I (23F) am leaving for school, only a 6 week program, soon. My boyfriend (25M) isn’t too on board with it considering I’ll be living 6h away and it makes him worry.
I’ve come to realize that a lot of his irrational arguments to convince me not to go (i.e that I’ll get sexually assaulted, or that I’m uprooting my life) is him projecting that he is afraid and/or doesn’t want to be alone. This is the longest time we’ll be apart ever and we’ve been together for 6 years.
I want him to be supportive, but I don’t know how to make him realize that he is projecting. To be honest I’m not even sure if he would admit it if he realized. Therapy or anything requiring a professional is out of the picture.
I just want to know what to say/do to get him to realize he’s projecting something deeper by making up all these irrational fears trying to scare me into not going.
5 comments
This isn’t projecting. This is him attempting to manipulate you into staying by trying to put fear into you, and basically throwing a temper tantrum because he isn’t getting his way. Don’t let him stop you from doing something that is going to benefit your future.
Don’t concern yourself over it.
Let him voice his concerns/fairytales and just do what you do.
He will adjust and even out over time.
I’d ask leading questions that any logical person would be able to conclude that “oh, maybe I AM the problem” and watch the look on their face when they realize it. You know? If you asked a normal person, they’d probably quickly come to the realization that things aren’t what they seem. What happens after they realize it, is how you determine their character.
An example: my sister got mad at her baby daddy one time because he wouldn’t drive 45 minutes out of his way, just to pick her up so she could go to some silly school thing for their daughter. So I forced her to look at the situation from his perspective. “Would you go 45 minutes out of your way to pick him up for something like this?”
“Well this is different!”
“No, seriously. If you were in his shoes, would you do that?”
“No, this is different!”
Eventually I got her to admit that no, she wouldn’t do that either if she were in his shoes. But she still believed she was entitled to special treatment for some odd reason…
Thats beside the point though lol. Does this make sense?
That’s pretty insecure, a healthy person would try to setup some weekends to visit you / you visit them
Just agree, that yes bad things might happen but they could happen here and now, and fear will not control your life or prevent you from living or taking chances.