Dear Tara:

On July 14, 2020 you shared that you were diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder, and that you (20)  were in a relationship with a man (22) for about 6 months, living together for 2 months, “a man whom I love deeply and often see myself marrying and having a family with”, but you were worried at the time that you might be bisexual or a lesbian. You moved back to your parents’ house. You shared regarding your boyfriend:  “We are currently on a break due to my panic attacks and anxiety clearly showing… All I want to know is, do these thoughts alone make me bisexual/ lesbian… or, maybe even OCD is pushing me to think about this issue… I’m very happy with him and love him deeply… The best relationship I ever had in my life”.

Two days later, on July 16, in a 3rd thread, you shared that you found the root of your anxiety: an incident a month earlier when your boyfriend, following working and living in 113 degree heat without air conditioning, “began to yell and throw things around the car” and then again, in a hotel room. You shared: “When I was a child, my father had many angry outbursts, yelling, screaming, stomping”, and about your boyfriend: “I love him so much and it hurts me that he causes me this anxiety”.

Three days later, on July 19, in a 4th thread, you shared: “I feel alone. My anxiety has reduced me to doing nothing all day, and when I am not anxious, then the depression sets in. I have no close friends… my boyfriend and I are no longer on speaking terms… My days are either filled with dread and anxiety or depression and loneliness”.

In that 4th thread, you shared this about your childhood: “I know that my parents fought a lot… I was always in trouble for random reasons… I felt I could not confide in anyone… I remember a time… standing at my parents’ door listening to them scream at each other. I remember crying, feeling as if it was my fault, because a lot of the fights, I believe, involved their ways of parenting me.. I remember my mom talking to me about their fights even from a young age, about how horrible and mean and angry my dad was, even though me myself didn’t directly experience his anger as far as I know or can recall”. You also shared that as a teenager, you and your mom fought, screaming at each other. You remembered saying to her during those fights:  “You only punish me for the bad things I do, you never tell me you are proud of me for anything”!

Almost two years later, in your current  June 2022 thread, you shared that you (21) have been in a relationship with your boyfriend (24) for a little over 2 years,  the two of you living together: “the most deep and meaningful” relationship you ever had, “We had our differences in the past, explosive fights, dramatic arguments, etc. but have always worked past this”. Recently you started a new job, your coworker/ manager has been flirting with you for the past week, you enjoy it and you haven’t stopped him. Because you enjoy his flirting, you are second guessing your entire relationship with your boyfriend and you are thinking about breaking up with him.

“Unsure if maybe I just have not had enough time to explore the dating world, or if there is some kind of pattern going on here” – I say: there is definitely a pattern here. If you explore the dating world further, with this pattern unexamined and unchallenged, you are likely to find yourself in the same situation over and over again.

The parts of your pattern as I understand it are: (1) The repeated screaming and arguments between your parents caused you anxiety and led to your Generalized Anxiety Disorder diagnosis, (2) Some children exposed to screaming and fighting parents become quiet and passive, others scream/ fight back-  it seems like you became the latter, being an active party to “explosive fights, dramatic arguments” with boyfriends,

(3) You suffer from invalid guilt in regard to your parents’ fights, believing- falsely- that you were responsible for their fights, that you ruined your parents’ relationship (even if you don’t think it, deeply, your child self believes it still).

Fast forward, you believe that you ruin your relationships with men, not by having dramatic arguments and explosive fights (which do ruin relationships) but by your THOUGHS (such as the thought of being of a different sexual orientation than straight), or by your FEELINGS (such as enjoying the flirtation of your coworker/ manager).

If you understand that it is only ACTIONS that ruin relationships, not thoughts and feelings, you will be a step closer to breaking this pattern, instead of breaking the relationship

anita

How are you, Tara?

anita

Dear Tara:

You are welcome, good to read back from you!

“I realized the fights we had were actually a lot worse than I had downplayed in my mind. It started about 6 months after we were together, the fights got nasty. He would be screaming, yelling, saying horrible things to me, throwing and breaking our belongings and things sitting around the house…. he punched my rear view mirror and cracked my entire car windshield… I would tell him not to do it again, that it scares me, gives me anxiety. He would tell me he’s sorry and okay. It kept happening…

“Fast forward to this past Saturday… we started arguing… we decided to go to the party anyways… he comes up and accuses me of adding a male friend…  on social media. He goes up into my face and asked me almost manically what the interaction was, in front of all of our friends…. I grabbed a few things from our house and our dog and have been staying at my parents house again since” –

-You did the right thing when you moved out of a domestic violence live-in situation. I hope that this relationship is placed where it belongs- in the past.

“He has texted me and we have sent long messages back and forth, I still love him and this hurts. But deep down, I know that the things that happened in our relationship I cannot fix for him, and I deserve better than that… I hope he gets the help he needs and finds happiness, even if it’s not with me” –

– Excellent attitude on your part, I am impressed! You are (1) no longer willing to accept his “sorry and okay”, (2) you know that you can’t fix him, (3) you know that you deserve better, (4) you acknowledge that you feel love for him and that it hurts, but you are stronger than what you feel; you are willing and able to do what’s right for you, regardless of it hurting.

By the way, now that you are staying with your parents again: are they still fighting with each other.. arguments, any verbal (or other) aggression in your parents’ home?

anita

Dear Tara:

“I have been staying at my parents house nothing too horrible has happened, but my mother still tends to complain about my father and her relationship with him constantly. Another thing is my father also tends to have small angry outbursts when little things don’t go his way. I always go into my room to escape the anger, though it’s not directed at me, I hate the cussing and yelling and screaming over the smallest little inconveniences in his day. It gives me feelings of anxiety” –

– you got adjusted to your parents’ aggression since you were a child best you were able to  by downplaying it in your mind,  thinking of it as nothing too horrible.

Fast forward, you minimized your boyfriend’s aggression: “in my relationship I realized the fights we had were actually a lot worse than I had downplayed in my mind… I never realized how bad it was until now”.

“I feel dumb and naive for ever forgiving this man, and I don’t understand why I stayed as long as I did” – not because you were dumb and naive, I figure, but because you were adjusted since childhood to downplay domestic aggression.

“At first his demeanor in the text messages was sort of nice, but sad. He said things like ‘…You’re amazing and beautiful..’ Then hours later, I get a text from him, telling me that I am making nothing out of our 2 and a half year relationship…  that the tinder was the last straw… I am feeling guilty for this and also scared of what the outcome of this situation is” – I think that he is emotionally unstable and manipulative.

“What should I do Anita? I don’t know how to feel anymore. The worst part is, I still have feelings for him, and I don’t want to end on bad terms. Although maybe we already have” – (1) To end the relationship with him, seems to me, cannot happen under good terms because he is unstable and aggressive, (2) Do not bicker with him over text anymore (“me and my ex have still been bickering over text about things since our breakup”), and do not fuel his aggression in any other way, (3) Stop all communication with him, establish the No Contact rule, (4) Do not place yourself in a situation where you are alone with him,  (5) if he threatens your physical safety, contact the police/ the courts, asking for protection from him, (6) In regard to what the tells other people about you and the relationship, and people possibly believing him: keep records of his texts and other records so that you have proof, in needed, of his unstable and aggressive behaviors. Otherwise there is nothing you can do about gossip in general (other than you not providing people who tend to gossip with private information), so it’s something you’d have to live with.

anita