I am dating someone in a very new (about 5 months, 2 of which were eaten by covid) relationship who drives 1.5 hours ONE WAY to see me once a week. I become convinced he will break up with me because… he only wants sex, I don’t have the same relationship with music as his ex wife, I’m too boring, he texts a million times a day one day and only twice a day the next, he doesn’t want to facetime me, I’m not bold enough, I’m no fun, I’m too serious.

This is not new with him – it happens over and over in dating and friendships, even. I’ve been doing thought model after thought model and I keep jumping to new ways I am unacceptable. So I decided to start with the feeling – fear – and get curious about that. What came up was (of course) an incident from junior high. I wrote a very mean anonymous letter about a girl in junior high to her boyfriend. I thought I was doing a good thing to cause them to break up because she was ( in my mind) a terrible person, and he needed to be saved. I had all my “facts” wrong, which I found out when I got caught and sent to the principal’s office. I had the thoughts that I’d lost my entire support system when everyone found out. Friends, family, even the friends who helped me come up with this plan to write the letter and helped me deliver it to her desk. I felt radioactive. (or Covid positive, these days)

So I think the fear “I’m too boring” is the primary thought, and I’m a truly bad person because I have this sad, dramatic story around it not letting me get close to the emotion.

C dating partner does (or doesn’t) do something
T I am not enough.
F fear
A check his FB obsessively, wander around apartment doing thought work in my head (and sporadically on paper), don’t do things I need to get done
R I am not enough for myself

I still keep thinking I’m missing something. I keep doing versions of this model over and over, and don’t know how to proceed.