Dear Explorer:

You are very welcome. First, what I believe it is all about, using your words in the order shared: “Seeing.. (his) family- who loved me and were sad about our parting- embrace the new relationship… Being rejected & having someone chosen ‘over’ you.. his family embracing the new girlfriend, just like they did me. When we broke up, each family member reached out to me individually to express their sadness about our breakup.. We very much had become a part of each other’s lives… afraid to be forgotten… Them connecting with her now hurts me the most- I don’t think I miss my ex anymore, but I miss his family”.

Second, more about the story you shared: your ex had a “long distance friend”, a woman friend,  while in the relationship with you. Toward the end of the relationship you suspected that friendship to be “an emotional affair”, and you asked him questions about that friendship. “He lied and denied the feelings and told (you) to trust him”.

When your relationship broke up, he “immediately started a relationship” with her, “moved on right away”.  Two years later, they “are still happy”: you have seen “their relationship flourish on social media”, seen their friends and family (who fully embraced you earlier)  “embrace the new relationship”.

Seeing another woman take your place in his and his family’s lives, seeing his family “connecting with her”.. seeing that you are “forgotten”, “rejected” and replaced have brought a “wrath of emotions” in you, including hurt and anger over being “chosen ‘over'”, “a lot of betrayal, anger, embarrassment and confusion”.

Since the breakup, you “bought a house, got fit, ran a marathon, fostered (your) friendships, traveled extensively”, and you’ve been dating “a new man” for about four months. The new man in your life is thoughtful, generous, has similar values to yours, wears his heart on his sleeve, and is “head over heels” for you, but the thought of having been replaced by your ex’s family occupies your mind. You are often annoyed with your new boyfriend, feeling “very pressured and stressed”, questioning your new relationship, scared of fully opening up to him, uneasy sharing your feelings openly and critical toward him.

Third part of this post- you wrote, “I need to start gaining clarity as my current partner does not deserve to be left in the dark about my internal conflict. I feel like I am running in a circle and would so much like to simply look forward”- let’s turn on the light on your internal conflict, so that you can stop running in a circle:

What I see, shining my source of light on your situation (please correct me if I am wrong) is that you experienced your ex’s family as your own family for some time, feeling accepted and embraced by them. This was different from what you experienced with your own family of origin. Your family of origin, at one point on,  chose someone else over you. They rejected you somehow, forgot about you and attended  to someone else, or something else. You loved them so much and they turned away from you, betraying your love for them.

When his family turned away from you and toward someone else, the new woman- your emotional injury of childhood started bleeding, and it has been bleeding for two years. This ongoing bleeding feels horrible; bleeding, you stressed and pressured, angry, hurt and confused. To gain clarity about your current relationship, you have to stop this bleeding first, clean the wound, and start the process of healing.

Since the breakup you got fit,  ran a marathon, bought a house, etc. Emotional healing will be more difficult to accomplish, it will take ongoing courageous exploration, lots of patience and time- but in a matter of a few months, you can make a lot of progress.

anita

Dear Explorer:

You are welcome. This is not my “blog & forum”- I am a member here, just like you, although I have been very active here on a daily basis for over 5.5 years. This is where I explore (I like your user name), learn and heal.

In my recent post to you I suggested to you that you experienced your ex’s family as your own family, feeling accepted and embraced by them, an experience that was different from what you experienced with your family of origin- where someone else was chosen over you, someone else or something else was attended to while you were somehow rejected or forgotten.

In your recent post, you wrote that I was spot on regarding your experience with your ex’s family, but not so regarding your experience with your own family: “I always thought I grew up in a loving home with harmony. We never vocalised love, but the way my family took care of me I always knew they loved me… I grew up pampered and don’t remember having someone chosen over me”.

* My comment regarding “We never vocalised love”, above:  maybe your parents did not vocalise love, but you did. A child instinctively/ naturally expresses and voalises love. It is when her expressions and vocalisations of love are repeatedly not reciprocated, or rejected, that the child gives up and stops expressing/ vocalising love.

You also wrote: “I believe that I have a dismissive avoidant attachment style… It also came as a surprise to me that when I learned about my attachment style that the source was a level of neglect in my childhood”.

flow psychology. com: “Adults with dismissive-avoidant attachment can say that they have loving parents and have a happy childhood. However, these people find it hard to recall the details of the happy memories of their childhood or the good traits of their parents”- let’s keep this in mind as a possibility to explore further.

Another website, marriage. com/ advice/ mental health/ avoidant-attachment: “Our earliest relationships have a profound effect on all future ones. As infants and young children, we learn to view important people in our life either as a source of comfort and acceptance or distress and dismissal. According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, this early connection leads to developing one of the four main attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized… An avoidant attachment style is often a result of emotionally unresponsive or unavailable primary caregivers. The child quickly learns to rely only on oneself and to be self-sufficient because going to their caregivers for soothing doesn’t result in their emotional needs being met. This early relationship becomes a blueprint for all other, especially romantic ones…

“People with avoidant attachment styles are emotionally avoidant, self-reliant, and highly value their independence and freedom. Furthermore, a typical aspect of the avoidant attachment pattern is uncomfortableness and dodging of closeness and intimacy since, in the past, it only brought them more discomfort.”

Back to the first website I mentioned: “There are two avoidant attachment styles. These are fearful-avoidant and dismissive-avoidant. It is said that people with either of these styles regard  intimacy as dangerous and that other people are unreliable… The person with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style has a mentality that he or she is not in need of other people and can survive being alone or does not need to depend on another… These are people who tend to be cold in their relationships… they try to avoid being too emotionally attached or intimate. They have a feeling of discomfort when it comes to physical contact, intimacy… Dismissive-avoidant people find faults (with) their partners… They find it hard to say the words ‘I love you’…  The different styles of attachment are often developed in childhood and extend (to) adulthood”.

You shared regarding your new relationship: “I’ve never questioned a relationship this much in the beginning”- suggesting (?) that you did question relationships before, just not this much and not so early on – which fits with the avoidant attachment style description.

“I can barely admit to my family that I am seeing someone new”- I wonder about the nature of your difficulty telling your parents that you are seeing someone new, and why you used the verb to admit (“I can barely admit to my family”).

“The ‘horrible’ part of the breakup for me was the wrath.. a lot of betrayal, anger”- I am guessing that these are emotions repressed in childhood, coming up to the surface during the last two years, with a vengeance.

“I am afraid to miss out on a great guy, just because maybe my subconscious is trying really hard to protect myself from not being hurt again”- your repressed emotions reside in your subconscious, as well as memories of rejection, I figure.

“I feel like I am running in a circle and would so much like to simply look forward”- to stop running in a circle and look forward- you need to look backward, and see what happened when you were a child.

Let’s look closer at what you shared in your recent post: “I always thought I grew up in a loving home with harmony”- I don’t want to split hairs, and this may not be of any significance, but you chose the verb “thought”, “I always thought”, not I always felt. When a child is scared, the child automatically chooses to think what feels better to think. If a child is unloved, the child will look for any evidence of love, no matter how small, and think: I am loved!

“It also came as a surprise to me when I learnt about my attachment style that the source was a level of neglect in my childhood. If anything, I grew up pampered and don’t remember having someone chosen over me”-

– if you want to, you are welcome to share what you do remember: how were you pampered, how you were chosen (attended to, valued)?

Can you elaborate on “We never vocalised love”- can you give examples of what was not vocalised?

anita