sorry, I didn't realize those people didn't post here anymore! I would at love as much feedback as possible. My intentions were not to make anyone feel second best!

soo here is my original post:

Hi, I was wondering if you would tell me what is in store for my relationship with Christopher. We are seemingly at a crossroad in our relationship, and I would like to know if we will stay together or not. Will he invest time & effort in our relationship or are we done? Do you see him initiating contact soon? Thanks!

Dear Heather,  

That I am afraid is the transient nature of the internet.

People have their own lives to life beyond these forums, and nobody should feel dependent on a particular reader being available at the time you want him or her. But I can assure you that we work quite well together as a team on this board and that there will therefore always be someone who is willing to help you in the true spirit of love (within the forum rules of course).

Now with regards to your relationship with Christopher your question about whether he will initiate contact with you soon suggests that your relationship is not so much at a crossroads as it is at a stalemate. It is not so much that one of you is not able to be the first person to say sorry or admit that they are at least partially responsible for the relationship problems you have both been experiencing, but it is I feel more a case of neither of you being willing to make the first move towards resolving your conflicts and disagreements as you do not wish your self pride to be hurt. in the process.

I do not know exactly what has eventually lead to this impasse but I do sense that if you both continue to play the blame game (it is all your fault that this happened) with each other and bring up events from the past to be used as weapons against your partner then I do not feel very confident that your relationship will survive the first half of 2008. I certainly do not feel that the situation is yet either entirely hopeless or totally unrecoverable, but I feel that if things between you do not soon significantly change for the better, then the writing for you not getting back together is clearly on the wall, so to speak.

Am I right in sensing that one of you has had their trust seriously betrayed, or at least believes that this has occurred? I really do feel that trust is something which must be earned, but that on the other hand no matter how much we love another person, one day it is inevitable that we will unintentionally do something which may hurt the person whom we most love. I am not wishing to excuse his or your actions which may have lead to the feeling of trust dying between you, but I am simply asking you to have some compassion for your partner by realising that they are as fallible as we all are and sometimes we make the wrong decision.

If you can somehow both accept that each of you is an FHB (Fallible Human Being) and show as much compassion and understanding for them as you should always do for yourself, then I do feel a renewed sense of confidence that things could still work out well for the both of you as a couple. Basically you need to reopen the channels of communication between you and Christopher, by attentively talking to and listening to each other without immediately interjecting before the other person has completed their sentence.

Talking with mutual respect for each other's rights about the things which you each feel are important to say is I believe your only real hope of bringing a sense of healing to this partnership. Unless there is an openness to the possibility that things can be made better if you are willing to swallow your respective prides and work together co-operatively, then I am sorry to have to tell you that I do not see much future for your relationship with Christopher, beyond perhaps taking turns at calling each other by hurtful names.

The hard facts of life are that beginning and keeping a close relationship going over the longer term is often plain hard work for both parties, and many people unfortunately have highly romanticised ideas that if we truly love a person then it must necessarily be a case of living happily ever after in a state of eternal bliss. Equally unfortunately, real life when living with another person on a daily basis is rarely if ever as simple and clear cut as we have been so often lead to believe in this regard by writers of those romantic novels.

Love, Light and Healing,

eye_of_tiger