Dear Anita,

I cried when I read your reply. Your analysis and words hit me right in my heart. It’s funny that with my years of working to resolve my suffering I had never had it laid out that lucidly. The way that you have been able to take my words and translate them is astoundingly accurate. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. It really changed my perspective and my life!

“you want the man to need you, to love you completely, which is what you needed as a child from a parent, but didn’t get.”  This makes so much sense. Something I believed that I knew, but reading this comparison helps me to see the direct cause.

“this is what a young child does when she/he doesn’t get her parent’s attention or when her parent is often not there… she detaches and acts aloof, as if she doesn’t care. It happens after all the child’s cries were unheard again and again. The child no longer cries, no longer asks, having given up.” – Another thing that I’ve kind of been aware of since I was younger, but never really correlated with my behavior in relationships.

“Integrate the two selves,  and you will be healthily, authentically and truly.”  I realize my need to find my voice and courage to show who I am so that it doesn’t escape only as jealousy and passive-aggressiveness. I have tried EDMR for this.

“no one likes to feel dependent when there is no  one to depend on.”  – Another eye-opening realization .

“in relationships you see (once you feel attached) the man as a parent.” This was like a slap of reality to my brain. The enmeshment and not seeing the other as an individual. When I read this a few days ago, so much of my confusion and fear melted away. This seemingly simple idea has provided me with a profound understanding. Especially with my last relationship. You ask me to imagine myself meeting someone who needed me and how it would look…

I never knew what it would look like, or could even comprehend it until my last relationship. I was instantly attracted to someone I didn’t even know under the most peculiar conditions (working on a cruise ship – he was from another country). He was the first person I ever pursued in my life. A crazy magnetism. I liked him at first because of his sense of humor. I fell in love with him because not only did he want to spend all his time with me, but he could tell me that he wanted to. He didn’t play games and was confident. He also took such good care of me. I found out later he had two children, which made me realize that his fatherly side was what really tugged at my heart. I ended it a couple of months ago because I was tormenting myself daily (we both had left the ship, and were separated by 6,000 miles) because I didn’t trust that he wasn’t going to abandon me and go back to his ex-wife.

Just thinking about him really digs into my heart. He’s certainly been assigned the role of a parent. And I see that I ignored all the things that might have been red flags (like the child with an abusive parent), to get the stuff that made me feel wanted and loved.

I put all my time and effort into desperately trying to make it work, which actually sent me into a sort of depression. But now I’m beginning to see that I can’t possibly change all these things on my own and the burden is much too great to put on another. I’m finally beginning to realize that the only way to work through these things in the future is to be honest with myself and with whoever I may find myself with about my insecurities, as impossible as that may seem. Is it enough to just be honest about that? Is it possible to stop seeing the other as my parent and not an individual?

Thank you again, Anita. I hope you are safe and well at this time.

Dear Anita,

I’m glad to hear that you are safe and well!

Thank you so much for offering your continuing support and communication. Knowing that I have a wise and supportive ear really does make a difference in navigating my healing.

I’ve been continuing to process things. Thinking about why I am so attached (seeing partner as parent) continues to help me understand why the emotional attachment is so strong. But you’re right – just because I understand it won’t resolve the problem in the future. I guess for now, since I’m not in a relationship, it’s helping me to heal from my last one. As far as emotional healing goes, like you mentioned, I’ve also realized that my years and years of healing is not linear. It does seem to resurface as different lessons throughout time.  Then I think, ” oh no, not again!”. I think I become frustrated that I’m facing the same challenges over and over. But this time I think that having a perspective on all the components of my life that lead to my suffering in relationships and the need to constantly work on them, rather than resolving them miraculously and becoming a perfect person in the future, like you said, is giving me more perspective and hope.

Thank you so much for the advice for future relationships! I want to think about what that requires and looks like. As of this moment, I’ve fallen back into some heavy grief. Probably because of the loneliness and lack of distractions due to quarantine.

I can’t stop thinking about my ex being quarantined with his family. Resuming his life, having gone back to his wife and kids. We had been communicating since the breakup in Feb. here and there, just to check in with each other. I know I’m feeling strongly about rejection/abandonment because I haven’t heard from him in a while (I assume he’s gone back to his family).

I’m working through all of this. But constant painful images and thoughts of him being happy with his family are overwhelming. I’m meditating and just trying to be with the thoughts, letting them come and go, writing in my journal, getting out, exercising, trying to take care of myself,  but I’m starting to feel like they’re starting to get ingrained in my brain and will not go away. I even try to just recognize that I can be happy for him and his family. That’s what I wanted for him. I can’t figure out why my brain wants me to think of these things. I feel like it’s glitchy and not serving to protect me at all. Sometimes I feel like I’m in purgatory or being made to suffer for something I’ve done. Which is completely irrational given all the real suffering in the world. I keep trying to be courageous and know that they’re just thoughts, that nothing lasts forever,… I don’t feel like this is the usual grief and pain that I feel after a breakup. I want to understand why my brain continues to play this harmful thought on a loop. Is there some purpose for this? Is it a way of holding on to something? Or is this something that I really wanted for myself with him, so him having it with someone else is leading to heartbreak?

I realize this topic has kind of taken a turn from where it started. The evolution of healing, I guess…

Thank you again, Anita for your thoughtfulness!

Maile

Hehe,  Thanks Anita!

Hi Anita,

I met him and hung out with him for a couple of weeks before finding out from someone else that he had a wife and kids. This sickened me and I immediately told him we couldn’t hang out. He said he was no longer with his wife, but that he has children that he misses. He left for a few months and when he came back, our relationship got more serious, but we never spoke about what we expected. I left a few months later, with intentions to just let the relationship go. He wanted to see me in the future, I wanted to visit him in his country, but nothing was planned.

I got up the courage to write him and ask about his family, to tell him goodbye and thank you, and that I won’t be sad about saying goodbye because I knew he was a good father and partner and that his family was lucky to have him (I still didn’t know about his ex/wife). He replied that he had a wife, was never officially married for 11 years. They broke up when he left the ship the first time because he didn’t want to deceive either of us. He said they had been staying together for the kids and their relationship the past 3 years was bad. He told me over the following months that he never regretted that decision. I just assumed I was somehow a fling filling in for the pain he felt with his relationship. That he might be having a mid-life crisis. I never asked anything else other than if she wants him to go back home. He said he didn’t feel free in their relationship (I’m assuming she was demanding) and that he loved me more than he ever loved her. I know that his children are his life and that he wasn’t dealing with his wife’s rejection well. I could see that he was very sad at times. I told him that I knew this. I ever asked him if maybe they could go to counseling and work things out.

I did all this despite my desire to have these things with him. I apologized later for my suggestions that he make it work for his children. That family is the most important thing. He said he understood my wanting for things to be better with his family, but sometimes better isn’t better. Despite all these reassurances, day and night I wondered if he wanted to go back. And it made me so anxious and crazy (never once telling him how I felt) that I finally just broke up with him because I couldn’t handle myself anymore. I regret it so much. Mostly because I wish I could’ve explained these things instead of running away.

I’m pondering my childhood pain. I don’t know if my fantasy of having a family with him – someone who I see as a father figure who loved and accepted me is the cause of these thoughts. I used to wish that he would be happy and have his family, because that’s what I know is best for all in the long run. But now I can’t feel that way, even though I try. I guess I don’t know how to deal with these wants that feel so deep and primal. How to just push away a desire for belonging and to have a family or children. The more I think about it, the more I realize that these were always dreams of mine, but I never recognized them. Never before wanted them. And now that I’ve found them I think I also feel anxiety because I fear its too late.

There’s just a lot of sadness, anguish, anxiety around the entire situation. I guess I’m feeling like it’s difficult to deal with these feelings more than other difficult thoughts because this is something that has more meaning. Like I’ve finally found something that feels meaningful in my life.

Some context: when I was little, my entire bedroom was a nursery. I had so many dolls and everything that you would need to take care of real babies. I had always wanted to adopt a lot of children. I was always nurturing. My mother who was an OB nurse scared me out of ever having children when I was a teenager, so I just assumed I wasn’t ever going to have kids. But at this point in my life, I’m seeing myself as I was as a child. I loved taking care of things, loved my dolls, animals. Something I always saw as frivolous and unncessary in this crazy, overpopulated world.

I apologize for the rambling. I just had a major emotional breakdown. The desire and wanting that cut into my gut and chest are still here. Now I just feel fear for never having this, desire to still be with the guy, and overwhelm all over again. Now the only way for me to stop feeling this ache is to imagine that maybe his wife felt the same about having him back… and I feel better that one less person is suffering. ??

I have been dong mindfulness meditation twice a day and so many things that are good for me. Nothing seems to touch the grief and pain of not having a life with him…