Hi Anita,

I don’t think I seek comfort in her company, advice or approval anymore. I think I stopped doing this when I was young. That being said, I do look to my father for those things, and unfortunately they are a packaged deal. If I call him, or try to visit him, she is always around. 

I’m having a particularly rough go yesterday and today… I was actually making progress with my partner, we were reconnecting even though it’s difficult with the distance. However, yesterday morning we had a small disagreement over the phone (he was rushed to go to an appointment, and I was keeping him on the phone too long to try to clarify a misunderstanding about something I said about his dad) and since then he won’t speak to me… he won’t answer any of my calls, and told me he never wants to talk to me again. I was not prepared for the level of anger… I never dreamed he would be so angry. When I asked him why, all he said was that we don’t communicate well, that we don’t get each other and we never would. As I tried to figure out why he was SO angry at me (I understand being frustrated, or just wanting to end the relationship, but it was the intensity of his anger that confused me) and he got very mean. He told me I was an idiot, that I disgusted him. This was an hour or two after telling me he loved me and hoping I had a good sleep. 

I’m so hurt, Anita. I cannot understand why he is SO angry with me, why he won’t talk to me at all. Usually if I “mess up” or make a mistake, I can place or understand the anger. But in this instance, I am totally lost. I wasn’t expecting it at all, and I am still shocked that this is how he feels. After everything we have gone through together, been there for one another, it hurts so badly to have a loved one say these horrible things to you. It’s been over a day now, and he has not changed. I thought maybe once he calmed down, we could talk, but it looks like that will not be the case. 

What’s worse, is I feel all the same feelings from when I was a child. But worse. I don’t think my mother ever spoke to me with such anger and disdain as he has. I’m truly broken over this. How my best friend, my partner, could treat me this way over some silly misunderstanding. Why he would rather choose to attack and destroy me than figure out what happened. I am in shock. Just yesterday he was telling me he loved me, that he was glad we were reconnecting. How could this all go so wrong so fast over 2 minute conversation? 

Hi Anita,

That is true, we did talk about it, but it wasn’t by choice. I actually was talking to my father on the phone about what was going on, and she chimed in which is often the case. Like I mentioned, I am not really able to discuss things with my father alone. I suppose I do accept her attempts to give support or advice, but I definitely do not seek it from her.

I think I did always love him, I did want things to work out between us, but I was deeply scarred from my past. I had been really beating myself up over discussing my past with him, but I realized today that a lot of that was because he is very inexperienced in relationships (I am his first girlfriend and his 27 years old) and I felt I needed to explain what is normal in relationships. He was always very hard on me in our relationship, sometimes to the point of meanness, and while I believe this helped motivate me forward in my life professionally, it had a deep toll emotionally. I constantly asked him to be nicer to me, and I think this is where past exes would come into the picture because I deeply missed having a partner be kind and sweet to me.

My current partner/now ex is an only child, from a Croatian background. His parents lavish him with attention, constantly. They do not and have not ever scolded him, even when he was rude to them. In fact, the last argument we had was regarding how he was speaking to his father. I simply could not stand how mean he was being to him, as I have now for some months been on the receiving end of that anger and meanness. I think he doesn’t ever want to be questioned for his behaviour. He did not seem this way when we first meant, he was so kind and sweet to me and we started the relationship as friends. I thought he would always be that way to me, that even if our relationship ended, we could be civil to one another. But it did not end this way, and I’m truly saddened by the cruel things he said to me and to this moment stands by saying.

I miss my “best friend”, but I feel he is gone now. Perhaps it is my fault for not loving him enough when we were together, but I truly did my very best. And I am sad to say that no matter how I did or didn’t act in the relationship, I don’t think you can ever truly justify meanness and cruelty, especially since I was apologetic and sad the whole time. I truly wish I had loved him better while we were together, appreciated when he was kind to me more. But at the same time, something in my gut feels like no matter what I did, he wanted a relationship on his terms only, and did not want to factor mine into those and this became more apparent as we got comfortable with one another, which I believe caused me to miss previous partners more where this wasn’t the case.

I believe sadly this relationship is over, but I am more sad about how it ended, especially when at the very end there seemed to be a chance of reconciliation.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by laelithia.

Hi Anita,

My father told me that he likes my current partner as a person very much, even believes that they are friends as he is responsible, hardworking, educated and reliable. However, he told me he didn’t think he was a good partner for me. The reason he said was that my current partner (I will refer to him this way to remove confusion between him and my ex of 2 years ago) was a very rigid person, that he would only be happy with a partner that went with his way. My current partner did say several times he needed a partner where it was his way or the highway. I actually think I could have worked with this, but the problem I faced with him is he didn’t like to communicate what “his way” was, and instead expected me to know automatically for being his partner. In other words, to intuitively know what he did and did not need from me like his mother always did he said. I told him that was maybe unrealistic of a partner, but he didn’t agree.

Well, my previous partner/ex was not good to me in the sense that he would still be talking to other women, not committing, etc., but in person, texts, and calls, he was always very nice and sweet. My current partner does not handle stress very well, and often explodes in an angry tirade but feels better afterwards. I simply was not accustomed to this, I was shocked and hurt for some time about it. He later explained that although he got angry with me, he always came back. And this was true. I think however every time he got angry, yelled, swore, said mean things, my heart broke just a little more even though he did always come back.

I suppose I am trying to assume the opinion of my father, that this relationship was simply not a match, to begin with. I suppose this is easier to cope with than believing it was solely my fault that the relationship ended. That being said, I have always felt that my current partner was resistant to open communication (such as Skype or phone call) and would instead always gravitate to text message. I found this extremely frustrating as I truly believe text is not an appropriate medium for serious discussions as it leads to so many misunderstandings and miscommunications. I believe our recent argument is a perfect example of that. I feel if I had just been able to speak to him on the phone, I could easily clarify what upset him so greatly in our last conversation, but he would not let me. Many times he has not but will only text.

I think there is a great deal I have learned from this experience, but I am truly saddened that it seems my learning cannot benefit this current relationship anymore. I miss my partner greatly, at the end of the day he was my true (and often only) friend. I feel saddened that he feels hurt by my actions in our relationship, but I am even more saddened that he would not accept any apology or making amends that I tried to offer despite never receiving an apology for his cruel words to me in the present or the past. He has said before that I “killed the nice version” of himself, and that I have no one to blame but myself for how he is toward me now. Is that really possible?

I’m very confused about all of this, and I desperately want to be able to speak to my partner over the phone to discuss this, but he seems completely unwilling. My head is spinning over how yesterday morning at 10am we were speaking lovingly over the phone, the incident with his father occurred, he hung up, and an hour late her never wants to speak again, and still doesn’t.

Hi Anita,

Thank you for always being so thorough and detailed. To answer your questions, he was serious when he said this statement. He told me that what he meant by it was that he didn’t want a partner that would “stand in his way” or keep him from doing whatever it is that he needs to do. In speaking with him more, the last conversation we had it was this that angered him so greatly, that in me trying to clarify the comment about how he was talking to his dad, he felt when I said “no, no, just wait! I want to say something” I was standing in his way, and he said he “didn’t deserve to be dealing with someone where there are so many misunderstandings and is constantly confused” (as I often don’t understand his anger or frustrations with me, so I say I’m confused and ask him to explain for me so I can understand and empathize with him).

When I said I think I could have worked with that, I meant that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea for me to be with someone that can completely take the lead. I seem to question and regret most decisions I make, so I thought maybe it was a good thing he was so assertive with what he wanted to do. That being said, he seemed to want to make decisions and go about with his life in a way that didn’t include me very much, which often hurt. And I think this was his primary annoyance with me, that I wanted to be included and thought of. In one of our last conversations, he said he wants to be alone and single for a long time, as he doesn’t want to “factor someone in” anymore…

Hi Anita,

I have taken the last few days to really sit down with myself and process my feelings. To answer your question, my mother is extremely emotionally unavailable to others when certain emotions are activated in her. She has experienced significant trauma in her childhood, relationships afterward, and rather than deal with these traumas, she has built a wall around them in her mind and refuses to enter or discuss them. Therefore, whenever I “triggered” any of these emotions in her, or experienced these emotions myself, she simply was not able to help or console me through them, but she has never been able to do so for herself. I accept this about her now in adulthood, as there is no other choice. She will not ever change, and even if she did, it would not erase what was done to me in childhood. So, to fully answer your question, she would simply shut down. She would leave, or she would dismiss or ignore me. I suppose in many ways, I felt abandoned. Not unlike how I feel presently, with the ex of 2 years ago. In thinking about all of this, I believe I have figured out now why the pervasive thoughts of him continue, but I do not know how to stop them.

I believe these pervasive thoughts persist for a couple of reasons:

1.) Seperate from any past negative core beliefs about my childhood or myself, I simply got along very well with this person. Our personalities were quite similar, we enjoyed the same things, had the same sense of humour. He was communicative, enjoyed connecting this way. I believe we also respected one another on a personal level. I have not found someone that I connected to on this personal level since. I looked up to him, and he looked out for me. I was attracted to him physically, emotionally, and personality-wise. As much as I hate to admit it, I miss this person deeply despite everything that has happened since.

2.) I truly believe that my core wounds (the ones you have helped me identify through this and previous threads) were the main cause of the demise of this relationship. Even though he was fresh out of a divorce, in reading our past messages and reflecting on the toxicity of the relationship, 90% I would say of these disagreements were started by me, driven by my insecurities from childhood. For instance, I would often question his motives, be distrustful even though he had never at the time given me a reason not to trust him, and worst of all, I was afraid to let someone in and become attached to them for fear they might leave me. Even though I desperately wanted to be able to. My subconscious simply couldn’t allow me to believe that someone could truly love me, stay with me, want me. So I constnatly was looking for evidence to support this idea.

3.) My narrative of what happened in this relationship and what lead to the ultimate demise was for a very long time framed in a victim mentality. Specifically, “how could he betray, leave me, and replace me with someone (lesser than me) else like this, after I had stuck by him through so much (his divorce, inability to commit to me) and never gave up on him? How could he do this to me?” Rather than what I believe the true reality or narrative of the story was, which is that throughout our 1 year and 2-month “relationship”, he was often alluding to not being ready to commit to anyone so soon after his separation and divorce, I took this personally. I made it about me, and I made it about winning him, someone unavailable, like my mother. I was very pushy, I often used guilt to push him closer to me, I did not respect his boundaries. To be honest, I don’t think I used empathy for him at all, it is almost as though I didn’t see him as a separate individual with his own feelings and flaws, I only saw him as a goal, a means to an end. The “end” being the end to my suffering that started when I was a child. If I could get him to fully commit to me, my subconscious thought, then I could finally heal all the wounds from my past and I would finally be truly happy.

So, my question is this. I believe you have answered in many ways how I can begin to process and heal from my past wounds through exploration of past arguments and fractures with my mother from my childhood (which will help with points 2 and 3), but how can I move on, forgive myself and my mother (because I believe this is important in letting go, taking my power back) for causing myself to lose someone so special to me, someone I finally truly connected with on a personal level, someone that I do believe to this day would have made a good partner for me (point 1)?

I have been on countless first dates, been in 8 or so relationships in my life, and yet I have never connected with and been attracted to a person as much as the ex I started this thread about. I think most of the other relationships occurred because of this business about projecting my core wounds onto them and trying to “win” them like I have always tried in the past to “win” the affection of my mother, but this one was different. It was that also, but it was also the first time I truly loved the person as well, separate from any past traumas. I loved him, his personality, his outlook on life, his optimism and easy going nature, his lifestyle. He has since committed to the woman he dated during/immediately after me. Although I believe she is physically less attractive than me, she is also less “damaged” than me, did not push him as I did. I believe that had I worked through my past traumas before I met him, we would not be where we are now. Totally NC, and with me never being able to tell him my truth, explain what went wrong in our relationship and that my self sabotaging behaviour wasn’t me, who I am, but rather issues from the past I did not deal with.

I feel like no matter what, I will always be asking myself: what if? What if I had worked through my past issues with my mother, what if I had been present in that relationship and not projected my hurt onto it? Maybe the relationship would not have survived anyway, as he was so soon out of his first marriage, but unfortunately, I will never know because of how I behaved. I am sad that after so much time has passed, I am still reeling over this relationship, break up, and the aftermath that followed. He was my best friend, my confidant, my advisor in a lot of ways, and I am saddened that all of that was lost. Not to mention how he sees me now, a bother, a “psycho ex”.

My current partner, who I am much better able to work through my issues with, at the end of the day, lacks point 1. We do not have chemistry, our time together is often butting heads in some way. We are not so similar personality-wise, he is not calm and optimistic like my ex was, in fact, they have totally opposing demeanours. Where my ex was easy going, fun and independent, my current partner is rigid, serious, and a somewhat dependent on his parents, unable to fully grow up in a lot of ways. But also, where my ex was reckless, using drugs and alcohol, and poor at financial management, my current partner is responsible, doesn’t use drugs or alcohol, and very good at financial management and planning. I would say in most objective measures, my current partner is a better partner, more suitable for a longterm relationship. However, I cannot fake that I enjoy time with him nearly as much as I did with my ex. We simply do not “vibe” as well, and as he has noted during the periods of time he has wanted to break up, we do not seem to “get each other” very well. That being said, there is an underlying love, and fondness for each other that doesn’t seem to fade. We have accumulated many memories together, travelled together, spent time with each other’s families. I would also hate to lose this person.

So, as I approach 30, I am totally lost. Do I abandon all hope in this current relationship, cross the ocean and move to my partner 5,000 miles away to see if we can overcome our obstacles, or do I break it off, take some time for myself, and start again with someone new (hopefully with a similar connection as my ex) after 30? Both options seem equally flawed and equally frightening to me, all while feeling like I am already out of time. What would you do if you were me?

Hi Anita,

I agree with where you are going with this, that the majority of my preoccupation with the ex of two years ago and my attraction to him was primarily due to the reactivation of old core wounds, but isn’t it possible there was something else too?

By this, I’m referring to point 1 of my last post, that I was attracted to this person for more than just the reactivation of core wounds. Ex. physically attractive (I usually have a hard time finding men attractive), ability to communicate about emotions, positive outlook on life,  easy going, good-natured, fun, adventurous, intelligent, witty, stable job, interesting/fun friends. Do you think that these qualities are irrelevant to my problems moving on? The reason I ask is that when I envision my “perfect” or happy relationship, I often imagine it with someone like him, with these qualities. Isn’t that above and beyond my core wounds?

To answer your two questions, she has apologized for what I believe occurred when I have communicated to her that I believe in some ways she wronged me, and offered explanations for why it may have felt that way for me. For instance, I have 3 siblings, all of us born within 5 years from oldest to youngest and she was very busy parenting and working from home, my parents’ business was not initially successful and was very stressed over this, lack of support from external family members, etc. Unfortunately, even my father does not believe anything she did or didn’t do was that bad as a parent, as both of their childhoods were far more difficult than mine, with much more emotionally unavailable and somewhat abusive parents. I suppose everything is relative, and to my parents, I had a very charmed and privileged childhood (I would agree with this statement if looking solely at materials and financial opportunities).

In my work with clients, I believe they have a point. Although my parents (and particularly my mother) have made many mistakes in parenting, I have to give them credit that at ages 68 (my mother) and 63 (my father) with children ranging from 26 – 31, they have not stopped trying to be good parents. For example, anytime I am upset, I know I can call either of them and they will try to make me feel better. They may not be successful at it, but the effort is there. When it comes to my mother, I believe this is the absolute best she will ever have to offer. I don’t believe she will or is able to offer anything more than what you referred to as throwing some glitter over my wound. I have learned over the years that you cannot change someone else, so I suppose I must learn to accept this about her.

Hi Anita,

Thank you for your feedback once again. I understand what you are saying, that the child version of myself did not understand (or was aware of) the possible explanations for her negative interactions with me. I suppose the difficulty I have to addres this with her is two-fold; one, I cannot clearly remember specific examples or instances to describe to her what she had done that was wrong and why it hurt me, and two, I don’t believe she will ever full “own” or accept my account of her errors as a parent to me. Knowing this, how can I heal the relationship with her?

I don’t believe I will feel good about terminating the relationship altogether, nor do I think it is practical as I am very close to my father, and as I mentioned, they come as a package. Also, my family is quite close and we get together often, so I can’t imagine it would be possible to maintain the relationships with my other family members if I terminated hers and ours.

Lastly, there is an added component with her health. In fact, during the time I met the ex of two years ago, my mother was undergoing an experimental stem cell transplant to treat her terminal cancer. When this was occurring, her prognosis was estimated at 6 months if the treatment was unsuccessful. However, it has been successful but even still, her health is always up and down and I worry that I don’t have much time left to repair our relationship.