Dear Anna:

No worries about taking time to reply, you are a busy young woman and your life.. irl takes priority. Congratulations for being selected as a finalist for the scientific writing context, how exciting!

You shared in your recent post about your mother: “She is extremely perfectionist, never happy with what I did because it was never enough…regardless what I do.. she will always try to find something to criticize“. Following therapy, you made peace with yourself, and your mother’s input in your life “doesn’t matter anymore.. she can talk, I am not listening anymore”

Five days ago, you wrote about the guy: “he always ‘needs’ a reason to feel unhappy in his life… when he sees that he can reach and get what he wants, he always finds himself questioning what he has.. . Hence why I am really questioning about him being able to be happy… he simply refuses what he already has while having wanted those things for so long“.

My input today: you are not listening to your mother anymore, but.. you are listening to her, listening to someone who is similar to her: never happy with his life.. and never happy with you being part of his life. You are still drawn to make your mother happy with you in her life,,  by proxy,  trying to satisfy your very early and strong desire to make an unhappy person (your mother).. happy with you.

You wrote regarding your mother: “ I told her a few months ago that her insecurities weren’t mine, that I wasn’t responsible for the way she physically and mentally feels.. she didn’t have the right to make me feel like a trash just because she felt like a trash”- don’t take a romantic partner’s insecurities as yours either, don’t take responsibility for how a romantic partner feels physically and mentally, don’t give a romantic partner the opportunity to make you feel like trash just because he/she feel like trash.

You are currently experiencing academic/ professional success, and you are on your way to a successful professional life. I hope that in your personal relationship life, you will experience success as well by avoiding the repetition compulsion: being drawn to an unhappy person, trying to make him/ her happy, failing (whatever you do is “never enough“), etc., etc.

anita