* Please ignore what follows the closing of my post (I pasted your previous writings into my reply and forgot to delete it before submitting).

Dear Tee:

You are very kind, thank you!

“Well over the course of that 5 year relationship I learned I needed to be more forgiving but still firm on what I was looking for… assertive“- a perfect combination: more forgiving and firm/ assertive, as in not one or another, or one at the expense of the other.

“I was always expecting something, something to change but I missed the moments of reality“- you wrote this in regard to your adult relationship, but I am thinking that this has been true to the girl that you were when growing up: “I..  stayed in my own world“, “I kind of repressed a lot of memories to be honest and it is a bit hazy… I didn’t know it was affecting me or how I really felt about” (Aug 4, 2020).

This is how I too experienced my childhood: repressed memories (I have very few memories of it), hazy, in my own world- daydreaming a lot, and like you, I too studied very hard. It happens to a child when growing up in an ongoing distressing situation: the child closes-in, dissociates, pays the least attention to what is happening (missing the moments of reality) so to lower the distress. These are not conscious, individual choices: nature/physiology  chooses this for us.

Similarly to you, I grew up in a 1-bedroom apartment, a small 1-bedroom (with my mother and a younger sister). Before their divorce, my parents too fought. But I remember only one such incident: loud voices, glass breaking perhaps, suicide threats, etc. I remember looking through a little hole in the makeshift-door that created a separate tiny second room, scared.

“I loved with blind eyes until the 3rd time I left“- living as a child with blind eyes, as much as possible, so to not see the distressing, ongoing events=> living adulthood and loving with blind eyes

“The 3rd time I left I chose me, I prioritized me in what I wanted and needed‘- firm, assertive!

“I think I was trying to mold myself too, to fit him and force a happy relationship“- an ongoing childhood adjustment that you made growing up: “I did as I was told... I studied hard and did not question much since I didn’t want to give them another reason to argue“, April 4, 2020)

“It’s been 1.5 years since I spoke to him and over that time I almost went into a mourning phase because I realized we just weren’t right for each other no matter how hard we tried“-

– this makes me think of the child that I was: my mother and I, we just weren’t right for each other, no matter how hard I tried. But a child does not have the option to leave a bad relationship.. with one’s mother.

“I was also resentful, for him not loving me the way I loved him“- this is my childhood experience, in regard to my mother: unrequited love. It is your experience too, with your father, isn’t it, an experience you projected into your then boyfriend : “my dad and my current partner have very similar personalities. Maybe, I subconsciously looked for that to try and fix it, the ‘un-required love?‘” (April 2020)

“I think before I just couldn’t shake the feeling that we were meant to be but that was childish“- a child feels that she was meant to be with her parents. Fast forward, this feeling is projected to a romantic partner.

“It was just an attachment to familiarity is what I was experiencing. The feeling of lack of emotion, distance, separation anxieties, and quality time. All what I experienced growing up“- it was not only the lack in your childhood that you re-experienced with your then boyfriend, but also the HOPE that this lack will change (“I was always expecting something, something to change“, yesterday’s post).

“I am still super single and I am just having fun by myself with my two cats. Occasionally I go out with some friends to keep up the human interactions. I am doing things alone that I never thought I’d do before. I am trying and learning to be happy with my own company. That’s me so far. Much love, Tee“- much love back to you, Tee, and congratulations, again, for making a super single, fun life happen for you! I will be glad to read more from you anytime you feel like sharing!

anita

Hello Anita,

Oh no I have learned to see reality more, so please be as blunt as you’d like. I enjoy the perspectives. I in my single life have not only focused on developing myself but also my career. I have reached higher levels in the banking industry and will continue until I have the financial freedom I desire (not like a millionaire, just enough to buy me a beach house). I’ve been also trying to get back in shape, the pandemic made me gain 20 lbs! I also moved to a whole another state to really get a fresh start and so far I’ve been able to pinpoint who deserves to be in my life. I think I also turned a blind eye to friends who were not right for me either. I stopped trying to be friends with people who never really want to be friends with me. And I am okay with that because you know what you can’t make everyone like you. It’s ok, there is always somebody in the world who really wants to be my friend. I don’t have to wear my heart on my sleeve for anybody. Have I turned cold and selfish haha? I am just protecting my heart more and loving me more. If I don’t love myself who will right? Well actually my cats love me regardless I think.

Dear Tee:

Congratulations for doing so well in your career in the banking industry! I hope that you manage to buy the beach house you desire, and that you get in shape and lose the weight you want to lose.

You ended your recent, Sept 27, 2023 short post with: “I don’t have to wear my heart on my sleeve for anybody. Have I turned cold and selfish haha? I am just protecting my heart more and loving me more. If I don’t love myself who will right? Well actually my cats love me regardless I think.”-

– I want to explore the idea of wearing your heart on your sleeve with a man (being in a relationship) vs being cold and selfish (living as a single woman… perhaps as a future cat lady):

Let’s look at the very beginning of your original post back in April 4, 2020 (three years, five months and two weeks ago; the boldface feature is my addition): “So, 8 years ago I came out of a relationship that I thought was perfect and really thought we were going to get married…  I focused on myself for the next 4 years and just living my life in solidarity. I enjoyed my life and regret nothing. Then on the 4th year I met a man..  everything seemed to fit and I was content and happy. This year going on our 4th year together I realized something  and it felt so sad, painful, and lonely…  He is and was perfect when it came to the type of man I wanted in my life. But, this one aspect threw me off this ‘perfect’ relationship. Whenever I talked about something I’m going through in my life regarding my parents and how they made me feel he just doesn’t know how to respond. He either just listens or just gives me one words responses. Sometimes I would talk about things that made me sad or frustrated. I grew up in a house where my parents continuously argued…”-

– (1) Because of the turbulent nature of your childhood home, the arguing, the disorder, the conflict, the ongoing, never to be resolved distress, you found a calm refuge- as a child- in solidarity (“I.. stayed in my own world. I did not have playmates growing up. I did not get to have friends till I was in high school”). Fast forward, as an adult woman, you find refuge in solidarity.

(2) Part of you tried to find refuge in a relationship: you wanted a man to resolve the conflict you grew up in, way  before he ever got into your life (an impossible task for any man). When you felt a man was perfect, it was because you put him on a pedestal so that he will  be able- from his elevated position- to resolve your childhood experience. Notice that the first problem you mentioned in regard to the 2nd man (your boyfriend at the time), is that he didn’t know how to respond to what you told him regarding your parents.

In my first reply to you, I wrote about your boyfriend at the time: “he can’t change what happened to you. He can’t go back in time and rescue the girl that you were from the war-zone kind of a home where you grew up”, and you replied: “After writing all that and reading it myself I realized those are problems only I can fix and I’m aware of that. I just want to feel I guess warm inside and feel safe somehow around him. Maybe I’m looking for some magical phrase or sentence to make the pain go away”-

– rationally, you realized that he cannot fix the turbulence in your mind (the turbulent leftover from your childhood), but emotionally you expected him to do just that: to turn that turbulence into feeling warm and safe inside. Neither he, nor any man is capable of such magic.

You said it yourself in page 1 or 2 of your thread: “I hope one day I can truly leave this emotional torment behind and be happy…I guess in this relationship I’ve been trying to get everything I didn’t have growing up”.

My input today: What I pointed to above does not mean that your boyfriend at the time was the right man for you, or that he would have become the right man for you (and marry you) if you didn’t have this unrealistic expectation of him. What I pointed to, and with which you agree on a rational level, would make any and every man the wrong man for you. Like you, I too had unrealistic expectations of a man and I learned since what is realistic to expect and what is not.

Again, good to read back from you!

anita