Dear Lisa:

This morning, I re-read most of your posts on this thread and a few of my long replies to you.  Your started your first of two threads, the Alone thread, back on May 1, 2017, and I replied to you on that same day.  You wrote back then: “I am female and 48 years old. I have never had a relationship. I have always longed for one. Every day since I was a teen I have imagined being in relationships“.

By the end of your 26-page Alone thread (Jan 1, 2019), you were optimistic: “Happy New Year!! I would like to take your advice Anita and start a new thread. I think I have said all I can say in this thread about my insecurities, frustration, jealousy, hurt….I am just going around in circles. I would like to make a more positive tone thread… I want to start with what is going on right now and talk about and being more proactive in reaching my goals. I am very optimistic right now but I have not come up with a name for my thread. I will think about it today. It will be optimistic“.

Two weeks later, on Jan 15, 2019, you started your 2nd of two thread, this one, titled Choosing Love, indeed an optimistic title: “I want to start this new thread to open myself up to the truth about why I am alone and what I can do to change that… I call this thread Choosing Love because I feel that maybe I have rejected love… I want to change my focus from wondering why love does not come to me to why I am obviously pushing love away“.

Today, 5 years, 1 month and 21 days later, I want to reply to the above in the simplest way I can:  you ‘ve been Alone for five+ decades because people hurt you too much and for too long, too early in your life. It started before you were even born, when you were still in your teenage mother’s womb, and it continued throughout your childhood aka your Formative Years.

And throughout those years, no one protected you; no one helped you. You were truly a child/ adolescent Alone. Emotional pain and severe anxiety were Formed into your brain-body (expressing as ADHD and OCD early on). Understandably, as a child and onward, you’ve viewed people (in real-life, not in your threads) as dangerous. Therefore, you reject and push away people=danger.

Except when daydreaming, something you’ve been engaged with as an adult: when daydreaming, you accept (not reject) people and love,  people= love (not danger)… in your daydreams: “I have an even bigger obstacle, something called maladaptive daydreaming. I have been relying on this since I was around 12 years. Anyone who knows how old I am knows how long I have been using this coping mechanism. I am completely aware of what is real and what is not so it’s not delusional… I do not engage in maladaptive daydreaming when I am with other people but a great deal of my time is spent on it. This is a challenge because I have become quite accustomed to it.” (April 7, 2019)

Feb 14, 2020: “I am right now alone in my misery again… human beings are insensitive creatures… vile disgusting hateful creatures to ever walk the planet. I hate humans. I hate them. No one stops these creeps from stomping all over the world and do whatever they want. No one protects the helpless“- back to pessimism, back to people=dangerous creatures, and Lisa alone vs dangerous creatures.

April 14-17, 2020: “I am alone with no one to help me…. I wish I had someone in my life to help me along the way… I don’t know what to do. If only I had that one lifeline growing up“- Lisa Alone vs dangerous people.

Jan 21, 2023: “Nothing to report except more of the same. People whose only goals in life are the same as reptiles…crushing the hopes and dreams.. they are free to break rules, oppress, ban, and spread lies about others“- people= dangerous reptiles.

March 2, 2024: “There is not much I can say right now. I would just be saying the same things I have said before“- a childhood experience re-lived.

Back to the title of your 2nd thread, Choosing Love: is there a way for you to choose love outside daydreaming: to see a single person in real-life as Love, not as Danger: to see a person not as a bully or someone who supports bullies (the two kinds of people you described), but as something else, someone who can be trusted..?

I hope so, it is my dream that it will happen in your life.

anita

How are you, Kshiti?

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

“Ever since the text exchange I feel like stress/worry was slowly encroaching on my third eye“- there is no doubt that during the exchange, his purpose was to hurt you, and he succeeded.

“What was I thinking? Enter N’s territory so that he could show me more contempt?“- the spider/ fly analogy definitely fits the situation since the breakup, if not before.

“The idea of not seeing him again, relieved me“- yes, it’d be sticky and stressful to get caught in a spider-web of contempt.

“My roommate also said ‘the text exchange showed his maturity, but it was also you initiating it, you entering places for him to harm you.’ This hit my hard, me putting me in those situations, it was under my control to do this. I felt empowered when I realized the control I have over him harming me.. Thank goodness for M“-

– I am impressed with M’s input. True, it’d be unwise for the fly to knowingly, while in control of itself,  enter a spider’s web. As far as N’s maturity, M is correct: he acts immaturely, at least post-breakup.

“A Teflon person like N and F, they claim to be simple, proud of their lack of needs, yet this is a complexity in itself..“- “lack of needs”? I am at a loss here.

“Third eye must rest sometimes right? So when it rests, how do I remember this, when only the children are awake, sacral and heart. I assume over time of the repetition, the third eye repeating to the children over and over until absorbed“- all chakras need rest, and nothing remains static when a person lives with an expanding crown chakra.. the children (heart and sacral chakras) don’t remain the same.. they mature some, over time.

“The guilt is great, it is something that took over me the last week, triggered by his messages. Probably triggered in the relationship.. he told me before that I didn’t listen“- this has been N’s MO all along, hasn’t it? You’d tell him (as kindly and well-intentioned as can be): you are X (X being something requiring improvement), and his response: you are X!.. not mature (pre-breakup)

“This brings me joy and understanding as to why you see me so well“- I have the motivation to see you well, and you were patient and didn’t withdraw (from our communication) when I didn’t see you well, giving me the opportunity to correct and see you better.

 “When I read this, I thought about how when I nanny this 18 month year old, me and her parents are telling her ‘that is a tree’ ‘this is yellow’ ‘that is hot, this is cold.’ From my understanding our formative years are creating this inner world.. Now as an adult, I am attempting to undo some of the inner world that was created incorrectly/misleading… right?“- yes, learning and relearning (expanding crown chakra).

“What would happen if a child grew up with no one telling them labels“- it will be chaos. Children need guidance, and there’s no guidance without labels. key is to give correct labels that make sense!

“This is amazing, I wonder what more you see now?“- because of you, my third eye sees better and my crown chakra is expanded.. because you were patient (and not aggressive or passive-aggressive) when I was wrong, and that gave me the opportunity to open my 3rd eye wider. You made me a wiser person, wiser than I was, that is.

“This is a bees knees moment!“- reading this, it so happens, made me notice a smile on my face, the first today, and it’s already afternoon.

2nd post: “I have always been a ‘coachable’ person… following instructions well… When told I wasn’t loving right, by my dad, I think I just looked at it the same as a sport, he’s right and I can be taught…”– this fits with what you shared earlier, that you were an obedient child/ daughter.

“I do know how to love – My affirmation.“- yes you do.

 “I don’t owe him loyalty. Although he does have a way of making me feel like I do. Even his words, he told me and my siblings all our successes are due to him, what we earn in life is because of where he started us. He loves the baseball analogy ‘you can’t say you hit a home run if you were born on third.‘”- his housecleaning sessions were about him being self centered and selfish, not about you being these things.

 “Although I know this I still feel it engrained in my ‘inner world’… Getting rid of these road bumps/these untrue messages, is the hard part that I am trying to do now…. how do I get rid of these bumps, now that they are spotted“- there are excellent exercises in doing just that, part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). There are worksheets on the topic available online (I just checked).

“Having an ah-ha moment here; this is exactly what I mean when I say I wanted N to see me. When I said “my mom sees me, why can’t he?” this is the seeing I was talking about, or at least a major part of it, that I am loving. I am.“- yes, you are! (second smile of the day is on my face).

“This brings me to an ah-ha moment I had last night. I am watching a show called ‘the bachelor’ with my roommate M…  M made a comment to me, she said ‘maybe this is why you go for men that are not available to you, you like it’…………. (wide eyes emoji). I am now asking myself why do I find an attraction to the type of relationship where one person tries to get the other to be vulnerable… I wonder what I witnessed as a child that I don’t remember“- my understanding: living with F, you tried to reach into F’s closed heart chakra, soften the rough interior there and remove the Teflon (maybe you forgot those efforts on your part). Fast forward, Teflon-minded N (with heart chakra difficulties) reminded you of F, awakening your motivation (hence the attraction) to reach out into N’s heart chakra, and remove his Teflon.

“Another ah-ha moment I had with M…  the ah-ha moment was that (N) began to create those experiences, by putting us in risky situations… he wanted the thrill… he put (his nephew) in the shopping cart then ran in the store with the cart as he stood on the rim and I was terrified it would tip. Somehow N’s Teflon is different than F’s in that sometimes N craves feeling, but maybe to feel past his Teflon he must enter into risky scenarios, whereas F is fine staying in a comfortable resort for all of his trips“- I think that N was/ is emotionally numb chronically, and his way of taking breaks from his chronic numbness is to put himself and others in situations that are physically risky.

This takes me back to your very first post on July 29, 2023: “I’ve tried to communicate about how I want him to compliment me, or be flirtatious. He tries, but it almost gives me an ick the way he does it“- it’s hard for an emotionally numb person to compliment and flirt in any way that comes across as natural. When he tried, it came across icky.

“My flirtation is lost on him“- again, numb.

“He often says ‘love is a choice’“- because for him, being chronically numb… love is not a feeling…???

* I did not respond to everything you brought up. Anything important to you that I missed?

anita

Dear Sandy:

“Being given the silent treatment… I find myself going over a series of events multiple times and wanting to speak out and fixating on what to say and what the best ways to say it“-

– it gets very noisy inside you when you get angry silence from the outside.

“I’ve forgotten how to express my feelings because he hasn’t allowed me… I do not want to be quiet, I want to have a healthy, balanced conversation… I’m just stuck“-

– the loudest part of your internal noise is feeling at fault (“I cannot help but constantly feel at fault”), is it? If so, would you like to elaborate on your history of feeling-at-fault, past and present, give it a voice here, so that it will not be so loud on the inside, so loud that it keeps you stuck?

anita

Dear bella ciao:

I want to put all that you shared together so to see your story as clearly as I can: you are a Christian woman who had a 2.5 years relationship with a younger, Muslim man. From the very beginning of the relationship, he told you that he could not marry you (at any time in the future) because of his culture. Sometime along the relationship, his family arranged a marriage for him, and the two of you decided to part ways so that it will not be so hurtful for you to be with in a relationship with a man who is about to get married.

The two of you parted ways and he got married. After he got married, he contacted you and told you that he married the other woman (now his wife) so to make his family happy, and now, that he “has given that happiness” to them, it is time for him to “follow his heart” and be with “the one for him” (you). He wants to marry you via an Islamic religious ceremony, and live in one household with two wives: with the one for him and with.. the one who is not for him.

Your current state of mind: “My mind has been messed up because he is confusing me a lot… I am trying to understand too what is going on… I am not used to it, sharing with other people. I love him so much and he loves me too. I know this is sound crazy and stupid. I’m losing my mind. Please help me (figure out) what I need to do“-

My current understanding based only on what you shared: he is not a bad person, he told you right from the start what he believed was true: that he couldn’t marry you because of the arranged marriage culture he was born into, (and you not fitting what his parents would choose for him, I figure, being that you are not Muslim, and perhaps that you are older than him). He was honest with you, straightforward.

I don’t fault him for agreeing to marry a woman of his parents’ choosing because there is a huge pressure in this culture to obey the parents and marry whom they choose. Many parents in this culture go to great lengths to pressure an disobedient/ rebellious son, including threatening to commit suicide if the son refuses the arranged marriage.

Seems to me that he sincerely loves you and he came up with a solution: be the obedient son (remain married to the woman they chose for him) and marry the woman he chooses for himself. He plans to live with the two women in the same household, and I assume, have children with her, and maybe with you as well (?). I figure that he asked and got his parents’ permission to put his solution into practice.

First question is: is his solution a solution for you as well, or is it a problem? For his solution to be yours as well, you’d have to be okay with sharing your man with another woman, with seeing him enter her bedroom some of the nights while you remain alone in your bedroom, knowing what is happening in the other bedroom. You’d have to be okay with not asking him questions about how he feels about her.. and does he still love you and not her, if there are changes in how he feels for you, and for her.

You’d have to be okay with seeing his other wife the mornings after she spends the night with him (and she’d have to be okay with seeing you the morning after you spend the night with him), and be nice to her. The two women you will need to cooperate well and be an effective team in one household in regard to house chores, child caretaking.. as well as taking care of his parents at one point on (if he is their oldest/ only son, or only capable son), because this too is part of the culture.

Your place in the household would be based on him following his heart while her place in the household is (already) based on following the centuries old practice of arranged marriages. Whose basis- and power- in the household is stronger: yours or hers?  Depending on her nature, she might abuse her power in the household and demand obedience from you. If his parents join the household, they are likely to ignore such power-difference (after all, she is their choice), or join her in taking on the position of power and dominance over you.

What do you think about my understanding at this point?

anita

Dear bella ciao:

You shared that your Muslim ex-boyfriend of 2.5 years got married to another woman, an arranged marriage. Following his marriage to the other woman, he offered to marry you (“he is asking me to do this relationship halal. and he wants to marry me“)-

– I am trying to understand, therefore I ask: do you mean that he wants to marry you legally after he divorces the other woman, or does he want to “marry” you via a religious ceremony only, while living with his wife part-time and with you part-time as well?

anita