Dear Corticality:

You are welcome. Regarding your guilt feelings: I don’t have much of the information that you have, of what you might have done wrong, but I do know a couple of things:

1. Plenty of people are tortured by feelings of guilt even though in reality they have done nothing wrong, this is true mostly for children feeling guilty regarding their parents, children who had absolutely no responsibility for what they feel guilt for, their parents’  misery, misfortune and such. These children grow up and continue to feel guilty for what they are not responsible for, lifetime.

And so, it is possible to feel guilty, even very guilty, without any basis to it in reality.

2. No person is perfect, of course, you have heard that. We do wrong, sure, every adult wrongs another sometimes, knowingly or unknowingly. I am not referring to abuse, but an example:  as not paying attention to a person who is trying desperately at one moment or another, to get our attention. Same  is true for her as well, your ex girlfriend. The two of you wronged each other. For what the relationship was, you carry (a mathematical simplicity here) 50% responsibility and she carries 50% responsibility.

Other thoughts: regarding her feeling of safety- I think her feeling of safety is with her family of origin. The fact that she thought about not working in her father’s business does not negate what is most likely true to her: safety is with her father, her brother, her family of origin.

I don’t think you could have competed with the feeling of safety they provided her since she was a young child.

anita