Dear Anita,

You wrote: – You caring about his safety made him shudder, his word. To shudder= to tremble convulsively as a result of fear or revulsion/ to violently shake in horror or extreme disgust (online dictionary).

-I should clarify here, I don’t think shudder was his exact verb, it could have even been more annoyed than fearful, but I suppose annoyed falls under the category of disgust. I don’t think it changes your assessment of his response, that he is repelled in some way by telling me his whereabouts.

Actually now that I phrase it this way my dad was the same, but I think his reasoning for not telling me where he was were different. N seems to respond in a way as if he does not recognize care. My dad would purposely not tell me when he would be home, thinking he would catch me doing something bad, which he never did. I did lie to him in the past to get around his strict rules and since that point treated me with distrust, grouping me with my mom. Anyways not sure if this is relevant.

You wrote: This is one explanation (in addition to him being a workaholic) why he was late to the first date with you and why he didn’t show up at all to your third date (“he was late for the first date… our third date he..  stood me up” (7/29). And why he has been repeatedly late since (“Last weekend he was an hour late to my house and him being late is a pattern in our relationship“, Oct 11). I figure that in his mind he is resisting being controlled by you when he is late or a no-show.

-He has been controlling since date one? His lateness is always an act of controlling? I have excused so much of his lateness because of how many hours he works and all his very valid sounding excuses, such as he loses track of time while he is working and he falls asleep …etc.

“It took the two OVERT examples of late to lead me to understand a part of him that he usually keeps in a Covert State.”

-How intentional is this on his part, controlling only/mostly covertly? I wonder why he does this, it makes me wonder if I made him this way.. When you first meet someone, there is no control dynamic yet, what lead us to the place we are now? Or did he establish it at he beginning and I was unaware..I feel as though he lost belief in me somewhere along the way and since he decided at some point he couldn’t rely on me he began to control me. What do you think of this?

“– (1) I wrote the above about him being late as a way to control you BEFORE you submitted the latest post. Isn’t it amazing. So, yes, being late is his way to keep you anxious (waiting for him) and therefore, under his control. Another way he controls you is to express being upset when you bring up a topic he doesn’t want you to bring up. A person walking on egg shells is a controlled person.”

-If a person walking on egg shells is a controlled person, haven’t I done the same to him? When I felt triggered by his giving of attention to our roommate for too long I would feel so abandoned. A feeling that was not equivalent to the situation, but as you expressed in a metaphor before, an abandoned baby fawn is facing fear of death, as a child who was left by a parent. My point is I was clearly triggered there and got so upset with N, to where the next times he was talking to our roommate out there he was on egg shells? Although I have always felt like he has resisted me controlling him in our relationship, cause although he was on eggshells he just stepped all over them. It is confusing though because there are times I think it is getting better because he will let me know ahead of time, and communicate his whereabouts. And I think if I just get rid of my triggers he will no longer control me in those ways… Like if I just stop caring that he is late sometimes and fully take responsibility when he doesn’t communicate about dates and just suck up my pride and do it myself for the relationship, then everything would be fine?

Your story about your situation, “He was sitting in front of me. He started sort of crying and saying that he wants to be a good person. He looked very upset. I think it was an act. And I was wondering the morning after, remembering the scene, how he appeared so genuine. I figured that in his act, he brought into his awareness some real, genuine sadness that he felt before.. so he really felt sad, but not about my criticism.”

-Interesting. So a memory I had after reading this post (I read it all at once and am not individually responding) was of my dad. In my teen years my mom did some things that were quite shocking. One was about their divorce: The final time my mom cheated and my dad ended the relationship was after a boathouse family trip. It was my parents, and uncles and one of my dads employees. My uncles were friends with him. On the the trip, I was 16, and needed to use my moms phone. I found inappropriate and “I love you” texts between my mom and my dads employee who was on the trip with us. There’s more to this trip story, involving my mom going on the adult booze cruise with my uncles and aunts, my mom fell off the huge inner tube that was not suppose to flip, and she was passed out in the water. To this day I have been told it is cause she hit her head but I think she was also way past drunk. They left for the hospital, I can’t remember if my mom had regained consciousness at that point. But they headed to the hospital and my sibblings and I, plus THE EMPLOYEE were left at the house to pack and he drove us home. I had her phone still. When they came home from the hospital my mom was having seizures in the other room with my dad, the employee and other family members. I held the information I saw on her phone for two weeks telling only one person I knew wouldn’t tell. A couple weeks later I lied to my dad about a party I went to, but my new car was damaged in the process and he ended up finding out the truth. He knew the truth as he asked me and I continued to lie. After a long conversation we had come to a place of me apologizing and him settling down, in that emotion is when I told my dad about my moms messages on her phone. When I told him this he had tears in his eyes, I can’t remember what happened after this.

The second memory also applies to my point here and I will explain after. My mom slept with a guy that I had a date with, he was about 4 years older than me. She didn’t tell me until years later, all that time I thought he just stood me up. It was at a “housecleaning” with my dad that I felt so hurt by his accusations and so defeated, that I decided to tell him this about my mom. I think I was trying to alleviate some pressure and explain why I had been so “messy” lately. When I told my dad this he teared up and hugged me.

N tearing up at my play when I was so sad he had made plans for literally right after my play (still now this bothers me, he was really planning to come to this play this special night of mine and go somewhere else that night? I just don’t understand, I would never do that to him I would want to be a part of his whole special night). Anyways, when you said “so he really felt sad, but not about my criticism” it made me wonder what then was N sad about in that moment for real?

The reason it is relevant to those stories is because when you questioned N’s genuine tears, it reminded me of how I felt when my dad had tears. I felt like he cared. So maybe that is what I wanted to see in N’s tears. But knowing how my dad is, his tears don’t change who he is, they are not a redeeming quality is what I am saying. Also I just found it interesting there certain scenarios I decided to bring up information that would cause genuine emotion… so that I could see it? I don’t know if this is relevant to N but they came to mind while reading your reply.

I am sending this reply now, as I am halfway through your last reply, I will begin the rest now, but incase you are online now and had time to reply again.

With love,

Seaturtle 🙂