Category: relationships

I’m Angry

May 1, 2026

relationships

I’ve realised something. And what I’ve realised is that I’m really angry.

Because of the way I was raised, I find it difficult to recognise or become angry. And that anger is usually a sign that I’m protecting myself, giving myself more boundaries. So I’ve also liked my (recent) anger.

But sometimes I don’t understand what exactly I’m angry about. Because it wasn’t something I did until recently I’m still trying to figure out more about it. And in this instance, it’s taken me quite some time to work out what exactly has gotten me so riled up.

But I’ve got it now.

I know that my on/off person is quite clearly a topic that I return to again and again. And that is true with conversation with friends and people that know me. I get a lot out of talking through my problems or my emotions on any particular topic. I enjoy the process of understanding myself or a situation better through discussing things with others.

But I’ve realised that what’s gotten me so riled up lately is that I’m angry with those around me that don’t listen or centre my feelings when I’m talking about him. I’ll bring up something and they’ll use their own judgement or personal experiences to tell me what they think I should do about him or about that relationship.

And it pisses me off.

There’s probably only been one person, maybe ever, that’s listened to me talk about him and put my feelings first. Or asked me what I want to do about it, or how I feel about things. With everyone else it just feels like people are just waiting for me to stop speaking before jumping in with ‘you should do this’ or ‘you should definitely not do this’ and it feels suffocating.

It’s taken me awhile for me to realise but I think it’s been harming my friendships for quite some time. I feel like I can’t discuss things openly, I feel like they’ll judge me for how I feel or what I do about things.

And I don’t need that in my life. I don’t want or need people who will only support me if I do what they suggest. Or when I do what I want to do and get hurt (again) they’ll think ‘see? told you so’

I’m a big girl. I know myself. And I know that sometimes my decision making around him is questionable. And I know that I get hurt by things. But why can’t other people accept that I’m doing what I can and that it’s me taking that risk and nobody else?

Am I wrong?

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On a Him Diet

April 27, 2026

relationships

I’ve been reading up about it a little bit. Trying to find some good advice about how to move on. And I’ve read a lot of things that make me fairly convinced that what I’m actually feeling is an addiction to the highs and lows of his inconsistency. And what’s worse, the highs and lows aren’t the sex (highs) or the lack of communication (lows) – but me thinking I’m worthy/enough/sexy/desirable when he messages me (highs) and thinking I’m not those things when he doesn’t message me (lows).

With that in mind, I said to someone recently that I’m on a diet from him.

I’m trying to stop checking my phone for notifications from him. I’m trying to stop checking when he’s been online last. My worth is not tied to how often he messages me. And I’m trying to believe that during periods of lows.

When we were still messaging, I tried to wait as long as possible before responding to him instead of sending an instant reply. I was trying then and I’m still not sending the first message. I’m not ruling out ever messaging him again, I just need a break for right now. To give myself this time to breathe. At the time of writing, it has been 11 days since we messaged. I think that might be the longest we’ve ever gone. Usually down to me. And it’s helping.

Having written all that, I can tell you that I’ve been shit at this stupid diet. I often post music lyrics in status updates on the website we use. He’s brought it up in the status updates in the past and we’d talk about music. And I realised over the last two weeks, I’ve been posting more lyrics in the secret hope that it would lead to success in that same area. But, what probably didn’t help is that the music I’ve been relating to more lately has been of heartbreak, of loss, of missing someone. So that’s probably not a likely topic for him to want to discuss!

I think progress is in baby steps for me. I need time and I need to keep exercising this muscle. The one that helps control my need for my next fix for him and also the one that reminds me that I’m fucking great all on my own.

I’ll get there.

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Massive Wound

April 23, 2026

relationships

I was talking to a friend the other day. I was telling him about some of my upcoming plans. And I ended up realising a sort of truth as I was talking to him.

And I realised as I was writing that this whole thing with my on/off person has left me with this massive wound. And I don’t know how to deal with it. So instead of addressing it, instead of really sitting with my feelings about it, I’ve been trying to avoid it. By making plans.

I thought that what I wanted was to cram my life with plans, with something sexy and distracting. I said that in the face of hurt and pain and rejection of that situation ending that what I wanted was to feel sexy again, to feel desired. To be chosen. I wanted a reminder that I can have those things again.

But even as I was typing out those messages I knew that it also felt like it was just a bit of gauze in the hopes of staunching some of the bleeding. Making plans doesn’t stop me from crying myself to sleep, it doesn’t stop me from missing him. From checking how long it’s been since he’s been online.

I think that my biggest problem is that in my head I created a version of the future in which I thought that when I moved out that maybe things would be different between me and him. That without the barrier of availability or whatever that stopped us from seeing each other more often now that whatever was between us would eventually evolve into something else.

But I know that that was just a one-sided fantasy. Or maybe not. I think he played a part in me building this (now incredibly painful) vision. I told him once that I wanted us to meet socially. To go for dog walks. Or to meet for a coffee. I told him that I wanted to spend time together with our clothes on. And he gave me the impression that that was possible. Eventually. When things with his work changed. Or whatever.

It doesn’t matter now. None of it was real. But I guess it has helped me to realise that I’m taking this all so badly because I’m grieving this stupid version of the future that I created in my head. That will never happen. That never existed. That never really ever contained a shred of reality. So in part I just feel a little bit stupid about the whole thing.

Stupid and sad and in pain.

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Crying at Night vol. 2

April 21, 2026

relationships

I had messaged him to ask a very different question. One that, if I’m honest, I didn’t think it would go much of anywhere. Sometimes (okay, a lot) I messaged him something silly or unimportant just to see if he’d message me back. So I asked him this question.

And for a bit I thought this is nice. That we can still be friends and talk in this way. I had been unsure if we could be friends before this and in the back of my head I did wonder if maybe I’d hold onto scraps of friendship with the hope that there could be a return to a sexual relationship.

The original question flowed into a different topic. One in which we discussed our time on the place where we met. And we touched on what he wants from it. And in the end I said to him:

This conversation is painful for me. Because I don’t think I’ve featured on your list of what you want. But I also know that whenever you do work out what you do want that I hope you find it.

His response was to say it was kind of me to say. But he didn’t disagree with me. With the part about me feeling like I’ve never been what he wanted. And it tore my little heart into shreds.

It’s helped though. He isn’t trying to dissuade me of these feelings so I need to just accept that and move on. It hurts but I can’t change any of it. Only my response to what he is saying and to what he isn’t. And he didn’t disagree with me. I’m not, nor possibly ever have been, what he wants.

That night I cried myself to sleep again. And I’ve struggled since then to sleep at night. But I’ll get there. One night at a time.

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Crying At Night

April 17, 2026

relationships

I’m not going to lie, guys. I’m really struggling. I think it was a gradual thing, my decision to end things with my on/off person. But since I came to that decision this feeling has been really overwhelming.

I’ve been crying at night. I’ve been crying on my dog walks. Sometimes I’ll cry when I take a break at work or when I’m driving and tears will just leak from my eyes.

I think I’ve been going through different stages of feelings lately. And the first stage, other than sadness and tears, has been to scroll through our messages. I didn’t end up reading any of our messages to each other because I’ve known him for two years and we mostly messaged each other every day. That’s too much to read through. But what I did was along the same lines. I looked at all of the images we’d sent to each other. Of my dog. Of his. My nudes. Food pictures. Weird things I’d come across. The weird gif reactions he’d send in response to things I’d said or stories I told.

But I went back right to the beginning and swiped through them from the first to the last. And I cried. But I also had a whole series of thoughts. Mostly along the lines of ‘what if I’d done things differently? What if I’d said things in a different way? What if I’d acted differently? What if I’d set different boundaries? What if I pushed harder?’ And god, how I cried.

My thoughts would always start out like, like at this picture he sent me, what if I’d reacted differently to it, what if I’d been clearer, what if I’d said the right thing? Maybe he’d have been as open as he was in the moment he sent this thing? And I’d swipe to the next picture and my thought pattern would follow in a similar vein.

Throughout two years of conversation and 241 pictures I just kept asking myself these same type of questions. If I could have been funnier, or easier, or less anxious maybe then things would have been different.

What if I were better?

And it’s exhausting and pointless to keep hurting myself thinking like this. There isn’t anything I could have said differently or done differently. I couldn’t be any more me or any less me. It almost isn’t even about him. It’s about me and getting stuck in this cycle with him. I need to break free from it, I just don’t know how.

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Sex Club vol. 3

April 16, 2026

relationships

And here concludes my visit to a sex club.

I …have struggled to write this post. I guess I’ve struggled with my feelings about what happened. I don’t really do that well with uncertainty and with confusion and that’s kind of what I was left with afterwards.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I got invited to this same sex club by a woman friend. We were going to go together as a girl’s night sort of thing. She’d asked if I’d been to the club before and I said I had, with an ex. She said ‘oh dear, we’ll need to make better, happier memories then’ and I said no, no, no it’s nothing like that, I had great memories with him. And she said then we’ll have to make sexier memories then. And I wasn’t sure if that was just something nice to say or innuendo. Either way, that trip was cancelled.

And I didn’t really think about it again. I didn’t even really think about my past memories at this sex club with him until it happened. Even though I’d talked to my new friend who drove me there about the last time I drove to the club, that I got lucky and there was a car park spot right outside. That I meant to wear a different pair of shoes but ended up not changing them before I went in. Honestly, I kept talking about my ex and I never even thought to consider my feelings about it. About him.

When I was in the porn cinema with my new friends I ended up laughing and saying that he and I had sat in the porn cinema too and that men would look hopefully in to see if we were putting on a show instead of laughing about how unsexy the actual porn was. I usually really like my memories of my ex. They make me feel happy tinged with a bit of sadness. But mostly happy that those things happened.

But when the man came in and sat down next to me and asked me if I’m playing and I said ‘no’ and walked out, in that moment I felt really overwhelmed. I looked around and I felt like everyone else had someone else. There were plenty of couples there with each other, there were clumps of people that knew each other well enough to talk and laugh together. But I wasn’t there with anyone. And in that moment I really felt that.

So I walked downstairs and I sat in this row of leather sofas. And it was only as I sank into one of them that I realised it was next to the bed inside a cage. And I remembered. He and I had sat there together. To take a moment, just for ourselves.

It’s been a really long time since I felt so with a person. Where I felt whole. And safe. And seen. After I had that feeling I started thinking about all the other things we’d done in that sex club together. I thought about him sitting and me standing between his legs at a table. I don’t remember what we talked about, did we laugh? We probably did.

I remembered us moving from place to place. We kept moving and it was almost in direct opposition of other people. It actually ended up being hilarious how antisocial we were at that club. But I never wanted or needed anyone else when I was with him.

And in that moment, the pain of missing him seared through my heart. I remembered us lying on that bed behind the bars. Talking and laughing like nobody else existed in the world. I remember looking at him and thinking how is it possible to love someone this much? And tears pricked at my eyes.

If my new friend hadn’t walked into the dungeon at that very moment I probably would have started crying there and then. Letting all that heartbreak wash over me. Letting more memories in. Letting in more sadness. In the end, I quickly swiped the tears from my eyes and she came over and sat next to me and then two other people came in and we ended up all talking and laughing together. And it was better for awhile.

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Messy Endings

April 14, 2026

relationships, sex

It’s taken me awhile to write this blog post. Usually I have an idea in my head before I write a blog post about something I want to convey, or discuss. Sometimes it’s a question that I’m pondering myself. But there’s usually an idea.

And for this one I’m just not sure. Which I think just goes back to how uncertain and up in the air the reality is.

A few weeks ago, I ended things with my on/off person.

He’d already told me previously about a change in his schedule that would make meeting up harder. There are already imbalances in our relationship that I struggle with. One of those imbalances obviously being that I have feelings for him and he does not return them. But that is just one imbalance. On the day it happened, I asked him if he’d be free the following Monday evening?

He said ‘no’ straightaway.

There was a reason, it wasn’t just a ‘nah, don’t really fancy it’ sort of thing. But something inside of me broke. It’s not that I thought it was unfair or that I was upset that he’d already had plans. It wasn’t that. It was more that I thought ‘how much more of this can I take?’

I feel an enormous amount of rejection every time he says ‘no’ no matter his reason for saying no. Most of the times he’s said ‘no’ have been because of work. Work is important, yo. None of us can be giving up work! So I understand those reasons. But also, he doesn’t ever have to face the rejection of me saying ‘no’ to him because he doesn’t ask me things. He doesn’t put himself out there in the way that I do. He’s never said ‘Monday evening doesn’t work but what about XYZ?’

Until I wrote that I hadn’t even been aware that it isn’t just imbalances. It’s a lack of effort. He’ll take what I offer but won’t offer anything in return.

So I said to him that I wouldn’t be able to make offers again. For him to come over. For us to have sex. After I said it, I wondered if maybe I wasn’t as clear as I thought I was. But even in that moment I was sure he understood. We said things to each other that sounded like we were saying our goodbyes. He understood what I meant.

And I cried.

But it didn’t end there. Because messaging seemed to resume as normal. We’ve always been friends and had many topics of conversation that we fall back on. But it didn’t stop at the usual. He sent me a video of something (non-sexual) that I’d mentioned I’d love to see way before things ended. And he sent it to me. And I thought …I love that he shared this with me. But also what does it mean?

And then he came to my house even though there isn’t anything on my road except me that he might be after. And my stupid heart thought ‘Is this him trying?’ Is this him making some attempt at showing me something? But what is it? What is he saying with this? What does it mean?

And it probably doesn’t mean anything. He probably isn’t saying anything with it. And I maybe need to stop being so hopeful about everything especially when that hope hurts me.

About a week after we saw each other last I brought it up again. Awkwardly. I said ‘hey, you know I ended things between us, right?’ To which he said yeah, he got that. And conversation continued.

I guess I’m not really sure what I want. I think the confusion on my part is more about expectations. I had the big feeling, I made the brave decision to voice that. Made a decision. And I guess I was braced for impact after that. But there’s been no impact. There’s even been many, many orgasms.

Do I want things to change? I’m not good with clean breaks and that’s rarely a good option for me. But is this friendship doing me good or doing me harm? Are there still expectations there to start up a sexual relationship again? I hadn’t expected that but maybe the one time was a blip?

I don’t know. It feels messy because it is messy. But I don’t feel equipped to navigate myself out of the mess. I think I might just stay here? In some of the confusion until I better work out how I feel about it.

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What I’m Looking For

April 10, 2026

relationships
I’ve avoided writing this list for awhile. I think because I knew as soon as I did put into words the things I want or that I’m looking for that it would make me realise that these are the things I’m not getting for my current connections.

When I finally did sit down to write this I ended up crying. Obviously aside from wanting to love someone else and be loved in return. It goes without saying that I want to be treated with respect, I want someone to value me and my time. I want someone to be in it with me. But I also think about other things.
- I want to fall asleep with someone and see their soft sleepiness as we wake up together
- I want to wander around tesco and gather food and then go home and cook it together
- I want to lean against someone as we watch a film or a true crime documentary or a medical drama or anything at all and talk about it
- I want to meet someone’s friends, I want someone to meet my friends and watch the chaos of two friendship circles colliding
- I want to walk my dog with someone, just around the neighbourhood or somewhere prettier
- I want to tell someone about my day, about work, about what I’ve seen on social media, about some weird new fact I’ve learned, I want to share my thoughts with another person
- I want to hold someone’s hand
- I want to hug someone from behind as they’re washing dishes, I want someone to hug me from behind
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Therapist Thread vol. 3

April 2, 2026

relationships

This concludes my thoughts on the therapist thread that I saw on Threads recently. I saw this initial post and had visceral reactions to three different items on the list.

I opened up to my therapist that I develop feelings too quickly. She handed me a journal and said, “If you lose yourself when someone gives you attention, these 10 questions will show you why their attention feels like the oxygen your nervous system searches for.”

I’ve gone over the first two thoughts in previous posts but today I’m here to talk about the 10th item on this list.

10. Do I attach quickly because attention fills a void I don’t know how to fill myself? Being chosen feels like oxygen when self-worth feels like holding your breath.

Damn.

I’ve written before about being chosen. I’ve touched on it anyway.

And I’ve written recently about struggling to be myself. Recently when I had no WiFi in my house for several days it became so much more obvious how much I relied on the attention of others to fill some need in me.

I guess without even intending to address this specific problem I’ve tried to work on myself. I’ve put a Work Focus on my phone during working hours to stop notifications from getting to me. (I can still see them, but I have to check for the notifications and I’m trying to stop myself from checking!)

And I’m also trying to stop myself from spending so much time seeking the attention of others. I need to be enough for myself. And in order to do that I need to prioritise myself.

What can I be doing that puts my emotional, physical and psychological needs first? I’ve started a list. I’ve tried to minimise other people from this journey. I’ve tried to focus more on things that I would enjoy doing like reading or writing. I’m trying to focus on eating healthier foods and making better fitness choices. I hope by doing these things I’m telling myself ‘you’re worth it’

I’ve booked a mini spa day that I’ll do on my own and I’m looking into other activities to do including improving my home environment. Giving myself the time and space needed to focus on my studies.

I feel like it has to become an ongoing project, one in which I’m putting myself first and investing time and energy into myself. And eventually I’ll include others into that but hopefully by the time that’s happened, I’ll feel better about just me. Wish me luck.

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Therapist Thread vol. 2

March 24, 2026

life, relationships

This is a follow up thread to Therapist Thread in which I wrote about a thread on Threads that really spoke to me. I did have to google it to find out what the first part said, which was this:

I opened up to my therapist that I develop feelings too quickly. She handed me a journal and said, “If you lose yourself when someone gives you attention, these 10 questions will show you why their attention feels like the oxygen your nervous system searches for.”

In the first post, I wrote about the first question this Threads Therapist mentioned. Today I’ll be writing about another question that hit home with me. You may remember that in the first post I had thought that the original tweet of the thread was talking about anxious attachment or inconsistency. It really makes everything more relevant knowing that it’s about developing feelings too quickly. That being said, I feel like not knowing what anchored it was important for me too. The question is important regardless of the context.

But here is today’s question:

5. Do I give more than I receive because generosity helps me avoid being abandoned? Over giving is often fear — dressed as kindness.

I read that and I thought ‘oh god’

I guess I haven’t really talked about my parents that much. And they are important. A lot of who I am, and crucially, how I am is because of my relationships with both my parents.

I did learn from an early age that neither of my parents were stable in their emotions, in their behaviours, in their reactions to me. My dad was finally diagnosed as having bipolar shortly before he died having lived with it untreated for most of his adult life. I don’t think you need a medical degree or lived experience to understand that having a parent with untreated bipolar disorder was a challenging thing.

Apologies for the oversharing in the rest of this post.

My dad was erratic, unpredictable and unstable. It was chaos at home. His moods swung wildly between the mania and the depression. He had no boundaries and would overshare wildly. He had the highest expectations of me. He’d suggest spur of the moment crazy plans or projects. He’d go through long stretches of depressive episodes that led me to grow up really, really early. He was short-tempered, irritable, angry.

My mother checked out both emotionally and physically when I was 11. She decided she could no longer ‘deal’ with my dad, with me, with my brother. And she left. I’d only see her a handful of times after that and I haven’t seen her in person since the age of 17. We would talk on the phone ever 6-7 years when she remembered she had a daughter and the emotional scarring from her abandonment has been something I still struggle to get through.

It makes sense within the context of my relationship with my parents that I might over give in my relationships. I have experienced the worst kind of parental abandonment and I’m keen to not experience that level of rejection again. I’ve known previously when I’ve reflected on myself and my own behaviours that I’m maybe overly nice as a way of counteracting my parents. It feels very much like ‘Please like me, and stay. You’ll stay, right?’

It’s breaking that cycle that’s the hard bit. How do I maintain a sense of myself and only give of myself in a healthy amount? How do I navigate relationships and not feed into the idea that I have to pour myself into the needs of others. How do I set boundaries for myself? How do I start to believe that I am enough?

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