and working to resolve their issues by turning their attention from exes and unavailable partners, and focusing on the real work of getting secure.

Do not give more weight to one or two voices here who promote fantasy. The fairy tale rarely comes true. Sure, you may understand him and want to meet his needs- I am nearly certain the same could not be said in reverse.

Eyes open, and with courage to let go or otherwise make painful choices, is the way we grow. 

When the pain is enough we look for another way than doing what hasn't worked so far. if you have been living this pattern for a lifetime it may be time to change it.

Best to you, sincerely.

Very familiar with all of that. There has been no suggestion to discard anyone. My suggestion is for Caroline to focus on her own attachment issues and liabilities (of codependent thinking and behavior ) .

Her partner (?) is not the one here seeking resolution to his issues, Caroline is. From what I can see, both you and she are highly attendant to his mental health issues and repeatedly address what he might be thinking or feeling (in contrast to how he is behaving and what he is actually saying) .

In my opinion you and Caroline are absolutely dismissive of CAROLINE and her need for OBJECT CONSTANCY. She is being coached to provide for him what she has not gained for herself. She is very insecurely attached in a style that tends toward looking to heal and fix others to her own detriment.

You see her suffering and say "there there, let's talk about what he needs....assume he feels this way... what he really meant was.:.. and don't rock the boat honey he needs a little time...."

Meanwhile her peers here (volunteer , by the way! and just as valid!) are speaking with their own experience specifically with attachment styles and progress toward secure. There are people here supporting Caroline in focusing on her own attachment issue. Learning how to be healthy. There is no need to dismiss anyone, as I said before, caring about someone with depression is compassion. Having a codependent agenda to support him in order to get the relationship she desires is another.

We can agree to disagree. Her therapist is on board and I have shared my perspective with her, as have others. In the end, the real story will play out in her real life and she gets to choose whether she repeats the pattern of looking after everyone else to her detriment or looking after herself, to her enrichment and empowerment.

Time will tell.