Dear c:

You wrote about your mother: “She is very good at putting on the right look and making things appear normal still today and was in my childhood”. When you were a child you were a victim of her “explosive temper.. physical but mostly emotional abuse (lots of really hateful and awful things were said”, but in the presence of most other people, she put on “the right look”.

I imagine that at first, seeing the right look on your mother, you relaxed, only to see the Right Look change into a very Wrong Look: her explosive temper again, her abuse again, so you learned that you cannot trust a Right Look. When you see a Right Look, you .. look for the hidden wrong look: “I do find myself worrying about that in  many of my relationships like when will this person change or flip on me?”- when will this person flip from the Right Look (I’ll refer to it as RL) to the Wrong Look (WL).

– “when will this person change or flip on me? What clues do I need to watch for”-

1) Your ex husband’s RL: “overall.. decent..  very hard working”, the clues/ evidence of the WL: “drinking, smoking, porn issues, video game use etc.” Finding each clue or piece of evidence, you tried to eliminate it by telling him in so many words and in a harsh way: No! Don’t do that! Don’t be bad, be good! (“I reacted really judgmentally and I really was a hard NO on things that now at almost 40 I have a more balanced view of”)-

You were trying to protect yourself from the WL, from the abuse to come. He was scared of your harsh judgement and constant asking him questions about anything and everything, and checking on him, so much asking and so much checking on him (?), that he lied to you (“I was constantly being lied to… being lied to so much“).

You “rarely could ever get the whole story of virtually anything.. couldn’t tell for sure”, sometimes wondering if you are “just so paranoid by the end”. He knew, I imagine, that the more details he gives you, the more of the story he gives you, the more new questions and the more harsh judgment were to follow.

2) Your current boyfriend’s RL: no information given other than that he loves you and sees you (“I feel very loved and seen by him”), his WL: what’s hidden behind his regret regarding his last relationship… if he regrets it, he must have done something wrong, and since he “holds a lot of regret”, there must be a lot of hidden WL that needs to be uncovered.

His hidden WL is your burden, it is like carrying a heavy load of mistrust, suspicion, anxiety, “always waiting for the shoe to drop… a never-ending sense of dread and mistrust”, a burden that takes so much away from you.

* You wrote: “I learn to see myself as more human and get curious instead of judge myself harshly for my thoughts/ emotions, I can do the same for others. I don’t see issues in relationship as back and white anymore and I try hard not to react.. as a harsh parent version of myself. I think I’m doing a good job in my current relationship”- excellent insight, understanding and work in your current relationship, keep it up.

“Ultimately I am frustrated that these nagging thoughts just won’t go away for me and I want to do the work to discover what’s under them”- what’s under them, according to my current understanding (yet to improve and evolve) is that burden. The burden is a mental habit of looking for and focusing on the hidden wrong look. We are habitual creatures- we are strongly inclined to think, feel and behave the same as we are in the habit of thinking, feeling and doing. Habits are enforced by chemical processes in the brain and body. Changing chemical processes takes a lot of time, practice and patience.

When you notice the nagging thoughts returning (and they will), remind yourself that you understand what drives this mental habit, you understand how it came to be, that it is not about the current situation, but about a past, long gone situation. Tell yourself that you are safe, that if there is a hidden WL, you are a woman now, practically independent of this man, and therefore, he can not hurt you like your mother hurt you.

Then disengage from the thoughts. Do it again and again, every time the nagging thoughts return. It takes lots of practice, patience and time to change a mental habit, but you’ve already done such work and succeeded; its’ just that.. there is more work to do.

anita