Dear Katrine,

I think i am returning to the old patterns of emotional unavailable person being atracted to an emotional unavailable person

You were/are attracted to an emotionally unavailable person, however you did break your own pattern of emotional unavailability and you made a move! That’s a huge step – you should congratulate yourself for that!

There is no need to return to being emotionally unavailable, even though things didn’t work out with him. You’ve made progress and that’s what counts most. In fact, I think you should reframe the whole experience and focus on the lessons learned:

First, I think you’ve learned that you can trust your instincts because the guy did show signs that he liked you, even though he later rejected your advances. Nevertheless, you were not crazy thinking that he likes you. You were not imagining things. He did behave as if he liked you.

And so that’s lesson No1: “I can tell if a guy likes me or not”.

Secondly, you can repair what you’ve “messed up” in early interactions with someone. You can write a letter, apologize, speak your mind, express yourself…. in short: you can express yourself and clarify how you feel. It doesn’t have to remain in the realm of guessing, high anxiety, trying to read his mind, watching his every move and every gesture looking for signs…

I think that by expressing yourself and your feelings, you took a very mature approach. You took responsibility for your side of the relationship. You were clear, honest and open. And friendly, without judging him if he refuses. That’s as mature and emotionally balanced as it gets!

So lesson No2 maybe could be: “I can approach a relationship in a mature and emotionally balanced way. I don’t have to do it perfectly from the start, but I can repair whatever I’ve messed up, and speak my truth in a balanced and mature way.”

And lesson No3 (which you’ve already established): “I should not take refusal too personally. My worth is not determined by if a man is with me or not.”

What do you think?

Dear Sadlyconfused,

I am really happy that you and in a much better place with your husband and that he is, to use your own words, “nothing alike” your father! That’s fantastic because that means he is not a judgmental, criticizing type, who makes your life miserable, but is an understanding and loving person, whom you can talk to. There was a glitch in his behavior during the pandemic, but as you said, circumstances contributed to that as well. It’s good that you are now seeking to forgive both him and yourself for “any dysfunctional behaviour over the last couple of years”.

If you keep your communication open and honest, knowing that he is not your father and won’t judge you – I think that will be the base for a healthy and emotionally intimate relationship.

That’s fascinating that the pandemic actually enabled you to feel safer because your father couldn’t just pop at your door at any time to harass you. Maybe this feeling of safety encouraged you to stop taking anti-depressants too? (you said you’ve been weening off for the last couple of years, which coincides with the pandemic). Which also means that the reason you were taking anti-depressants all this time was your father and your inability to say No to him, to protect yourself from his harassment, I imagine? But eventually you succeeded:

distancing myself from him was the hardest thing I ever had to do as an adult but to allow the psychological assaults to continue would have been just as bad.

Congratulations on distancing yourself! How is your relationship with your father now?

It also seems that unlike with your father, you felt safe with your husband – safe enough to start reducing the anti-depressants and discovering and expressing your authentic feelings, and showing more and more of your authentic self. I am happy for you!

You were right to react to your husband’s excessive use of Discord:

I certainly couldn’t keep quiet about the things that were bothering me anymore, regardless of how silly they might or might not have been. I was feeling so insecure about it.

It wasn’t silly. He was having an emotional affair with people in the cyber space, and was neglecting you… so you were totally right to make an issue of it. And I am glad that this game doesn’t exist any more, but also that he had already reduced the time he was spending on it, even prior to that. It seems it lost its emotional grip on him, which is good news.

I would like to return to your father briefly:

I sometimes even hear my mind telling myself “I’m bad” or “I’m disgusting” and it’s sad and scary how ingrained these beliefs are. I’m trying to grieve for my childhood when emotion comes up and attempting to talk to myself kindly. In the present day I genuinely don’t feel like I have any reason to feel that way towards myself and I know that it’s not true, yet my nervous system is wired around these messages.

It’s great that you don’t trust the inner critic any more, and when you hear those deprecating words, you try to talk to yourself kindly. That is the way to counter the harsh voice of the inner critic: to talk to yourself with warmth and compassion, like a good, loving parent. You are doing a great job, and all I can say is: Keep up the good work!

It will take some time to stop the automatic thoughts from popping up, but it’s important that you notice them and sort of observe them, but not identify with them.

Apparently it was Martin Luther who said “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair“. So you notice the deprecating, harsh thought, but you know it’s your Inner Critic, and you counter it with the voice of the Inner Good Parent, or the Inner Coach, as some call it. Someone who loves you and cheers you on, rather than someone who judges you and puts you down.

Dear iamone,

you are welcome. I am glad that what I’ve written gave you at least a little hope.

I figured out exactly when I went from confident and hopeful to dark and withdrawn. It is when I started moving into adolescence and realized I wasn’t excelling in every way as I had hoped. Specifically I noticed I wasn’t as good looking as other girls (at least that was my perception).

I was rejected by the boy I liked so very much (and rightfully so, I might add). But he had no romantic interest in me. And we would talk and he would talk about the girls he did like, and they were the thin, very good-looking type. That rejection went to my core, and in truth I don’t think I’ve ever recovered. I took rejection so deeply, perhaps, because I grew up without a father.

It’s good that you’ve realized when exactly you lost your confidence. Puberty and adolescence are usually the time when we start suffering more (at least I did), because we are sensitive to rejection by our peers, specially by our romantic interests. I too started suffering when I was 16-17, having realized that I am not super pretty and that some other girls attracted much more of the boys’ interest. I started believing that I was ugly, boring and completely undesirable. And I also thought that perhaps I have a few pounds too many, while those model-looking girls are thinner… so I thought if I only lost weight, I’d be more desirable. That’s how my anorexia started, which later turned into bulimia…

Much later I’ve realized that my sense of being unlovable and undesirable wasn’t because I wasn’t super attractive or super popular, but because I was deeply wounded as a child, with my mother sending me a message that I wasn’t good enough. Criticizing me, belittling me, not praising me, scolding me for the slightest mistake…

What I am trying to say is that the rejection I’ve experienced in my adolescence hurt me so much because I was already wounded, because I already felt unloved and undesirable to my mother. (Perceived) rejection by boys and peers was just a trigger for that wound to open and keep getting bigger and bigger… until it lead me to an eating disorder.

I believe that in your case too, you felt rejected and not good enough and unworthy even before this boy rejected you. And you could be right – it could be because you grew up without a father. Perhaps you, in your child’s mind, believed that it was your fault that your father abandoned you? That you weren’t good enough and that’s why he left? It could also be that you didn’t receive enough love and validation from your mother, and that’s why you felt rejected/unappreciated?

My entire life has been focused on trying to achieve things that will make others see me as respectable or acceptable. I try to make my house beautiful. I live in a nice area. I paint paintings, but I think I do it to be able to say – Look! I’m a successful artist! rather than because I enjoy it.

From what you’ve written, it seems to me that you are looking for validation – for others to tell you how important and special you are – because this is something you haven’t received in your childhood. What do you think, could this be the reason?

Dear iamone,

I am sorry you are feeling very low and finding no meaning in anything. I’ve taken a look at your previous thread, where you said:

I was one of those gifted children, and I thought I would achieve so much! But here I am having so little.

Here, you say:

I felt like a loser as a child and teen, and now I feel like a loser as an adult.

As a gifted child, you still felt like a loser. What do you think contributed to that? It seems that even though you were a gifted child and felt quite competent as a youth (you felt you would achieve much), someone gave you the message that you were a loser, i.e. that you weren’t good enough.

I believe this might be at the core of why you didn’t have a desired success in your career, and why you feel you’ve failed many times (I’ve failed so many times, I don’t feel I can handle another failure.).

And the worst part of everything is I’m old. No one wants to be friends with old people. Ageism is real, and it’s horrible.

If I understood well, you are 56. That’s not old. It is your perception that you are old. But I understand that when we feel low and defeated, everything seems much worse than it is.

I am not trying to minimize your problems – just that if you look at things from the perspective of “I am a loser and I’ve failed”, then it’s hard. That’s why I think you need to get to the bottom of the problem and challenge the notion (the false belief) that you are a loser.

Dear Nala,

I am happy that my (and anita’s) input has been helpful and that it helps you calm down when those anxious thoughts start coming up.

As for your friends’ behavior, that’s quite something. Your best friend turning against you, spreading lies about your boyfriend and trying to convince you that your relationship is unhealthy –  wow! I wonder what her “complaints” were against your boyfriend? According to her, why was your relationship unhealthy?

We we’re just fine and always tried to balance our time between spending time with each other and spending time with the group. But they felt that anytime just the two of us would do something, it was wrong.

When people start dating, it’s normal they want to spend as much time as possible with each other… they usually spend much less time with their friends. When you say that you tried to balance your time between being alone with your boyfriend and being with your friends – is it because your friends accused you of not spending enough time with them any more? Why was is “wrong” that just the two of you spent time together?

I used to get really nervous that we were one of those couples who stop being friends with everyone else just bc we started dating. I never wanted to be one of those relationships & neither did my boyfriend

Some people indeed stop contact with their friends completely once they start dating. That’s pretty extreme… but as I said, it’s totally natural that couples spend much more time with each other than with the group. Did you feel guilty when you spent time with your boyfriend and “neglected” your former best friend?

but unfortunately our friends at the time made that decision for us by treating us the way they did. I still struggle with this thought sometimes and sometimes I think about all of the awful things they said about my boyfriend when I am feeling anxious. This makes me really sad because I know they are pure lies but anxiety makes things feel so real.

Are you saying that a part of your believes those awful things they said about your boyfriend? When your anxiety spikes, you believe that your friends might be right?

Over all though, my anxiety journey is moving in the right direction. I am optimistic that I can get through this. I know what I want and how I feel, my anxiety is just a big road block.

That’s great that you know what you want and how you feel, and that you see anxiety as a roadblock, but a roadblock that can be overcome.

Dear Nala,

how are you today? I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you with my analysis…

I’d just like to say that even though I compared your relationship with your boyfriend with your happy and blissful childhood, I in fact think that your relationship with your boyfriend is much healthier because you have been through a lot together (including problems and challenges, I assume), and you both grew in the process, and your relationship got stronger as a result:

We have grown together so much in this time. We are not perfect, but we are strong, and we have a very healthy relationship. We have always felt like we could get through anything together, because we have been through a lot together. We are kind, loving, supportive, and we cherish our relationship.

In contrast, when you mother got sick with depression, she didn’t do anything to help herself and start healing her unresolved trauma. This approach – refusing to take responsibility, hiding her problems and possibly blame-shifting – affected both you, your brother and your father:

My mom went through a bad depression for years (starting when I was about 10) and never did anything about it. She has so much unresolved trauma. My dad dealing with this over the years, has created his own traumas. My brother and I were always effected by this but I think watching how my mom dealt with all of her own issues and feelings, we never talked about anything that bothered us.

Instead of honestly sharing about your problems, you stuffed them and pretended that everything is fine (because your mother requested it from you). This is a diametrically opposite approach of what you are taking now with your boyfriend: honest and open sharing, working through problems together, all the way respecting and supporting each other. That’s why your relationship with your boyfriend is a healthy and resilient one, while your relationship with your parents is not very healthy. You yourself described it as “a little bit of an unhealthy love, a depending love“.

So you have a model of a healthy relationship, and you have a model of an unhealthy one. The unhealthy one is sometimes calling you, because your inner child wants to please your parents…. but the real love, the healthy love, is with your boyfriend.

I need to know that this somewhat normal or common, that I am not just going crazy or falling out of love for absolutely no reason and causing myself so so so much pain, because I do love him so so so incredibly much.

I have no doubt that you love your boyfriend a lot, and I trust that you can get over this challenge too – because as you said, you can get through anything together!

Dear Nala,

you are very welcome! You say it is hard for you to pin point what could be the cause of your anxiety, because you don’t remember anything super traumatic. The thing is that there doesn’t need to be one single traumatic event (which would be like shock trauma), but there can be many smaller events, ordinary day-to-day interactions, due to which the child can develop anxiety and low self-esteem.

I have had my fair share of family relationship issues as well, but nothing that is crazy or super “traumatic”.

These family relationship issues – which have been nothing super traumatic but still unfavorable – could have very well contributed to your present-day insecurities and low self-esteem. They may have also lead to not trusting yourself (It truly makes me question myself, like I cannot trust myself, like I don’t know the difference between an anxious thought and how I truly feel.)

You’ve mentioned one of those issues, which is that you feel responsible for your family’s happiness, and you can only be happy if your family is happy (I base a lot of my happiness on the happiness of others, especially my immediate family.) If they are not happy, you try to help them. But perhaps your help doesn’t make a difference, because they keep being unhappy, no matter what you do? You would like to see them “thrive and be happy” – but what if they have some internal blocks to being happy, and no matter what you do, you’ll never succeed in making them happy? Because it doesn’t depend on you, but on them.

If you feel guilty for being happy if your family is unhappy, that’s a recipe for life-long misery. And maybe a part of you which feels guilty is now sabotaging you, telling you something like: “How can you be happy while your family is unhappy? It’s so selfish! You are a bad person!”

The above is just one example… maybe your internal saboteur is telling you something different, but whatever it is, it’s something that makes you feel bad about yourself and stops you from pursuing your happiness. You can counter this voice by the voice of your True Self, who knows that you love your boyfriend and that you are capable of having a happy and fulfilling relationship, as you have proven so far.

Dear Sadlyconfused,

you are welcome and sorry for a delay in responding. I will try to give you my input, in hope that it will help you see things more clearly (and be less confused). Please know that my intention is not to criticize or judge you, but to help you.

Yeah, it [people pleasing] was the way my mother acted around everyone and I learned from a young age that this was how you got people to love you and treat you well. I think I believed that kindness from other people had to be earned and that it wasn’t something that I was just automatically worthy of.

I had a father who treated my mother like dirt and his cruelty and criticism towards/of me really amped up when she died and could no longer protect me from it. I grew up in a very misogynistic environment and walked on eggshells.

It seems to me that your mother protected you by taking the brunt of your father’s wrath on herself, not by standing up to him? She sort of took the blow, but didn’t teach you how to protect yourself from it? If so, she unfortunately showed you a bad example of how to behave around abusive people – to appease them instead of stand up to them. You saw a different example only later, when you started working and saw that other people don’t take the abuse so readily.

It was a shock to find that people actually respected me less for being a doormat. I don’t think I’d ever fully allowed myself to even feel anger until I was in my late twenties. I had been miserable and resentful for many years but I’d suppressed these emotions so much that I had never even known it until I started to stand up to my father as an adult.

No wonder you didn’t allow yourself to feel anger – because had you felt it, your father would have probably punished you. Aggressive, misogyinist men don’t take well when a woman opposes them. He might have even become physically violent if you hadn’t done as he told you?

That’s great btw that you finally managed to stand up to your father, even if later in your life!

I never really made a big thing about taking anti-depressants in the first place, so I don’t think he’s aware that I no longer take them. I think generally he trusts me to do what’s right for me and would be supportive of it. I think I didn’t tell him a couple of years ago that I was weaning off them because I knew that it was potentially going to be a bumpy ride for a while in terms of side-effects but I’d hoped that it wouldn’t last as long as it did.

It seems to be that you were afraid of being completely honest with your husband – maybe projecting some of your father’s criticism into him – and so you didn’t really tell him when you started taking anti-depressants (you were still dating at that time). And you didn’t tell him later either that you were weening off. Do you think that the reason could be the fear of judgment?

Please don’t think that I am judging you or anything, I am just trying to understand the dynamic in your relationship. You said you had communication problems. It could be that a part of it was your fear of being judged by your husband? Even though he might not have been judgmental, or at least not as judgmental as your father (you said he would probably support you in doing what you believe is right for you)?

Our relationship was fine while I was on anti-depressants, but I wasn’t feeling fully and was going through the motions with day to day life. I didn’t think I had any resentments at the time because I was largely so tired and work focused that it didn’t seem to matter. I just wanted to sleep! I think all the things which did matter to me and needed to be addressed became more apparent when I stopped taking anti-depressants.

Right. So for the majority of your marriage, until about 2 years ago, you couldn’t feel fully because you were on anti-depressants and you were only going through the motions, a little bit like being on an auto-pilot, right? You worked a lot, felt exhausted most of the time and in your spare time you just wanted to sleep. You didn’t feel resentment towards your husband, mostly because you didn’t feel much anyway, you didn’t pay attention to your feelings, nor to his feelings too much, I guess?

Your marriage survived this “auto-pilot” phase, and only started shaking when you started weening off anti-depressants. I might have an idea why is that, but I don’t want to jump into conclusions. If you feel it’s relevant, and want to share some more about that phase of your marriage, please do so.

What is important is that now, after a rough patch, you started opening up towards your husband and that he reciprocates, and that you can laugh together and talk more sincerely with each other. If your emotional intimacy is growing, that’s fantastic!

Has he reduced his Discord dependence? Because based on what you’ve shared, it did become an addiction already, with him spending every single moment using the app…