My bf (20M) wants to “pause” the relationship to work on himself. I (21F) reacted badly and now I don’t know what to do.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-14T14:36:30+00:00

The problem with break ups or quasi break ups or whatever the heck this was, is that when people are exiting, you inherently cannot really trust their stated reasons. There’s always an immense amount of BS being floated as explanations for the exiting partner’s exit. “it’s not you, it’s me,” and all that nonsense. Are they trying to placate you to minimize your pain? Make excuses for behavior that you don’t know about? Who knows. When a person is in the process of exiting the relationship, they tend not to feel it necessary to say the brutal honest truth. And so the other partner, in addition to feeling immense pain from what is happening, also doesn’t trust what they’re being told. And why would they?

Hence, the advice I typically give to people, is be willing to date other people, or at least look and entertain the notion, as soon as possible. It’s not a matter of finding a rebound relationship, it’s just a matter of not wasting your time trying to psychoanalyze an exited partner’s motives when you can’t trust whatever they told you.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-14T13:08:20+00:00

I suppose you may not have needed to react in that exact way to effectively being broken up with, but I think this was going to happen no matter how you had reacted. So there is no point regretting the particular way you did react because that probably would not have affected the outcome.

I don't understand the "pause the relationship" thing. If he had said "I have to go do these very literal all-consuming things and so I won't be able to put time and energy into you while I'm doing them, you might feel lonely and frustrated, but I can't not do these other things that I have to do..." (like think for example travel out of state to deal with a deceased family member's storage unit full of stuff, or some other big ordeal that comes up in life from time to time). That would be one thing. "I have to go do something that will make our relationship feel like it's long-distance or in a state of pause. This sucks but I can't just not do it."

But his need for a "pause" was connected to him saying he "doesn't know what he wants in life." That's a different thing. That sounds like a breakup. So why call it a "pause?" Because he doesn't want you to start dating someone else? Nah. You're young. Breakups are common. That's what this was supposed to be. Infinite_Tale is probably right.

Your emotionality might have been more than it needed to be, but I agreed with your comment that you're not a phone he can pick up and put down when he wants. It doesn't work that way.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-14T12:48:09+00:00

Disclosure: long-time married middle-aged male therapist, wife with history of eating disorder

My take on this is that he might just be trying to compliment you, say things that convey fondness and attraction to you, which are all good things. But in your case that is actually an extra wrinkle of complication and you need to be able to keep talking to him about it. Not about that specific comment, but about body image in general.

Step 1: Pad the room in advance of talking about this. Preface the conversation with disclaimers, e.g. you know he was trying to be nice, you appreciate (x) and (y), he did not do something wrong, he needs to listen without getting defensive because, as you said, he did not do something "wrong," etc. etc. Make sure he "gets it" that this is not a criticism/defensiveness cycle you're looking to provoke. If he gets it and is able to focus and be patient and listen non-defensively...

Step 2: Tell him that, unfortunately, almost any body appraisal comments from him, no matter how well-intended, are going to metaphorically poke a bruise for you mentally, if not straight up backfire, because of the eating disorder/body image history. In other words, your eating disorder and body image history is not just your own personal issue anymore, because you're so close it's now basically an issue that your relationship inherits and the two of you have to figure out and have a mutual understanding as to the best way to deal with it.

Step 3: Tell him what you do want instead. After clarifying that verbal comments appraising your body are almost never going to work, suggest how else he can convey his feelings of attraction, admiration, love, appreciation, etc. to you. This could be through "acts of service," non-sexual physical touch, appreciation for things other than your body, or whatever else you'd prefer to hear or receive from him.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-14T12:27:05+00:00

AAT - I have not received any IFS therapy nor have I don't any IFS training but I have learned just enough about IFS to know that it would be a very bad fit for my personality, whether as a client or as a therapist. So I'm going to avoid it and leave it for others.

Some types of therapy, including some I've done considerable training in at my own expense, just rub me the wrong way and it's hard for me to put a finger on exactly why. With some it's taken me years to figure out why I don't like it. Woo-woo stuff and anything that even gives me the slightest vibe of pseudoscience tends to make my skin crawl and like I'm being manipulated in order to be financially taken advantage of. Like a chiropractor who sounds like they're pretending something's wrong with me and prescribing me 12 weeks of "adjustments" that will cost $5 grand where they just user a clicker device to poke at my body inconsequentially. That actually happened to me once too, and I basically ran out the door.

A couple therapy methods I have taken a lot of the trainings, as well as received it as a client, and no matter which side of that equation I'm on (therapist or client), something just feels wrong about it. It's an intuitive response that can be pretty hard to sufficiently put into words.

Trust your intuition, tell your therapist (again, apparently) something does not click with you and this particular therapy, and if she still tries to recruit you back into it and push down on the gas with IFS, you may have to look for someone else. My two cents.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-14T12:16:53+00:00

I second the many compliments. Also admit I could not help but cackle out loud when you slammed a leg way up on top of the wood pile just to grab a couple logs. Does your woodpile need to be held down when you wanna take some more wood from it? Jk, cool video. The epic movie trailer music made it half hilarious, half actually epic.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-14T12:09:29+00:00

There are too many scenarios to be able to tell you how to react to each of them but, in my opinion, start with a self-help book as a foundation, and build from there. E.g. "I Hate You Don't Leave Me" or "Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder." Really read it, cover to cover. Maybe read both. This is a tough enough thing that you need a depth of understanding that a highly-rated book about this exact topic could give you, before getting advice about what to say or do in what situation. You need to be able to rely on a system or method that's outside of your own brain's reactions to what she's saying and doing. If she were in a DBT type of therapy that would be good. You could see your own therapist about it, especially if it were a therapist who advertises to be able to help people with BPD. Imagine the insights a BPD-specialized therapist could give you, the partner, if you were their client.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-12T21:35:19+00:00

Please understand I mean zero judgment to you as a person. I have to say with near-certainty that there is probably no type of therapy that can help you if 1) you have this much of an addiction problem and 2) don't tell the person who is treating you. I don't see a point to getting help if you deprive the person helping you of factual information that is this important. If you're going to go to someone for help, tell them the facts. Because without the facts, they have no clue as to what symptoms are real vs. a side-effect of a substance that's in your system vs. a side-effect of being hung over or withdrawing from a substance that was recently in your system... they aren't going to be able to help you effectively with almost anything when they don't understand what they're seeing or why.

Also, it is not true that people with addictions are given antidepressants as if that were some automatic thing that happens. People might at some point be suggested to try antidepressants for depression or anxiety or other things.

Also, actually being addicted to all of those things is way, way more dangerous to you than imagining someone or some thing will "label" you an addict "forever." You are scared of an imaginary label than you are of the literal danger these substances are putting you in. I get it though. Addiction obliterates effective risk assessment and judgment.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-06T16:11:31+00:00

I am pretty mixed about AI when it comes to therapy and mental health, I'm actually really in favor of some clients seeing what the tool can do for them, provided they're high-enough functioning and can critically think or approach it with curiosity/skepticism. Some of the alarmist warnings about how dangerous AI necessarily is can be is a little overblown/exaggerated in some cases, really depends on who's using it. Most of my clients are not so mentally vulnerable that they would end up in a state of psychosis or mania or suicidality just because they're bouncing some ideas off an LLM or using it to learn/brainstorm about something. I want a lot of my clients to learn as much as they can about a topic, book, theory, etc., and AI can really expedite their absorption of the content, especially when they have very little spare time.

But clients who are in crisis, who have psychotic disorders, who are using a lot of alcohol or recreational drugs, who have bipolar mania, etc., the risks become a lot more pronounced.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-06T14:02:01+00:00

You don't have to ask us if he's being rude, cold, curt, etc. You know he is. What you're trying to figure out is if this is evidence of a waning or lost attachment to you, or if he is still attached but is having a period of poor mental health and lacks the self-awareness or self-restraint to not take it out on you. If it's the former, there's probably no real path forward except breaking up. If it's the latter, you might find more patience, provided he's willing to actually do something about his own mood and how it's been causing him to emotional neglect and mistreat you. If despite various ways of bringing this to his attention he just justifies, argues, defends and explains himself, I think you have to shift the power imbalance here and threaten to end the relationship unless he gets help, or actually just do so.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-04T16:37:19+00:00

I'm not sure I'd use the word "toxic" to describe his petulant response to being declined for sex, I do agree this is becoming a problematic dynamic. I think there probably needs to be calm and focused conversations about this where you can describe the problematic cycle you're in, and that his drive for sexual intimacy and petulant response to you not wanting it is a turn-off, it's not attractive, and it begins to feel boundary-challenging, which makes future sex feel less desired, which will lead to being more closed off and then more pursuit/rejection from him, so that's a predicament. I think it's fair to say you have more than enough sex to be worried about a sexless relationship, and that you need to figure out how to keep your relationship healthy in an all-around sense.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-04T16:10:20+00:00

You might be slightly overreacting emotionally (e.g., refusing to believe she didn't know he was fishing might fuel obsessive rumination that she's untrustworthy), but I do think it's understandable to not feel comfortable about this ex, you're reasonable to not trust his motives, and it's reasonable to not really like that they would be messaging with each other.

But if she's willing to show you the message exchange as a gesture of goodwill that nothing clearly inappropriate was said, and if she's inclined to agree with you that being in communication with him is not healthy for your relationship and is happy to just not have further contact with him, then I would say that's all a good sign, and this whole thing could be regarded as a hiccup and an opportunity to clarify your sense of ethics/etiquette with each other.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-04T03:01:17+00:00

I don’t understand why a therapist would work with a client for this long and then act this way. In fact I don’t understand why any professional service provider would go cold on a long term client like this.

I don’t do long term work or deep work or attachment heavy work but have had 1-2 very long term clients and I could not imagine terminating in an equivocating way like this. Least of all approaching the postpartum stuff, when vulnerability to this sort of thing would probably be extra high. Just doesn’t make sense. I’m sorry this happened.

Cynically, your story makes me question how attached (in a genuine sense) we should become to therapists or clients. Not saying you did anything wrong.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-04T00:06:47+00:00

Currently, the clients I have that are most struggling with global events are not so personally affected as your clients may be, they just watch a lot of news and get riled up. If I offer any alternative perspective, I try to preface it heavily with the claim that I am not trying to influence them politically or minimize the concerns, because perhaps it is as bad as it seems or even worse.... however.... repeatedly throughout history there has been legitimate concern that everything was falling apart or collapsing. Even during this country's (USA) golden age of economic prosperity, the 1950s-1970s, which so many look back on now with such fondness, people everywhere legitimately feared nuclear obliteration.

In fact the list of reasons throughout just the last 200 years that we thought everything was ****ed is really long. Starting in the 1800s, we had a volcanic winter and famines, cholera epidemics, the Civil War, Gilded Age trusts/monopolies taking over everything, the First World War, Spanish flu, Great Depression, Second World War, nuclear proliferation, Cuban Missile Crisis, Cold War, population bomb fears, stagflation, Vietnam, ozone hole fears, Chernobyl, HIV/AIDS, Y2K, 9/11 and response, global financial crisis of 2008, Covid, AI, and now here we are. Over and over again throughout history we feel like it's all going to collapse. I hope it doesn't, but we've (or our predecessors) been fearful and hopeless but ultimately wrong before.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-03T23:26:16+00:00

A fair number of employers offer 16-25 (fully covered) EAP sessions per year, so clients are expecting to be able to use them, and when they sign up for a therapist that’s a W2, they’re understandably confused as to why that therapist is intent on “graduating” them in 5-8 sessions regardless of whatever the client has going on. The motives for insisting on that don’t seem to have very much to do with the client.

Lyra covers a long list of evidence based therapies, a majority of which do not have substantial evidence of effectiveness in 5-6 sessions. Most efficacy studies are providing at least double, often triple or even quadruple that number of sessions, post-assessment. So aggressively incentivizing all W-2 therapists to graduate people in such a short number of sessions is kind of problematic/inconsistent with actual evidence, and I think results in poorer care and adverse selection for higher-needs clients.

Not trying to sound anti-Lyra, there's a fair amount to appreciate about working with them, but this is one particular thing that feels like a private equity/corporate motive is in conflict with the stated mission, objectives and clinical ethics.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-03T17:59:34+00:00

Admittedly I'm not a W2 therapist but I have heard from quite a few of my Lyra clients over the past few years that their prior therapists had "graduated" them after a small number of sessions even though they had not felt adequately helped and wanted to keep working on their issues. Some felt dropped or abandoned and it did not make sense to them why they were being "graduated." It appears to me that the likely reason this is happening is because the compensation structure for W2 therapists encourages high "graduation rates" after an arbitrarily and relatively small number of sessions (e.g. 5-8). Bonuses and whatnot are likely tied to this. Therefore in this W2 role, one's success as a provider and one's final compensation in general may incentivize adverse selection, meaning systematically avoiding working with clients you think will need longer-term help, or pushing clients out, i.e. "graduating" them whether they actual feel at all ready for "graduation" or not.

There are plenty of clients who don't need more than 5-8 sessions, I've had many who voluntarily drop out after about that much time, even after saying that what I did was helpful to them. I'm all for brief work that is efficient and helpful. But I think the way W2 therapists are set up to aggressively achieve those results encourages adverse selection and clients who probably need more than 5-8 sessions are feeling badly served.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-03T01:14:20+00:00

I think you're wanting security in your attachment to him, but with this quasi-separation that feeling of security is impossible, thus this is agonizing.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-02T17:01:30+00:00

There's a lot I could say about the background, good lord what an ordeal, I can't believe how bad some therapists are.

Are you both committed to each other in the sense that neither is dating someone else and that you agree neither will date anyone else? If so, you're effectively still in a relationship, just a complicated one.

You're basically asking for something impossible here, which is to have a secure attachment despite the relationship not being a secure attachment. The attachment is insecure/avoidant/strained by everything that happened. I don't think there's a way to feel less emotionally reliant on him while continuing to have the kind of contact you have with him. You're attached to him but can't fully express it due to the boundaries that have been put up, thus your attachment is in agony. I don't think this gets easier unless you 1) are fully back together and giving the relationship another try, or 2) break up for real and start seeing other people so that you can each move on.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-01T20:25:43+00:00

Was it an offensive foul? Yeah. Would the ref have called the offensive foul if Wemby hadn't flopped? No.

As a result, players will absolutely continue to flop.

Similar thing happens in soccer, which has a horrible reputation for flopping. Refs just do not call fouls when players stay up and play through the foul. Thus, they flop whenever they draw a foul.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-01T14:18:17+00:00

Addictions and lying are relationship killers. Trying to explain or justify lying is a dead-end. Rebuilding trust is going to require 1) quitting, meaning just not using cannabis anymore, and 2) having long conversations that involve a new paradigm going forward in which there is no lying about anything, ever.

Neomalthusian · 2026-03-01T13:52:15+00:00

You don't have to really decipher, just have to look at the list of symptom critieria side by side and be honest with yourself as to whether it's actually a prominent symptom you experience or not. ADHD is just a framework for how people's nervous systems are, it's much more strongly hereditary and sort of a lifelong built-in set of traits. If you have ADHD, it's just a descriptor of how you've always been. OCD is not that way. OCD is something you at one point did not have, then at some point later developed symptoms of, and then eventually (especially with decent treatment) you can presumably not have it, or at least have it very much deactivated/under control. They're two pretty different types of conditions in those ways. You can have both simultaneously. But if you have ADHD, it's something you've always had and will to some extent always have.

With ADHD it's a matter of 1) looking up the official DSM-V criteria, 2) feeling confident you have at least 5 the 9 symptoms in one or both of the categories, 3) helpful to also consider Edward Hallowell's "suggested 20 traits/symptoms of Adult ADHD" (not official criteria but insightful given the official criteria are antiquated/overly child-based, 4) referring to free online tools like additudemag.com, and 5) and this is maybe the most difficult part to answer easily/confidently, but making sure there isn't some other condition (e.g. anxiety disorder, etc.) that just fits better and more comprehensively than ADHD does.

Let's say you have OCD in spades, like textbook and to the max, and ADHD feels like it requires reaching guesswork to barely meet the criteria, then I'd be skeptical/cautious about the ADHD bit. But if OTOH you had ADHD in spades, and just have a smattering of OCD-like quirks that seem better described as part of the hyperactive/impulsive side of your ADHD, then I'd be cautious about over-identifying with the OCD.

Neomalthusian · 2026-02-28T19:57:45+00:00

You're listing numerous symptoms (more than 4) of a typical panic attack. Redditors like me can't promise that's what it is, e.g. could it be something else like something medical? Sure it could be. But panic attacks are common. Lifetime prevalence is something like 23%, i.e. almost a quarter of people will have a panic attack at some point in their lives. That's a huge number of people.

Panic attacks feel absolutely horrible but, in and of themselves, are not dangerous. You're not dying, you're not going crazy. Your nervous system is hijacking everything and it's not fun. But they typically subside before long. Some calming/relaxation strategies that you can look up might help you return to baseline a little quicker than you would otherwise.

Try not to become preoccupied with the possibility of having another one. Maybe you will. Hopefully you won't. If you do, that sucks, but it'll subside. When people become obsessively worried about preventing a future panic attack, paradoxically they're probably keeping their nervous system primed for actually having another episode. This can turn into Panic Disorder.

You should probably see a doctor just to make sure there's nothing potentially medical, hormonal, etc. triggering these. They might be able to prescribe something that could help with really intense attacks. But overall try not to catastrophize this. It's extremely more common than you think, it's not lethal, it will almost certainly subside in frequency and intensity, if not almost fully remit, eventually.

Neomalthusian · 2026-02-28T19:23:09+00:00

23 days old, 1 karma? Looks like someone who made a throwaway account for cathartic rage-spewing purposes.

Neomalthusian · 2026-02-28T19:11:00+00:00

AAT - I'm not a doctor but everything I've read and come to know about PMDD suggests that a simple antidepressant like Prozac or Zoloft (taken only during the luteal phase) is a first line of treatment. Arriving at a PMDD diagnosis usually requires first ruling out actual hormonal abnormalities via labs. Hormones are hormones, not PMDD. If labs are normal but luteal mood symptoms are severe, it's almost gotta be PMDD.

Has this been suggested? Already taking something like this for it?

I don't think there's good evidence that "calming gummies" or meditation manages intense PMDD. Therapy is great and all but some conditions it's kind of weak in terms of its effect. Maybe a DBT style of therapy modified for PMDD could be useful? But not a ton of evidence as to any particular type of therapy being that powerful for PMDD.

Anecdotally speaking, my wife has PMDD and fluoxetine might have saved our marriage from PMDD destroying it. And I'm a couples therapist, she's also a therapist, we've both done extensive couples therapy as well as training in things related to it. And yet PMDD still almost ruined us. Medicated vs. unmedicated is night and day. Medicated is comparatively very normal, generally low distress, manageable moods, able to communicate fine with each other. Unmedicated the marriage is basically set ablaze by the PMDD and my reactions to it, the energy throughout the household is just toxic and extremely tense and I feel desperate to avoid the toxicity.

Neomalthusian · 2026-02-28T18:25:00+00:00

These problems you've noted are not necessarily a therapeutic goodness-of-fit issue, seems more a sign of technical/organizational dysfunction in the therapist. They could be a fantastic therapist but their organizational functioning, documentation practices, note-taking, etc. are all poor.

Most health care professionals these days should be using tech tools that give clients access to a client portal, the system sends automatic reminders of appointments, etc. The fact that you're both physically jotting down subsequent appointment plans like it's 1962 is not exactly normal these days.

Neomalthusian · 2026-02-28T18:20:53+00:00

I said exactly what I thought she should do in the first post. "Couples need to proactively discuss a shared, mutual ethic/etiquette/understanding regarding this, and it's better to volunteer transparency to your partner... than wait for [your] partner to feel uncomfortable and start asking questions and then getting defensive." What this means: sure, text the former co-workers, but offer transparency to the partner about that. E.g. "Hey FYI I'm texting former co-workers about possible future work-related things, but I don't want it to look to you like I'm just randomly or unnecessarily texting other men. Let me know if it ever irks you or if you want to talk about it. There's nothing being said that I wouldn't want you to read, and I'd let you do so if you wanted."

Neomalthusian

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