Dear Cass:

I want to re-read all your posts this morning and see if I have any new understanding. I will summarize and comment: When you were 19, two years ago (now 21), you met a 26 year old man. You lived 45 minutes away from each other and it was difficult to see each other because of the distance and the fact that he was very busy with work and you were busy with school. During this exclusive relationship, in which you “lost (your) virginity to him”, you brought up the idea of making your relationship official, that is one of the titles boyfriend and girlfriend. His response each time was that it was too soon to make it official. He once told you that he really likes you “and doesn’t want to rush anything and mess it all up”. He also told you once that you “should experience college and grow then come back to him”.

The two of you argued a lot about the little time he spent with you, your complaint, and you going out to parties, what you wore, his complaints. He was worried that you would cheat on him with a younger or more attractive man. The two of you ended the relationship and resumed it a few times this year. He eventually ended the relationship for good sometime in March this year. In April you found out that he has a girlfriend, “an actual girlfriend that has a real title”. You wrote,  he “gave what I wanted to someone else”, that is, the official title, girlfriend.

You wrote about your experience before meeting this man, starting when you were six or seven: “I have always struggled with feeling less than other people… I almost wait for someone I’m interested in to get bored or lose interest and move onto someone better…feelings of being less-than have always floated in my mind during social interactions”

You wrote that at around the age of six, your father “took a backseat in raising me… instead of eating dinner with us, he would play games on his computer or watch movies on his own” and that it led to you “getting much closer to my mom”. As you grew up, the distance between you and your father grew and you argue when you interact.

My understanding at this point:

The key sentence to me is this one, in which the pronoun we refers to you and your father: “My mother says that we‘re so similar that we just clash and I can see that being true.”

You suggested that it is your father who rejected you and your mother, withdrawing. What you didn’t suggest and which I see as true, is that your mother rejected your father. It may very well be that the two of them rejected each other, but the part of your mother rejecting your father is what I am addressing here.

When she told you repeatedly to not marry someone like your father, this means she has rejected him (“she always says to not marry someone older and someone who has a jealous personality so I think she resents these qualities in my father”). Her rejection of him is obvious here as well: “She doesn’t seem interested in doing anything with him anymore and would rather spend time on her own or with me”.

But notice this, your mother said that you and your father are very similar, sharing those same qualities that she resents. This may have meant, in your child’s mind, that you are next, next to be rejected by your mother. This may be the reason you are very close to your mother.

In your last post you wrote about your father and your ex: “They are both very emotional people… Very, very sensitive.. Immature and childish”. From your description of the relationship that was, I see no evidence of him being immature and childish. On the contrary, I see evidence of some maturity, wanting to go slow before making it official, to not rush, wanting you to experience more in life before resuming a relationship, being very busy working and being the one to make the final break up of the relationship.

In summary, it seems to me that the qualities you reject about your father and that you imagine exist in your ex are the qualities that your mother rejected about your father. In her telling you that you and your father are “so similar”, she has rejected you, for the same qualities.

Therefore, you believe that you are reject-able. That it is a matter of time before you are rejected.

anita