Dear antarkala:

It seems like I will not add a post on the above before tomorrow. I hope that you continue the work, shining light into the confusion (“Confused about relationship..“, title of your thread). It takes courage and perseverance to do this kind of work, and you have what it takes!

anita

Dear antarkala:

“From the moment my mom said he might not be good enough for me, I have been overanalyzing and overthinking about my relationship and my boyfriend which did not help the relationship in any positive way. You are right, I have to explore the relationship with my mother with the help of a psychotherapist to get better clarity and I am on it now“-

– the relationship between mother and daughter (childhood and on) can be very powerful, in negative ways, when it comes to the quality and dynamics of the adult daughter’s romantic relationships. This has been true in my case.

As I share about it here (just a bit in this post, and maybe in future posts), please know.. that I know that although there are similarities between our mothers, our mothers are not identical. There are many differences between them. Yet, there are a few significant similarities between our mothers (and therefore between you and I) that make it so that we can learn from each other’s experience.

I am saying this so to avoid/ prevent inaccurate projections on my end and on yours. If you read something that I share that is strange/ unfamiliar to you, please do not dismiss the totality of what I share as irrelevant to you:

My mother not only negatively affected my romantic relationships, she has emptied them from any measure of romance, killed the romance before I ever had a relationship. I do not have a single memory of feeling romantic outside my past day-dreaming (I used to daydream A LOT about being in a love story, way back when  I was a teenager).

Growing up and onward, she gave me two messages: (1) that I am not good enough, that I was an inferior specimen, and (2) no man is good enough for me. See the bind my poor brain was in? I felt too inferior to be with a quality man, and too superior to be with any man who was not close enough to being perfect (my mother had very high and superficial expectations of what constitutes perfect: the man had to be movie star handsome and rich). So, no man could be right for me. Result: no man was right for me all the years of my 20s and 30s. The great majority of the time, I was alone and lonely.

Also, my relationship with my mother was so troubled, so difficult, so full of distress, on my part, for years and years, that it turned me off to the idea of being in any long-term relationship of any kind. I was stuck with my mother, I didn’t want to get stuck with anyone else. When living with her, I wanted to leave; that desire to leave did not leave me for decades of adulthood.

Back to your post: “I have been trying to find a good therapist and it’s taking a while. If you have any recommendations, I would be happy to hear from you“- I would choose a therapist who exercises great empathy for his clients and one who does CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), nothing like cognitive clarity to help with confusion (Confused about relationship- Need help” is the title of your thread).

“Apart from that, I want to update that I had a great time with my boyfriend, he is a wonderful and genuine person who cares for me and loves me. Our relationship has grown so much over the past one year…”- reads like a high quality man and a high quality relationship.

“But the feeling of missing the attraction and spark is still there“-  I wonder about your relationship spark history (RSH, if you will.. lol). Did you feel the spark with other men, for how long and what happened to that spark (answer this or any other question only if you are comfortable answering).

“My mind says everything is going well but my heart keeps saying something is missing – my heart doesn’t say yes!“- I wonder to whom your heart say yes! in the past, and for how long.

“At the same time, when I am with my boyfriend, I feel my social life and spiritual life are not thriving and it bothers me“- a person cannot thrive in a situation (a relationship) when the person wants out of. It’s like this: if you live in an apartment but want to vacate it and live elsewhere, you are not going to thrive in that apartment (painting it, re-arranging the furniture in it, relaxing and enjoying it),  you’d be getting ready to leave it.

“Like I mentioned before, I keep getting thoughts like ‘Am I settling for something less?’…“- something less than your mother thinks you should settle for?

“It is Monday night here as well…. I am unable to stop overthinking. I feel this is unfair to my boyfriend, why should he go through this?“- no, it is not fair to him. I understand that he loves you, but why is he going through this otherwise…   does he love himself?

“He has told me today morning… that I am overthinking which hurts me. This has never happened to me“- again, I wonder about your relationship history, never doubted a man/ relationship before?

anita

Dear Antarkala:

Welcome back to your thread, good to read from you again!

“I have observed that this majorly triggers when my boyfriend just stays very silent. Recently he came to visit me and I was in a very better place, but when we went on a drive and he was sooo silent over the duration of the drive, it pissed me off and triggered my anxiety and overthinking“- it’s a good thing that you observe!

When he is silent, it is not silent in your mind, is it: you have thoughts going through your mind, angry, loud thoughts (angry overthinking)? What did the thoughts say while he was silent during the drive?

“You asked about my previous relationships… My relationships mostly ended because I felt I was the one always giving and initiating things and ultimately feeling that the other person probably did not care enough.“- you felt that they did not care enough based on what behaviors on their part?

anita

Dear Antarkala:

* I am making this comment some time into typing this post, as I realize that this is likely going to be difficult/ distressing for you to read. Please feel comfortable to read, or not to read at any point along the way.

“Recently he came to visit me and I was in a very better place but when we went on a drive and he was sooo silent over the duration of the drive, it pissed me off and triggered my anxiety and overthinking... My thoughts when he was silent – ‘why is he so silent‘, ‘how can he be so silent‘…’– it is embarrassing to open up and share that I get these thoughts but I do. I hate it too”.

“My relationships mostly ended because I felt I was the one always giving and initiating things and ultimately feeling that the other person probably did not care enough… most prominent behavior was not being ready for commitment, not being open about the relationship and hiding it, not caring, not making any plans to do things or spend time unless I do, just not fighting with me, not trying to make it work when things started falling apart.”

As I often say, Antarkala, when we have disturbing childhoods, the disturbance (being pissed off, anxious, overthinking) persists through our adulthoods, unless and until it is adequately addressed and worked through in the context of psychotherapy.

When your father criticized you, when he, and your grandparents, expressed so much pride about everything your brother did (in your presence), but treated you like you are nothing (your words from previous posts), that disturbed you a lot. When you told your mother about it, she didn’t tell you that the problem was with the way you were treated, but with you being too sensitive: “She just in general says I am too sensitive and overreact to things“.

Let’s pause here to understand this better: objectively, it is wrong for a parent or a grandparent (or anyone) to treat one child like a Nothing, and another child (in the presence of the first) like an Everything: it terribly hurts and disturbs the first child. When the first child reacts to the situation with hurt or anger, the child is not too sensitive, or too reactive. It really hurts, it really infuriates.

When your mother said that you were too sensitive, and saying it repeatedly over the years, and as she did not fix the situation (standing up for you and making sure that your father and grandparents corrected their behavior and treated you and your brother with equal respect), what happened to the disturbance inside you, the hurt, the anger? It kept vibrating through you whenever you observed how well your brother was treated, and you were not.

When your mother did not validate your disturbance and did not fix the situation that disturbed you, day in and day out, year after year, it was like she was silent. She didn’t make a noise (speaking up for you and telling your father and grandparents to treat you same as they treat your brother). It pissed you off. Fast forward, your boyfriend was silent during the drive, and it pissed you off.

She was silent about your problems with your father and grandparents (criticizing you and treating your brother so differently) but she was loud about her problems with the same people, your father and grandparents. Your mother did not speak up or stand up for you, so to help you; but you stood up for her, so to help her: “She shares everything with me. I started supporting her as I grew up and pushing her to stand up for herself and even stood up against my dad and my grandparents demanding she should be treated better“.

You see the inequality here? You did not tell her that she is too sensitive, that she is overreactive. Instead, you validated her and initiated a real-life action to correct her situation, and resolve her disturbance. She did not reciprocate.

No wonder your anger at her: “I once remember during an argument I threw a glass of water at my mother’s face in front of my whole extended family“.

I think that what triggers your anger, anxiety and overthinking in the context of romantic relationships is the inequality I mentioned above. You expressed this inequality theme in your first, original post on March 23: “Especially in social situations… I put in most of the energy to keep conversations going… I told him I would appreciate it if he could be friendly to my friends“, and in your most recent post, May 17:  “I am the one who should always initiate conversations..  he is not helping me to keep the energy of the group up…. he is not making a good impression of himself near my friends‘, ‘he is not making an effort to be nice to my friends… I felt I was the one always giving and initiating things and ultimately feeling that the other person probably did not care enough“- you are re-experiencing, as I see it, your hurtful and infuriating experience of childhood/ growing up: you cared so much about your mother that you initiated and did the work required (standing up for her in front of your father and grandparents), but she did not care enough to do the same for you.

Only your adult situations in the romantic context are objectively not at all similar to your childhood situation. Your boyfriend during the drive was silent, not because he didn’t care enough, seems to me. His silence triggered your pre-existing agitation.

You wrote yesterday: “I am planning to take a break from my relationship, take some space and work on myself, try to get in touch with myself“- reads to me like a good idea.

anita