Dear noname:

Yes, you shared before about your experience with your mother and father, as a child and as an adult. And you don’t want to do that anymore, don’t want to go there. I can hear it loud and clear in your recent post. It is not helpful, you believe.

I disagree. I believe it will be helpful to revisit it all, but differently than before. This may very well not be the time or the place to do so.

“these god awful aches and pains of loneliness” are, like I wrote to you yesterday, the repeating, ongoing reactivation of your childhood experience. You wrote that you “have nothing but empathy towards her (your mother) anymore”- not true, underneath you are still angry and that anger is likely to show up when in a beginning relationship with any woman, that same anger activated.

“She loves me”, you wrote, and I say: I don’t think that you believe that, underneath the pretty way you present it now, “gratitude that she is willing to try”- this is the pretty way you tie it all together, with a ribbon-like, and you want to put it away like this.

I will not initiate mentioning your childhood/ relationships with parents again because you don’t want to go there.

You asked for wisdom regarding dealing with the loneliness. My advice regarding the next woman to enter your personal life is: be cautious, interview the woman first, in a series of conversations, over coffee maybe, have those talking dates first. In those dates ask questions. See to it that she is indeed not involved with another man at the time, that she is not hooking up with anyone, not an ex, not anyone. See to it that she doesn’t live a lifestyle that doesn’t sit well with you. See to it that her values and motivations don’t contradict yours.

My point is, being inclined, as I believe you are, and understandably so, to get hurt and angry in a beginning relationship, see to it that there is a minimum of igniting material, so to speak, to ignite the hurt and anger. If she passes the series of interviews, proceed cautiously. Watch your interpretations of what she says and does, check to see if you interpret correctly. Share within reason, let her know you in small portions.

anita