I spent the afternoon with Phil today. It was perfect. Every time we’re together, it feels so good.

Being with Phil is the only time I feel grounded; the rest of the time, I feel slightly out of control and very empty. Despite that, I still can’t say that I won’t end things with him again in a few weeks when something gets to me, and I stop loving him again. I don’t know why I stop loving him and then start again a couple of weeks later. I don’t understand why I do this at all. I completely convince myself, with 100% certainty, that I don’t love him, that I never did and never will and then once I’ve got over myself, I want him back. For a few weeks, everything is great; I feel deeply connected and totally in love… until the next time. Why?

I can’t fake, not even to myself, the way I feel when I’m with him. I feel amazing. It feels right. I know I am feeling love for him, so why then does it suddenly stop?

Recently, I’ve been really scared that I may have something wrong with me, maybe I’m Bipolar or have some other mental illness, because I don’t think what I’m feeling – this on/off thing – is right at all. I even researched mental disorders, but I didn’t match any of the symptoms. I then googled, ‘One minute I love him, the next I hate him’, and I found a load of information on the Hamlet Syndrome, and it fits. It’s basically ambivalence I am suffering from.

A passage from an article I came across really summed me up. It was about the fears that can make us ambivalent in intimate relationships – the fear of being exposed or rejected, of becoming too vulnerable, of being abandoned or trapped, of losing our independence, and ultimately of being truly known by someone and then finding that they no longer want us.

Read the original article here.

I know my issue is fear; I am literally crippled by it at the moment, in all areas of my life. I am ambivalent about everything, mainly Phil. Deep down, I know that having a proper relationship with Phil, one where we live together and/or marry, would be very satisfying. I had a massive ball of anxiety rise in my chest as I wrote that, but deep down, I know it to be true. Phil is a good man with a good heart and a kind soul, and he loves me unconditionally.

I really want to drop all of these fears I have about relationships – the fears aren’t even about Phil; they’re about all relationships, with any man. I want to make changes in my life instead of sitting here, every single day, existing with the same dull life that isn’t doing anything or going anywhere. I’m settling for an ordinary, dull life on my own because I’m scared.