I am here, Seaturtle, looking forward to your update!

anita

Dear Livia:

You sound like (read like, more accurately) a rational, reasonable person.

“For me it was just the sudden change based on all our conversations“- being blocked with no warning is a sudden and unpleasant change, and reads like it was uncalled for, meaning, you didn’t harass him and as a result, he blocked you.

It could’ve been that it was easier for him to say nothing (to block you) than it was for him to say something  (to explain himself, to admit to what was inconvenient for him to admit to), in which case, blocking you was a weak/ cowardly move on his part.

“Sometime in the future I will confront him face to face. As for now I just need to heal and move on with my life“- reads reasonable.

“I will be travelling again to the state that the guy lives at the end of the month and I will most likely be there more regularly for business. I am not ready to have any run in with him“- may strength and courage be with you in all that you do. Please post again anytime you’d like my input.

anita

Dear Marnie:

I hope that you receive a reply or two on this thread. If you would like, you are welcome to start your own thread here by going to Forums at the tope of the page, scroll down to All Forums, choose a category and go from there.

anita

Dear Rosie:

I read your post and will be able to thoroughly reply to it (and to anything you add to it) Tues morning.

anita

Dear noname:

“How to FEEL love?” (summer, July 27, 2017), “Feeling loved is such an abstract concept to me, that I’m not sure how to go about feeling it” (summer, June 21, 2018)-

– Winter, December 4, 2023: it is 12:51 pm here (adjusted to the time I am submitting this post), no sun in the sky, none is expected for the rest of the day, a day that ends with complete darkness by 5 pm. The wind is strong. I want to take a walk, my usual 3.5 miles walk, and I am afraid of mountain lions who roam this area at dusk..  it already looks like dusk in the early afternoon. It looked like dusk since morning.

What is love? – is the title of a song with the lyrics: “What is love?/ Oh baby, don’t hurt me/ Don’t hurt me no more“-

– isn’t the answer right there: don’t-hurt-me-no-more?

Only you have to figure out who is hurting whom. When you react angrily to a person (your mother) who is hurting you, it is not disrespecting her, it’s about respecting you.

It’s not about getting even, it’s about a hurt child in a hurt adult having been wronged for too long. Isn’t it time to make things right?

I stopped all contact with my mother, something I never imagined doing.. for how could I have no contact with the number ONE in my life, the person without whom I couldn’t imagine being alive?

I imagine that she is dying as I am typing this, being that she is old and probably physically inactive. How much I desired to be close to her, to be LOVED by her, to take care of her, to be taken care by her, a desire never to be fulfilled. A voice in me is saying: maybe now she will love me…  I see myself as a little girl running to her, short black hair, slender little girl body, running to her: here I am! Here I am, mother, LOVE ME!

Never to happen. How do I know? I know because a woman who had no heart for a little girl running to her will have no love for a middle aged woman running.

The little girl running is the little boy running, isn’t it? Running: here I am, mother, LOVE ME!

“How to FEEL love?…Feeling loved is such an abstract concept to me, that I’m not sure how to go about feeling it“-

– Little girl running, little boy running, meeting mid-run, middle-aged girl saying to 30+ year old boy: stop running toward her, there is no love there. Turn your face/ your eyes- elsewhere and touch love: where it is, it’s always concrete. Where love exists, it’s always in the concrete form.

The above are thoughts in a dusky Monday afternoon. No sign of the sun.. and yet, the sun will be back, maybe tomorrow.. the wonders of life!

anita

Dear Laelithia:

“Is it your opinion Anita that this separation with B has to do with my patterns rather than true/valid reasons to end the relationship?“-

– I think that your patterns (of rushing into a relationship before you have the time and state of mind to get to know the man as he is, placing him on a pedestal, and then trying and failing to rectify your troubled relationship with your mother by proxy of the man) are very strong. These patterns do not permit relationships to proceed healthily.

“Do you feel if I had properly healed from my childhood, it could have ended differently?“- yes, of course. A lot of things would be different if you were not stuck trying to rectify your relationship with your mother by proxy of this or that man.

I think that you still blame yourself for your mother disapproving of you and treating your younger sister so much better. I think that as a teenager, if not earlier, you were- understandably- very angry at your mother. Instead of your mother seeing that your anger was valid, and taking responsibility for mistreating you, she blamed you for being angry at her, adding to your guilt. Fast forward, after placing a man on a pedestal.. you get angry and bully him. When trying to understand the man’s behaviors over time, your initial idealization of him, followed by bullying him- needs to be considered.

“Before, my mistakes and patterns only affected me in the end. Now, they affect my daughter deeply as well. I feel I have caused her so much pain“-

– your regret for “Let(ting) a good guy go“, the title of your June 2020 thread, is an obsessive regret fueled by guilt, and now, on top of the usual guilt, you add your daughter to the mix, as in: I have let a good guy go, and my daughter is suffering for it.

In my short reply to you yesterday, I asked you to share more about B’s behavior, but it was a mistake, one perhaps that your therapist has been doing by answering your Did I Let a good guy go? question with: No, you did not let a good guy go, you let a bad/ Narcissistic guy go!

No such answer will make you feel better, not for long. It’s like scratching an itch, it may feel better for a second or two, but soon the itch (the obsessive question) returns.

Your therapy should not be about a man, it should be about your childhood (and onward) relationship with your mother. Such therapy will help you and your daughter. What matters for your daughter is to have a mentally/ emotionally healthy mother. It wouldn’t have done her any good to have two miserable parents in the home. One healthy, strong parent is good enough, and much more than many children have.

anita

Dear Dave:

A summary: in Jan 2023, you shared that you met your wife when you were in your early 20s, still living at home with your parents, had 2 children within 3 years of being married, and a 3rd unexpected child, eight years after the second. Back in Jan this year, at 40 or 41, with 2 pre-teens and a 3 year-old, the relationship with your wife was unhappy and you were sleeping on the sofa. She told you that the two of you are “just too different” and that she “feels trapped“. She complained that you are “lazy, sarcastic, unmotivated and show a general lack of initiative“.

On Feb 7, the two of you attended your 1st couples counseling session as “the last and final thing we can try before starting the official process of separation / divorce“. It was a good session and the morning after (you still sleeping on the sofa), she wanted to cuddle with you, and you felt somewhat optimistic. Shortly after, the two of you and the two older kids went on a short vacation to Amsterdam, and it felt very awkward between you and your wife.

On Feb 14, the two of you had your 2nd couple counseling session where your wife complained that you didn’t communicate well, that you lacked initiative, that you were “negative, defensive and letting her lead on everything“, and that you were “constantly around as opposed to having our own things going on“. You complained about the lack of intimacy, and you were “in a constant state of feeling out of control and emotional about our situation“, not knowing if “she either wants to try and work with me or make a decision to part ways” (Feb 15).

Exactly 4 months later, on June 15, you posted a 4-month update: in early March, while still living in the same house with your wife, you stayed the night at a friend’s house following having had too much to drink, and you lied to your wife about where you stayed that night. She found out, and “coupled with the fact she thinks we have nothing in common, I never tell her what I want/don’t want and effectively behave like a 4th child in the house – this is all too much for her, and she wants to end the relationship“. Following that early March incident and confrontation, the two of you were “separated and living apart amicably, meaning I can come to the house and see my children including taking my daughter to bed 3 nights a week“.

On July 3rd, you shared that the two of you were “now selling the family home“, that you very much love your wife and wanted it to work out with her, but living with her, you felt that she was your superior: “I have been pretending that I am her equal when mentally I still feel inferior and I need to dig into that“. You believed at the time that “moving into my own place and setting up a separate life… I feel I will start to  work out more who I am and what I want…  I have to discover the real me…  to be at peace with who I am and what I stand for“, and you were concerned that once you realize your true self, you “may not want to go back into the relationship“.

You were about to start individual counseling at the time and “embrace a voyage of self discovery“.

Five months and a day later, today (Dec 4), you posted another update: a couple of months or so after moving out, the two of you “enjoyed some time in the bedroom, but it felt like that’s all it was, just a physical thing“.  The separation is now six months old, and the two of you “are still in a good place in terms of communication back and forth regarding everything including the children, which really helps. Nothing has really changed on the relationship front, we are still very amicable and text most days but very surface level and transactional… I am spending Xmas eve and day at my old house and we are going to sleep separately to be there together for the kids“.

You (now 41) still feel drawn to her but you don’t believe that there is a chance to reconnect with her, and you are ready to “go out on some dates and meet someone new! At the end of the day I could continue to wait around for her to change her mind which doesn’t seem likely or I can try and get myself back out there. Or am I making a mistake? I don’t know…“.

My input: I don’t think that it is a mistake for you to give up on your marriage and start dating again, as long as your highest priority is being an attentive, involved father to your three kids. It is clear to me, from what you have shared, that in your early 20s, still living with your parents, you were not ready to get married. You needed to live apart from your parents for the first time in your life and go back then on the “voyage of self discovery” that you are aiming at 20 years later.

It is not likely that you can embrace this journey of becoming the real, independent and mature you, if your relationship with your wife resumes because she has perceived you as “a 4th child in the house” for too long, a perception that is probably deeply embedded in her mind, and it will be in your way of embracing your self discovery journey.

Make sure that as you start dating, that you are aware of the possibility of dynamics in a new relationship that may resemble the dynamics of the old.  Keep your mind focused on being a good father and on being and becoming “the real me…  to be at peace with who I am and what I stand for” (your words on July 3rd). This objective is.. definitely not a mistake. I wish you well and hope to read from you again.

anita