From a teen in Morocco: I really love my boyfriend but I think there’s something wrong with me. I don’t have friends I trust no one except my boyfriend, we’ve been together for 2 years now almost three and I love him a lot. We spent the whole previous year together in the same house and all, but he had to go abroad to study.
I don’t think that I’m coping with this very well, it has been 2 months since he left and I think I’m going crazy. I constantly need him to text me and to call me at least once in a day every day. But stuff are very complicated now since our schedules don’t match. So we barely talk during the day and he calls me at around 3 or 4 am. I always cry when I don’t have his attention or when he forgets to call me or doesn’t text back in time. I get mad and start shaking while crying.
I think I’m hurting our relationship but it’s really hard and I need help to calm down and get my stuff together. I don’t want to lose him.
Thank you for writing. I know this is painful, but I do believe that the current situation may be a good thing for you. You are learning that you are in fact much too dependent. The kind of dependency you describe will doom your relationship. It is good to identify the problem now and to take steps to become the mature and independent person you can be.
A healthy relationship is one in which each person is a whole, mature, confident person, with or without the relationship. Interdependence is very different and much healthier than dependence. In an interdependent relationship, the two people are a team. Each brings strengths to the relationship. Each person can turn to the other for intimacy and support. But they each feel competent and competent without the other. They each have a circle of friends they enjoy. Each feels supported in being all they can be.
What you are describing is dependency. Often in such relationships, one person is the needy one; the other is the rescuer. Neither role is ultimately satisfying or healthy. You don’t feel complete without your partner constantly validating and supporting you. Without daily (hourly?) reassurance that he loves you and is there for you, you fear that you have nothing. You are entirely too needy. If he needs you to be needy to feel man enough, he is contributing to the problem. This relationship can’t last unless you get yourself together and you both recalibrate how you behave with each other.
On your side: I strongly urge you to make an appointment with a counselor. A counselor will help you discover the roots of your fears and will then support you in managing your anxiety and becoming a full, growing, mature young woman. You deserve that. You will flourish best if you are in a relationship that supports it.
Your boyfriend seems to be struggling to change your relationship. If he is a chronic rescuer, he would also benefit from some counseling to help him establish another way to love.
Your relationship has a much better chance of lasting if you each take the steps you need to take to become more able to love in a healthy way.
I wish you well,
Dr. Marie
