Obsession with a person and its ruining my life!

[GirlAfraid]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum & need somewhere to turn.
Not sure if I'm posting in the right place but here goes:

I have always been an anxious person, as a child I had obsessive ways & had to see counseller & psychologists plenty of times.

The reason I am here today is due to an obsession I have with somebody I met at university around 4 years ago now, we became close friends very quickly and began spending alot of time in each other's company. I was suffering from some anxiety/depression and his presence pulled me out of it in some ways and I felt forever indebted to him. As cheesy as it sounds we were practically the same person, we had the same interests, taste in music and clicked in every way.

As time progressed and we spent more time together, speaking everyday, we went out one night and ended up kissing, from that moment the line between friendship and more had definatley been blurred. I knew straight away he was the person I wanted to be with forever. Not only were we best friends but we also shared a beautiful moment - a fair few times that night and I often go over this in my head, time & again, despite it being 3 or so years ago now.
There are always complications though and as it turned out, he still had feelings for his ex girlfriend, somebody he claimed he was in love with, despite her bad behaviour of him - sleeping with other men etc.

My heart was broken and I tried desperatley to make him see sense. We stayed friends and one night we ended up kissing again and he came back to the flat I shared with some friends at the time. We were both quite drunk so nothing happened but we shared a bed and stayed up talking until the early hours.
After that hings began to spiral out of my control, I began to obsess about him; texting/emailing him constantly to meet me or speak to me and consider my feelings for him. He still went back to her. So I tried my hardest to forget about him and went back to my home town to live as second year was over by then, vowing to myself that I would commute in third year. A few weeks went by and I met someone else, he is my current boyfriend and I've been with him 3 years in May this year.
Anyway, this only stopped the obsession for a little while, the object of my affections then began trying to contact me again and told me he and the ex girlfriend were no more, he then said he had been wondering what it would have been like if we had got together...abit late really as I had my boyfriend by then.

This brings us up to present day, cutting the story short. I am still utterly obsessed with him, I find ways of speaking to him over the internet, text and I am always looking at his social network profiles to see what he is doing.
I have been back to my old university town countless times in recent months and one time I did see him, again cutting a long story short, we didn't speak but I plucked up the courage to contact him and we decided to meet up - much to my amazement. That was 4 or 5 months ago now but certainly doesn't seem that long. Unfortunatley it was exactly as it always was when we met, we joked about everything, he made me laugh as he always did and it was as though no time had passed between us. This fueled my obsession even more, although of course it was my fault entirely for meeting him in the first place. Instead of getting the closure I had hoped for, my obsession was stronger than ever. I contacted him a few times over christmas and new year just gone in desperate attempts to gain his feelings, I said I wanted to sleep with him and promised to "make it worth his while" strangely enough he did reply saying he would love to do those things but his head was telling him no. The rejection hit me like a tonne of bricks, not to mention the guilt I am feeling right now as I have a boyfriend of nearly 3 years who knows nothing of this.
He then contacted me again out of the blue saying my new hair colour was nice and I looked beautiful. I couldn't believe it, I felt sick with it but since then I haven't heard from/seen him since.
I am so very lost right now, everyday I am crying and looking through old photos of the two of us together. I am constantly watching his social network feed and praying I don't see something that points towards a love for somebody else. I know the ins and outs of his life and I feel like a stalker. I am actually considering going to his home town just to catch a glimpse of him again.
I am so scared I will be like this forever and never have the opportunity to feel real happiness ever again because I am always pining for him.
Do I declare my feelings and see what happens?
Or do I try to move on completley? although the pure thought of that alone make me want to break down.

[lupinerainbow]

I think that you need to let him go out of your life, if you are meant to be together then you will be at some point. I also think you need to look at the relationship you have at the moment are you happy with it? If so then maybe you should try to make you current relationship work. Maybe you and the guy you are obsessed with could become friends again but i think if you make it anything more than that then you will get hurt in the long run because he has made it clear that he only wants to be friends on more than one occassion. Sorry if this is not the answer you are looking for, i just don't want you to get hurt. I think maybe you need to talk to your cpn/doctor or something about ways to get over your obsession with him because its unhealthy and it is going to end up hurting someone pretty bad, whether it be you or your boyfriend of 3 years. I really hope this helps

Lupine x

[mum of sufferer]

Throughout my 50 odd years, I have come across a few people, men and women, who have been very adept at 'sussing' others out, then pretending to be the sort of person those others would like. In more extreme cases, I have seen this applied in relationships, where the individual doing this does so in order to emotionally feed off other/s.

Such people enjoy, or simply get a 'kick' and amusement out of the fact they can 'make others fall in love' with them. Of course, those they trick do not really love the individual person doing this, as that individuals 'character' is a sham.

I am not saying this man has definitely done this, but should you discount the possibility? The way he picks you up when he wants to feed his ego, then drops you again without any thought as to how he is hurting you AND the relationship you are in, indicates to me he is playing mind games with you. I suspect you - and very probably a few other women - are just handy when he wants an ego boost.

I don't think you love him, because I don't think you know the REAL him. I think he simply plays women so that they believe they are in love with the fictional character he puts forth.

Not only his complete disregard for hurting you and your current relationship, but also that there is always an excuse not to take things further and make any sort of commitment to a regular, normal, romantic and long-term relationship with you.

I suspect he knows that the way to make many animals move is to put the promise of a treat before them, then keep moving it in the direction desired, only occasionally giving the animal a little taste so the poor creature doesn't become too discouraged. The same principle often works with humans. Politicians and big business types use this psychology on the populace all the time, and this man appears to have been using it on you.

You obviously know you must break away from him, and your real question is 'how?'

Knowing he is an 'actor' who has presented himself as the perfect man for you should be enough for you to close any feelings you believed you had for him, simply because the man he presented himself as being does not exist (at least, does not exist in him). You can't love a character who isn't real, anymore than you can honestly love, for instance, a fictional character in a tv soap - because you know it's just an actor acting.

People who have confidence and love themselves well enough don't tend to obsess over others, so perhaps you need to do some confidence 'work-outs', such as looking in the mirror two or three times a day and telling your reflection "YOU are actually a really nice person", "I love you, because YOU are worth loving", "YOU deserve to be treated nicely", and "you only want people in your life who treat you nicely", along with other positive statements. It takes about two weeks to begin to really work but, yes, I utterly promise it does work.

IF your boyfriend or anyone else sees you doing this and laughs, just say it is confidence building, and shrug off any mick taking. Then, continue to do it for however many weeks or months you need to.

I am sure all will be well for you when you do build up the confidence not to 'need' the so-called love and attention of emotional users.

Best wishes.

[kizzysmad!]

Thank you mum suffer that helped me too xx