Dear Lauren:

How very kind of you to wrote this most recent post, I am touched, in a good way. It may interest you to know, so I will share it with you: when I read your sentences, “I’ve been thinking about you… What I’m about to say..” I was filled with dread. I was expecting that what you are about to say would be something hurtful to me, something really bad. What happened is that some neuropathways were activated in me, in them the emotional memory, the fear of what my mother is about to tell me. Oh, how unpleasant those things were, what she did tell me. I felt the dread and wanted to stop reading but kept reading, and what you wrote were good things. What a relief. This activation is nothing new to me. It is interesting how we expect what we already experienced, the same old, same old from long ago.

As to your recent post in the previous page: “He knows I’ve been mad.. he would pop up at my desk to say random thing.. things”, you then say to him “‘yes’ ‘what?’ ‘ok’. When what I really wanted to say was ‘Leave me alone!’ Stop trying to make nice’… We left work… he was going on his date with new girl.. and wanted me to give him a hug. What the…?”

Here is a fictional exchange instead, what I think would have satisfied you, if you believed in its authenticity: he pops up at your desk and says:  Lauren, I love you. If you will have me as your life partner, I will do anything I can to love you the way you deserve to be loved. I will call my parents and notify them immediately that you are the one for me, that I will be asking you to marry me. I will let them know that I am not asking nor do I need their permission or approval, that if they want me in their lives they will have to accept and respect my decision and treat you with nothing but respect and kindness.

You are it for me, there is no other and will be no other woman for me. Let’s make the best of our lives as a team, partners for life. ”

But I don’t think he has the ability to form such intent and stick to it, not with you and not with any other woman. If he marries another, when he does, I don’t think it will be a partners-for-life prospect, but something impulsive, almost random, something easy, for him.

anita