Dear Xenopustex:

I re-read your posts and this is my understanding, developing as I type: you grew up mostly with your grandparents. You observed family dynamics early on, dynamics that turned off your motivation to interact with people on a personal level. Your father died some years ago and in 2014 your mother moved to your house, temporarily but still there and no end to the arrangement in sight.

I am thinking those Family Dynamics that you observed, was part of at an early age and onward, turned you off to human dynamics outside the family. In those dynamics empathy was a disadvantage; the empathetic person got hurt, and the aggressive person, “the hammer”, won. So as you grew up you had a choice between the two and you understandably chose to be the one not getting hurt, the hammer, that is.

As a hammer you stuck to the rational and to being aggressive. When you had that date with the woman and suggested dating her, and she reacted as if you wanted to have sex with her right there and then, it could have been that your aggressive vibrations lead her to believe that. I keep coming back to the hammer metaphor that you used. If on that date you were the hammer, then she felt like the nail that didn’t want to be hit by a hammer.

It is a shame you wrote there is no therapy available where you live. It may be a reason to leave and live elsewhere. Also, a good reason for your distress is your mother, not only since 2014 when she moved in with you but way before that, when you were a child. I am supposing you are afraid to confront her, to tell her to move out. It is with her that you need to be a hammer, tell her you need her out of your house.

I don’t see how you can bring back the empathy you put behind you all by yourself. It takes help, someone to help you, someone you trust. If you’d like, please post more about those family dynamics that affected you so deeply. I will respond every time you post.

anita

Dear xenopustex:

I learned that wasting years, decades and often enough whole life times is the norm, not the exception. I see it in my life and I see it in others’. Waste of time, and of resources, real and potential is indeed, the norm in personal lives and in the world at large. Efficiency, good use of resources is the exception; waste and destruction is the norm.

And so, better wake up at some point and stop the waste you can stop. I too chose to not let the craziness of my childhood pass on to the next generation and so, I chose from the beginning to not bring children here.

Be back at the computer in a few hours. Please post again.

anita

Dear xenopustex:

If you wake up now before you are 40, you will be 10 years ahead of me. You are regretting lost time but the … funny thing is no matter how glorious your past could have been, it would still be gone and lost. The past is lost simply because it is gone.

You wrote that half of your life is gone, well, you don’t know it: you don’t know how long you will live. You might have just one more day.Some people do have only one day, they die as babies on their first day.

Most people never wake up, or if they wake up, they get swollen in regret and give up; or they get scared and go back to sleep. Will you wake up and stay awake?

To wake up every day, you need to see reality for what it is: the past is lost for everyone. It always is. Waste is the norm. Waking up and staying awake is the exception. Love is possible for you, love with a woman. These are all realities.

Regarding the latter, I hope you can settle the situation with that woman in your life, your mother. It may be significant in your quest to have love with the right woman for you.

anita

Dear xenopustex:

Will it help for you to verbalize this pain here, on your thread? State it like it is: what hurts?

anita

Dear xenopustex:

I wish I opened your thread sooner today and answered sooner. I appreciate you opening up here, very much so and honored that you did so at my suggestion.

Your last sentence: industriousness, loyalty and fidelity not being saleable- need be saleable to just one woman, one life partner, and it is not too late for you. You can have the kind of relationship, with a woman, that will make your life so very different, so much better. It takes only one woman to highly value your qualities.

The paragraph before it: your image of crassness that people can’t see anything but it. Well, I can. I can see something else. And so will that one, the just one that you need.

Before that you asked: will changes make a difference? Depending on the nature of the changes. Some changes afford opportunities for the changes that do matter. For example, if you move to a big city but you take your mother to live with you there, then there will be no difference. But if you move without her, and on top, you attend psychotherapy that is not available to you where you are, then there will be great difference.

Staying where you are, still, you can make changes that will make a difference. If you are wise about the changes you choose to make. Trying to change your image with the little society where you live, probably will make no difference. Approaching that woman you mentioned, in a different way, opening up to her like you haven’t done before, that might make a difference.

The Serenity prayer:
“god, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Did you watch the movie Groundhog Day? About a man stuck in a small town and in the same day? A crass kind of guy. It is about change, from crassness to softness. You may want to watch it. You may like it, be inspired by it.

Please do post again and I will look for your thread earlier while online and reply.

anita

Dear xenopustex:

It is a no brainer for me to figure that’s the first, current problem that needs to be attended to is that albatross around your neck. First, remove that. You wrote: “I have a strong tendency to be negative and am working on curbing that too.” And next you wrote how your mother, currently, contributes to the strong tendency you have to be negative: “Get up in the morning to some negative comment about the news, sometimes get hit with negative comments about stuff when I get home. Get crap about how men suck, etc”

So, how are you “working on curbing that”? Can’t with the negative albatross around your neck.

You are already seen as crass and aggressive in the eyes of the people at work and where you live; if you remove your mother from your home and the town people see you as crass and aggressive-

Wait! They are already seeing you that way, no difference.

But you are seeing yourself badly when you entertain the thought of removing her from your home. You wrote before that you were raised by your grandparents. Why didn’t your mother raise you and what was her contribution to your young life?

anita

Dear xenopustex:

I think that a 27 year old woman is not necessarily too young for a soon to be 40 year old man. Here is a possible rule of thumb: if the woman started aging (mid twenties, I think)- then maybe she is not too young. And then maturity level is far from being a product of age.

Regarding the burden around your neck, please do remove it. Your mother said she was going to live with you temporarily. Then she chose to not keep her word. Help her be a woman of her word and insist she keeps her promise, late but better than not at all. Let your yes be yes, your no be no and it-will-only-be-for-awhile be only for a while.

The fact that you are employed, a lawyer/ prosecutor, making a good living, with a reasonable future of earning more and more as time goes by, this is a big attraction for millions and millions of women world wide. I am not suggesting you open your heart and mind to a gold digger or to a woman otherwise desperate for a shelter, or that you use this fact to mistreat another. What I am suggesting is that you consider this reality of how attractive your financial/ professional position is to a lot of women.

I strongly recommend you clear your home from the presence of your mother, and pursue a true, loving relationship with a woman of your choosing, of your wise choosing.

anita