Fear of relationship and trusting issues

by RN
(Manila, Philippines)

I am 38 yrs old. I am a product of a broken family. My dad left for the US when i was 13 years old and never came back. But he sent us financial support for our education. When he left I thought he's just going there for work but when he never came back I told myself no guy will ever fool me. I've had 2 boyfriends before and all have cheated on me. My current bf is an American and I am asian. WE met at a social networking site. At, first i thought it was just a pass time when we chat until he went to visit me in my country last month. Now I fear that his feelings changed towards me after he went back to the US. He wont talk to me that much and says he is really sick but we used to chat before 10 hours a day as compared now which is 2 hrs a day. I know i have abandonment issues. Why do i always feel that his pulling away. It was always difficult for me whenever he say goodbye after a chat. I just have a feeling that he's not coming back anymore. Today when we chat he said that i dont trust him. I want to change. I have a fear that he will cheat on me like we are not together because ever since he came back to the US he wont talk to me that long. Now, i feel like i am on a dead end. I focused so much on his promises that he will petition for me (for a fiance visa). I focused myself on applying for NCLEX as i am a registered nurse. I quit my job for him in order to prepare for that exam. I spent almost $1,000 for that. Now i fear that he might have changed his mind about me when now i am focusing my future with him.... I feel like i am falling apart. I am totally lost. He said that i should slow down. I know this might have affected me because of my previous relationships and my abondonment issue when I was a kid. I know not all men are like that but all of my relationships has a vicious cycle. I dont know what went wrong but before me and my bf met in person he was very sweet and caring for me but after he went back to the States he seems a changed person. I dont know if I am just being paranoid or not but I feel like I am going to lose him. I fear all of this as what I am doing now is all for him. I am willing to move with him but now he seems not commiting to anything as opposed to what he promised before we met. Please help me. I feel like I just wanna quit life. I want to change. I hate feeling that whoever I love will quit on me. I dont know what to do. I have a low self-esteem now without a job.

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I have had the hardest time responding to you and I apologize! So heart-breaking!!
I think it is because I know what it is like to be hurt like that and there are no easy answers.

This could sound like criticism and I don't mean it that way at all.

I have come to understand, and have read books to that effect, that generally, men do not want a situation where someone depends on them for their happiness. They do not like feeling another person's happiness depends upon them.

They are attracted to someone who has a wholeness, an independent life, another source of happiness. I have heard it described like the woman is a flower and they are a bee drawn to honey.

The woman flower is doing her thing and is radiating a peace and beauty that attracts him. So often, though, once a couple begin, the woman drops all her own sources of happiness and turns it all on him. Suddenly he loses interest. It just can not work.

It is especially difficult when couples have babies and she loses independence. It becomes crucial for the woman to have inner sources to divine love, inner calm, centeredness and so on.

To know she is whole and sustained by life. Sounds goofy, I know.

Find your source within and also find what feeds you in the world. Maintain this foremost in any relationship. Otherwise it is as if we sell our soul for relationship and lose the very thing we have to offer in relationship.

with love
Laura