Hey Anita,

I’m considering moving away for postgraduate study – to study something that feels important and I truly believe in. (Sustainable textiles engineering, I possibly mentioned that I am a textile artist already.)

It would break my heart to leave this city: its my adopted home after so many years of moving around. I really feel like I belong here; its an interesting city and I’ve got a really solid network of friends here. Some of whom are among my oldest friends, having known them for a decade now. I moved here 5 years ago and my parents 2 years ago.

I juggle two jobs – for an arts charity part-time, and I work as a professional artist the rest of the time. This has come off the back of years of networking. My work life is rewarding and happy. While I don’t earn huge amounts of money but I have enough to get by without  existing hand-to-mouth. The hand-to-mouth thing was extremely stressful! More stressful than the problems of living with my parents. Moving out would push me back into the hand-to-mouth existence.

That is why I am considering this MSc, it is something that is important and will improve my career prospects in the long term. If I leave now, I will be back in a cycle of hand-to-mouth.

It would take a long long time to build an equivalent network of friends elsewhere, equally a long time to establish myself as a working artist. I’m excited to do this postgraduate course but would probably return to this city after. I expect I will be lonely once I leave.

So yeah, I am only prepared to leave for something much bigger and better for my long-term happiness and security. Simply getting away from my parents isn’t enough of a reason for me.

-Feathering

Heya Anita,

Yes- I see your point.

Where then, should I direct my energy?

I live with my parents – there is a massive crisis in my city with housing, rent has gone up more than anywhere else in the UK. I was evicted from my rented home when the rent became unaffordable. Living with my parents is uncomfortable as I have to confront the problematic behaviors on a regular basis.

When I was a kid my dad was the scary and imposing one. But my mum did nothing to defend us, even though she disagreed with his actions. We talked a little on Friday (in relation to some problems she was having with my sister) and my mother was totally unaware of the impact that her silence had on us. I said we felt undefended, and that her silence was seen as supporting the actions of our father – we had nobody else left to turn to.
She said: “But that wasn’t what was going on behind closed doors.”  (As if we were somehow to know!)
I could not believe that I needed to explain the ‘Why’ of this to a woman in her late 50’s.

What is more she enables my sister’s abusive behavior by welcoming her back each time sister returns and tries to press the ‘reset’ button after a bout of abuse. She said “I would rather be on good terms with her than when she is being abusive.” But she cannot understand how she enables the abuse. I find this attitude very frustrating.

Indeed: frustrating is the way I feel about my relationship with my mother overall. We have very different temperaments: I have a zest for life and new experiences. She is insular, afraid of challenges, lacking in confidence, very negative about everything. My sister switches between ardently defending her and bullying her.

I used to wish I could turn to my mum for advice and support in relationships but now I can see that this is not a wise thing to do.

-Feathering

Heya Anita,

How are you? Thanks for your concern about my health. The source of the pain is possibly gluten intolerance! :*(
I love bread… beer….. pasta…. loads of my favorite foods contain wheat.

Meeting with Mr yesterday went great. We agreed to move on from the argument, as we were both very upset by it. He also lost his voice for two weeks! He took my apology with good grace and liked his gift of lavender balm. I kept the ‘serious relationship discussion’ aspect short and to the point, otherwise we just spent time together as we used to… talking talking talking. Neither of us are ones for small talk. He did ask if I was seeing anybody. I said no -because I wanted to spend some time dealing with the anger issue and also I’m not into dating for the sake of it. I like my friends and my life as it is too much to spend time dating people I’m only half-arsed about. Didn’t want to ask the same question or push the boat out just yet. It is his birthday next week.

The cat pub was a great place to go. The landlord shot me in the face with a glitter gun, which was a great opportunity to introduce an otherwise difficult topic: “Right – well we came here to talk about something serious.” (covered in glitter.) We played with a kitten and built dinosaurs out of lego and won sweets. 🙂

Thanks,

Feathering

Hello Anita,

Thanks for your concern regarding my health. My appendix is still inside me,  I was advised to see a gynecologist if the pain persits. They said they had ruled out a lot of serious causes – lets hope they meant cancer as a part of that. It isn’t an ovarian cyst. If the pain persists I need to go back to the doctor but I will go back to the doctor anyway. 🙁 It is scary.

Regarding non-monogamy.

I have a few motivations for my position. Sexual novelty is exciting, I don’t equate sex with love, it is unrealistic (and felt disingenuous) to pretend that you’re not attracted to other people. Or be afraid to voice that attraction for fear of making your partner insecure. I was with someone in an open relationship once and it was very liberating to talk openly of these things with my partner. I would like the freedom to pursue sexual novelty from time to time. It is true that this can arouse feelings of jealousy but these needed to be treated with care, discussion and honesty too.

Regarding Mr:

We didn’t have any sex while we were ‘just friends’ after we broke up.

One time, he did not respond to my message for 2-3 days. He claimed he hadn’t seen it and was frustrated that he had missed it. I took him at his word (but due to my issues it planted a seed of anxiety and doubt.) I didn’t really know how to address the issue any further at that time: It was taking his word for it or leaving, basically. I did tell him it had made me anxious, he asked me to explain that more but I dodged answering.

Other than that, he did not give me the silent treatment. He claims the one time he did was not because he was seeing someone else but because of a passive-aggressive comment I had made that made him uncomfortable.

“By his own admission he’s a mess in relationships and has frequently ambiguous platonic/ romantic ties with women”-

* What were his words on the matter, what did he say?

Those were his words, pretty much. He said he has a lot of female friends and sometimes struggled in his head to distinguish what was a platonic friendship from a romantic or sexual relationship.

That oftentimes his romantic relationships just fizzled out into friendships (but an ambiguity remained and occasionally would break out into a briefly sexual phase before fizzling out again.) He was in a turbulent on/off relationship with a woman for 7 years in which they both dated other people – although I think they had a monogamous phase to begin with. He obviously thought a lot of this woman and cared for her but they argued a lot and he dumped her a number of times.

Indeed he dumped me saying “I need friendship right now.” From the outside it looked to me as if his long-term relationship was on the brink of ending- he was under a lot of pressure and seemed quite stressed. He told her also that he “just wanted to be friends.” when he ended the relationship. He told me after, “That’s what I do.”

He claims to want a committed partner and relationship and that he is lonely.

-Feathering

Hello Anita,

I would love your help. Thank you. This has been more productive than my time spent in therapy.

Reading my old diaries from the past 4 years and I was watching a dog chase its tail. Trying trying trying to figure out what was going on. Unable to see it.

My therapists of past have not been very direct with me – I can see how they were trying to help me address the problem at that time but they never explained to me what they thought was going on in direct terms. (Is that unusual?)

Projecting my own experience to yours, I would say: you will be angry at each and every man you get involved with, sooner than later. Some of the men will be jerks but you will be angry at the good ones as well, and no less. Every single man will become the enemy, sooner than later.

This made me really sad.
Because my feelings of anger are so intense, I cannot tell who is a decent guy and who is not. Because my anger creates a victim mentality and a sense of entitlement, talking to my friends has only reinforced my sense of entitlement. They only get one half of the story. I think this is why that self-help rubbish has been destructive: a lot of it is quite angry. (“Forget about him he’s an asshole, love yourself!”) This has fanned the flames.

It is because your feeling “unloved and unappreciated” will be activated quickly in each and every beginning relationship, and then “as soon as those feelings kick in it triggers a cycle of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are extremely difficult to stop”, your words.

I am hopeful that now I am more aware I will be able to talk about it and mitigate the worst aspects of this.

Now seen, cannot unsee.

I am really hoping I do not have to go through multiple more heartbreaks and breakups before I have a stable relationship. I am so lonely and have been for so long already. Really suffering with it over here.

-Feathering