Dear Leah:

You are welcome!

“What I learned through my relationship with my boyfriend is that I was sorely mistaken. I really want and need deep, intimate, close connections. It gives me meaning and enriches my life. I want to share my life with someone, and I want to have close friends. (I used to, in high school) I think I’m more social than I’ve taught myself to believe” –

– I agree with what you wrote above, and I don’t have to know you irl or to communicate with you for long to know that what you stated is true. After all, you are a human being, genetically  determined to be a highly social being.  Your relationship with your boyfriend must have been a high-quality, unique experience to have taught you who you truly are!

“Do you think it’s possible to change?“- yes, I do believe that it is possible to change post-childhood life experience, from powerful, early life negative experiences to =>  positive, healthy adult experiences. It’s just that it is difficult and it requires time, work, patience, persistence, courage.. and some luck.

“I tend to believe that it is possible, and if people clash in their harmful patterns, then they can work on it and learn to better communicate with each other in a way that doesn’t trigger or touches the exposed nerves of the other person” – I agree.

“What did you mean by ‘What if the reality of their marriage is … not exactly what you believe it is, I wonder?’?” – well, in the case of my mother, she and my father got divorced when I was 6, close to the age your parents divorced. She was hurt and angry at him and told me a lot about how terrible he was. At one point, because she was quite terrible to me,  I wondered if what she told me was true. It so happens that I found out that he was a very bad husband.

But not uncommonly a divorced mother (or a divorced father) will tell their children selective accounts of what happened in their marriage,  revealing or exaggerating what makes them look good, and hiding or minimizing what make them look bad. So, overall the child gets an inaccurate, distorted story.

“I agree with you about the origin of my mistrust in men. Seeing how devastated my mom was, I swore that I won’t ever let something like that happen to me. I developed a fear of men” – interestingly (returning to me), I developed a fear of women because of how my mother treated me. She directly hurt me. My father did not directly hurt me, so I didn’t develop a fear of men. You developed a fear of men through indirect experience. I think that the reason is that you felt so much deep empathy for your mother during the years when she was devastated by your father’s leaving, that it felt as if it was happening to you!

“I fear you’re right about the origin of my doubts. The question is, maybe it’s a good thing that he brought my unresolved stuff to my attention?” – yes, it is a good thing, problem is that paying attention to unresolved, painful issues is…  well, painful, and like all animals, we instinctively move away from pain.

“I hope in the future, after I’ve worked on myself, perhaps even manage to live a life with no anxiety” – sorry, no such thing as living life with no anxiety.

“I hope in the future… I could try again with him… I hope we can both reflect on it all together, and grow from it” – (1) continuing the point from above: if you wait for a time when you experience no anxiety before you try again with him (or try a relationship with another man), you will have to wait forever, (2) from what you shared, my impression is that he is a high quality, exceptional man, and I don’t know how many men are like that (?)… (3) maybe the two of you can grow together if you decide on a few ground rules and guidelines and follow them, but not now.. later.

anita