Dear miyoid:

You wrote yesterday regarding this young man who is preparing to move out from your place, that you will miss his emotional caregiving: “I’ll be missing him like I would miss my mother, a caregiver”-

Notice this- in Oct 22, 2020, in your original post on this thread, you wrote about how you miss receiving emotional care as a child: “I’ve started to realize a sense, a longing.. yearning for a sincere love or affection. But I feel like that pure sense was only possible during my childhood.. And I feel I’m missing my childhood more than ever… trying to feel like I’m in those times”-

-there was a time when you (and every person) as a young child did feel that pure sense of safety and pure trust in the caretaker. For too many of us, that pure emotional experience of safety and trust was shattered in ways that devastated us. Once devastatingly shattered, that pure sense of safety and trust can never be restored.

It is similar to the story of The Garden of Eden (the place of eternal, never-ending, never interrupted pure safety and trust and love and all good things): once Exiled from The Garden, Adam and Eve and humanity as a whole, can never return to The Garden. We are all forever Exiled. We can experience only moments of that pure emotional experience, here and there.

In June 2019, you shared about your childhood: “I.. was.. emotionally and physically abandoned by both of my parents several times.. I always felt the need to depend on someone but I couldn’t find anyone”- after your first, very painful experience of being abandoned, your sense of pure safety and trust was devastatingly shattered for the rest of your life.

This young man appeared to you like a caregiver, like a mother, because sometimes he did a better job at caring for you emotionally than your mother: he listened to you better, he comforted you more when you cried. But (1) there is no way for him or for anyone to give you more than a moment of comfort here and there, (2) this young man is a bad candidate for a partner in life and overall, his participation in your life makes life worse for you.

If you understand on a deep level that you are Exiled, like me, like all people, and that it is impossible for any of us, once Exiled, to return to The Garden-

(1) You will no longer remain weak, longing, looking for and waiting to return to The Garden. Knowing it is not possible, you will get stronger,

(2) You will no longer see all men as potential partners, but you will distinguish between those who are likely to make your life better and those who are likely to make your life worse, and then choose a man in the first group,

(3) Being stronger, choosing correctly, and having realistic expectations from a relationship, you will be able to have a relationship that although will not take you back to The Garden of Eden- it will make your life significantly better!

anita