Dear John:

“My mom wasn’t there”, you wrote about your childhood. A long time ago, wasn’t it? And yet that lack,  that gap, that hole  is  still in you, never been not there, ever since.

A young child is not an independent mental entity. He  or she  is a  part of a unit with his main caretaker, usually his mother. The mother has to be perceived as capable and  she  has to be there, to attend to her son lovingly. The young  boy has to feel safe, within that  unit, so to explore life away from his mother, bit by  bit, gradually, returning  to her embrace, before venturing away from her again.

Your mother wasn’t  there for you. And so, mentally, you were  indeed incomplete.

You wrote regarding your ex: “I truly  loved her for everything she is”. Having  read your sharing, I don’t believe you knew then or that you  know now  everything  that she was  or  is. Maybe you know very little. I think that you were willing to love her for everything that she  was as long as she was there  for you, and that  is  why you felt then  and  feel now that you would do anything and everything  for her.

Not  because you know her  well but because you need her  so much.

The child needs the safety in his mother’s embrace. A child will not question the mother’s character and ask questions  about her life outside of that embrace. All he cares  about is being  in-that-embrace.

“I don’t think that will ever go away”, is your last line in your recent post. Probably  not. The incompleteness of childhood doesn’t  often go away.

anita