Dear Laine:

You shared that you met your partner, a warm, caring, understanding, and the most attentive man you’ve ever dated, back in July 2022. You assess the compatibility between the two of you (similar or identical values, politics, interests, hobbies, backgrounds and life experiences) to be “very high“, but the chemistry: “simply okay… sex life is lack luster“, but he is eager to work on that.

“I found myself rehearsing in my head for hours in the months leading up to the trip, arguing at my mom“, “I had a good trip, made some repairs to my relationship with my mother, feeling closer to her as a result and enjoyed the company of dad and brother… So what repairing and getting closer to my mom actually looked like in person was lots of argument and confrontation“-how can it be, I asked myself as I read this: how can closeness and repair be congruent with arguing and confronting?

“My mom and I have a lot in common, including being emotional, hot-headed and opinionated at times. As my brother described it, ‘[We] both come in hot.‘“- you weren’t born emotional and hot headed, it wasn’t a genetical trait that was passed on from mother to daughter, like the color of one’s eyes. You were born to a hot-headed mother and you reacted to the mother you lived with.

“when I was younger, I didn’t much stand up for myself or voice my opinions. I’ve been pretty conflict-averse“- like I suggested right above, you were not born arguing. You were not born able to stand (literally) or to stand up for yourself, or to deal with conflicts. No baby is born able to do more than to cry.

“So what repairing and getting closer to my mom actually looked like in person was lots of argument and confrontation… I’ve been pretty conflict-averse much of my life, and it’s only in recent years that I’ve become somewhat more comfortable meeting it head on… I didn’t feel very seen by my parents growing up and beyond. My mom can be very self-absorbed and distractible, so sustaining a conversation can be difficult“-

– So what “repairing” the relationship means, what getting closer to your mother means is… matching her ability to be heard, matching her vocal anger, her hot-headedness: like mother like daughter sort of a thing? And when your brother said that you and her, “both come in hot” that made you feel closer to him, for saying it, and closer to your mother, for being thought of as similar to her?

I have more thoughts, and would like to attend to your last, very significant line (“And yes, I am scared. Of so much”) later, after you- hopefully- respond to this post.

anita

Dear Laine:

I am returning to your thread and it is okay with me if you don’t reply. Maybe reading the following will be helpful to you. I don’t think it can hurt you, so here it is:

“I didn’t feel very seen by my parents growing up and beyond. My mom can be very self-absorbed and distractible“- in my 2nd post to you, six days ago, I wrote: “your experience with your parents when you were 4, 5, 6.. (your first decade of your life), was different from the totality of your 3 decades experience with them which you remember now“.

Today, I am thinking about your 1st decade experience: It is in young children’s nature to see themselves as the cause of what happens around them; to take responsibility for what they are not responsible for. When your mother was very self-absorbed etc., that is, severely inattentive to you, you probably felt back then that it was your fault, that you somehow rejected her and that she reacted to your rejection the way she did. And you felt guilty for (in your child misperception) rejecting her.  Also, during your first decade of life, you had a strong thirst for your mother’s attention and for the closeness you’d feel to her if you had her attention. So, two things: Guilt and Thirst.

Fast forward, as an adult, your pattern in romantic relationships has been “marked by feeling really invested and into a person“- driven by the Thirst for attention and closeness I mentioned above, “then having my feelings quickly change, experiencing a need to flee, escape“- driven by the Guilt I mentioned above. The thought under the surface may be something like: if I continue to enjoy closeness with this man, that would make me a bad girl, a bad daughter for choosing closeness with this man after rejecting my own mother!  So you end the relationship with the man/ partner, so to be a good girl, a good daughter. It is a sort of unfinished business (to feel close with your mother) that you need to be attended to before you are allowed- by your conscience- closeness with a partner.

“I’ve left both times considering moving back down south to be closer to them. Maybe it’s also partially that my partner can’t fill that emptiness I experience“- you’ve been considering finishing that unfinished business of.. finally accepting your mother (based on the misperception that you were the one who rejected her).

I hope that you resist the urge to end the relationship with your partner and that you attend quality psychotherapy to help you with your emotional struggle.

anita