Dear Anita,

Please feel free to ask all the questions that come to your mind. I am truly grateful that you are trying to help, and questions are necessary for you to achieve a better understanding of my situation.

I do tend to forget to congratulate myself for leaving my ex. I do this in general. It’s always on to the next challenge. Never enough. Thank you for reminding me to give kudos to myself. 🙂

The excuses I used for my ex were that he was stressed, unhappy with his job, which he found asked too much of him. Unhappy with life in general. I told myself that he had difficulty facing the challenges of life. And I thought I was partly responsible for his unhappiness, for neglecting him when my son was a baby.

With P, well he is explaining to me, in his emails, what is going on in his life. It’s clearly hectic. It was already quite hectic before the pandemic, to the point where I was already questioning whether he did have room for me in his life. And it has become worse with the pandemic. I believe him, when he explains to me how busy he is. But for me, deep down, this does not justify his failure to take 5 minutes, just a couple times a week, to write a few lines. He was able to write much more often before and his life was hectic back then, so why not now? If I am not worth 5 minutes a couple of times a week, then what am I worth in his eyes? Does he not want to know how I am doing? So I do not have to makes excuses for him. Rather, the similarity to my relationship with my ex is that I am still being understanding and patient with a man, hoping that things will get better.

When we spoke about my separation, P did not seem to fear me asking more from him. What he told me was that he might lose me to another man now that I was single.

The reality of P’s partnership I know quite a bit about. He stays with her for his children. Coming from a broken home – is father was completely absent, he never met him- P’s priority are his children. He wants to be there for them. He feels that his partner is focused on her business, on building it for their children, leaving no room for their love life. He says that they consulted with 2 therapists to try to make things better. They diagnosed her as asexual, and one of them suggested that perhaps P could find another woman to fill his sexual needs (like me, he has a strong libido). His partner was never opened to it, so after a while, he decided to find someone. That’s when we met.

Writing these lines, I am realizing that one thing that has been tormenting me about my relationship to him is that I feel that he broke my trust. When we started emailing back and forth, I told him that I was looking to find a friend with whom to also develop sexual intimacy. Because I could not – and still cannot – see myself just having sex without some sort of affection towards the other person. He completely agreed and said that this was exactly what he was looking for. When I was writing to him about my hesitations and worries with regards to my relationship with my partner, he encouraged me to open up and explicitly said that he really wanted to be my friend. And then, after we met for the first time, I felt him pull back a bit. He started writing less often, apologizing when he did not write for several days and explaining what had kept him. I feel betrayed because he has been acting less and less as a friend. I wrote him, the other day, that I felt like I had lost a friend and did not know why. He answered that his life was hectic, that he was having a hard time coping with the pandemic, that he really missed me and often thought about me. His emails are actually really sweet. But then I wonder, if things are so difficult, why is he not reaching out to me more? I did offer to lend him an ear.

So where I always end up is OK, I just have to be patient. Wait for this crazy period to come to an end, and then see what happens.

I did express optimism, didn’t I? 🙂 I think that writing here is really helping me.

Thank you, Anita. Take care.

Isabelle

Dear Anita,

Yes. Your analysis of my situation with P is accurate. Thank you for taking the time to present things clearly. Now I see it: I was hoping that there was an explanation for his behavior other than “He doesn’t care enough to make the time.” But he clearly does not. I think that it’s time to admit it and move on. This is painful. It brings me back to when I was 9, when I finally had to admit to myself that my dad was probably never going to call or write more than once a year.

I knew that I was taking a risk by getting attached to P. In the end, I still think that it was worth it because my relationship with him did help me to get out of a toxic relationship.

I don’t know what else to say. I’ll take the time to process all this and try Ho’oponopono, as Ravi kindly suggested.

Take care Anita,

Isabelle

Dear Anita,

By “no one there for you”, I guess you mean an adult. There was no adult. I did have siblings though, so I was no completely alone. I actually was the one taking care of my mom. I could feel how fragile she was and I wanted to make her feel better because I was afraid that I would lose her too. She later told me that she was suicidal during this period, so my fear was justified.

Isabelle

Dear Anita,

I completely understand what you mean about wanting to make your mom happy. I still wish this today! Her life has been so difficult and when I can, I try to make it a bit better. Somehow it feels like it is healing me when I am able to bring joy to her. Once I was able to take her with me to Belgium where I was attending a conference. It was great. I hope I can do this again someday.

So my relationship with her has not changed much, I still want to take care of her. I try to be careful though, to do only what I really want to. She tends to make poor life choices sometimes, and ends up in trouble, financially and psychologically. I help when I can, but I no longer feel it is my responsibility to save her.

How about your relation to your mom?

Isabelle

Dear Anita,

It must have been hard to end contacts with your mom.

Your observation on the title of my thread is indeed interesting. I have often heard that our relationship troubles are always somehow related to our relationships with our parents. I had doubts about this… but it seems appropriate in my case.

Yes, mothers are supposed to be strong enough to take care of their child. Sometimes they are not. But if they are struggling, they should at least try their best and show their child that they are trying their best. As a mother, I cannot comprehend why my mom did not try more. She disappointed me over and over again. Why do I still try, albeit reasonably, to bring her joy despite this? I know that I will never heal her. She will probably never change. But somehow, it makes me feel good to put a smile on her face. Today it mother’s day. How interesting that we are exchanging on this topic today. 🙂

I still do not know what is a healthy relationship, but I am trying to find out. I wrote an email to P earlier, telling him that I am ending our relationship. This time I sent it. I am sad, but relieved at the same time.

Isabelle

Dear Anita,

It is kind of like a drug.

So you believe that keeping a relationship with my mother prevents me from developing more healthy relationships? I do not understand why they cannot co-exist. Maybe because keeping a link with her makes me unable to fully see everything that is wrong with this relationship, therefore making me less discerning in my relationships more generally?

Thank you for your congratulations. You really helped a lot. I needed someone to present things clearly to me. 🙂

Isabelle

Dear Anita,

This is very interesting, I know exactly what you are talking about. Going back and forth between feeling weak and inferior, and strong and superior. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have lived with anxiety since a very young age. Around 5, I started having violent migraines that would make me throw up. I also had night terrors. I have had periods where things were better, but it never lasts.

I do not know what I will do regarding my mom. Your remarks certainly have given me food for thought.

I am pretty sure that I will never completely heal from this. Knowing that the intense pain that I feel when I am in a bad place will keep coming back is one reason why I entertain suicidal thoughts. There were periods where I was able to live in the present moment. This is when I was most happy. When the pain started to creep up, I would slow down, go under my rock, as I call it, and remind myself that everything is temporary. Eventually, the pain would recede. It is difficult to keep this way of life. Often, I do not find a way to face my responsibilities while giving myself the time and space needed to calm things down. I am trying to achieve some sort of balance.

Isabelle