Dear CB:

Having studied your answers to my questions in your recent two posts, this is my best understanding (I will be adding quotes from what you wrote with minor spelling and grammatical corrections so to make it clearer):

You wrote about the night before he told you that he is leaving you: “The night before he told me, we had a family dinner, watched a film, slept in bed, were physical, then he told me he wanted out?? Confused to say the least”-

– he has been wanting out for months but he continued to have dinner with you, watch films, sleep with you for all those months. So that particular night- he did all the same things that he did for months of wanting out, or considering getting out of the relationship.

It is not that he was fine with the relationship all the months prior to that particular night, but something happened in between the time he fell asleep that last night and the time he woke up the next morning. The thoughts and feelings about leaving you were months old. Maybe they were there for years, on and off.

“We argued, we are both stubborn and could not speak for days, keep out of each other’s way, or say hurtful things that we probably didn’t mean.. We always resolved it and apologies came, and we made up”-

– because he was “a very up or very down” person, and “socially, after a few drinks he was the life of the party, but at home he could be the complete opposite”, and “We as a couple were complete opposites: I do not smoke or drink; he loved a drink and smokes and also cannabis”, I don’t think that he perceived the arguments you had, and the apologies afterwards in the same way that you did. When the two of you stayed out of each other’s way for days following an argument, he was probably way more upset than you were, being “very down”.

When you exchanged apologies, maybe the issue was closed for you, but not for him. His anger, his dissatisfaction lingered. He didn’t let go and move on like you did.

“In an argument, we both would just say things such as we’re done with each other, or the other was being silly, and over-reacting, but it was never in a way that made me feel it was true”- never in a way that made you feel that it was true, but at times, it was true for him, he felt that it was true.

“He is very up or very down but that was just part of his personality”- for you his mood changes was something that maybe he was born with, no connection to his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with his life. But when he was very up, he was very satisfied with his life, and when he was very down, he was very dissatisfied with his life.

“His Mum and Dad divorced but they were very close, neither met other people”- if they were very close, they wouldn’t have gotten divorced. The fact that they didn’t date, or end up with others doesn’t mean that they still loved each other. (It could mean that they had such a bad marriage that they didn’t want to ever get married again).

Their son knew of the true nature of their marriage, he experienced it, and it was not a good marriage.

“His dad has mental issues.. so my ex didn’t really have the normal father-son relationship; my ex was the adult in that (relationship)”-

– it is a great burden for a child to take on the adult role in his family. It causes a child to feel “very down”. This kind of burden extends into adulthood, and it is probably why he was very down all these years, needing alcohol and cannabis to free himself temporarily from that burden, to lighten up, and to be “very up” and “the life of the party”.

“His Mum was a very hard lady”- her son (your ex) felt heavy with his burden, and had no softness to rest in. He didn’t have the opportunity to put down his heavy burden and rest in softness.

“He is an amazing son, he does all he can for his parents, but still has a lot of guilt and thinks he should do more”- he does so much for his parents not because he feels positively about them, but because he feels guilty. Guilt is a negative feeling, it weights a person down, it’s a burden.

As a child he felt very inadequate in his home, not the adequately “adult” that he thought he should be. Fast forward, he still feels inadequate: “He has always had low self esteem, says he’s not a very nice person, and that he doesn’t deserve to be happy”, “he would say I deserve better, and that he really didn’t like himself”-

– Inadequate at home with his parents; inadequate with you, inadequate overall. Not satisfactory to others-this is in the core of his dissatisfaction in life. This is the burden that keeps him in his “very low” moods. Plus, he is angry, angry at his parents (this is why he thinks that he is “not a very nice person”- children feel guilty for feeling angry at their parents). He is also angry at you, and that’s why he left you and didn’t look back, and why he is currently keeping you at arms’ length, having been rude to you yesterday in that texting.

What he needs is to free himself from the burden of feeling that he has to take care of his parents, a burden still heavy in the beginning of his fifth decade of life. I imagine that you thought that you were helping him by taking care of his parents, but you did the opposite, maintaining his burden. This is probably why the disagreements between the two of you had to do with his parents (“Disagreements.. last 5 years were about the added pressure of caring for our parents”).

anita