Dear Lo,

I've been with my boyfriend for 8+ years now. Several years ago while drinking with some friends, some inappropriate things happened with a close guy friend of mine. The feeling was quite different. It's hard to explain, but it didn't feel wrong. I have never cheated on my boyfriend before, and never talked/looked at another guy. After that night, my friend and I said it was clearly the biggest mistake since we were both in long-term relationships. We decided that we can no longer be friends or hang out by ourselves.

Long story short, we didn't keep that promise. In fact, we became much closer. We hung out alone, talked on the phone, became more comfortable physically. I HATE myself for it. Not to mention, I haven't been happy in my relationship for a few years now, but I can't let myself walk away because I genuinely don't believe I deserve to be happy. Our issues are more concrete and I don't think we have a future, but it's like I’m punishing myself for the mistakes I made and for the things I've done with this guy. I'm not sure what to do now since feelings are involved on both sides. I don't want the end result to be hurting and losing both of these guys. Thanks in advance for your feedback and advice.

~Anonymous

Dear Lo,

During childhood, my mom would purposely stonewall me whenever she was upset with me. If I failed to abide by her standards, expectations or rules, it usually resulted in stonewalling. She emotionally abandoned me as her way of basically saying "I don't want to talk to you or acknowledge you because you've upset me." She would purposely ignore my needs and emotions because I upset her. I would feel scared to tell her anything with the fear that she would either continue to ignore me or unintentionally anger her some more. "Ugh... WHAT!!" or ".......WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" would be her responses if I was lucky enough to her to say anything. I was scared to talk to her. There was really nothing I could to revert her back to normal other than just ride the tide and hope she'd revert back to normal, even if I was there crying my eyes out because I upset her or just wanted her attention again. She just didn't care because I upset her. She emotionally abandoned me because I depended on her for basic needs, hence, the likelihood of my survival was greatly at stake. Her love had to be earned back. How? By over-loving her. Sometimes it worked. Other times, it didn't. And if it didn't, it usually intensified the negative emotions. Her "love" was conditional. However, there were also times where I felt her love was unconditional. It was freely given to me and I didn't have to do anything to feel her love. I felt safe, loved and acknowledged. Cool! This inconsistency childhood love by my mom, however, has set me up for what I am experiencing today.

Whenever I develop an emotional connection with a romantic person, I tend to feel intense abandonment anxiety and irrationally fear that she could abandon me at any given moment for any given reason. I have also felt very much so anxiously attached to romantic partners in the past, both physically and emotionally, because over-love will keep me safe from a romantic person’s abandonment. I need constant reassurance that she still desires me, people-please romantic individuals to ensure I’m desired upon and for the lesser likelihood of an abandonment, cling to her physically and emotionally, and have even subconsciously turned her into my new “mom" by irrationally and subconsciously believing she'll love me like a mom. A romantic connection is emotionally turbulent with negative/irrational thoughts and anxiety. And so if a romantic person does unexplainably abandon/reject me and walks out of my life as it’s happened before, it’s going to trigger an extremely profound sadness where I could be on the floor crying uncontrollably hard with extreme emotional pain that deeply overwhelms me. This last happened to May of 2023 after Angelica walked out of my life without much of any explanation and basically abandoned me. I never heard from her ever again. My therapist believes it could be Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. I will feel this post-abandonment extreme depression because my “mom” abandoned me. How will I survive now???

It's also important to note that I only feel these negative emotions/thoughts with romantic individuals. It's never felt with any other social group.

Bottom line is this: I cannot form an emotional connection with a romantic person without feeling abandonment anxiety, anxious attachment issues, or codependency issues. Abandonment by a romantic person = extreme sadness. I want to heal. I want to develop an emotional connection with a romantic person without the negative emotions and thoughts from interrupting the romantic connection. I want to separate my mom’s pot of love and establish a new pot of love for romantic partners.

~Gabriel

Dear Lo,

What advice do you have related to rejection from a grown child? My daughter and I have been estranged for 6 years. She tells me I was a bad mother and I was never there for her. I have a drained bank account and battle scars that tell a different story. I am codependent so her rejection is very painful. I truly enjoy your classes and I'm learning a lot about myself. Since I no longer cater to my daughters demands, I'm too angry for her to deal with so I've been written out of her life and she keeps my grandsons from me, whom I supported for the first years of their lives. My daughter remarried a wealthy man and no longer needs my bank account or me. Where did I go wrong? Thanks in advance for insight to my issue.

Dear Lo,

I feel so stuck. I fell for a man that I got to know online during Covid. It was the first time in about 20 years that I opened myself up to someone (having been in a violent relationship then in a relationship with a married man, both leaving me with a huge sense of shame and feeling unwanted). After we met in person, he went cold and then didn’t want to continue contact. After about 6 months, I got back in touch to “be friends,” but I think in hindsight I wanted to understand what went wrong and I thought that by getting to know him as a friend, somehow my questions would be answered. A better closure. Long story short, he was very attentive and sexual, making me think he was interested. Then 6 months later, he told me he was in a relationship. Two years in and we are still in touch and off/on with intimate contact. I feel disgusted with myself. Please help.

Dear Lo,

Thank you in advance for taking the time to reply to my question (or two!).

My first question was a result of your webinar about people pleasing. You mentioned that we often get frustrated because we expect people to read our minds about our wants and wishes, but if we are always asking someone to do things that we would like, how do we know that they do them because they want to rather than being forced to do it?

Irrespective of people-pleasing, I have caught myself being codependent with my current partner of 7 years. Do you think that it is still possible to work on my codependency issues while being with him or do you think that it's not possible to do that and if I want to work on these issues I should end the relationship?

Thank you!

P.S. Your webinars are amazing and you are a great communicator!

Dear Lo,

I recently came across your webinar on codependency and it opened my eyes to a lot of things. I loved your other webinars on perfectionism and people pleasing too. Thank you for doing the work you do and for showing up with so much enthusiasm and positivity. You're really helping a lot of us :)

I've (28/f) been in a relationship with my partner (31/m) for 2.5 years. He is a great person who is very kind and sensitive. I came to realize that I've been badly hurt in my past relationships and as a result, I carry trauma from that and from my childhood (the feeling of being unwanted). It is only recently that I'm coming to terms with it. I find it hard to communicate with my current partner because I don't know how much of it stems from my issues and how much of it is from our issues. I will also add that I felt mistrustful and maybe hold some resentment for being hurt in this relationship. Although I think a vast part of it is due to misunderstandings and my own codependency. I would like to feel more comfortable communicating and feel more intimate. But I also have my own journey to make, one which involves believing in my self-worth first. Would you have some advice for me? Thank you!

Dear Lo,

First, I want to start off by expressing how much I enjoy your resources and tell you how much they have helped me. I had a situation with a mental health therapist that just made me wonder and question why people do what they do.

I had a therapist who I had been seeing for almost two years. I thought we had a good therapeutic relationship. I trusted her. We had been talking about ending the therapeutic relationship because it was time. She assured me that she would give plenty of notice and that she would never just abruptly discontinue our therapy. She knew that I had an extremely hard time with loss because we discussed that topic many times.

Just a few weeks ago, one of my little pets passed away, and her cage mate was having major surgery. My therapist and I sent some messages to each other that were not healthy, but I still wanted to communicate. Then our beautiful foster dog went to her new home.

A week after those upsetting events, my therapist sent a note to all her clients that she would be leaving in 30 days. That same day, just a few hours later, she sent me a message telling me that we should “part ways” and she ended her message with “best wishes.” This abrupt ending threw me for a loop. No goodbye?

From watching your codependency webinars, I realized that in therapy, I was depending on my therapist for external validation. I now understand that this all comes from my past and growing up always looking for praise and validation from my parents with my achievements.

I had a choice to just end therapy or get a new therapist. With my struggle with confidence in myself, I chose to have a new therapist to help me process my grief for not only the loss of my pet, but for the loss and dismay of the way my therapist decided to end our therapeutic relationship.

I fear that I will fall back into that pattern of codependency for my therapist. I dreaded choosing a new therapist and having to explain my fear of loss all over again just to possibly be hurt again. My new therapist is much more experienced and she has assured me that she will not do as my previous therapist did. I have heard those words before. I do not want to be dependent on someone else for my validation and I expressed that to her.

There is a part of me that feels ready to end therapy. I do have times of great confidence because I learned through the group on codependency how to validate myself, be mindful, and show my authenticity, but then the confidence fades.

Should I continue therapy even though I think I have the tools to help myself? Won’t therapy just continue my need for that validation?

Dear Lo,

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 5 months and I have never been happier. He genuinely treats me right and makes me feel so loved. We met online and live about 14 hours away from each other so the only time we’ve seen each other is when he flew here for my graduation. The original plan was for him to stay for a week and then go home and get a job. He stayed for the whole month of June and it was honestly the best month of this year. But after he left, I cried a lot and missed him. After a couple days, I realized I was feeling very anxious and I wasn’t sure why. I did some research and figured out that I had separation anxiety. I believe I’ve had undiagnosed separation anxiety since I was in 7th grade, but I had it towards my house/my mom. Now I think I developed it with my boyfriend because we got much closer while he was here. I find myself anxious everyday, and my boyfriend has mentioned that he doesn’t know what to do. It’s hard for him because he just wants to make me happy.

We’re taking a break from talking right now while I get my life together, but I don’t know what to do. I signed up for therapy and my first appointment is on Thursday. I journal, meditate, and I take care of myself to the best of my ability. I don’t know what else to do to minimize the anxiety and I don’t know how to reassure him that I’ll be okay. I’ve also been thinking about texting him and checking in on him, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea because we’re taking a break. I don’t know how long we’re taking a break either. I was alone with myself for about two years, and in those years, I dealt with anxiety from moving to a new house, and I got to know myself a lot better and found joy in my life that didn’t involve someone else. I don’t know why I suddenly feel anxious without him, but it’s really hard and sometimes it feels like I won’t get through it. I really don’t know what to do and I don’t want to lose him.

Dear Lo,

I have been in a relationship for almost a year, and we are engaged to be married. I think he is a great partner in many ways: he spoils me, takes care of me, and covers all the finances as I am completing a program for another year. I have a great relationship with his family and parents. All in all, I am happy.

But there are things that I am a little worried about that I wanted to get your feedback on. Several times he has mentioned that I am super confident and it makes him insecure. We talked through and resolved it as we usually do. But I have noticed that he is flattered when he gets attention from women of all kinds. He accepts it when they flirt or when a work-related contact constantly messages and calls him day and night. I also noticed his unusual attitude towards one of his female friends who is married. When I raised my concerns, he said he has stopped collaborating with the coworker and reduced communication with the married female friend.

About 6 months ago, I found a box of condoms when cleaning our bedroom. It is a type we never use, and the last box we bought together was still there. When I asked, he said it was an old box, and I didn’t mention it again. Lately I noticed that he imitates having sex in his sleep quite frequently, but doesn’t initiate sex with me. I am 20 weeks pregnant, but I haven’t had any complications. He is very caring, we cuddle a lot, and he doesn't go to bed without me. And last night I woke up because he was being very noisy in his sleep, imitating having sex in his dreams again. It seemed very different than what it’s like when we have sex together. And then I came home earlier than him today and out of curiosity, checked the box of condoms. The one that had different condoms than we use is now empty. We have been living together and he has not spent the night elsewhere, but I have been away for a couple days. What do you think? Thank you so much in advance for answering my question.

Dear Lo,

I purchased the Inner Child webinar and loved it. I have the following questions:

1. Do the exercises (photograph, letter writing, etc. ) need to be done in any particular order or can I pick any to begin?

2. Can the letter to my inner child (IC) be written immediately, even before I start the daily 30 second check-in to get to know my IC?

3. I recently did some IC work for a particular situation. I sat with myself, tried to talk to my IC, and asked what she felt about this situation. And I believe I got an answer from her. How do I know if that was my IC or just my adult self? It was only the second time I tried to connect with my IC.

Thank you!

Dear Lo,

I’ve been in a relationship with the same person off-and-on for the past 3 years now. Throughout our time together, there have been 3 times that he emotionally cheated on me, which really hurt my trust and self-esteem. Also in the beginning, things were perfect and then over time, he slowly started doing less and less. He wouldn’t treat me poorly, just not as good as before. I felt needy and ungrateful for being upset by this change.

We broke up for a bit last year and then got back together this January. He’s someone who has worked hard to re-gain my trust and build back with me. But he’s slowly stopped doing the same things as before like bringing me little surprises and writing me long good morning texts. We work together and it gets hard because I see him talking to our other girl coworkers and this really makes me angry. I tried talking to him about that, but he’s someone who is outgoing and likes to talk to others so he doesn’t want to stray from his morals. I just want to be able to deal with all of this in a healthy way that isn’t taking it out on him or controlling him.

I get really anxious that he’ll get feelings for someone else again or that he’s never going to treat me like he did in the beginning. It makes me put him first before myself to the point where I basically only live for him. When I get anxious, I feel crippled - I can’t eat or get out of my room or do anything for myself. I’s frustrating and makes me feel so bad about myself. He’s doing his best to meet all my needs, but I can tell it’s starting to drain him and it’s making me panic. I feel like I am not enough and that I have to be perfect. I feel like I just want to fix and control and perfect our relationship all the time. Everything makes me anxious and I just want to be happy and mentally healthy. I don’t know how to cope and I don’t know what to do.

Dear Lo,

I want to start off by saying that I attended one of your webinars on codependency and it was a breath of fresh air. I recently had a huge heart-to-heart with my partner regarding how they think my mental state in this relationship is unhealthy…which hurts, obviously. I know that I do not have the healthy mindset and emotional awareness that my partner has, which he has worked on through his own journey. He said we are in two different spots, but there is always room for growth, right? He wants me to be my best self, love me for me, communicate my feelings more, and be more vulnerable. I spoke with my therapist regarding the antidepressant I am on, and how I feel like I am "blocked" 95% of the time regarding my emotions and reactions, which is very frustrating. I am still raw from this conversation with him. I don't want him to have resentment toward me and how I am trying to grow on my journey and take the necessary steps. I am worried that he won't see the effort. He wants me to be happy and express my needs and wants, but I am afraid he'll get tired of waiting for me to become "healthy" in my journey. How do I cope with these anxieties?

Dear Lo,

I just went through a break-up with my boyfriend that left me feeling blindsided. From the moment we met, we both felt a strong connection and we both knew that we were dating with the intention of getting married. We were together for a year and a half, and in that time, we spent almost every day together. He was living with me, and we started to build a life together. He changed careers so that he could have more time for us, we traveled, and started making long-term plans. I always felt that we had such a strong and loving relationship, and I felt like we both put a lot of effort into the relationship. Over this time, we had a handful of arguments where I got very mad, but he didn’t. Generally, I’m a much more emotional person than he is, and I even expressed to him at times that I wanted him to open up more. After the arguments, we talked about it, I apologized, and he always assured me that we were fine.

About 2 months passed after the last argument we had, and everything seemed great. We spent the holidays together and even vacationed out of the country with our families. But then last month, he suddenly asked me for space, saying that the arguments from the past hurt him and he couldn’t get past them. I felt blindsided and hurt because I had no idea he felt like this, and I told him that he should have talked to me about how he was really feeling. Still, I heard what he had to say, I apologized for hurting him, and we discussed what we could do to fix this issue. Things felt like they went back to normal and we both said we felt better after talking. However, a couple of weeks later, I went away for the weekend, and when I came back home, he had packed all of his things and told me he was breaking up with me because those arguments hurt him, and he was upset that I never brought up his request again for space. However, I know that I had suggested several ways that he could get some space from me if he felt he needed it, and I asked him multiple times to let me know how he was feeling. He said that each of these arguments left him feeling like a piece of him was gone and I had insecurities I needed to work through. I again told him that he should have talked to me, but he thinks that because I felt guilty for those arguments that that should have prompted me to bring it up and talk to him about them.

I truly had no idea that he felt like this, and it hurts me that he would think I would ever purposely ignore or dismiss his feelings. He also said multiple times during the breakup how much he loved me, and because of that, he brushed these arguments under the rug. But now I’m left feeling so guilty, wishing that I would have never gotten mad in the first place. I feel like everything is my fault although I feel that I always tried my best to be the best girlfriend I could be. With everything that we had been through together, I truly felt that we had a stronger relationship than this and that he would be able to see that our relationship was mostly happy and good, aside from these arguments. Was this all my fault? Should I feel this guilty?

Hi Lo,

I am a people-pleaser with those with whom I share an emotional connection with, especially romantic interests. Any kind of conflict with someone I'm emotionally connected to will lead to abandonment anxiety. So I need to be a people-pleaser to not only avoid her possibly departing out of my life, but also so that she can see me as perfect and someone she'd want in her life. If I'm not perfect in her eyes, she probably won't want me.

I really need help overcoming this so that I'm able to establish a healthy relationship without any abandonment anxiety, without being a people-pleaser, and with healthy boundaries. I have my therapist helping me through this as well, which I'm very thankful for. And I watched your presentation on Better Help on this topic. Thank you!

~Gabriel

Dear Lo,

I am codependent on everyone around me. I have taken up the persona of being the class clown or always having a joke ready to make people laugh. And that feels like me. I feel like I enjoy it, but now I know that that is me seeking validation of being funny and therefore, a fun person from the audience. Do I need to change that part of me? How do I identify it AS me?

~Alexis

Dear Lo,

I was recently on the path to graduate college and get a full-time job with a company that I have been working part-time for all four years of college. However, due to a rash decision that I made, I am no longer on track to graduate this semester and I lost my relationship with the company that I worked for previously. I feel like I cannot trust myself to make decisions anymore, and I constantly find myself thinking about the past when I had it all. I developed severe anxiety and depression as a result of the events that happened, and I constantly catastrophize everything in my life. What can I do to get better?

~Anonymous

Dear Lo,

I am normally an interdependent person, but in my relationship, I found it was much harder. How do you talk to someone who wants you to be codependent on them and believes this is the goal to a successful relationship? How do you explain the importance of interdependence?

~STEFN

Dear Lo,

I watched one of your boundaries webinars, and I need some help with those for emotional, mental, and financial. I’m not sure how or where to start with setting boundaries in my marriage of 10 years.

My husband broke my trust. I tried to talk to him about it, but he didn't want to talk. I told him I want to work on our marriage, and he has ignored all of my ideas. We don't even hug or show any affection anymore. What kinds of boundaries can I even set?

I work full time from home, but had to take a huge pay cut so I pick up side jobs to make ends meet. He has a high-stress full time job. Even though we both work full time, most of the household responsibilities fall on me. He is also maxing out our credit cards and gets frustrated when I try to set up a budget.

So he won't work on our marriage, he helps out very little around the house, and we can barely make all our bills each month. I feel stuck and not sure where to even start with setting boundaries.

~Anonymous

Dear Lo,

I have a question from your boundaries webinar about stating the consequence. When I am setting my boundaries, should I tell the person what would happen if they decide to disrespect the boundary again in the future?

~Oluwadara

Dear Lo,

I am in a relationship with a person I truly love, but they just can't consistently show up how I need them to in our relationship. I have expressed what I need and don't feel that my expressed needs are too much to expect in a relationship. If anything, I have probably set the bar very low in what I feel I need for this relationship to work.

Anyhow, when I express what I need, I do see an improvement, but eventually things go back to how they were. I become frustrated internally. I take a mental break to honor my wants and needs. I find articles, therapy sessions, activities, etc. to help me feel better. And, then once I feel better I seem to not be so upset at what I once was before so I resume the communication as if nothing was wrong to begin with or that I have handled what I needed to do internally.

I guess my question is how do I bring up my feelings of neglect in this relationship after the fact and after I have done some healing? I seem to not have the courage to bring it up at the time it occurs, yet it feels odd to bring it up afterward. I don't get what I need from my partner a lot of the time, so I bring it to myself. I do this because I truly want peace and happiness within, but I would be lying if I didn't say this is also because I don't trust/believe that my partner will show up for me. And I don't want to confront that because it might mean that I either have to accept this relationship as is or choose to end it. I feel scared of the latter coming to fruition.

How do express what I need at the time or even afterward in a helpful way? And, more importantly, what can I do to believe in myself that I am strong enough to handle the fallout?