Dear Dan,

this is very telling:

She told them that she was allowed to see me while they were away

And she wasn’t allowed to be with you while they were around… It’s like her children were the authority who decided whether she is allowed to be with you or not. To me it sounds like a school girl negotiating with her parents that she is allowed to go out to party as long as she comes home by the set time. As if the roles were reversed and she was a teenager following the rules set by her “parents”. Her children take the role of the parents, i.e. the authority figures who set the rules. And she – the mother – takes the role of a teenage daughter who is trying to follow those rules and please the “parents”.

Do you think it’s possible that this kind of role reversal took place in her mind? And that she has two sides within herself: one is a fun-loving, adventurous teenage girl (when she is alone with you), and the other is a guilt-ridden care-taker and people-pleaser (when she is around her children and her own parents, and even around you, when you need a lot of care-taking and pampering?).

Of course, I might be reading too much into her use of the word “allowed”, but I thought I’d mention it, in case there is really something to it…