Dear Jade:

I am posting to you today because I am not sure that you noticed my second post to you,  on page 1. It may very well be that you read it and chose to ignore it. I suppose if you don’t address me next, it will be clear enough for me and I hope you continue your interactions with other members.

anita

Dear Jade:

You wrote earlier: “I know I probably have a lot of deep seated issues. I think that’s pretty evident as I struggle to develop and maintain relationships sometimes, but I really don’t know where to start looking!”-

-I can suggest to you a place to start looking, here in what you shared: “My mum worked a lot whilst I was little and I can remember always wanting her attention but never being able to get it… But I don’t blame her for this. I’ve come to terms with it as I’ve got older“-

– Clearly you didn’t come to term with it when you were younger until you came to term with it, somewhat, when you got older.

“I’ve been on antidepressants since I was 18. I’m now 31”- a very limited coming to term with it so far.

“I feel that she was always looking for love from other people instead of getting it from me. But I don’t blame her for this”- maybe you don’t blame her now, but you blamed her before, otherwise it wouldn’t occur to you to… not blame her.

I am suggesting that you felt angry at your mother for looking for love elsewhere, for not seeing that right there in front of her was a little girl that loved her more than anything and anyone in the whole wide world.

When you are in relationships with men, your anger plays some role, your anger at your mother.

“I am generally attracted more to men that are generally harder to get or have a hard exterior. I think when I see their vulnerable side it makes it rewarding for me.. so for example my ex hardly smiled but when he did it completely lit me up and I knew it was genuine”-

– your mother may not have had a hard exterior with the men in her life, the many men in her life, moving in with them perhaps, relocating so to be with this man or that man (“My mum also had a lot of relationships and we moved a lot because of this”), but she had a hard exterior for you, not seeing how desperately you wanted her attention, how intensely you loved her.

When you see a man’s vulnerable side with you, in his personal interaction with you, it may be like your mother finally seeing you, her rough exterior with you finally breaking down. It is exhilarating!

I wonder in what ways you try to break down their exterior, if it is by crying a lot, as in the case of the relationship you mentioned, or if it is by telling a man about your previous boyfriends (the comment you made to your former boyfriend on the way to visit his family), so to cause him to get jealous and break down. I don’t know. What do you think?

anita

Dear Jade:

“its just starting me make me feel more and more like everything is  my fault because I’m so messed up”-

– well, I was very messed up and I used to think that I was the only one messed up and therefore, that everything was my fault. What I learned is that millions and millions of people are messed up, maybe most people. So anytime you have a relationship with a man, there is a good possibility that he is messed up too.

Take responsibility only to your messed up part, not to other people’s mess. Because you have issues, using your words, it doesn’t mean the man doesn’t have issues. If you didn’t have issues, you still couldn’t have good relationship with many men because of their issues.

If this makes sense to you, maybe you would be okay with working on your issues. There is no shame in having issues. We don’t create our issues out of nowhere, choosing to have issues. We are handed those issues mostly in childhood, having no choice in the matter.

If you want, only if you want and for as long as you want, you are welcome to examine those issues here with me.

* I will soon be away from the computer for a while.

anita

Dear Jade:

I too was ashamed of my issues, my emotional baggage, my problems, very much so. It took me a long time to understand that my shame wasn’t valid, that my problems were consequences of being severely injured, emotionally. It is similar to this: a person gets stabbed, a victim of violence, and bleeds as a result, then feels ashamed for bleeding, thinking something like: what is wrong with me? I am bleeding!

See my point?

anita