Dear Elise:

You are welcome and I will keep thinking then, thinking as I type:

I understand your life is good, like I wrote, your independence is impressive to me and I am glad your mother encouraged it, motivated you to be strong, so that you were able to help her, combine efforts in making her life better and make you strong.

Often mothers don’t do that: they destroy their daughters and in doing so, do not benefit themselves from the great help a daughter can provide, if not damaged.

Notice I write how your mother benefited from your alliance throughout her struggles with three marriages. You benefited too from that alliance only you paid a price for it in this one area: relationship with a future man.

I understand your experiences with being groped and such influenced you as well, later. But back to the most influential years of our lives, those Formative Years:

When your mother struggled with the three men in her life, you struggled with her. For a child there is no separate self: there was no Elise, one person; mother, a separate person. The two of you were a unit, in your psyche, in your mind. This is how it is for children. So her husbands, including your father, were not only her husbands, they were your husbands in a sense. Her experiences with them were your experiences. What you learned about those husbands is what you carry with you still. Her experiences, as she shared them with you and as you witnessed, are your experiences.

This part: your mother forming an alliance with you regarding her marriages was not right for you. And so it damaged you, damaged your ability to start fresh, form your own experiences.

Your mother finally found the right husband, her fourth but you are stuck with her experiences and so, your relationships with men seem- in your mind, as you expressed here- quite hopeless.

What do you think so far?

anita